Alia
4. Augustine on Order in God, Aristotle's Senses of Before and After, and the Rule of Two or Three
Class of 2018-09-06
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/14-alia/004-augustine-on-order-in-god-aristotles-senses-of-before-and/

[0:00] I was reading there's a quote that they're always giving from Augustine. There, right? Augustine says that there's no before and after in the Trinity. God the Father is not before the Son, and God the Father and God the Son are not before the Holy Spirit.

[0:22] And it's just true about all the senses of before that Aristotle gives in the categories, not before in time or being, or in knowledge or in goodness or as a cause and for an effect, and so on. Well, then there's a text from Augustine. You know he says there's no before and after in God. There's no order before and after, but there is the order of this from that.

[0:51] And of course you have that in the Creed, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, and so on. But I had seen the text of Thomas, so, before where he speaks of before and after as the definition of order, right? Order is he before and after.

[1:08] And I said, well, now what is Augustine saying there? Right? It's not the order of before and after, but the order of this from that, right? Is Augustine saying that there's two kinds of order, the order of before and after, and the order of this from that, right? Well, I didn't know that's what Augustine meant because often we misunderstand Augustine. Even the objections, you know, the disputed questions, you know, Thomas is always correcting somebody's misunderstanding of Augustine.

[1:41] But this is my mind is saying, you know, I've been teaching, you know, that order means before and after, and not two genera, I didn't think they were two genera. But then not with Augustine. what does Augustine mean by saying that? Well, fortunately, I was reading the sentences, and Thomas says that what Augustine is doing there is taking a difference of order, right, and saying analogously, right, equivocal by reason that there's that kind of order in God, right?

[2:17] Now, one thing you find if you read through St. Thomas, and one of my teachers in graduate school, there, Father Boulet, was always hitting us at this, you know, when a name is carried over from creatures, from men, let's say, to God, you often drop the what genus and keep the what difference, huh? So you know, if man has, as Aristotle says, demonstration as a syllogism, making us know the cause and that which is the cause, and it cannot be otherwise.

[2:53] Is that what science means when you apply the word carried over to God? Significant? I have a syllogism up there, where you syllogize, You know, the cause and that which is the cause. No. But does God know the cause and that which it is the cause, and it cannot be otherwise? Yes. So he has the difference, right? But not the what genus, right? If you say the virtue of what, of justice or the virtue of some other virtue of man is in God, right?

[3:21] God is just. Well, justice is a Aristotle takes it up as a habit, right? And the habit of each to his due and so on. Well, is it a habit in God? No. You drop the genus, huh? And you keep the what difference, huh? So this is a common thing, huh? As Aristotle points out, and Thomas follows it, and Porphyry points out, genus is taken from what is more material thing, difference from what is more formal, right?

[3:51] So since God is pure act, the reason to reject the the genus, huh? But keep the difference, huh? Okay. So the name is carried over, both the new meaning, but connotes the first meaning, right? And therefore it's equivocal, not by chance, but by by reason. What Thomas explains is what Augustine is doing when he says, "There's the order of what this from that. " He's keeping the difference.

[4:17] And dropping the what Genus, right? He said, ah, I've never seen my students in saying that all order is what generically speaking a before and after, right? Okay. So Augustine can say that there's no order in God in the generic sense, right? But because he keeps the difference, this from that, right? So what is the genus of order? What's the difference? It's it's a before and after.

[4:43] Before and after? Yeah. What's the genus of order, The difference is from that. And the difference is, with Aristotle, distinguishes before and after, right? He distinguishes the first sense here in the categories for us is in time, right? Today is before tomorrow and after yesterday, let's say, huh? And then the second meaning of before is before in being, right? If this can be without that, but that can't be without this, then this is before that in being, right?

[5:11] And I take very simple examples. You know, the letter C and the letter A and the letter T can be without the word cat, name of my favorite animal. But the word cat cannot be without what C and A and T. So the letter C is before the word cat in being, the second sense of being. right? Okay. Now I say that bricks are before a brick wall.

[5:36] You can't have bricks without a brick wall? You can't have a brick wall without bricks. Okay. And that's before in being, right? Then the third sense of before is in the discourse of reason. The premises come before the conclusion, right? Genus comes before the difference, huh? And so on. And more known comes before the less known in general, right? Okay. And plane geometry comes before solid geometry, and so on and so on.

[6:08] But this is a what before and after knowledge. It's like the second sense, right? Because it's like this sort of ratio theorem, just as this can be without that, but not vice versa. So this theorem of Euclid can be known without that later theorem, but not vice versa, right? So this theorem comes before that theorem, right?

[6:31] I was talking to the students there about parallel lines, right? And Euclid has a theorem there, right? If a straight line falls upon two right lines and makes the internal angles. to Two right angles; those two lines are what parallel. Now, parallel lines are lines which extended forever, right, in the same plane. They never meet, right? But as everybody often say, you can't imagine infinite lines, right? So how do you know these lines will never meet?

[7:09] You see? Well, there's an earlier theorem in Euclid, right? That the interior angles of a triangle have what two right angles. So if these two lines, when extended, were to meet, you'd have a triangle with more than one side and three sides, and more than two right angles. Amazing, right? So the theorem that there are three angles in a what, I mean, angles equal two right angles in a triangle is before, right, in the third sense of before.

[7:40] This theorem that these lines will be in fact what equal, I mean, equal parallel. But isn't that parallel? Parallels, excuse me. Is this a posture? No, This is a theorem. This is

[7:54] demonstrating parallel lines and parallel, excuse me, parallel lines, right? Yeah. I mean, the order of theorems here in Euclid, right? The axioms and the postulates come before the other ones, right? Like, for example, a theorem like this:

[8:16] straight lines, intersect each other The opposite angles are what Equal. Now. How do you know that, right? Well, you know from earlier that these two angles are two right angles, and these two are two right angles. So these two equal to these two, which in fact equals, you know, these two, and results in other equal. The definition of a straight line. Yeah, yeah. So that's the now the fourth sense of before and after is

[8:48] what goodness, yeah. And so that's the sense of before and better, right? Aristotle comes before Descartes, right? I should know. He went back to thesis very good, right? Way before Descartes. Yeah, yeah. And so

[9:11] you know Thomas will show that God is better than anything else, right, and so on. But if you look at the arguments for the when Aristotle gets through those four senses, it's like he forgot one, you know. He's kind of subtle. There seems to be a fifth sense, he says, right? And this is a sense in which a cause is before its what effect, right? And Aristotle shows that this is not really the same sense as before and being, because before and being, something can be without something else, but not what.

[9:48] They say reverse, right? But to have a cause and effect, to have a cause, you got to really have an effect, okay? So we could say that you know bricks, right, can be without a brick wall, but can a cause really be without an effect? Can't be a cause without having some effect,

[10:12] okay? So that's I think myself not fifth in order, but it's attached, a certain similarity to the second sense, but it's different from second sense, right? Okay. Now. Oh, closed windows. Yeah. These are fine. These are okay. Okay, okay. So in

[10:54] the great Shakespeare, right, defines reason, huh, as the ability for large discourse, right, looking before and after. Discourse, of course, is the Latin word for running, right? That refers to reason running from the known to the unknown, right?

[11:16] When he says large discourse, what does that mean? Well, reason to make a discourse about large two senses. One is large in the sense that covers a large area, can make a discourse about the universal, right, and not just about that fellow in community.

[11:35] I feel a rain coming. This long list. Okay. Yeah, so I put the fifth sense that Aristotle seems to have forgotten when he brings in, and he compares it to the second sense, right, distinguishing them. So I kind of put it alongside that sense, right, rather than put it fifth in order, right? Okay. Now, if you go say to the, going back to definition of reason there by Shakespeare, he says, reason is the ability for large discourse, discourse about the universal or discourse about great things, large as opposed to smalls and small talk, right?

[12:24] Talk about unimportant things. And then he adds as a culmination definition, looking before and after, right? Now the first thing you have to do in theology, as Thomas says, after talking about nature theology, maybe, is to show that God exists, right? And in order to prove that God exists, you have to look before and after in at least what? Two senses, right? So the first proof for existence of God in both summas of Thomas is the argument from what motion to the unmoved mover, right?

[13:00] And what two before and afters are there? Well, there's the before and after of cause and effect, right? Because the unmoved mover is the cause of the moved movers, right? And they're the cause of motion. motion. But there's also another order, which is from the third sense in our knowledge, right? So motion comes before the unmoved mover in our knowledge, right? But as cause and effect, the unmoved mover comes before motion, right?

[13:34] So you got to bear in mind that there's two. You're looking before and after in two senses, right? Okay. The same thing could be said about the second argument say in the Summa Theologiae let's, say, which is the argument from what to the first maker, right? God is the first maker, as opposed to the first mover, right? But they're very similar, right? And maker and mover are both causes in the sense of the third kind of cause.

[14:04] You put them together, right? The mover and the maker, are the third kind of cause. Ah, well then what? What comes next? Well, there are things that can be and not be, right? Could they be without something that must be?

[14:23] So before things can be and not be, there's something that must be. But something that must be, so sometimes has a cause. And therefore, there must be something that is necessary to be to itself. That's God. So he reasons from what is more known to us that we and things like us can be and not be, right? All the way to what the first being. I was kind of struck by that because I was noticing Thomas later on when he's reasoning, right?

[14:54] He says now as we have shown, sometimes God is the first cause, but at times he'll say, and now as we have shown that God is the first being. Are those synonyms? Hmm? Does being and cause mean the same thing? No. And does first mean the same thing instead of first cause? Well, first is defined by before and after. And the sense there is the sense which the cause is before the effect.

[15:18] He says the first being that's the second sense of before and after, right? Okay. So realize how important Aristotle's text is on before and after, right? Okay. And later on, Thomas goes on to say, you know, some things are better than other things, right? That says they're putting something that is best, right? So hey, he's using the fourth sense of before and after, right? You know. So after straightening out Augustine or misunderstanding, I shouldn't have Augustine or my hesitation.

[15:43] You know what? You know, because I have greatly respected Augustine, right? What does he mean by saying that there's another? order, right, huh? He's using the word "order there equivocally, right? Keeping the difference, dropping the genus of before and after, right? There is no before and after in God,

[16:03] although God is before us, right? In being and cause, goodness, who knows what else? Okay, so that's kind of a marvelous thing to see, right? I was reading Thomas there about the, our souls after death and so on, and some of the thinkers thought that we'd form the tenth order, right? Because there is nine orders of angels, right? Three hierarchies and three orders in each hierarchy, so we'd form the tenth order, right?

[16:45] Of course, Thomas is through talking about the three hierarchies and how they mi mimic. The what, the Trinity, and each within each order within each inner, hierarchy, I should say, there's a there's what, Three orders, right, which again imitates the Trinity, right, and in each order there's a beginning, middle, and end, which again imitates the Trinity, right, and he says just to fit us in he makes ten instead of nine, which over and over again reflects the Trinity, no number, so we're going to be assumed to the places of the fallen angels, right, huh, that's how

[17:24] it is, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you should never, you know, should never, notice how three shows up here. Some people say it shows up all the time, right, now the two great thinkers there, Plato and Aristotle, Plato in the dialogues has Socrates sometimes investigates something by dividing and so on, and Socrates is always dividing into two, okay, and that makes a lot of sense because opposites are what, two, always opposites, always two, and you have to divide by opposites, right, you can't divide human beings into those who are men and those who are white or something, right, because they're not opposites, right, you can divide them into male and female, you can divide them into good and bad, right, You can't divide

[18:10] them by things that are not opposed, and opposites are two, so Aristotle, you know, was a very devoted student of Plato, right, and he's a type of a more of Plato, now, but he left the academy when Plato died, right, he talks about Plato in old age, right, how he's still following Heraclitus and so on, but Aristotle doesn't give a reason for saying maybe we shouldn't just always divide by two, he gives a sign, right, he says three is the first number about which we say all, as if that's a very common saying, right, so if you and I are going to the movies, we say we're both going, right, but if all three of us are going, we say what, we're all going, yeah,

[19:08] so, okay, so Aristotle's pointing out that it seems very often that you have to go to three, and the two is not enough, right, that you can stop with what, three, yeah? Aristotle, I think says that he was talking about the animals, talking about the difference between the land animals and the water things, the fish and the birds that fly, right, one is tied up with the earth and one with water and one with air, right, and seems naturally divided into those three, right, okay, now you go around, huh.

[19:47] And look at the things, and you'll find how often three dominates things, right? I always take a very humble example, and I say, how many meals do you need in a day?

[20:06] Yeah, yeah, three seems to be enough, right? Okay, two doesn't seem to be quite enough, right? Okay, but three is enough, right? Now let's say student in Quebec, huh? Go to restaurant, and sometimes you see on the menu, you know, talking about something, repas complet, huh? Complete meal. What does that mean? It meant there's some kind of an appetizer, a main course, and some kind of dessert.

[20:30] That's a repas complet. Doesn't have all three, it's not what, complete, complete huh? Okay. So, how many straight lines to enclose a area? Minimal, straight. Yeah, yeah. Two is not enough. You can have an angle two, but you can't enclose. So the triangle is the first rectilinear plane figure, yeah. Okay. Now you go on, and you go to Christianity. We're just talking about the three. Some say it goes back to Trinity, right?

[21:03] You know, decided three is all is enough, right? But there are three what theological virtues, huh? Faith, hope, and charity, huh? Okay. Now, I maintain

[21:24] that our reason can understand a distinction of two and a distinction of three, but a distinction of more than three, our reason cannot understand by itself. You have to understand a distinction of more than two or three by a distinction or distinctions of two or three or both. Now that's kind of a strong claim to Mr Berquist huh Okay?

[21:59] Aristotle in the beginning of the categories, he distinguishes between universal substance and individual accident, and then between universal accident and singular substance. What's a distinction of four? How can you make sense out of that? You know, but you see, it's based upon two opposites, huh? Either set of another, or not said of another. Either exists in another as in a subject, or does not exist in another in a subject.

[22:33] You crisscross those two, and what do you get? Four, yeah. It's like if I divide human beings into good men, bad men, good women, bad women, right? Can you understand the distinction of four?

[22:48] No, I'm crisscrossing the distinction of good and bad with male and female, and that's how I get my four. Now Thomas Aquinas, in the fourth book of the commentary on the Physics of Aristotle, and in the commentary on the fifth book of Metaphysics, and Aristotle talks about the ten categories. Right? There are ten highest genera things that can be said of you and me. Did you know that?

[23:16] Now, how the hell can you understand the distinction of ten? No way you can do that. This cannot do that. Now, when Thomas explains it, what does he do?

[23:29] Well, he goes to the basis of distinction of the ten, and starts to distinguish by three or by two. And the way the ten highest genera are distinguished is by the way something can be said of individual substances like you and me. So Thomas divides them into three. Something can be said of you or me by the reason of what we are. You are a man. More generally speaking, you're an animal.

[23:57] More generally speaking, you're a living body. More generally speaking, yet you're a body, and most generally speaking, you're a substance. The angel's a substance too. Okay, that's the first genus, right? But something can be said of you not by reason of what you are, but of something in addition to what you are, but which nevertheless exists in you, like you are white, huh? Okay, and you are wise.

[24:23] Okay, maybe. Okay, you are just, huh? Okay. You are healthy, maybe, huh? I can't say so much for myself right now. Okay. And some things can be said of you by reason of what something outside you. And notice that you're all clothed. I'm clothed, right? But that's something said of you by reason of something outside of you. It's not what you are to be clothed. It's not something in you.

[24:57] In addition to what you are, but it's in you. It's something what outside of you, right? Okay. Or you are in this room. Something outside you, right? Huh?

[25:10] You are here at three twenty-five. Okay. Sun's gone around so many times, or gone so many. Okay. So he divides them into three, right? Then the first substance he just leaves, right? Doesn't divide into any general. The second group, things that are in you, he says, are either in you absolutely, like your knowledge or your virtue, which is your quality, right? Or your size, right? Your quantity.

[25:45] Or it's said of you not absolutely, but towards something else. Like you are a what father or a son or a brother or you know a student or a teacher or something right okay and so he's dividing one of the three into three so he's still dividing by two or three right he does that for the last six I won't go into all the details of that right but you often divide the one category that is man's category habitus to be clothed right to be armored right to be shod with shoes and so on right and Charles De Koninck used to give a whole lecture on this right public lecture so man is the only animal that dresses up right the other animals have dressing

[26:34] only if they come in our service and put a little thing or a girl puts a little thing on her pet cat or dog or something you know or something or we put the thing on the horse you know for the parade or something huh but naturally only we do it right then you don't wear the same thing to the beach and to the You know, to mass and and to your wedding and so on, right?

[26:55] I didn't want my wife to take off her wedding dress. That was such a nice notion. I was supposed to change into something else. You know, after a while during the day, you know. So,

[27:07] so you divide by what? Two or three, right? Now the sometimes it's hard hard to do that, right? But our mind really can't grasp a distinction of more than three. Got to use a distinction of two or three, right? Aristotle or Thomas, whether it's distinguishing the ten that Aristotle gives there, always dividing by two or three, right? Let's take a theological example, right? If you're trying to understand the Our Father, right?

[27:49] What's the first distinction you would make of the Our Father? It would be two or three. Two, yeah. You distinguish the one to whom you're praying, Our Father, who art in heaven, from the seven things you're asking for, right? Okay. So you can understand distinction of two there, right? No, you understand distinction of seven. No, no. But like when you say the Our Father, we tend to put the first three by the speaker, right?

[28:24] And people are responding, right? Huh? The last four. Why do we do that? We're dividing it into two, right? Well, the first three kind of refer to God, right? Huh? Hallowed be Thy name, right? Huh? Thy kingdom come, right? Thy will be done, right? A distinction of three, right? Okay. And you divide that against the last four. We're asking for us numbskulls, right? But even that's a distinction of four, so you have to divide, right?

[28:51] Well, there's one for the good and three for the bad. Give us give us this day our daily bread, right? And then what? Forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but to deliver us from evil. Why do you have three for the bad and one for good? Well, the bad happens in many ways, right?

[29:17] And the good in the good in the past has been kind of lost to you, but the bad you did in the past is going to stick with you, and you don't get, you know, forgiven. So and Gertrude's always praying for her faults, and and she's a little that's she's more faultless than I am. That's for damn sure. I was telling somebody before class there, you know, that one time our Lord said, you know, it's of course we look for you, you know, just in the heart of Gertrude.

[29:44] That's where you look, you know. It's quite a compliment to her, right? Okay. So. And Aristotle distinguishes the four kinds of causes, right? Can anybody understand the distinction of four kinds of causes? No. But we distinguish usually into two, right? The intrinsic causes of things, right? So the causes of this chair is the wood, let's say, and that's the matter, cause in the sense of matter, and then the what shape, right, and form, and then the what extrinsic causes, right, are what a carpenter, which is the mover or maker, and then the end or purpose of the chair, which led him to do this, right?

[30:36] So he has something to sit on, right? You appreciate that, don't you, sitting? Okay. So that's the way you have to understand the distinction of more than what. Yeah. Yeah. I was re-reading the the world history as far as I do it, right? And you know, when I was a little boy, of course, he always gave world history as ancient, medieval, modern, right? Well, that's really a division of world history, right?

[31:03] Okay. I was looking at the at McNeil's book, which is a guide that's the greatest division of world history we have, and of course it's in thirteen chapters, right? Now, who could possibly understand the distinction of world history into thirteen chapters? Oh my goodness. But what does McNeil do? He divides it into three There are five chapters in the first, five chapters in the second, and three chapters in the third, right?

[31:35] What's the basis of the world distinction, right? Well, in the first period of world history, right, civilization really began in Mesopotamia, right, and then it spread out from there, right. So it kind of dominated it, right. It's about to be indigenous to Egypt and so on, right. And so this is the the spread of what civilization from to the rest of the world, kind of, you know, right.

[32:02] Okay. And then finally, at the end of the first period, you have civilizations really getting to be somewhat independent in China, in India, in what Europe, and in the old Middle East. Yeah, four separate things, and then you get the middle period world history, The Erasian cultural balance as he calls it, right. And then starting around 1500, you start the yeah the rise of the West, right.

[32:29] That's he does that is title the book, right? The Rise of the West. Okay. I guess McNeil did his doctoral thesis on on the parts of the influence of the of the potato upon Irish history. Potato. Yeah, yeah. I saw it once at a conference. I was, you know, he was speaking, and I had a good hearing speaking, you know. And he's talking about the importance of the potato in history, right?

[32:56] I guess you know during the Thirty Years' War, people were coming through all the time and stealing the food, right? But the potatoes were under the ground, so people could dig them up afterwards and eat them, right? And this helped to build, bring up the what the German army, right? Essentially, right? So he's talking about this, right? I didn't know he'd written anything about this. He's writing about this, and I saw a footnote in history, you know, the world, right?

[33:21] But so he dates fifteen into what three, right? Thirteen, thirteen, excuse me, chapters into three, right? And as you go on to more details, I could break those five up, you know, to understand them, right? But it's kind of marvelous, right, to see even something is, you know, what does the word history mean? History is named by antonomasia Story. What? Story. Between the story. No. It becomes the Greek Greek word for investigation, right?

[33:52] See, now the way I got the hint for this by antonomasia is that Aristotle says that his his his work on the three books of soul, right, he calls it an investigation, right? And Thomas says, you know, why he calls it an investigation? Because it doesn't take up everything that can be considered about the soul, right? It's the nature, excuse me, of a investigation to be incomplete.

[34:22] Now, if anything is incomplete, it's what history, right? Huh? You know, one detail after another, right? Huh? You know, and even you know historical events and people, you know, have been, you know, part of, you know, they have to what narrate it to us, and maybe they don't always give the same narration, right? Huh? You know, we can't even see a you know a police know I guess that if you don't get the people what happened in the accident, right?

[34:45] Right away, they're going to disagree more and more as time goes on, right? Huh? So it's very hard to investigate, you know. It's always incomplete, huh? History's investigation, huh? And they're trying to, you know, say when does that happen, and so and so. History is.

[35:03] Aristotle says in the book on this on the, on the Poetics here that the, fiction is more or tragedy is more philosophic than what history, because history is about the singular, right? While fiction is more about the universal, right? So Paul the sixth called himself a hamlet, right? Huh? Because it's something universal, hamlet, right? And and then we speak of Romeo, you know, is it Romeo, right?

[35:32] Because there's something universal about Romeo, right? Huh? The young lover there, and so as Shakespeare says, reason is ability for large discourse and a discourse about the universal. That's what characterizes it. As Boethius says, this thing is singular and sensed, but universal and understood, huh?

[35:55] So with Thomas's explanation of Augustine's words about before and after, right, I still hold on to that, right? But I'm also holding on to the idea that the mind can't really grasp the distinction of more than what, Three, right?

[36:14] it goes beyond that. It's got to be divided either by two or by three, right? Until it gets down to last morsel. Think that's so or not?

[36:27] Let's go down to these two great works of theology of Thomas, the two Summas, right? I always say my favorite book of Thomas is the Summa contra Gentiles. The Summa contra Gentiles has four books. Oh my goodness! How could you possibly understand the distinction of theology into four books into 4 It's? You couldn't understand it by itself. And the Summa Theologiae has got three parts, right? Prima pars, secunda pars, and the tertia pars, right?

[37:02] The second part is divided into prima secunda and secunda secunda. I mean, it's originally three. no? You say, well, gee, you've got a division to three here, and then in the Summa Contra Gentiles he's got a division to four, right? You might say, "Well, isn't it better to have three than four? " But how do you distinguish the four books of the Summa Contra Gentiles? Well, Thomas divides the first three books against the what?

[37:28] Fourth book. And what's at that distinction? Well, he says in the first three books he's going to talk about those things that pertain to God that can be known by natural reason as well as by faith, right? In the fourth book, he's going to talk about those things that can be known about God only by faith, right? That makes sense, doesn't it? Okay. Now, how are those first three books distinguished?

[37:53] See, we're going to consider God in Himself, Thomas says. Then God is the beginning of things, and God as the what? End of things, right? So in the first book, he talks about God and his simplicity and his perfection and so on, his virtues and so on. Second book, he talks about God as the beginning of things. He talks about creation there, right? Only God can create, and he talks about what things He's created and so on.

[38:21] And then in the third book, he talks about God as the end of things, and therefore about His providence, moving all things to the end, right? That's very clear, right? And in the fourth book, right, he divides also it into three parts. It's one book, but he talks about them in exactly the same order. About the Trinity, which is about God in Himself, right? And then the greatest thing He's made, which is the word being made flesh.

[38:45] The word was made flesh, and then about the things about our last end, like the resurrection of our body and seeing God as He is face to face through God, whereby we understand God, and so on. And you say, "Okay, that really makes sense, right? " But he divides four into two, right? And then one of those into three, and and the other one away into three.

[39:07] Not three books, but. I say, "What? " You can't understand. And I come to Summa Contra Gentiles and say, "What the heck is Thomas doing here? This is a later work, right? " You say, "Well, it's not divided into God in Himself and God as the beginning and God as the end, is it? " Because in the prima pars he talks about what.

[39:34] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't make any sense. What the heck is he doing? You know. And then also in the first prima pars he talks only about the things that can be known by the philosopher about God and Aristotle about God, but also about the Trinity and so on. What the heck is he doing? I mean, this this is all. This is all. This is this is all thing, you know.

[39:57] So even though this, but it's a division into three, you know. What is going on here? You know. I say, oh my gosh. I said, well, I was thinking about this, and as I was reading through the first book and sentences there, and Thomas is talking a lot about theology and so on, and he has the article that he has in the beginning question to summa. Is theology like looking philosophy or like practical philosophy, right?

[40:26] Is it looking science or practical science? Now we divide philosophy, of course, is divided into what three. The two main kinds of philosophy are looking philosophy, and practical philosophy, and then you bring in the third part, which is logic, right? The tool philosophy, right? And then you divide looking philosophy into mathematical philosophy, natural philosophy, and first philosophy, which or wisdom, right? And you divide practical philosophy into ethics, domestics, and political philosophy, right?

[41:01] Logic, of course, is one kind philosophy, but it's divided into three acts of reason: understanding what something is, understanding the truth and the false, reasoning, right? It's all three, right? Okay. Now, but Thomas says you can't put theology under one or the other, right? You know, because it's both, right? Because it's the knowledge of God, right? And he doesn't have this the divisions that the philosopher has, right?

[41:29] Okay. So there is something like looking philosophy, right, in theology. There is something like practical philosophy. So I was thinking about this, you know. Now saying, well, doesn't the first part of Summa, isn't looking philosophy more like that than practical philosophy? And in fact, the students come to my house, and now it's Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday night. Yeah, yeah. Was Wednesday. Now it's Tuesday. Um. Joshua got back from Europe and just wanted to go back to Wednesday, you know, but I'm moving into the hospital, so yeah.

[42:13] So we came out there, but anyway, he showed me his name in the German newspaper and so we took his last names there, German language. So in some ways, the prima pars, looking philosophy, more like that, right? And we've gone on to read the treatise on. We read the treatise now on soul there. We've done the De Anima of Aristotle first. Now we're doing the treatise on the soul there.

[42:38] right? Which, is then just divided into three, right? According to Dionysius, he had, the essence and the powers and the act divided into three. Okay. Um. And you talk about things about God, which Aristotle talks about in first philosophy, right, and so on. You talk about motion, right, and how time differs from motion. That's in natural philosophy. So, in some sense, looking philosophy corresponds to what's talked about in the first part, right?

[43:06] Okay. Now, the second part of Summa, yeah, seems to be practical, right? Now, my great teacher there, Father Boulay, there, you know, he said, "I've got to be very careful about this. You don't want to say that, you know, that dogmatic philosophy and

[43:24] moral philosophy, and make it just like philosophy, right? It's one science, right? Don't don't get in that kind of mistakes, right? And so, there's a certain likeness between those two, right? Okay. Now, what about the third part, right? The third part starts off with the incarnation, right, and then the things that follow upon that, like the sacraments and our final stage, right. So I say, what is this three?

[43:54] It's really hard to understand this three. And I can see how Thomas has that three in the Summa Contra Gentiles: God in Himself, and then as he says in the Apocalypse, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, right? God is the beginning, of us and I can't understand it very much. You know, what is this three that that you have here, right?

[44:15] Well, then I got thinking of the words of our Lord, right? I am the what? the way. Yeah, I am the road, he says,

[44:29] and the truth and the life? The truth and the life, right? I'm saying, well, isn't Aristotle says very explicitly, right? the wisdom is the knowledge, of, the truth, right? Most of all, right? But looking philosophy is seeking the truth; it's not seeking action, right? So, truth in some way corresponds to what you have in the prima pars, right? In correspondence, in some way, to looking philosophy, right?

[44:51] Where the end or goal is simply to know the truth, to know those theoretical theorems. It's true about them, right? The triangle has interior angles of three angles. That's true. And so you go. Then life is what, in some ways, corresponds the second part, right? Because you're learning how to live in ethics, domestics, and politics as a man or as a citizen or a father or something, right?

[45:16] And here you're learning how to live. Get to heaven, right? And then the third volume, right? The third part of Summa. Well, Thomas himself quotes that word of Saint Thomas, right? I mean, of our Lord. He says De Christo, secundum quod homo est via to the Indian God, right? He's the road to God. So I said, well, geez, that's pretty good text, then. Now, it shows you how different is the the three that teach you the what?

[45:45] Summa Theologiae, which I go to the text in Scripture, you know, and the way, the truth, and the life, right. It corresponds in a certain way to those three parts, and then the Summa Contra Gentiles, I go more to apocalypse, where Thomas does. You know, he says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, right now. " So God Himself, God is the Alpha, God is the Omega, right?

[46:07] God is not the beginning of Himself. He's not the end of Himself, right? He's the end of everything else. but he's not the end of himself. and so you know, interesting to see that, right?

[46:23] Of course, the consideration of what you might call moral theology, right? If I want to do that, I have to be careful. If you make that separate, right? It's much more extensive in the Summa Theologiae, right? Of course, it's the thickest part. if you look at the volumes there, you know, it's the thickest part, the secundus, secundus especially, and then the third part is much more developed about Christ, right, and so on.

[46:43] So it's kind of a Christian theology, right? And it doesn't have the distinction that you have between. the Things that can be known, right? By natural. I mean, Thomas will touch upon that distinction too, but he doesn't divide it that way, right? The way Thomas divides the first three books distinctly, against the fourth book, right? The first three books about those things can be known by natural reason, as well as by faith.

[47:06] The fourth book only by faith, right? So there's something to be learned. there You say Thomas is leading you from the more known to the less known, right? He's not following it quite the same way there in the Summa, you know. He takes up the Trinity, you know, right in the prima pars right after. But when he's giving his division of the Summa, doesn't he talk about?

[47:23] I'm going to talk about. Which Summa? Summa Theologia. Yeah. Doesn't he begin by saying I'm going to talk about God and the things that come forth from God, and then how? Yeah, he'll he'll make reference to that. as if that's basic for understanding, yeah. How we return. to God right. So it's this kind of coming from God coming forth from God returning to God Yeah. yeah. yeah.

[47:42] But it's not the division altogether, right? You know, Because in a way it is that the second part is a kind of extension of that, right? Because he's talking about what the end is there and the second part and the virtues you need to have to get there. Isn't that part of the way we return to God? yeah, yeah. And then the tertia pars with Christ becoming man, right?

[48:00] And the sacraments and so on, right? Yeah, yeah. So in that sense, there is kind of something like that, right? But it's not as as easily divided as in Thomas, there, you know. Because he talks even the prima pars there about God being, you know, creator of things and so on. The prima pars, right? You know, so it's not you know restricted to the second book like Thomas in the talk about creation in the second book, right?

[48:24] God is the beginning of things, the source of things, the creator of things. Okay. So it casts some light, huh? So as you read these things, you know, your mind stops and thinks about it again. I thought about it many times when Thomas was saying this, you know. but I say, yeah, it's kind of a connection between the first part, prima pars, a resemblance of looking philosophy to that, right?

[48:44] what you treat there, and what you learn, you know. He's quoting Nicomachean Ethics in the second part, right? First part, he's quoting, you know, Aristotle, right? He talks about God and so on, right?

[48:57] Good. Good. So we're all committed to two and three, huh? I give this the rule of two or three. So we will we'll make vows now to live according to the Typikon and the rule of two or three. Well, you know, when I was thinking about this rule. The thing that to me seemed to be kind of the exception to it, or the one that's hardest to divide into two or three, right, would be the distinction of the senses of a word, right?

[49:33] You know, it's kind of hard to do that, right? Especially when you get it, you know, senses of the word to be in, right? Where you have eight different senses, right? But in the categories, you have ten senses of what? It's a division of the senses of a being, right? Of the general being, right? The ten highest general being. But Thomas, when he does that. In those both places where he does it, he divides it into three first, and then he subdivides it into either two or three until he finally explains why you have ten right.

[50:04] Aristotle in the in the categories, just gives you the ten, exemplifies them right, and he goes into them. So, when you're distinguishing the five senses of before and after, you can't divide into two? Well, it's hard to do so. I'm not saying you can't do it right now, but I know it's like between the second and the third sense, right? Then you have the fifth sense from one.

[50:28] Second to third senses are what proportional, right? Just as something can be without something, but not vice versa. Bricks can be without a brick wall, but not vice versa. So you can know one theorem, you know, you could write without knowing the later theorem, right? But you can't know the later without knowing the earlier one? right? So it's, there's a real likeness there between, You can see where they kind of go together, right?

[50:54] Now the first sense and the second sense are somewhat related too, but there's a difference between being before in what being and in time, right? So anybody here, eighty-two?

[51:12] I'm eighty-two, huh? Eighty-three in January, if I make it. But I'm before all you guys in time. Am I before you guys in being?

[51:28] No. I had being before you guys had being, right? But yeah, yeah, yeah. But could you guys be without me? I hope so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not before you in being the second sense, am I? Right. No, no. But there's a kind of what likeness, right, between those first two senses, aren't there? Before in time, and before in being, right? And what is before in being usually, if not always, comes before in time, right?

[52:08] So bricks come before a brick wall, not only in what being, right? But also in time, right? See, now not everything that comes before in time, like me, you know, is before you guys in being, right? You see, but everything that's before in being tends to be, at least in our experience, before in time, right? So it's not too big a a thing you see, connection in this, right?

[52:34] And then between the the second and the third, the likeness of ratios, proportional, right? Okay. Well, the fourth sense is, of course, more removed, right? Huh? Because that's before in what goodness, right? Huh? Okay, so he puts that that looks a little different, right? Huh? Because the good comes in the end comes sometimes after in time, right? Huh? Okay. So a philosopher is named as a lover of wisdom, but it's kind of cute the name, says don't call me wise, right?

[53:06] They called Pythagoras wise. Don't call me wise. God alone is wise, right? One which we call you. I'll call you a lover of wisdom, right? Huh? See, but the wisdom is the end that he's striving for, right? And Thomas says hardly you know at the end of his life does a man get to the wisdom that natural reason can get to, right? Huh? See, so you got to build his soul up, right?

[53:28] People don't understand the word metaphysics, right? It means meta after ta the physica the books of natural philosophy, right? I used to interview people as chairman, you know, for a position. I say talk to them about natural philosophy, they don't even know what it is. But they toss around the word metaphysics, you know, and everybody tosses it around, you know, you know, and the historian tosses around the word metaphysics, you know, and

[53:56] so. But but the fifth sense in some ways is like the second sense, right? Because what is after in being, right, depends upon what is before in being, right? So the brick wall depends upon the bricks, right? Huh? Okay. And of course, an effect depends upon a cause. It's a real likeness between them, right? Huh? And that's why I say that fifth sense is not fifth in order.

[54:25] I don't think, right? But I think it's pretty, you know, kind of alongside the second sense, right? That's why Thomas, you know, when he's arguing the existence of God, right, he argues first from effect to cause, right, and then he argues in terms of being, right? Huh? I've kind of struck that because in later things he says, well, we showed, you know, already that God is the first being, you know, because usually we talk about being first cause, normally, you know, we kind of think of the first causes because the first arguments are from motion to the unmoved mover to the first maker, right?

[54:57] And we don't think, but then there's something about being, you know, and how contingent being depends upon a necessary being, and a being that is necessary through another depends upon a being that is necessary through itself. That's when we said I am who am, right? So he's he's using, you know, he's looking before and after in the sense of being, right? Then in line talks about how some things are better than other things, right?

[55:25] As he approaches something that's best, right, you know, it's a little hard to follow the argument, right, to see the strength of it, you know, but eventually it leads you to what God, right? I am who am, right? He's best. He kind of followed along the orders there, right? I'm struck,

[55:46] you know, by Aristotle, you know, in the categories, he takes up the senses of what. Of opposite before the senses of before, right? And why is that? I often say, you know, what comes before seeing before and after, seeing some distinction, right? Because nothing, and there's a corollary. I mean, I mean, a axiom, right? I call it the axiom of before and after, Axiom order. Nothing is before or after itself.

[56:19] Can I be before myself in time? No. I kept asking, you know, in the hospital, every time you go in, they put a, well, they call it a bracelet, you know. So I made a joke. I said I'm so excited, to get my bracelet First thing, I'll do when I get out, is cut it off, you know, And

[56:40] they always ask me, you know, they're always checking, you know. What's your name? When your birthday, you know. I said January eighteen nineteen thirty six, you know, huh? But but actually, I was I was in in existence, you know, in 1955. in my mother's womb, you know. But can I be before myself in time? I can be before I was born, in the womb of my mother, but you know.

[57:05] But I can't be before myself in time, can I? Can I be? Can something be before itself in being? And can the more known be more known than itself?

[57:22] Can you be better? Can something be better than it is? I can go on life, and maybe become better, but but then it's not the same thing I'm talking about, right? I'm

[57:38] going from natural philosophy to wisdom, you know. It's kind of like it's like being and not being at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Aristotle takes up what opposites before, because opposites is the basis of what. Yeah, yeah. You know, you know how I like to run from what Shakespeare says and what the the seven wise men in Greece said, right? Know thyself, right? Now that's just two words, right?

[58:08] Brevity is the soul of wit, as Aristotle, as Thomas says, Shakespeare Shakespeare said, yeah, Yeah, yeah, Yeah Brevity is the soul of wit. So I always begin by saying, to whom is that addressed? Right? It's an exhortation. It's not a command. It's an exhortation. Who are they exhorting? To whom? See, well, it's too high for the even for the animals, right? Because they can't know themselves, and it's too low for the angels and God because they perfectly know themselves.

[58:35] So it's addressed to man, right? Who can know himself, but doesn't know himself. And then I say, but is it addressed more to the soul or the body? Soul, because the body doesn't know what the body is, right? But the soul can know what the soul is, and we're studying the three books on the soul. The soul is known what a soul is, right? But it's especially directed to what ability of the soul.

[58:58] Yeah, because reason is, it's especially just reason it can know itself, right? But then, when you get into the science of reason, then you find something like knowing yourself, right? Because the first things we study in logic are distinction, division, and definition. But there's a definition of definition. A little bit like reason knowing what reason is, right? And there is a division of division, right? Division is the distinction of the parts of some whole, right?

[59:27] And so they just provide division into division of the universal whole and the and the composed whole, the integral whole. And then I say, was there a distinction of distinction, right?

[59:41] Well, Thomas says, what there is a distinction, we call formal distinction, which is by opposites, and then material distinction, which is by the division of continuance. When the categories Aristotle takes up what the continuous is, right, in the category of quantity, right. But in the post predicaments, I don't think they call them after the categories, he takes up what senses of opposites, right, formal distinction, right. I'm amazed Aristotle because three of the opposites are very close, contradiction, lacking, and contraries, right.

[1:00:18] And because in having and lacking is a kind of being and unbeing too, but there's an underlying subject. And in virtue and vice, there's you know two species of the same genus, but one is lacking something, right. But but then he adds relatives, right. So my God, he saw that as another kind of what opposites, right. And so when I'm saying you know Thomas is approaching the Trinity, right, or any of the guys approaching the Trinity, and they say, well, we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are really distinct.

[1:00:54] We're not the heretics and saying that the same guy is the Father and the Son because he creates and because he became man or something, you know, like some heretic said. What kind of distinction is it, material formal? Well, it can't be material because that's based on the continuous, and God is not a body; it's not continuous. Well, what kind of formal distinction can it be? Well, it's by opposites.

[1:01:18] It can't be by contradiction, or by lacking and having, or even by contraries, because there's always even in contraries a kind of non-being, right. And how can I and who am have anything? So it's got to be by relatives. And therefore, what the Father and the Son must differ by relations, right. And of course, Father and Son kind of suggests there might be some truth to that, right.

[1:01:43] You know, but I think it's kind of amazing that the Aristotle is called the father of logic, and the first book he wrote, and logic has come down to us the categories, and here you have the basis of formal material distinction, right. And now at the end of all of our studies, we're studying God and the Trinity, you know, which is kind of the greatest mystery of the faith, right.

[1:02:02] You go back to the categories, yeah. Book, you know, and the kinds of opposites that there are, kind of an amazing, amazing thing, right.

[1:02:17] I'm amazed by it. It's amazing Aristotle could see that, right. As something small in size. Yeah, yeah. And this is one thing that Aristotle, you know, more than anybody else, right. You know, he he he distinguished the four kinds of causes, right. He distinguished the the five senses, basic senses of before and after, right. He distinguished the senses of what the highest genus of being, you know.

[1:02:44] You see something? I was I was laying my bed or my chair, whichever it was, it was. I said, "Here we've been talking about the soul and the body, right, with my students." Is there a distinction between you have a soul, don't you, and you have a body too, right? And there's a distinction between your soul and body. Now I'm thinking, you know, what kind of distinction is that?

[1:03:11] It's not a material distinction, as if it's one big, you know, continuous thing, you know, and you cut out this part that's the body and this other part that makes the soul something continuous, right? So it's got to be by some opposite, right? But what opposite could it be, you know? Which is it?

[1:03:31] It's got to be relative. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If Aristotle had seen is the kind of opposites, we'd be unable to distinguish between the soul and the body, right? See, and this is why the soul and the body fit each other, right? Because opposites fit each other. Teacher fits what student. Father, you know, son, or he's a daughter too, but you know, and you know, if you're taller than me, I'm what?

[1:03:56] I'm shorter. You're older. Yeah, yeah. Thomas says you know that not only is is a mistake, you know, to think, you know, like some of the early Greeks there, you know, that the soul of a man can be the soul of a dog, right? So was it one of the early thinkers, you know, said, "stop being that dog, " you know, "I recognize the voice of my friend, " you know.

[1:04:18] And it's because the soul of a man would not fit the soul of the body of a dog. But when Thomas is talking about the difference between you and me, could my soul become the soul of your body? Say, because you got a human body and I got a human body, but Thomas says no. You know, God creates the immortal soul that you have to fit your body, right?

[1:04:42] I say, what a powerful thing that gives you for you, you know, for husband and wife, you know, that they begin the body, right? If they didn't begin that body, God would not have created this soul, right? If my mother and father had not begun my body, God would not have made a soul that fits my what? My body, right? And

[1:05:06] that's why even when the soul separates from the body, it can still be distinguished my soul from your soul, right? Because my soul still what? Fits one. Fits, yeah, yeah. I kind of get kind of my home examples. You know, you take a nut and bolt, right? And you know, one nut fits this bolt, right? And doesn't fit another one, right? But even if you unscrewed it, you know, and put this in and exists in separation, you could still well, no.