Tertia Pars
50. Summa III q.18 a.3–4: The Will as Nature and as Reason, and Free Choice in Christ
Class of 2009-10-08
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/13-tertia-pars/050-summa-iii-q-18-a-3-4-the-will-as-nature-and-as-reason-and/

[0:00] In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, God. Thank you, my guardian angel, our guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas, Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, kindle the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and allows us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written.

[0:32] Thank God for your guardian angel. Best friend you have. Okay, to the third one goes forward. Thus, it seems that in Christ there are two wills as regards reason. Huh? For Damascene says in the second book that twofold is the will of man. This is kind of a strange way of thinking. This is probably what gave rise to this article. The natural, which is called thelesis, and the rational, which is called what boulesis huh?

[1:14] In the Greek words. But Christ in human nature had whatever remains the perfection of human nature. Therefore, both of the foresaid wills were was in Christ.

[1:30] Moreover, the desiring power is diversified in man according to the diversity of the grasping or knowing power, and therefore by the difference of sense and understanding, there is diversified in man sense desire and the intellectual desire. And likewise, as regards the apprehension of man, there is posited a difference of reason and of what understanding, huh? Both of whom were in Christ. Therefore, in him there is a twofold will: one intellectual or understandable, and the other rational.

[2:22] So, is the ability to understand and the ability to reason two different abilities in us? Two different powers. Yeah. We make some distinctions, though, right? Just to understand and to reason is not the same thing. Moreover, by some there is placed in Christ. And here's my namesake there, Hugo St. Victor? right. Mm-hmm. That was actually what Christian Hugo was my first name Hugo. My confirmation name is Victor.

[2:59] So, my father's name, you know, Victor Berkeley, so I thought I should take the name Victor. I always felt some closeness to Hugo of Saint Victor because of this. Because he was named after him. Yeah, our vice versa. And the work that he referred to is it looks like the about the four wills in Christ. So, so

[3:33] by some is placed in Christ the will of piety, which cannot be placed in him except on the side of reason. Therefore, in Christ on the side of reason, there are many what wills.

[3:49] But against all this is that in any order there is one first mover. But the will is the first mover in the genus of human acts. Therefore, in one man there is not except one will, properly speaking, which is the will of reason. But Christ is one man. Therefore, in Christ there is only one human what will. I have enough problems with my my will without having three or four wills of me now to contend with.

[4:21] Enough internal conflict between my will and my emotions without having the conflict of wills. But, well, Thomas says I answer. It should be said, as has been said, the word will voluntas sometimes is taken for the power and sometimes for the what act. You can see that in the term, you know, like intellectus. Because Thomas used intellectus sometimes for the power of understanding, right, and then for the act of understanding, and sometimes also in a third way for the habit.

[5:03] Aristotle, you know, calls the power of understanding nous. There in Greek, but then one of the virtues of reason is called nous too. So these words are connected, but they're equivocal by reason.

[5:20] If therefore will is taken for act, then it is necessary in Christ on the side of reason to place what two wills, right? That is to say, two species of acts of the will.

[5:36] For the will, as has been said in the second part, is both what of the end and of those things which are for the end. And in a different way, it is what carried towards both of these. For it is carried towards the end simply and absolutely. As in what is by itself or as such good, right? But in that which is towards the end, it is what carried with a certain what comparison, according as it has goodness from the order to another, right?

[6:23] So should you get that new fuge strap? You know, people are disagreeing about this, right? I heard one of the commentators there on the TV there saying, you know, he got a shot and he got you know really sick, you know. So it's take Obama's advice, just take a pain pill.

[6:49] And therefore, of a different reason or for different reason is the act of the will, according as it is carried towards something that by itself or as such is willed as health, right? Which by Damascene is called the thelesis, right? That is simple will. So sometimes the word voluntas, right, is taken, you know, even sometimes by itself just as the act of the will that has the end as its object, huh?

[7:20] But here it's a little more involved, simple will, and by the masters is called the will as a what nature. And we make the same distinction there of reason, right? Reason as a nature naturally knows some things, like the axioms, huh? And then reason as reason, right? Or reason knows things by what? Discourse. Yeah, by discourse, right? So sometimes they say that Shakespeare's definition of reason as the ability for discourse, right, to take the beginning of the definition, is a definition of reason as what reason, right?

[8:06] Okay. And in a way, you could say that logic, that art, right, is directing what reason as as reason. You don't need logic for the things you naturally know or naturally come to know, right? But these things that you have to reason your way to, think out, then you need logic, huh?

[8:38] So this is the way he's explaining or understanding the distinction of Damascene, right? John Damascene. So one is called in Latin there, simplex voluntas or voluntas ut natura, right? And sometimes it's called voluntas ut ratio, and of another reason is the act of the will, according as it is carried towards something that is willed only from its order to another thing, such as the taking of medicine,

[9:19] which act of the will Damascene calls what, boulesis, and that is the will that is result of taking counsel. But by the masters, it is called the will as what, ratio. No, more more the will as will. That's what this one says too, though voluntas ut ratio Yeah, yeah, Maybe it means the reasonable. Yeah. Desire. Well, because reason is taken there as a. as cons. a uh discursive power, right?

[10:03] Okay. Now it says this diversity of act does not diversify the power because both acts are noted or pertain to one common notion of an object, which is the what good?

[10:23] So you can say the object of the will is the good as known by what reason, right? And therefore, it should be said that if we speak about the power of the will, right, in Christ there is only one human will essentially, and not said what by participation, like we said Saturday. If, however, we speak of the will which is an act, thus one distinguishes in Christ the will which is as a nature, which is called thelesis, and the will as ratio, right?

[11:02] Strange, huh? Which is called thelesis huh? I mean, we make a distinction, and some distinction with regard to reason. You'll say reason as a nature, right? And then reason as reason, right? And sometimes you have that same way of speaking the will, but it's another little way of speaking here. I would understand will as nature. Isn't that will as it's ordered to one? Yeah. As opposed to will that can be ordered to multiple.

[11:32] Yeah. So isn't will in order to one only ordered to happiness? Yeah. But sometimes, sometimes they'll put in there little things though, like like life and so on that seem to be naturally desired, right? Okay, so that's what he was about. Yeah. I just was confused Because seemingly you can choose not to get out. you know, I want to avoid the draft or something, so I don't want to be healthy.

[11:53] Yeah. And then I kind of choose not to get out. Yeah. But you want some help. You want some. Yeah, Basically, it's in the leg, you know, not in the head, you know. Yeah, It's not simply say, okay. Qualifying. Okay. It sounds like to me when we first read this, it was like a long-term goal versus the things that are the substantial things that get you to that goal.

[12:26] Is the distinction? Then, Father, you said something about things in a broad way. Now that I don't understand how that. My understanding of will as nature is that our will is ordered to one thing by its nature, which is happiness. Okay. We can't not want to be happy, so that's impossible. So our will has a nature, and as its nature, it's ordered to one thing. I mean, chiefly of happiness, see.

[12:53] But if something was was obviously connected with happiness, I've got to be alive to be happy, right? Okay. You know, in a sense, in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was kind of in the order of being, right? You can have life without liberty, but you can't have liberty without having life. And you can have liberty without what? Happiness. Happiness, but you can't really be happy if you don't have liberty, right?

[13:20] And so that's in order there, right? So if you see that connection, right? Then you naturally will not only happiness, but liberty, and even life itself.

[13:35] Just like with reason as nature, the fundamental thing is the the axiom about being and non-being, right? Something can't both be and not be at the same time, the same way. But it also extends to things like the whole is more than the part, where you obviously see that you deny this. it's to kind of make something, right?

[13:59] So he applies the first objection from Damascene, from what we see already in the text there. To the first, therefore, it should be said that those wills are not diversified according to powers, as if there's two powers there, but only according to difference of act, as has been said.

[14:20] To the second, it should be said that also intellectus and ratio are not diverse powers, as has been said in the first part. I know. If you were to define something intellectus as a power, you'd say, "Well, it's the ability to what? Understand, right? " But when Shakespeare defines reason, he says the ability for large discourse, looking, and looking means what? Not necessarily understanding, but trying to see, right?

[14:51] And that's kind of you know reason as what reason, okay? And when we define discourse, if you recall, discourse is coming to know what you don't know, what you do know. So,

[15:06] but we speak of sometimes of the angelic understanding, the human understanding, right? But to both, you can say man has to some extent an ability to understand. So you say intellectus

[15:28] and understanding now as the name of an ability. You say, okay, now this can be said of the angelic understanding and the human understanding, right?

[15:59] But then sometimes they will say that we keep the name, but understanding for as if it was the angel's own name. I mean, the name of his, his, if he's able to understand. I mean, this is a new one. We call it reason, right? Because man doesn't understand much without what reasoning, right? And so it's kind of a Thomas is always quoting this. I guess he must be a Jewish thinker, Isaac, you know.

[16:33] But it's an intellectus umbratus say intellect under the shadow, right, or under the, you know. So man barely understands a few things, you know, and and most of what he understands he has to try to think out, you know, and so on. So he gets the new name, right? Okay. We've talked about that way of names becoming equivocal by reason. Just like if you might say, you know, someone asked you, "What's the difference between a dog?

[17:02] I mean, a kitten and a and a puppy? " You'd say, "Well, kitten is a little cat, and a puppy is a little dog, right? " And then you call a kitten a cat and a puppy a what dog? But then sometimes we divide dog against puppy. He's only a puppy, it's not a dog. It's a kitten, not yet a cat, or just a boy, he's not a man, right?

[17:26] Okay. But then this distinction here, though, is regard just to human understanding, right? So someone might say this power called human understanding or human reason, right? It's called understanding insofar as you know some things, what naturally, right? It's called reason insofar as you must have some kind of discourse, huh? Discourse.

[18:15] That comes up when you talk about the Trinity, too. When you say the, you could say God the Father is God the Thinker, right? And God the Son is the thought of God the Thinker, right? But is that a thinker in the sense of what? Understanding. The way we do it. Yeah, no. No. Have you? You're in

[18:43] danger if you don't think. I think this out. You don't have any second person. No, it's it's he naturally understands himself, right? So he naturally follows this what thought of himself. Okay. Then when you talk about the Holy Spirit it's in a way of love, well, it's a natural, a natural love that God has of Himself.

[19:07] Okay. So he says in the second objection there, and this is something we saw maybe earlier if you studied that part of the soul. Intellectus and ratio are not diverse what powers, right?

[19:25] I know Aristotle in the in the in the three books of the soul, you know, he'll sometimes call this power nous, right? Just like calling it intellectus in Latin, right? But then I was noticing in the second book there in the Greek, he sometimes calls it the dunamis, which means power, right? theoretike, which is the power of what looking at things, right? And that's like Shakespeare saying that it's ability to look before and after, right?

[19:59] And other. times he'll say it's the ability, of the dunamis dianoetike, and he uses the word dianoetike there in the beginning of the postanalytics when he's talking about, oh, dianoetic knowledge is from pre-existent knowledge, right? So that corresponds to the other thing that Shakespeare says, the ability for what? To discourse, right? Okay. And then Aristotle uses another word there, along with dianoia, sometimes, which is logismos, right? Now logismos in Greek can mean calculation

[20:43] and what reasoning, right? Well, those are the two main kinds of discourse. When you add, subtract, multiply, or divide numbers from two numbers at least that you know, you come to know another number you didn't know. And in the syllogizing, you know, from two statements you do know, you come to know a third statement you didn't know before, right? So Aristotle used that word logismos, which is related to the word logos, reason.

[21:16] And as you mentioned before, the name of the art of calculating is in Greek like logistike, right? And then the art of reasoning, logike right? So they're related, right? So it's interesting that Aristotle he sometimes refers to reason as the ability to look, and sometimes as the ability for what? Discourse, I mean the word discourse, but he uses the word logismos, right? Or dianoia. So it's very very close to what Shakespeare has in his definition, except that Shakespeare combines the two, right?

[21:56] It's ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. So you have to you have to admire that, huh? Had a student there at the house last night there, and we're doing prior analytics. All these very dedicated guy to this, but he's mentioning he's one of his aunts had died recently, and she had some Shakespeare volumes that he inherited, huh? And some of these new Hudson Shakespeare's I always talk about, huh?

[22:26] Oh. And actually the introduction to new Hudson Shakespeare for as you like it, that was one of the best short eulogy of Shakespeare I've ever seen, and so I pulled out and read it to him, and so on. He's got as you like it, so.

[22:47] So, to reply to the third objection, kind of the question of what the word meant here. To the third, it should be said that this voluntas pietatis, right? Does not seem to be other than the will, which is considered as what nature. Insofar as it what flees an alien evil, absolutely what considered. huh? So this is a mod language there, maybe or a familiar language, anyway, right? So let's look at Article Four now.

[23:29] Whether in Christ there was what we'd say free will, but the Latin says what free judgment. Without free judgment, you wouldn't have free will. Kind of interesting the way they speak the Latin.

[23:54] To the fourth one proceeds thus: It seems that in Christ there was no free will, no free judgment about these things. For Damascene says in the third book, Gnome? That is a what?

[24:19] Position. Or mind, or thinking, yeah. And proairesis, that is choice, right? In God to say it is impossible if we speak what properly, right? But most of all, those things where they pertain to faith, we're not to speak what properly.

[24:47] I was looking at this this text on the Trinity this morning, and I always have this quote I've seen before from Saint Anselm, right? And

[25:00] Saint Anselm says that the not only does the Father say himself, but the Son says himself, and the Holy Spirit says himself, right? Therefore, there's more words besides. And Thomas says, well, he's using say loosely for understands. But it's never a proper use of. Yeah. See, there's a danger in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dixio. Yeah, you know, I give you my little poem. You know, God the Father said it all in one word, but He's the only one.

[25:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That has a word proceeding from Him. Son has no words, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from them. So, therefore, in Christ there was not what choice, and consequently neither liberum arbitrium, right? Whose act is what choice?

[26:17] That's kind of interesting the way Aristotle speaks in the Ethics, where he takes up choice in the third book. You know, it kind of you know leaves it up in the air a bit, whether it's an act of reason or an act of the will, because it involves what both, you know. And here's the way he speaks here: liberum arbitrium arbitrium seems to name something of reason, right, a judgment, and then he says whose act is choice, okay?

[26:45] It proceeds from that, right? Moreover, the philosopher says in the third book of the ethics that choice is desire of the thing that one has taken counsel for.

[27:03] So, in the in the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle works out the definition of moral virtue, and the definition is that it's a habit with choice, existing in the middle towards us a determinate reason. But then it's not until the third book, beginning the third book, that it takes up then what is this choice that's involved, because that's kind of the chief thing in in the moral way, virtue's choice.

[27:33] Do you choose to drink moderately, or do you choose to drink excessively, and so on? But there does not seem to have been what counsel in Christ, right? Because we take counsel about those things, then we do not we do not take counsel about those things of which we are what certain, right?

[28:01] But Christ had certitude about all things. Therefore, in Christ there was no choice, and therefore no free what judgment. Moreover, free will has itself to both, right?

[28:23] But the will of Christ was determined to the good, because he was not able to sin, as has been said above. Therefore, in Christ there is no free judgment, right? That's the rule. It's the same thing they you know say about God in His divine nature, right? You know, they say, well, He couldn't choose the bad, since He had free will, right? Yeah, yeah, it's not true.

[28:49] But against this is what is said in Isaiah chapter seven: He will eat. What's butyrum? Butter. What? Butter. Butter. Oh, is it kind of curds? Usually it's kind of butter. I can I can look this up. I got a dictionary right here. Curds sound wrong. Difficult.

[29:18] It's a land of milk and honey. What's what's wrong with butter? This has butter, also. I think I've seen elsewhere in Scripture, you know, where someone eats the honey and is wise. Honey has that sense. Butter. No, no, there's no curds in it. Curds, curds are a corruption. Modern translation. So you might. Yogurt thing. No. To eject evil, right, and to choose good, right, which is an act of free will.

[29:50] Therefore, in Christ there is free will. I think it's supposed to be like the opposite of the honey. It's bitter. It's a bitter. I think that's what we keep trying.

[30:09] It's cottage. Cottage cheese. Yeah. That's the American. So Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said, as has been said above, in Christ there is a twofold act of the will. One by which his will was carried towards something that was willed as such, which pertains to the notion of the end.

[30:41] In another, another act, according to which his will was carried towards something by the order that it has to another thing, which pertains to the notion of that which is towards an end.

[30:56] Now, as the philosopher says in the third book in the *Nicomachean Ethics*, electio or choice differs from the will in this: that the will, speaking as such, is of the what end. I know it's voluntas. There is is taking means the act, right? And it's called voluntas, right?

[31:24] But choice is of those things which are towards an end, and thus simplex voluntas is the same as voluntas as nature, and choice is the same as will as what reason. Strangely, speak that way, huh? About that Thomas. And is what, and its own act, and it's the own act of what free judgment, right, as has been said in the first part, huh? And therefore, since in Christ one lays down will as what ratio is necessary there to place choice, and consequently free judgment, whose act is what.

[32:23] As has been had in the first part. Now, what about this text from Damascene? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Damascene excludes from Christ's choice, according as he understands the name of choice, to be implied what doubt? Doubt, huh?

[33:04] But nevertheless, doubt is not a necessity of choice, because because even to God it belongs to God, right? According to the famous words of Saint Paul, Ephesians one four, He chose us in Himself. Before the constitution of the world,

[33:29] that's why I say you should thank God for choosing you to what be, and for choosing to make a universe of which you could be a part, of humble. Huh?

[33:47] Did God make the best possible universe? Thank you, brother. We're all thinking along the same lines. But it's kind of funny the objection to saying that God made the best possible universe, and the kind of quote Plato, you know, that the the better the craftsman is, the better the thing he makes, right? So God, being the infinitely good, infinitely wise, and so on, infinitely powerful, supreme craftsman, must have made the best possible universe, right?

[34:22] But can God, in fact, make the best possible universe? He could always do better. Yeah, yeah. Not in terms of his power, but in terms of the material. But see, any universe he made would always be what In fact, infinitely less than himself, so he could make always a better universe. So you could say, I think that God could not cannot make the best possible universe, because that involves a what contradiction, right?

[34:55] Just like the question they raise, you know, could God make something that doesn't depend upon Him for its existence? That would involve a contradiction, right? Because what He makes depends upon Him for its existence. So you say, could He make something that depends upon Him for its existence, not depend upon Him for its existence? So it involves a contradiction. So God can't make us that, you know.

[35:26] The old idea of God and universe, and kind of forgot about it. Looking at the risk ones, doesn't make any sense, you know. But likewise, you know, you can see how people would think. Thomas says there that those who think that God made the best possible universe either they think he he made the universe not by choice, he was naturally what determined to make the universe, and nature determined one, so this is the only universe he could make, and like Leibniz would think, or people like that, or Leibniz or somebody, and or else he did make it by will, but he had to choose the best one possible, right?

[36:09] But then he couldn't choose the best one because there is no best one to be to be chosen, right? Huh? So you're right, brother. Hey.

[36:30] So you could have chosen universes of which you and I would not be a part, right? So you should thank him for having chosen this universe and for choosing us to be, right?

[36:43] I mean, could I have been a part of a universe which my mother and father were not a part? I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe maybe without my mother and father, but anyway, I doubt very much if I would be a part of a universe which they were not a part.

[37:07] So he chose us in himself before the constitution of the world. Nevertheless, in God there is no but doubting, for doubt happens to choice in so far as it's in a ignorant nature, a nature that doesn't know, huh?

[37:28] And therefore, ought to be said about others of which there is made mention in the fourth head of authority, right? See how he's kind of correcting Dionysius, right? But sometimes they understand it this way, right?

[37:50] If by choice understand something that implies doubt, right? Then Christ, he wouldn't have choice, right? Or God would have choice, huh? That's not the way.

[38:06] The second thing, to the second, it should be said. It's the one for the text of Aristotle. Aristotle is talking about choice in us, right? He says it's the appetitus praeconsiliati right? To the second, it should be said that choice presupposes what counsel, but it does not follow from counsel until that's been determined through what judgment, huh?

[38:44] For that which has been what judged to be done, right? After the inquiry of counsel, we choose, right? As is said in the third book of ethics, huh?

[38:59] Sometimes they would, you know, speak of of prudence, foresight as having three acts, right? Counsel and then judgment, and then what command, right? You know, my brother Mark and I used to joke about these two guys he hanged out with in Quebec. He says.

[39:22] One of us could think of all kinds of things to do, but he had no judgment as to which one should be done. My brother Mark had the judgment as to which should be done, but the third guy just said to get them going.

[39:37] So they divided the three acts of force by one among themselves. It makes it more clear, right, that there are these three things. That to really be a complete man of force, they should have to have all all three of these.

[40:09] And therefore, if something is judged to be done without doubt and a preceding what investigation or inquiry, to get a word inquisition, right? This would suffice for what choice?

[40:29] And thus it is clear that doubt or inquisition, which when you are doubt something to do, does not per se pertain to what choice, right? But only according as it is in a what ignorant nature occurs. So Aristotle is talking about ignorant, ignorant nature there, not talking about God's choice, son.

[40:59] Now the third objection is in terms of the good and the bad, right? To the third, it should be said that the will of Christ, although it is determined to the good, is not nevertheless determined to this or that what good. And therefore, it pertains to Christ to choose through free judgment, confirming the good, just as it pertains to the what Blessed, yeah.

[41:35] So the use of these words between free judgment and free choice. It is talking about the same thing, but just using a different aspect. Well, no, but librium arbitrium points out that a reason could judge this or that to be good, right? And sometimes in us, you know, could judge something bad even to be good, right? And unless reason had the ability to judge this or that to be good, right?

[42:10] You wouldn't have any what choice. There is only one thing you could judge to be good to do, right? So when I go home now, should I read Shakespeare, or should I read Thomas on on the Gospel of Saint John?

[42:32] Yeah, Well, I could maybe you know, one's distracted with the other. but should I read Thomas on Gospel of Saint John, or should I read Thomas on the the De Anima? Or should I read this delicious questionis disputati de potentia? Huh? They're all good, right?

[42:57] Should I go back to my favorite book, the Summa Contra Gentiles? Maybe I should spread out a little bit and read the delicious de potentia, right?

[43:11] So, with will as reason, when Saint Thomas uses that phrase, does he simply mean the will falls upon reason? Well, I have to have in some way free judgment. If I could only judge that the

[43:30] and I could say you know well the Gospel Saint John is the greatest book ever written right and Thomas brings in you know the church fathers Augustine and Chrysostom really that's the way to understand the Gospel Saint John that's the best book to read therefore I should read the Gospel Saint John tonight

[43:51] yeah but there's all those things in the first chapter about the Trinity you know and the Word and so on right and the questions disputatae de potentia they got beautiful things on the Trinity maybe I should study that first and then I'll be prepared to really understand what I'm reading so maybe I should read that instead

[44:12] see I I I I'm a crafty fellow you see and they say well maybe you know I wore myself out with those monks today I says maybe I should relax a bit with Shakespeare you know and you know and you know uh, what was Thomas doing? He's talking about the virtue of eutrapelia and so and he quotes something anecdote there about Saint John It was and and John you know talked about you know Bending with.

[44:43] Yeah, breaks you know you know so you got to relax a bit right huh you see once in a while see so I can I can find a reason to read Shakespeare tonight right the heck with all that high falutin stuff you see you see So there's certain freedom in my my judgment right

[45:06] they're all good yeah yeah because I could probably reason doing something bad too probably not going to be tempted to do anything too bad today. But I could be you know so among these good things right

[45:33] I look at this text of uh, Monsignor Dionne's courses you know he says well if you got only eight or nine years to devote to philosophy you know you should spend it on logic and Warren Murray says that that's kind of excessive it seems to me Yes I you know yeah because logic is just a tool you know see but you say you know what but if you don't know logic you're not going to be able to figure out these other things you know so you better learn that first right You know.

[46:03] This guy's got me doing the prior analytics, you know nobody goes in some of these more advanced parts of prior analytics, you know nobody's ever done that you know

[46:15] so I could go and look at read Albert the Great and then the prior analytics maybe I should do that so I know what I'm talking about next week. Right. It's my duty as a professor. no Still those disputed questions just be taught to de potentia what Yeah so By the way. The animal, Thomas says, you know, the animal, his judgment is kind of determined by his what, nature, right?

[46:50] I find with the cats, you know, some things that they just judge it the same way every time. You can't convince them, you know.

[47:00] Yeah. not much. Yeah. We, I guess we even speak that way. If there's only one thing to be done, we say, I have no choice. I have to do this.

[47:17] There's a rumor in the news today that that Obama's dog did a business there in the in the open office. No, no, in the airplane, the the Air Force One, yeah. And of course the White House is denying it. It shows you that the high the high falutin state we're in, Yeah, yeah, yeah. This business of state. Yeah.

[47:59] Showing the Statue of Liberty. Yeah. So you know, but they had the same type of argument when they talked about what we were saying earlier. You know, God would have to choose to make the best possible universe, right? And then say, well, there is no best possible universe, right? And God doesn't choose to make a bad universe, right? But he chooses to make a universe among many possible what, infinitely possible, good universes, right?

[48:35] So he has free what choice? I'm glad he chose the one that which I'm a part. Doesn't sound too pompous to say that, you know? You know. But from my point of view, I'm glad he chose this one, right? I mean, all the other universes, you know, would have had people, none of us in them. And how can we thank him enough? Can't. In case you do another article before the.