Logic (2016)
19. Real Relations and Relations of Reason: Knowledge, God's Unchanging Eternity, the Trinity, and Why God Allows Evil
Class of 2017-01-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/019-real-relations-and-relations-of-reason-knowledge-gods-unchanging/

[0:00] Now this distinction tells us nothing about whether the relations are real or of reason. Now this is another distinction that's made of relations, huh? This is going beyond the text now, huh? Because in the chapter on towards something, chapter on relation, Aristotle, it doesn't use these words, obviously, but he's distinguishing between relative secundum dici which is the Latin definition, and the relative secundum esse, which is the one that really puts things in that category, right?

[0:38] But there's another distinction between real relations and relations of what? Of reason, right? Now a fundamental text on the distinction between the relativa secundum dici and the relativa secundum esse is this text of Thomas, right? This is a very difficult thing now to understand this, right? And this is where Aristotle had to take up relation before what? Quality, because he had to distinguish between those two, right?

[1:11] Because only the relativea secundum esse are primarily and fundamentally and wholly in the category of towards something, and the relative secundum what? Dici, right? They can be fundamentally in some other category, right? Even in substance or more often in quality, huh?

[1:35] Notice what Thomas says here in this beautiful text, and guess where it's taken from? Yeah, the most powerful, huh? The Disputed Questions on Power, you know. Just that feels like the thing on my mind is being, you know, you know. Yeah, I'm just being pulverized by the by by the by this thing.

[2:00] Well, let's look at the English that I've translated here. Okay, who did that? I didn't get translated that. Okay, let's look at the Latin. I like that translation. I know we got that there. The distinction of relatives, right? Secundum esse and secundum dici nihil facit Thomas says, right? You heard the relation be what? Real, huh? For some relativa secundum esse are not real. Has right and left in the column, right?

[2:39] Okay. And some relative secundum dici. which nevertheless imply real relations, as is clear about what? Science and sense, right? The names are called relativa secundum esse when the names are placed upon things to signify what? The relations themselves, right?

[3:20] But relativia secunum dici, when the names are placed upon something to signify qualities or something else, chiefly or principally, right? To which nevertheless there follow certain what? Relations, right? Okay. Aristotle foresaw this, right? Huh?

[3:47] And as far as this is concerned, it makes no difference whether the relations are real or of reason only. That's a even more difficult distinction to to know, right? Huh? Okay.

[4:01] Famous example that you find in Aristotle that they take out from. Knowledge is really related to the thing known. But is the thing known really related to the knowledge?

[4:18] No. It's just that when we have one thing as being towards another, we tend to think of the other one as in a what? Reverse way, right? Towards the first thing, right? But

[4:41] why isn't the the relation of the known to the knower, right, or to the knowledge, not real, huh? Especially in material things, huh? Well, yeah, but I mean, but you know, it's a very subtle thing about what's the basis for knowing, right?

[5:19] Suppose I have a lump of clay, right? And it sits in the shape of a cube, to make it simpler. And I say, now, could you give that clay the shape of a sphere?

[5:36] What would happen to the cube shape that it had? What? It's gone Yeah, yeah. So. When matter receives a shape that it doesn't have, it loses the shape it does have, right?

[5:54] Now, what happens when the eye receives the shape of something? Sees, yeah, yeah. And is the shape of the chair over there when I receive that shape in my eye, right? Does my eye lose the shape that it had? No. So it's something very subtle, not knowing, right? You're receiving the shape of another, not as your own shape, but as the shape of another, right? But that reception is is in the eye, right?

[6:32] It's not out there in the wooden chair, is it? So the reality of knowing is based upon something that only the eye has, the ability to receive the shape of another without losing its own shape, right? And without what?

[6:56] And receiving the shape of another as that of another, right? So I'm knowing the shape of another, right? The eye doesn't really, I mean, the thing out there doesn't really have that kind of way of receiving, does it?

[7:16] So knowledge is really in the what knower, and the relation of the knower to the known is really in him, right? Is it really in the chair out there?

[7:34] If someone's up there, you know, there's been actors looking at you down there, you don't know he's doing it. You're being seen by him. Anything in you? No. But he's seeing you. Is it added to you, isn't it? Yeah. So Aristotle says the relation of the knower to the known is real, but of the known to the knower is not real, right? It's a very subtle thing, right?

[8:07] But now the more common thing is, you know, if you say, "Oh, let's say the they used to take example with pillar, right? The left and the right side of the pillar, right? So I'm standing for the pillar. The right side of the pillar, the left side of the pillar. Is that distinction between left and right in the pillar really in the pillar? No. But it needs a real distinction between left and right, because I'm right-handed, huh?

[8:40] Okay, somebody else. I don't know. Obama was lefty, I knew. I mean, they say it. You watch them say it, you know. And so there's real, there's real difference, you know, in the distinction between left and right, huh, in the in the body, right? But it's not really in the pillar, is it? See, we could talk about the left side and the right side of the pillar, right?

[9:02] Now it's got chipped here on the left side. Yeah, something must have hit it, you know. You know, we do, you know. Because that is there really a distinction the left and the right thing, you know? See, I call that a relation of reason, right? Not spoken of, but it's not really in reality, right? This is a different distinction between real relations and relations of reason, huh?

[9:28] Than the distinction between simply and what? And and relatives couldn't say it couldn't teach you, right? Huh? Because left and right, even said of the pillar, are what?

[9:46] Their whole nature is to be what? Relative, right? Huh? They're not something else, right? Primarily, huh? It's not real. I mean, it's really gets difficult to get into, you know, saying is the relation the creature to God real? Yeah. He really depends, right? On it, but is the is God really related to the creature? Yeah, that's very Yeah So see But yeah That's the one where where if you did, God would be changed.

[10:21] Yeah, yeah. There's no change in God, right? Huh? So, but when God knocks Peter, I mean Paul off the horse and so on, it will change going to take place in Paul, there, right? Huh? You know, but God never changes, right? God is unchanging. This is one of the five attributes of the substance of God, right? It's unchanging. So God never changes. There's no movement in God, huh?

[10:50] He's always the same. You know, sounds awfully dull. I want to know. You know, I'm always quoting this proverb I heard as a little boy. You know, variety is a spice of life, right? You know, what the same thing for dinner every night. You know, do the same thing every day, right? And so on. Two of my my grandchildren came out, you know, before the rest of them did, right?

[11:13] They flew out, right? So Rose and I were entertained them, you know, taking them here, taking them there, right? They do one thing one day, another day another thing, right? Variety is a spice of life, right? So that's that's something that I think people, you know, you probably heard that that proverb, haven't you? And otherwise your life is going to be kind of dull and boring, right?

[11:31] Huh? Well, if God never changes, right? Huh? There's no variety in God's life. Oh my God! What are we here for Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[11:45] You have a very hard time understanding that right now, you know, and because you know when Shakespeare or not, yeah, Aristotle rather, he makes the first sense of before and after his time right now, and time is the number of the before and after in motion right? So motion is what seems most real to us, right?

[12:16] Because our knowledge starts with our senses. And Shakespeare says, "Things in motion sooner catch the eye, than what not stirs." Right, and so you know, God never moves. You know, just doesn't seem to seem to be real. You know, yet you know when

[12:48] Aristotle and Boethius and so on, they get through showing that God is unchanging, right? That He never changes. Then they say that God is not in time, right? God's life is not measured by time. Well, what's it measured by then? Well, if you want to say it's what Thomas says, "Measured by, I'd say, by eternity," right? Well, Thomas always follows his master there. The definition of eternity, the Boethius, right, and the definition of eternity is tota simul, all at once, right, and perfect possession, right, of undying life, huh?

[13:37] So in the and Boethius kind of takes us by the hand and says, the now that flows along is always different, right? The now in the class here is always what different, yeah. That the now that flows along makes time, right? The now that stands still makes what? Yeah, yeah. Now,

[14:06] when I was a little boy, you know, I can still remember these pictures in the fairy tale books, right? Now, you know, when the wicked witch or somebody puts a thing on you, you're frozen, right? Huh? And you remember in the book there, you know, it has a picture of the servant coming in, you know, with with the the cake or the or the meat or whatever it is, you know, he's he's frozen, right?

[14:25] Well, if you froze the now of time, how much life would you have in the now of time? I couldn't read. I couldn't read one page of Thomas, right now. One paragraph right at a time. It takes me some time, however little time may be, to read the paragraph. I can't read these little paragraphs. What what life would I have in the now of time in the now of time if it could be frozen like that, right?

[14:51] It's not until the prince comes along and gives the princess the kiss, and then the whole everybody starts moving again, right? Huh? You know, he says, "Gee whiz, is God frozen in one now, right?" See, he says, "But in that now, he has a perfect possession of what an unending life, right? You know, he is, you know, compared to God's life, we're like what dead almost, right?

[15:19] You know, we're hardly alive, right? Praise to God, right? See, and because the past is getting away from us, and the future is not here yet, and how much life do I have in the now? I can't even hear one melody of Mozart's in the indivisible now, right? now I'm really, really,

[15:49] keep on going from one thing to another, right? Huh? See, I got, got all these CDs of Mozart. I got to listen to another one now, you know, because

[16:00] it's kind of funny, you know. I'll be driving in the car there for the classical music station there in Boston, you know, piece I haven't heard for a while, you know. Hey, it's a real nice piece of music, you know. And I think the Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and then listening to, you know, Schubert's Trout Quintet, I had on. We'll see you, and then the, you know, hey, I haven't heard this for a while, so it's nice, you know.

[16:25] But my life is kind of going, you know, to discourse, you know, either it's a discourse you know the in the life of my mind, right, going from one thing to another, right.

[16:37] Of course, I mean Augustine says it in the Beatific Vision: you partake of eternity, right? So we're kind of frozen in in now, right?

[16:54] It's very hard for us to understand that, right? Now, you know, our life is is measured by time, and it seems to be what in time, right? Huh?

[17:06] And to be spread out in time, right? Huh? But in the now of time, I have practically no life at all. Yeah, I can't, I can't eat one piece of candy in the now of time, can I? Can't listen to one melody of Mozart. I can't read one paragraph of Thomas in in my now, right?

[17:32] But God, all at once, sees everything, right? It's pretty unusual. Very, very, very unique, you know. So I mean, when Thomas takes up, you know, he'll say that the relation of the creature to God is real, right? But the relation of God to the creature is not real, right? It's a relation of what reason, right? And when our mind is is seeing the creature's relation to God, then it tries to, you know, create a relation of God back towards us, right?

[18:19] And there ain't such a relation in reality, right? That's a real profound distinction, right? And so the the two main distinctions of what relations, right? Huh? Are between relations secundum esse and secundum dicere, the one that we meet in the category here, and then the other relation between real relations and relations to reason, which Aristotle talks about in metaphysics, you know. let's say the relation of genus to species, right?

[18:53] Is relation of reason, right? It does exist in things out there. So even that science, of logic a rigorous science, right? It's about relations of reason, right? So now you hear them called second intentions, you know, but but they're relations of reason, right?

[19:20] You know, in syllogism, I might be a middle term or a minor term. Every man has reason. Duane is a man, therefore Duane has reason. Well, Duane there is a what? Middle term Minor term. Minor term Yeah The middle term here is man, right? Every man has reason. Burkwest is a man, therefore Burkwest has reason. Is that some is that a moderation? I have it be a middle term or a minor term or major term or where it is?

[20:13] This is kind of getting going beyond the categories. The categories are just concerned with the distinction, though, between the relativi secundum esse and secundum what dici, right? Okay. But interestingly, Thomas comes back to that at the other end of our knowledge, which is you're talking about the Trinity, right? And he's talking about the the ability to generate the Son, right?

[20:40] Is that something relative or something absolute, right? Yeah, yeah. With a relative. Yeah, a little tag tag on that, right? Tag tag. You know, Thomas, as we're speaking here,

[20:54] sometimes the divine nature is something one, right? And the Father and the divine nature, he says, are what the same thing. And the Son and the divine nature are the same thing. And the Holy Spirit and the divine nature are the same thing.

[21:17] But then again, he'll say, you know, that the the divine nature is in the Father and in the Son differently, because he says the divine nature is in the Father not from anyone,

[21:36] but the divine nature is in the Son from the Father. The Son is God, is God from God? Light from light, true God from true God, right? Of course, it's amazing that he's he's not just the one in kind. He's numerically God that the Father is, right? And yet the divine nature is in the Father, not from another, but in the Son from another. That's really, really profound.

[22:09] To say, "Gee, I still don't know how I understand that." You know, certainly not like human nature. What? Certainly not like human nature. No, no, no. And the Holy Spirit is even harder to understand. You know, because Thomas would say, you know, we don't even have names really for, you know, the Holy Spirit. You know, the way we have for the Son or for His way that He's generated, right?

[22:39] And so we kind of, you know, even the Holy Spirit. I mean, the Holy Ghost, right? Holy Spirit is kind of strange. We have naming him, right? Because it isn't the Father and the Son is Spirit and Holy, right? And all of a sudden, you have to explain, you know, why we have to invent this. You know, it's like when Aristotle's talking in the Nicomachean Ethics about moral virtue, and moral virtue is between two vices, one of which is in excess, and the other in defect, right?

[23:16] So courage is between cowardice, right, and foolhardiness, right. And you do find people who are foolhardy. Although it's more common to find people are cowards, right? But then he gets to temperance, right? Now, you know, there are people who enjoy sense pleasure too much or pursue it too much, right? Now, all kinds of examples of that, right? Now, and if you say someone's intemperate, you mean he's going too far in eating and drinking or whatever it is.

[23:47] Um, but he said, "What about not enjoying the sense pleasures as much as you should?" Whereas Thomas doesn't have a name for that, because it's doesn't seem to be found.

[24:02] And so you have to almost, you know, make a name, right? Huh? You know, and so this is the problem with the Holy Spirit, right? Huh? You know, then you know Um

[24:18] it it's easy, it's hard to understand in some ways, even than the Father and the Son, right? I was struck by this this one text here in the De Potentia, you know, where he seemed to be saying, you know, that the

[24:34] the love of the Father and the Son for each other is the beginning of the what Holy Spirit, right, proceeding from them. But that the love of the Father and the Son that gives rise to Holy Spirit. Must be a love not only in the goodness of God and and knowing the goodness of God and each other, but but in being like each other. You know, I said I wonder, you know, you know.

[25:00] I said, remember, it being so struck me. I said, you know, it struck me something. You know that I've read before, but I didn't think. But maybe when when I get to the parts there where he goes into the Trinity more, you know, you'll see that right now. But I know he always kind of insists upon that, though, that the that the love which is the Holy Spirit is like charity, which is like the love you have in friendship, right?

[25:24] Huh? Between two persons, right? Huh? And so maybe you have to understand the love of the Father and the Son is not just a love based on knowing their goodness, but on being what like each other, right? It's kind of it's kind. of Interesting, you know, to see if that's, true you know, it's like, I said, Thomas, I want more enlightenment on this. But kind of, he's not very pointed to that point yet in the dispute questions, you know.

[25:54] Just a marvelous work that is incredible. Because something's funny, I feel like I should reread this book, you know, this book, you know. I think it was my guardian angel, you know, telling me to do this. I don't know. The

[26:15] when your guardian angel suggests things to you, he does it kind of hidden away, you know. He's not like like denunciation, you know, where you know pick up the thing again, you know. But

[26:34] you know, my my my son Marcus sent me an email, you know, and he's got some friend there. The guy is, I think, a Korean or something, you know. But anyway, he he he wants he's he's taken up with the problem of evil, right? I suppose in the world, right? And my son Marcus is saying, "Well, can you suggest something to read? " Well, I don't really know any, you know, semi-popular works on the subject, you know, and and the things I can refer to in Thomas and so on.

[27:07] Probably he's not ready for these things at all, you know. So, I think, what should I do? And I said, well, maybe I'll maybe I'll I'll give a little discourse myself, right? Some things I know from Thomas, and it's. I was thinking about this thing that struck me so much in the last part of the prima pars when I was reading it, and where he says that he had an unusual article He said, "Whether the effect of divine providence or divine governance is one, " and I said, "That's kind of strange.

[27:47] " And Thomas says, "Well, you could say it's one insofar as it's always to what make the creature in some way like God, right? " See, so,

[28:02] but then before you go to all the ways that God, you know, governs the world that cannot be enumerated because there's too you know many things, right? Thomas does one stop in between, right? Okay, and that he says that God wants us to be like Himself in two ways. Now he's starting to divide, right? Okay, and as if there's only two ways that God wants us to be like Him.

[28:36] More at those two. Oh, you missed the thing here, right? You came just in time to answer the question. Well have been two ways that I want us to be like himself. To be good and be causal good. Yeah, those the two, right? I said, So I was really struck by this text, right? Huh? I was mentioning, in fact, my my son Marcus sends me a little letter, right?

[29:12] And he's got a friend there, some Vietnamese guy, right? And that this guy is concerned with the problem of evil, right? I said, and Mary's son wanted me to recommend something to read, right? Well, I know what to recommend because, you know, yeah, I mean, the profound things in Thomas, you know, but I don't know any popular things would be good, you know. So I was thinking, what, what, you know, what can I say besides just rejecting the idea?

[29:39] I was suggesting to him, and I said, well, this thing that I found in, you know, human parts, um, this is where the problem begins, really, right? Um, that God wants us to partake in His what causality of good in others, right? Huh? And that's where you can what choose a little, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And unless you know,

[30:19] he allows them to fail, right? Huh? In their imperfect partaking of his causality of good in others, um, you can have evil in the world, which,

[30:35] and so he has to allow evil, right? In order for us to partake in his what, so far as we can, right? In his being a cause of goodness and others, right? So he has to, in a sense, allow that evil, right? Even, even in the sense that we can imitate him as a redeemer, because we can cause good to come from evil, in the sense that you know Father Hardin has a beautiful retreat on divine providence.

[31:04] And he talks. he, might, among other things, is, "Thank God for sinners." Yeah. Because then I can forgive doing that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was thinking, you know, of this thing here. I'd say,

[31:20] why didn't God make all of us like He made Adam? Right. That seems like a simple way of doing it, all right? Yeah, yeah. But instead, he made everybody descending, you know, as children of Adam, and then children of children, and children, children. I don't know if I bought something, grandfather now, not a great grandfather yet. But

[31:48] well, now Ewan, let's do what share in in his. It's good to make another human being, right? To make a human being is good, right? So it's good for God to make Adam, right? And then for Adam to make somebody else, right? And then to partake in in being a cause of good to others, right? Then it's good to give someone else existence, isn't it? Even prepare their body for the.

[32:15] What was it Eve said when the first child was born? I've made a man with the help of God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and yet, given gives what the human beings are, and so on, especially after the fall, parents can make many mistakes, and all kinds of you know, some parents are bad in some ways, and so on, and all kinds of disgrace, you know, and so on.

[32:43] So I thought I'd approach it to this way right now, you know, that there has to be evil in the world if creatures are going to partake in various degrees of what God's ability to cause, or they're going to be like God in some way, right now. Yes,

[33:11] it's also. I think I told you the story. Mark Miller, friend of ours, that comes here. One of his relatives was dying. Had been away from the church for many, many years. Yeah. Actually, hated the church. He couldn't talk about God, Christ, or the church. Yeah. Spit nails and everything. Yeah. So he's dying, and my friend Mark says, "Oh, should I tell him he's going to go to hell if he doesn't go back to the sacraments?"

[33:36] I said, "Well, why not say something more helpful? Like, is there anything we can do for you? Can we call a priest or something?" No, he he told his father, and his father talked to his brother. He said, "Can we call a priest?" Yeah, why don't you do that? Because when you when you're dying, your mind changes. Yeah. You guys realize I want to be God, so so they called the priest, and priest came and gave him sacraments, and he was happy, he was at peace, and he only lived about another week.

[34:07] But before that week was over, he told his wife, "He said, 'Call that priest. I want to see communion again. '" Yeah. And Mark was ecstatic. Yeah. Because you think of you know, he did good all those years. That'd be great, but what joy there is, like our Lord says, over the conversion of one sinner. I mean, Mark was ecstatic on it. He was just couldn't believe it.

[34:28] It's like Mike Crollage and the fellow that's here now. His birthday's tomorrow. Mike's birthday yesterday. Tomorrow, yeah, we'll have a birthday yesterday. But anyway, so Mark and Mike were telling us one of his. In laws, as my brother, my brother had been away for a really long time, and he he asked this man, this and the family asked, can we call a priest for you? She said, yeah, do that.

[34:52] And um, and she wrote him a letter, wrote her brother a letter, and said that what you did for you provided for me the most profound experience of my whole life. And then she died. Yeah. And they were so happy, everybody. Yeah. So that's a beautiful example of. Yeah. Why all those years of misery and all the rest? Well, when you can, when you can see the good that can come out of it, it's like the childbirth of the woman.

[35:17] Our Lord says he forgets all the pain because of the joy of the name. But then another example, you know, take the the teacher, right? Huh? You know, the teacher is partaking, right, in some way, of God, who's the supreme teacher, right? Huh? But you're going to have some teachers deceiving their students, right? Leading them astray, right? Huh? You know, um, that if God is going to give us a Share in his, uh enable us to be like him in teaching others, right?

[35:50] Huh? Which is a good thing, but given that our, we don't partake too well of the uh, the teacher that God is, then we're going to even make mistakes, right? Huh? And

[36:12] then evil could in the world, right? Because error is evil, right? Huh? It's time to say, you know, that error is magna pars miseria, you know. But

[36:40] God wanted us to partake of those two things in Him, though unequally, right? Hey, forty, you know. I think they're pushing it that way, you know, huh? And just because I don't, I don't know of any book, you know, that wants to say, you know. Is there a passage in Augustine or something maybe he talks about? That's where I would think. Yeah, well, I mean, when Thomas's commentary on the, I have the Leonine edition of Thomas's commentary on the

[37:14] Job, right? Huh? Yeah. And this is kind of the main thing, you know, the way Thomas explains the order of the books in the Old Testament. The chief argument against God is evil, right? From evil, right? And so Job is about that, right? Now, I mean, Job, you know, makes clear, you know, that you are not going to understand in particular why he allows, you know.

[37:40] I should say that, you know, in my experience as a college professor, right now, you got these students coming into college, and the sometimes even the same subject or the same courses, right, are taught by more than one professor, right? So you get the right professor, you are going to make progress and learn some truth, you know. But you get the wrong professor, you are going to get screwy ideas, and professors are, you know, crazy things going on in universities, as you know.

[38:13] But you don't, you don't see in particular. I mean, the way in Job, there, you know, that's kind of presumptuous, you know, to see why God allowed this bad thing to happen to this person, but not to that person, you know. Yeah, that's what Saint Bonaventure says the same thing. as. When you wonder why how do you put it, God gives this grace to this sinner and not to that one.

[38:39] Yeah. He says that's when. human loquacity should stop its mouth Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I guess we said that yeah. and you know I don't want to be mistaken, you know. I don't. Judge these things right, huh? But

[38:53] you know, I actually had a picture of Kasurik you know, and, Brother Richard made sure that Kasurik was my advisor. You know, and he had me meet Kasurik in the summer, me and Warren, the two of us meet Kasurik for you know fatherly talk. You know, and oh, I mean, other people didn't have that advantage, I did, you know. And uh...

[39:18] Kasurik had given up philosophy because of the bad teaching he had had, and then so, on, then he heard about or met De Koninck some way, and decided to give it a chance with De Koninck because he heard about him, so. on. And he was a tough. he was older at the time. He told De Koninck, you know, teach the class taught in the States. I got to leave your class right away."

[39:39] And he's telling De Koninck, this is the great De Koninck, and the guy says, fine, you know. And then you can see how how devoted he was to De Koninck you know. De Koninck would come down, and then I remember De Koninck would speak. You know, he'd speak at the college, and he'd speak at the the consortium of the colleges, and he'd speak at the St. Paul Seminary.

[39:58] you know, I remember at the St. Paul Seminary one time because there's something, you know, some problem with the speaker. I mean, the thing. And Kasurik jumps out of the way and runs up like a slave boy, you know, and adjusts the thing for De Koninck, you know, to make sure that the speaker's okay, something like that. You can see respect to the man, you know. but Kasurik is a tough guy.

[40:17] I mean, I realize that, uh, and there were some questions he couldn't answer of mine. and he just said, you know, when De Koninck comes down, ask De Koninck, you know, De Koninck would very clearly, you know, you see De Koninck's excellence there, you know. But

[40:33] why he's got all these bad teachers, you know, all these crazy things, you know.