Tertia Pars
110. Abstract and Concrete Names of God, and Why It Was Fitting for Christ to Die (Question 50, Articles 1–2)
Class of 2010-10-28
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/13-tertia-pars/110-abstract-and-concrete-names-of-god-and-why-it-was-fitting/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Guide our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, open and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us, and help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. This little side here that I've got represented on the board here.

[0:32] Little text I'll sing in the sentences there. If you compare the fatherhood, right, of God the Father, is the fatherhood and the divine nature are is there a distinction between those two in reality are they two different things? No I don't think so

[0:54] No. No. There's no real distinction between those two. Now, likewise between the fatherhood and God the Father, is there any real distinction? Between fatherhood and the Father, yeah. No distinction, huh? Okay. We just said no, no distinction. There's no real distinction, right? But there is a distinction. Thomas says secundum rationem, right? And more precisely, maybe use the term the way of signifying, right, modo significandi. Okay, but is it the same distinction of reason on this side and on that side?

[1:45] It would seem. I would think not, but I don't know how to. We're just sort of intuiting. I know we've probably covered this, but I don't remember the details.

[1:56] Seems like the divine nature gives rise, maybe, to the well. You don't want to say that. No. I don't want to say that Then it would stop. No. Well, the distinction between these two, right, is a common distinction. in talking about God. and they just describe it as the concrete and the what abstract, right? Okay. Just like we said, God is good. God is good, or God is goodness itself, right?

[2:38] Or God is wise, or He's wisdom itself, right? Okay. And that's the kind of distinction between these two, right It's like the distinction between deitas and deus, right? Or you know, He loves and he loves itself, right? Okay. But the distinction between fatherhood and the divine nature is not one of abstract and concrete. What is the distinction there? When you're naming fatherhood, aren't you naming God in his relation as an origin, to another person?

[3:16] Okay, so this is in the genus of relation, right? Why the divine nature is in the genus of what substance? So you have a distinction there of two different what genera? Yeah. Well, here you don't have a distinction of two different genera, but the abstract and the concrete in the same what genus? In this case, the genus of relation. That's kind of subtle text what Thomas, says, right?

[3:45] He's pointing out, you know, he has in this one question and the sentences, an article whether these are the same," and an article, whether these are the same," right? Then after he's kind of shown both to be true, he's pointing out there's not a real distinction, but a distinction of reason according to the way of signifying. Here it's this common kind of distinction in theology between the abstract and concrete, and here between those different genera.

[4:11] It's kind of striking the text of Thomas the clarity in which he sees those things. But God isn't in a genus. right? And in theology, Why do we have that? Well, Thomas says that the abstract is simple and imperfect in creatures. So if you talk about my knowledge or my health, something simple, but it's imperfect because it doesn't exist by itself, right? My knowledge is that by which I teach, but my knowledge doesn't teach it, does it?

[5:45] Okay. And this is the abstract. And then the concrete, he says, signifies as something composed and what perfect, huh? Okay. And so he says that's the reason why Dionysius says people say you can both affirm and deny all these words of God, right? We affirm the abstract because of its simplicity, right? And we affirm the concrete because of perfection signified by it. But we can deny them, right?

[6:31] The abstract, the reason, imperfection. You see, if God is wisdom, well, then that's all He is. He's at which things are wise, but He's not wise Himself, right? Well, if you say God has wisdom, He's wise Himself, right? Then bring out the perfection of God in knowing. But now you seem to have a composition of wisdom and the one who what has it, right? And this goes back to our natural way of knowing, as Aristotle shows in the theory book about the soul.

[7:05] The proper object of our reason is the what it is of something what sense or imagine what is of a natural thing or a mathematical thing. And in all of these, the form is something what simple, but imperfect,

[7:25] and the perfect is always composed. So we can't, in the natural knowledge we have of God, right, the knowledge we have of God in His lifetime, we can't in theology really transcend this what way of speaking, right? And you have to say, well, I say that God is wisdom itself, not because He isn't wise, but because He's wise in a very simple way. And I say He's He's wise, not to signify that there's a real distinction between the have and the had, right?

[8:03] But to bring out the perfection, right? What good would it be, or what wisdom be to me, if by wisdom I was not wise? You know, it wouldn't be perfect. What good would health be? You know, if I had health, but I wasn't healthy. by it right So the perfect in creatures is always that, right? And so you have this problem that God, and these are usually the first two things I can assume of God you know Jane, right?

[8:32] You take these up together. God is simple and He's what perfect, huh? But in creatures, you tend to have what is composed, for the perfect and what is imperfect is simple. so you can't really know God as He is, right? But we have to. who Thomas quotes? is it Gregory? somebody says we we stutter, you know, we stutter about the divine nature, right? And so we realize that this can only be.

[9:04] Applied to God, by reason of his simplicity, We'd say God is wisdom itself. He's justice itself, right? He's love itself, right? But we say this, by reason of the perfection of knowing or loving or being just and so on, and a bit of playing. Now, one thing that interests me very much, though in created things, is that sometimes you have a faint reflection of God, and that is where what is more simple is also more what perfect, huh?

[9:49] I'm being an old student of the poetics of Aristotle. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the book on the poetic art, but the part on tragedy and epic has come down to us from Aristotle. We lost. the part on comedy, right? Aristotle, after comparing tragedy and epic, which are similar, right, in the emotional effect that they have, similar in the kind of characters they reveal or make use of.

[10:20] he asks, which is higher, or a better form of fiction, right? And he argues that the tragedy is better than what epic, yeah, because it produces the same what effect in a much what shorter time, right?

[10:40] And so there he has something which is simpler or smaller anyway, right? And that sounds like a simple ox like God, but simpler than the what tragedy? I mean, than the epic, right? But it's what? Yeah, see, he has a little imitation there what you get in God, right? Now my other another example I like, of course, is the one that I was talking about in Proposition five, there, right,

[11:11] in Book two of Euclid, where he shows, or you can deduce from that anyway, that taking a rectangle now to include a square right that of all rectangles the square contains more area for the same perimeter right and even more area for what Less perimeter Less perimeter And I square, right, that of all rectangles, the square contains more area for the same perimeter, right, and even more area for what?

[11:37] Less perimeter. Less perimeter. And I don't want to try to prove it here, but just take an example. If you had a square that's five by five, and you had a oblong that's two by ten, well, the perimeter of, excuse me, two by. By eight. No, no, two by eight. Two by eight. Oh, this this is exactly even. No, this is less. This would be less. Yeah, yeah.

[12:02] Okay. This would be what twenty four, right? Twenty. Twenty. Right. Two by twelve. Oh, I mean perimeter. Wouldn't be what? Oh, twenty four. Yeah, the perimeter. Twenty four. Sorry, that's the area. So perimeter would be twenty four. Here the perimeter is twenty five. No, no, no. Perimeter would be twenty. Twenty. Yeah. That's why I think a two by eight would be the same perimeter. But the area is twenty five.

[12:30] The area is twenty, right? So with less perimeter, you contain more what? Area. And what Euclid actually shows in that theorem is that if you had the same perimeter in the oblong as in the square, there would be greater area in the square by the square and the difference in the points of sections on. This is kind of like what we're saying, right? That this is simpler, right?

[12:59] But contains more area, right? And that's more of like a very faint imitation, kind of a footprint of what you find in God. And then I used to carry it over and say, "Your brevity is a soul of wit." And actually, I just think the first limb all the way up, right? And he was quoting somebody who thought it stated very well what Obama was, right? He wants to preside over the what redemption of the American nation, right?

[13:30] That is a terrible, wicked place, right? And rather wants to be the great nation, right? He says, "I wish I'd said that," you know. And so, but then he said, "Brevity is a soul of wit." That's that's my line, he says. So he's quoting something where a guy seems to say something very well in a few what words, right? So I said, just as this can include more area for less length, right?

[14:00] So the wise man will say more in fewer words, and the other guy will talk and talk and talk and not, you know, say much at all, right? But again, that's imitation of the brevity is a soul of wit. There, the imitation of the simpler in one way, right?

[14:19] Being more what perfect. That's what I admire about Shakespeare's exhortation, right? To use reason, outstanding children for anybody, fifty words or less, right? To write an exhortation, you know, as good as Shakespeare, I don't think they could. So there you see something of an imitation there, in a faint way, obviously, because none of these things are perfectly simple, right? Square or the or the words of the wise man.

[14:49] Nevertheless, they're simpler and smaller, and therefore they're more what? More. And yet they contain more, right? And so God, being altogether simple in a sense, contains the whole universe. He says, "You know, to Moses, I guess, or Abraham, I will show you every good." Thomas says, "That is myself." So inside of him, there's every good, right? But in a very what simple way. So it'd be interesting to see God as He is, to say the least, right?

[15:23] I don't think you will. This is kind of a faint anticipation by, by me, you know. But it's going to be amazing to see how perfect He is, but in how simple a way, huh? It's going to be an amazing thing to see, I think.

[15:48] But you can't get over in this life and in theology, the human way of knowing. You see, as we had this abstract and what concrete. It goes back to the fact that saying my being healthy if I am healthy,

[16:07] my body and the health it has are not exactly the same thing, are they? And that's why my body could lose its health, right? Or is losing it? You see what I mean? And if my body and its health are the same thing, I'd be in very good shape, you know. Because you can't separate something from itself. So the perfection of the thing, you know, is

[16:36] always composed here. So you have something, right? But that doesn't make our knowing God false, right? Unless you think that the way we know must be the way things are, right? But the fact we have to use both the abstract and the concrete in talking about God is because of our way of knowing, right? Not because there is a real difference between them and God.

[17:11] So Deus means habens, having, deitatem, right? Having the divine nature, right? Even though the one who has it is the same. So the abstract and the concrete don't really differ in God.

[17:28] What has the perfection, whatever it might be, and the perfection itself are not really what distinct, right? Well, we can't avoid speaking in this way because that's the way we know, drawn from sensible things, material things, huh? Of course, I'm very thankful for you know my education in philosophy and nature because there you really get the idea of matter and form and the distinction of them and how these things are composed of matter and form, and even in some way the mathematical things are composed of matter and form, huh?

[18:04] Like the shape of the thing and the extension of the matter, right? So it goes back then again to that fundamental question of philosophy, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right? Well, if it did, then we couldn't know God at all by these things, right? But when we say, "Hey, I use the simple, I use the abstract to bring out the simplicity of God, I use the concrete to bring out its perfection," we're getting a little bit of knowledge of God, right?

[18:41] But in what a composed way, right? We know something simple in a composed way, huh? Now, now, as first, you know, when I was in college, we had a course, kind of advanced course in philosophy, it's called natural theology. And they. Actually, did the questions in the Summa, Contra Gentiles did before you get to Trinity, right? So the part that you could know by natural reason as well, and they call it natural theology, and that was kind of my favorite course, you know.

[19:10] But as you try to understand, you know, the God is simple and not composed, and that he's perfect and so on. He can show all these things through his being what pure act. That's kind of a very common middle term there, theology, the most common, I think, almost. And yes, a pure act. What is that? There's a composition there, right? You're composing act with this negation,

[19:37] which is knowing a simple thing in a what composed way, huh? Just like Euclid defines a point as that which has no parts. You're knowing a simple thing by something composed, huh? By the negation of the composition. We can't. Can't avoid our natural way of knowing. huh? why is the negation of composition something composed? No, no, I see there's a composition there in pure act, right? You have act put together with pure, right?

[20:13] And pure involves what negation of potency in this case, right? The negation. Yeah, but I was thinking of the other one when I was saying,

[20:23] "Point has no parts," right? Thomas says the senses kind of come over different in some places because he has a question there. Does God have any parts, right? And there's no subject parts, and there's no composing parts, right? Well, in the Summa Theologiae, it, doesn't proceed that way. You'll learn in the treatise on the simplicity of God that he's not composed. There's no composing parts, and then maybe when God is one, that he's not said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit as three gods, right?

[20:59] So there's no either universal whole nor the integral composed whole, right? But there you see, gee whiz, you're really knowing God negatively by what negation of either kind of composition, any kind of a whole in this sense that has parts.

[21:26] Beautiful things in the sentences, and I guess a lot of times he comes back and says these things again in later works. But sometimes there seems to be something in them, you know. It's beautiful when he talks about how the

[21:42] going forward in God, the going forward of the Son from the Father, right? And then the going forward of the Holy Spirit from the what Father and the Son is the first going forward, isn't it? and therefore the going forward of creatures from God reflects those two going forwards, isn't it? Well, how does he reflect the going forward of the Son from the Father? Well, the Son goes forward from the Father as a likeness of the what Father, both as Son, he's like the Father, right?

[22:21] And as the Word, he's like that which is the Word, and therefore he's called the Imago Dei, right? What we were saying before, I think, we were talking about another time here. Can God make something that isn't like Him? You know, and of course we more than some other creatures are made to the image and likeness of God, but even the lowest things are said in likeness is to God, huh?

[22:43] So far as they have being in some way and something good about them, and so on. And so, insofar as the creatures go forward from God as being like Him in some way. It's like going forward naturally in the Trinity itself when the Son proceeds from the Father by way of what nature as a Son. But then there's another thing you got to be careful about when you talk about the creatures going forward from God, because they don't go forward by necessity of nature.

[23:18] Even though they do go forward by way of likeness to the nature, which makes them like the the Word, right? And Thomas would refer back to that when he says here it was appropriate for the second person to become man, right, rather than the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the creatures proceed from God by way of choice, huh? By way of will, right? And therefore, the Holy Spirit proceeding by way of what will as love

[23:48] anticipates, you might say, the going forward, right, of the creatures because they proceed from the free will of God. So there's some beautiful things in there, and I don't think they're always repeated exactly the same words. They sit in a little different way, you know, and like Thomas says, you know, when the teacher sees his ideas in getting across, he says a little differently, but at different times, you know, you find this.

[24:18] When I was first a student in college, I would sit Kasurik was teaching a course in a number of sections, I'd sit in both sections. And even after I got an A in the course, I'd go back and I'd sit in the course. He says, "Dwayne says, you know, everything I want to say, but sometimes just the way he says a little bit differently in one class than another, you know.

[24:40] I know myself if when I was teaching if I teach you know a couple sections of the same course, right? The second time I taught the same material, I had had some time left over, but I thought I explained it better than did the first time. So it's a little bit like this, you know. You know, if you're teaching two sections of the same course, you got to keep them together because otherwise you get all excited.

[25:03] What did I talk about in this class? And you got to, you know, begin at the same point and stop or less at the same point. Otherwise, it's hopeless confusion that arises. And that's why I know a professor would want to, of course say on one section on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, another one on Tuesday, Thursday, with a one and a half thing that would confuse you, right?

[25:21] It should be on the same, you know, two sections on Tuesday, Thursday, or else Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But it was no frustrating. You've got five, ten minutes left, and you said what you wanted to say today, and you said it better you said it before, but you can't just dismiss them. But it shows you what you're saying, right? You're anticipating a little bit of God there, right now, you know.

[25:44] In fewer words, you're saying more, huh? Thomas has kind of a light note there. In one place there, it's kind of beautiful, though, where he's talking about the magnitude of God, right? Magnus, right? And this of course is first Magnus is first using a quantitative sense, right? But now he's talking about the magnitude of the divine virtue or perfection. And one of the objections is saying, you know, that in magnitude you got something bigger and something smaller, right?

[26:21] Thomas says, well, in a way, you get something smaller, and then he says, "the brevity is all." met. So, you know, my little poem, God the Father said it all in one word. That's what the Jews have this pious way of sort of almost making a little humor out when they would write the scriptures. They didn't have any space between words. Yeah. And what they would do is they would join the words with the one letter that means and, and there was no punctuation.

[26:57] So he's read the whole Pentateuch; it's one word. So that's what they would say: God spoke one word. Exactly. Okay, so we have to question fifty here, right, on the death of Christ.

[27:12] Then we ought to consider about the death of Christ, and about this six things are asked or sought. First, whether it was suitable for Christ to what die.

[27:29] Secondly, whether through his death there was separated the union of his divinity and his flesh. So, when Christ's body was laying there in the tomb, right, was it still united to the second person there, the Blessed Trinity?

[27:48] And the third question is about the same question there about the soul. Was the union of the divine and the soul in the one person right? Was that separated right? So two and three they're asking whether Christ's body and soul are both what still united after death to the Word of God. And then following upon this, whether Christ in the three days there,

[28:21] that three day is what figure speech is that. Triduum Isn't that the key Yeah, the part for the whole, right? Then. So forth, whether Christ in the Triduum Mortis was a man.

[28:42] And five, whether his body was the same in number, living and dead. And then whether his death did something for our what salvation, right?

[29:00] So we go to the first article. To the first one goes forward thus. It seems that it was not suitable for Christ to die.

[29:12] For that which is the first beginning in any genus is not disposed through that which is contrary to that whole genus. Just as fire, which is the what source of heat, is never what frigid or cold. But the Son of God is the beginning and the fountain of all what life. According to that of Psalm thirty-five, before you is the fountain of what life. he said he's calling the fountain of eternal life.

[29:51] Therefore, it seems unsuitable that Christ would what die. If he's the fountain of life, how can the fountain of life die? Make any sense at first sight.

[30:07] More is a defect of death than of what sickness, I guess, because through. Yeah, word mor morbid. What is it? Yeah, morbid. Has to do with sickness. Yes, sickness.

[30:26] Because through sickness, one arises of death. But it was not suitable that Christ what lay sick by some sickness, right? As Christ himself. So we don't read about Christ being what getting a cold or getting some other sickness, right? Chickenpox. Yeah.

[30:49] So therefore, it wasn't suitable for Christ to die, right? The way to death was. Moreover, the Lord says in John chapter ten, "I came that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly."

[31:10] But the opposite does not lead to the opposite. Therefore, it seems was not suitable for Christ to die. Every maker makes what is like itself. That's true even in a carpenter, right? Because he makes something like the idea which he's making it. I mean, fortiori, you know, man generates a man, and a dog a dog, and a cat a cat, and so on. So how can the death of Christ, right?

[31:39] Bring about that we have life and even have it more abundantly than we do, right? The fathers say sometimes that the in medical art the opposite is cured by opposite. That's

[31:58] exactly said. And many. But against all this is what is said in John eleven. It's expedient that one man die for the people, that lest the whole genus, the whole race, perishes. Which, Caiaphas said prophetically, as the evangelist himself testifies there, in verse fifty one. You know that text,

[32:21] Now, Thomas Aquinas has five reasons why it was suitable for Christ to die, but the first one is the most important, perhaps. First, to satisfy for the human race, which was.

[32:41] Judged worthy of death on account of sin. Sentence to do that According to that Genesis two verse seventeen, whatever day you eat. That's the tree, right? You will die by death, right?

[32:56] But is however a suitable way of satisfying for another that someone undergoes a punishment which another one what. Yeah. And therefore Christ wished to die, that in dying He might satisfy for us. He's assuming the punishment that's due to us, right? According to that of one Peter three, Christ once for our sins died. That's perhaps the most important reason He gives here. But by Boni totum lacrima we can go into the other four reasons.

[33:34] Secondly, for showing the truth of the nature He what assumed. Now what did Benjamin Franklin say? Nothing is certain but what? Taxes and death. Death and taxes.

[33:50] Very clever saying, right? So I mean, what is more common than death, right? Huh? Like they say the hammer can oil. So it's true about your father's death. We all have to face that, right? Okay.

[34:04] For as Eusebius says, if afterwards after what is spending time with men, right? huh? He suddenly what Disappears. Yeah, fleeing death. By all, he would be thought to be a what phantasm, an image.

[34:27] He did pay taxes too, right? Yeah. Go get the fish out there and get the coin paid for you and for me. He says to Peter, I guess. A lot of fun with that, and Benjamin Franklin said, "It's very well said." That was a temple tax, but he also he advised about these renderings.

[34:52] Third, that in dying He might liberate us from the fear of what death. That He communicated with flesh and blood. That through death He might destroy the one who had the command over death, right? And He might liberate those from the fear of death who through their whole life were what subject to to servitude. Huh?

[35:28] I used to have one colleague make an assumption. He thought at the age of three you begin to realize that you're going to die someday. Used to call the students when he was teaching, you know, younger, much younger in their twenties, you know, called them the immortals, right? They don't think they're going to ever die, you know, huh? That's why when you have one of the you know things like teenage gets killed in a car accident or whatever it is, you know, just you know just doesn't happen to people our age.

[35:54] That's sort of grandfathers or something like that, but uh that's what saint ephraim says. When Adam was told the day you eat of this you're going to die, and he ate of it, he didn't die right away. He says he says that's because God wanted wanted him each day to think. Yeah. What's interesting that Thomas says this, you know, he's uh, was it in the text in Thomas, you know, where he said he's talking about distraction, that was a sin or something, you know, and he said what's it's hard to possibly says to say when our father without being distracted.

[36:33] Talking to Warren Murray one time about that old text, and he says Thomas is the more human, isn't he in this? We say that in this text, and I mean, but it seems to me here he is, right? I think Thomas had a certain what fear of death, huh? And of course, you know, Thomas's sister, one of his sisters, was killed by lightning, you know. So apparently Thomas was kind of nervous when there's one of these big storms, huh?

[36:57] Because it was you know, why did God take her and so on? You know, he had that question, but you know, it's this fear of death is a Kind of what of a natural thing, right? And even a soldier, I think, is a certain fear of death, even though he may be hardened to it in some way, huh? So Thomas is being a little more human here for our human weakness, huh?

[37:21] But? I think we naturally fear death, huh? Fourth, that by dying bodily, um, in likeness to what? Yeah. to give us an example of dying spiritually to what? Sin.

[37:45] That that's beautiful, you know, and Christ coming to it from a purely natural point of view. There, you know how how the great Socrates, you know, defined philosophy as the practice of dying, and that you're going to be perfected by dying, right? Huh? So I said, talk that thing in class to them and say, well, you know, you use the expression mortification, right, for taming your body and its desires and so on, but you use the word death there, right?

[38:19] Huh? Mortification. So you're kind of separating the soul from the body, and of course Socrates is kind of seeing that the soul is perfected by being separated from the body in some way, huh? And and one way, of course, is by resisting the bodily inclinations, and the other is, you know, when it's thinking about something and it kind of loses, you know, the absent minded professor is the other example, But his mind is not really absent, but his his mind is what?

[38:53] Yeah, but his body, in a sense, has been left behind, right? Huh? You know, so it's interesting that Socrates saw that as being necessary for the perfection of man this practice in in dying, huh? Which dialogue is that? Well, it's in it's in the the Phaedo

[39:18] there at the end, because Thomas even takes that up. yeah, yeah, yeah, and Thomas will kind of develop from that an argument for the immortality of the soul, right? If the soul is perfected even in this life by kind of separation from the body,

[39:36] then the separation of the soul from the body is kind of the road of the soul to its what? Perfection. So how can that lead to the destruction of the soul, right? The road to perfection is just the opposite of the road to destruction, right? So that's kind of a beautiful argument for the immortality of the soul, right? Um.

[39:59] So Socrates, you know, faces death quite what willingly, right? Huh? Because he sees this as going to lead to the complete perfection, it seems, of our soul, right? Where the body, you know, leads us astray, not only in the vices, but also making mistakes about things, right? And so, little similarity there, right? Huh?

[40:26] Well, Socrates, you know, you know, has part of the truth, but he doesn't see, you know, the fact that man is not just a soul, and and that the body is something naturally joined to the soul, and therefore there's a certain tension there, right? huh? I wonder if he's a saint in heaven. I don't know. I don't know. Nobody has ever been to do this. I sometimes wondered whether you know Tom's ever prayed for Aristotle or not.

[40:58] He wondered I mean, because he suddenly had to sit in debt to him, right? And or was God gave Aristotle some possibility of choosing, you know? So, but anyway, you know, I've spoken before of how I think the perfection of philosophy there by Aristotle before Christianity comes onto scene, right? Is got some divine providence in it, huh? I mean, it's unfortunate for Aristotle when you know see Christianity, right?

[41:33] But that he arrived at the immortality of the soul and arrived at a knowledge of these things about God that he did shows what natural reason is capable of, right? Just like you know Thomas says sometimes that the reason there's there's some good that God brings out the fact that a lot of Jews were not what converted, right? Because they were witnesses to the antiquity of the books of the Old Testament, from which the Christians argued, you know, from these prophecies being fulfilled in Christ to the truth of the Christian religion.

[42:08] But if all the Jews had been converted, then we would say, well, you just wrote those books yourself, and you claim they're old and all sort of nonsense, you know. And so the fact that some Jews were not enabled the Christians to reason from those books with authority, right? Well, the fact that Aristotle could arrive at this knowledge of God, whose knowledge of immortality of the soul and so on, without Christianity is a sign what natural reason is capable, right?

[42:39] So you know Romans one twenty is what kind of text the Church takes to say it is possible by natural reason to come to know God,

[42:49] but in a human way, In this composed and imperfect way. So, what is dead to sin, right, is dead once. What lives lives to God. So also estimate yourself to be dead to sin, but living to God. And Socrates, you know, he kind of makes a joke about it. You know, I think the philosopher is dead because he's not enjoying these pleasures of the senses.

[43:23] And it's kind of kind of probably you know the monk or something like that, right? You know that he's been cut off from the real pleasures of life, you see. And Socrates is kind of amused by this, right?

[43:39] Of course, I guess there were ghost stories in those days too about spirits around the graveyards, huh? Socrates says those are the souls that are lovers of the body, you know, and they're cut off from the flesh of the body, so they're poor souls trying to get back in the body so they can enjoy the pleasures of the body again. Yeah. So it gives kind of explanation why you see these ghosts around the graveyards.

[44:03] huh Socrates, I admire Socrates I mean, everything he said was good. Of course, a lot of it could be Plato too. I don't know where Plato Socrates leaves off and Plato begins, but marvelous things in those dialogues.

[44:35] And the fifth reason is that by what rising from the dead, right, huh? He showed his what power by which he had overcome what death, and he gives to us, right, the hope of rising from the dead. So if he had never died, he said, well, okay, that's he's an immortal creature, Good for him. But

[44:58] we're going to die, you know, and that's it. You say, okay, but if Christ died and he rose, huh? Whence the apostle says, if Christ what if we preach that Christ rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say that there will be no resurrection of the body, huh?

[45:22] I'm very impressed with those five reasons. Sometimes they said, "Homie, I should, you know, read read something like this in the morning, you know, and they say, I actually, really should read the mortalists today. Just just just sit think about that all day long when I have a few moments or something, you know, think about that. No, these five reasons, huh? Interesting, interesting.

[45:47] He's not morbid at all. He's thinking about the death of Christ, but this admits a. Marvelous the way he thinks about these things. Now, what about first objection? What about Christ being the fountain of life? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Christ is the what fountain of life, secundum quod Deus, according as He is God, right? Not, however, secundum quod homo, in so far as He is what man.

[46:25] But He is dead, not according as He is God, but according as He is man, right? Whence Augustine says against Felicianum let it be absent, right? That Christ thus sensed death as regards His being in Himself, life, right? That He lost life.

[46:49] Yeah, I don't think that he experienced death such that he lost the life, right? So far as it was in Himself, life. Because if this is so, then the fountain of life would have been dried up. Dried up So. Augustine is agreeing with Thomas. maybe we should say Thomas agreeing with Augustine. because Augustine said this first, though. Okay. He sensed therefore death, right, by participation of human affection, which he spontaneously what took on, for did not lose the power of his nature through which all things he vivifies I mean, his divine nature, right?

[47:32] Now, when Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," he's the way as man, as Thomas recalls the beginning of the Tertia Pars, right, Remember that beginning here. If you look at the very beginning of the Prima, right?

[47:53] Thomas is inducing this whole thing here. The prologue, right? I don't know if you had that here, but. I thought he said that, and he

[48:29] didn't. Anyway, Thomas comments on that passage in John. I am the way, the truth, and the life. He says, as man, he's the way to God. As God, he's the end, and there, as truth and life, he is the end. Okay, it's kind of replying to the questions, Philip. You know, where are you going, and how do we get there? And Christ answers both of them by saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

[49:07] So, you know, the idea that he's life itself, right? That's more sort of his divine nature, right? Christ in his human nature is not life itself, although he's a source of life in many ways, but he's not life itself, right? And that's the original beginning of all life, the one who's life itself.

[49:31] Now, what about Christ? The second objection, not being sick, right? There's no way you get sick and then die, right? To the second, should be said that Christ did not sustain death coming from sickness, lest he be thought, right, or appear to die from what necessity and bodily weakness of his nature, right? But he sustained a death from, you know, those inflicted upon him from the outside, to which spontaneously he offered himself, right?

[50:04] That he might show that his death was what voluntary, right? So he's talking to apostles going up to Jerusalem, okay. And of course, he had before that these times that wound up in death, right? They were going to take up stones, and Christ wouldn't do them, you know. So you know that he's doing this what voluntarily, right? And not, what, grabbed him one day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[50:31] If he had died from sickness, then you'd say, well, like Lazarus or something like that, he couldn't, you know, couldn't do anything, do anything about it, right? Okay. What do you do when your time comes? Isn't that the expression? Okay. Now, what about opposites?

[50:57] To a third, it should be said that one of two opposites, as such, per se, does not what need the other, but sometimes by accident, huh? Just as the cold sometimes by accident what heats, huh? That's an example that I was trying to think of. Well, I used to give you an example, you know, that the hot cools things off. It burns down your house, and now you're out in the cold.

[51:26] So the fire, which is hot, right, is a cause of you being what cold, but by accident, right? Because the fire, as such, is going to warm you. If it burns down your house, right? Okay. If you're cold, then you let the fire warm up. Yes, the cold is the cause of that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's a simple way of saying it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But maybe examples of the body too, you know.

[51:53] Anyway. And in this way, Christ through his death brings us to life, because he destroyed what our death through his own death, right? Because he. that goes back to the first argument in the body of the article, right? Which is perhaps the most important argument there. Seems to me most important reason, huh?

[52:23] Just as the one who undergoes some punishment for another removes his what punishment, huh? Now, whether in the death of Christ was separated his divinity from his what flesh, right? To the second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that in the death of Christ, the divinity was separated from his flesh.

[52:51] For as said in Matthew chapter twenty-seven, the Lord hanging on the cross cried out, "God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Right. Which Ambrose, expounding, huh?

[53:08] The man cries out, "Who's going to what? Die? About to die by the separation of the divinity. But since the divinity is free from death, right? Truly, death could not there be unless life had what part?

[53:29] Because the divine nature is life itself. I think I was just talking to somebody giving their child the name Ambrose So their child the name Ambrose. So that's a good name, I said. And thus it seems that in the death of Christ is his divinity separated from his flesh. And

[53:54] see how you can say that kind of, because if Christ in his divine nature is life itself, and in death you separated from life, or you lose your life, then you must have lost his divinity, right?

[54:14] Moreover, if you remove the middle term, right, the middle, the extremes will be what separated, right? But the divinity, divine nature, was joined to the flesh by reason of the soul, as we pointed out before, right? It's been had above. Therefore, it seems that since in the death of Christ the soul was in fact separated from the body, right? Consequently, the divinity would be separated from the flesh.

[54:45] Good argument, huh? Moreover, more is the vivifying power of God than that of the soul. But the body cannot die unless the soul be separated. Therefore, it seems much less right is it able to die unless the divinity be separated from it.

[55:13] Wonder if Thomas ever slapped the table down like he did when he was finishing off the Manichæans. I really got a good idea there. Really got a good good objection there. I wonder what Thomas said. I remember this. Any thought about Thomas? There were one of the brothers said, "Hey, there's an elephant in the street out there. " You heard that story? Thomas ran to the window, and they are making fun of him.

[55:41] You know, he said, "I rather believe there was an elephant in the street than the one of my brothers could lie. " But against this, those things which are of human nature are not said of the Son of God except by reason of the union, huh? But about the Son of God is said that which belongs to the body of Christ after death, to wit, to be what buried, as is clear in the symbol of faith, right?

[56:18] Symbol means literally Greek, what thrown together, right? Doesn't mean just thrown together. We already said that the Son of God was conceived and born from the Virgin, suffered, died, and was buried. So how could you say that the Son of God, which is the divine person, there, right, was buried if the body was not what? I'm thinking of Socrates, huh? Because towards the end of it, Socrates going to die, one of them says, "Where shall we bury you, Socrates?

[56:55] " And he says, "You have to catch me first. " Because he identified himself as being just a soul, right? And the body was not him, you know. So you know, you have to catch me first.

[57:06] Well, I'm reminded of it because of this, right? You know, the soul, if the body was separated from the divinity, then why could the divinity be said to be buried, right? How could the Son of God, rather not the divinity, but the Son of God, be buried, right? The Son of God is not still joined to the body of a subperson. Yeah.

[57:30] And beautiful. To realize a discussion about death to be so lively, huh? You can grow if you want. I answer. It should be said that that which is conceded through the grace, right, of God is never recalled, right, without some what penance That's beautiful, huh? Whence is said Romans 11 that without penance are the gifts of God and the calling, right? That's beautiful. Much more is this true about the grace of union by which the divinity was united to the flesh of Christ, but united to it in person, right?

[58:23] Not the realize that the union is made in the person. Hypostatic union, right, not of the divine nature. And that's even greater, right, a grace than the grace of adoption, right, but which other people are what sanctified, huh?

[58:44] And even more permanent from its notion or its ratio, because this grace is ordered to what the personal union, but the grace of adoption to a certain affectionate union, huh? And nevertheless, we see that the grace of adoption is never lost without what guilt, huh? Since therefore in Christ there can be no sin, right? It is impossible that there be untied the union of his divinity from his what flesh, huh?

[59:25] And therefore, just as before death the flesh of Christ was united according to the personal hypostasis to the Word of God, so also it remained united after death. That to wit, there was not another hypostasis of the Word of God in the flesh of Christ, right, after death, as Damascene says in the third book, huh?

[59:54] Now, what about the being abandoned, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that that abandonment should not be referred to a untying of the personal union, right? But to this that God the Father exposed him to what his passion, whence to abandon is nothing other than to not protect him from those what persecuting him. That makes sense, you know. Like somebody's martyred, got hated, Christ despaired in the cross.

[1:00:27] No, this is crazy, as you say. Um. Or he said himself to be abandoned as regards that prayer which he said, "Father, if it is possible to come about, let this chalice pass for me," as Augustine expounds in the book on the grace of the New Testament, huh?

[1:00:52] Quite a man, Augustine, isn't he? Most quotable of the Church Fathers, I guess. You can see it in the Vatican, in the Council, or the Catechism, right? Other places.

[1:01:14] The popes usually quote Augustine or Thomas of Cassius you know. Sometimes more than anybody else, anyway. Now, what about the middle here? To the second, should be said that the Word of God is said to be united to the flesh by means of the soul, in so far as flesh. Pertains human nature through the what, through the soul, right, which the Son of God intended to assume, not however in the sense that the soul is as it were a middle joining the two what together, right?

[1:01:53] For the flesh has from the soul that it pertains to human nature, even after the soul is separated from it. In so far as in the what dead flesh, there remains by divine ordering a certain order to what resurrection, and therefore there is not taken away the union of the divine nature to the flesh in the person. Okay, if you take that context, you'd say, well, he's talking about the union of the divine nature with the flesh, right? Which is a mistake, but we saw in the body of the article, complete phrase.

[1:02:37] Divinitas unita carni Christi in persona. Now, what about the two, about the greater power of life, of God than of the soul? To the third, it should be said that the soul has the power of vivifying formaliter as a intrinsic form, right? And therefore, it being present and united formally is necessary for the body to be alive. But the divinity, the divine nature, does not have the what power of vivifying formally, but what effectively?

[1:03:17] For it is not able to be the form of a what body, because then it would have the ratio of a part, and God is partless. And therefore, it is not necessary that the union of divinity to the flesh remaining that the flesh be alive, right? doesn't have the soul. Because God does not act from necessity, but from what will.

[1:03:47] Do you want to turn up for our break. or take another article? You thirsty for. I want to take a break. Oh my goodness! you got so... The weakness, weakness of flesh. He had some

[1:04:04] notes of Deconing up there, you know, and he'd let us. take a little break there, you know, and he said, "No, come back in, children," he says.