Logic (2016)
21. Relation, Part 2: Thomas on Real Relations and Relations of Reason, and the Weak Being of Relation
Class of 2017-01-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/021-relation-part-2-thomas-on-real-relations-and-relations-of/

[0:00] Okay, a little text here in the middle of page five here. Sometimes a name is placed upon something to signify the what relation itself, right? habitudinem, I suppose you know the word habitudinem. I guess the nearest thing would be how you have yourself towards another, right? But kind of a strange word. Just as this name, what Dominus, right? Huh? The dominus is the dominus of the slave, right?

[0:48] And and ones of this sort, which are relativa secundum esse, right? Huh? And other things said of God are relative, which signify from their first what understanding a relation which is. By reason in God, right? Huh? And consequently, they make an understanding of the essence, according as such a relation is founded in something essential. What does that mean? If you say God is a what? Creator, right?

[1:25] Is that a real relation that God has to us? Well, Thomas would argue, you know, that the creature is really related to God; he really depends upon God, right? But God is in no way changed by creating us, right? It's a foundation in God for him being our creator, right? Yeah, yeah.

[1:47] Sometimes a name is placed upon something to signify that upon which is founded the habitudo, right? Has this name science? That's always a common example.

[2:00] Equality, right? So it's in the genus fundamentally equality, which there follows upon which there follows a respect to the nobil, right? Huh? Okay. Whence such things are not relativa secundum esse, but only what secundum dici, right? Huh? Now, whence these principally, huh, are given to understand something of another predicament, right? Namely, quality, right? In this example, and ex consequently they imply a certain relation, huh? So that's where Aristotle, you know, seems to have interfered with the order, right?

[2:45] In the following text, Thomas explains why power or ability, as well as science, right, should be placed in the category of quality, even though they have a relation, right? Huh? Okay. So he says, although to power belongs the notion of what being a beginning, right? Huh? Which is in the genus of relation, right? Nevertheless, that which is a beginning of a acting upon or undergoing is not a relation, right?

[3:17] But something absolute, right, an absolute form, and this is the essence of power. And hence it is that the philosopher places potency not in the genus of relation, but in equality, to be the second species of quality that he gives,

[3:36] just as he places science, right, in the first species of quality, although what to both some relation what happens, right? Huh? You can see how subtle Aristotle was to see this, right? Okay. So Thomas has great respect for Aristotle. De Koninck said, Aristotle is somebody. He said.

[4:18] Now this also seems to confirm the necessity of the second definition, right? Now the first definition of relation is something that is said to be of another, right? But that's kind of a tang definition. But Aristotle is one whose whole being or nature is to be what towards another, right? Okay.

[4:39] So this seems to confirm the necessity of the second definition to exclude the relativa secundum dici that the first definition what admits, right? We do not mean that the distinction between the two definitions is that between the relativa secundum dici and secundum esse. For under the first definition come both relativa. they're both said to be of something, right? This is double of that, you know. This is knowledge of. That right.

[5:14] So they're both relative, and they're said to be of another right. But one is just that right, and the other one, which is really after in that category, a different kind of being is something whose whole nature right is to be towards another right. But the second definition excludes

[5:35] relative secundum dici from being placed chiefly in this genus, things that are just that. The first definition of towards something is not a definition of relative secundum dici, but it includes them. But the second definition is a relative secundum esse, and thus excludes relative secundum dici, right?

[6:03] Now it's the same text here. There's another universal distinction of relations which should not be confused with the distinction between relative secundum dici and relative secundum esse. This is the distinction between what real relations and relations of what?

[6:26] Thomas points out this possible confusion, replying to an objection, and in his example showing how a relation secundum dici can be real, and the relation secundum esse of reason, yeah, yes, so language, yeah.

[6:46] Moreover, those relativa in which there is not a relation secundum rem, right? That's real relation, but that way of speaking secundum rem, we find there to be an ad aliquid secundum dici tantum, as the noble about which the philosopher, that's Aristotle, somebody, in the fifth book of metaphysics, that's related because something else is referred to it, right? So reason can't really grasp that very well unless it makes the other thing relative to the original one.

[7:22] But about God I said some relatives which are what ad aliquid, right? And according to their being as Lord, King, and so on. Therefore, also these, yeah, these signify some real relation in God. Now Thomas, this is all nonsense, right? You can see how difficult this thing is, right? And so we don't do normally in logic beginning. To the fourth, it should be said that that doesn't make anything for the thing proposed, right?

[8:01] Because about both relatives, there's found something which implies a real relation, and which implies a relation of reason. For idem, the same implies a relation of what reason, although it is what relative secundum esse. So I'm the same as myself, right? Is that real relation, huh? See, because I'm only one. See, it's like saying I'm like myself, right now. Okay, which. Another relation of reason. Well, yeah, yeah, but it's still a what

[8:43] relative secundum esse. It's whole, so you know, definition, right, is to be towards another. And science implies a real relation, although it's a relative secundum dici. Relations of reason would not be put in the category of towards something, since the categories pertain to division of real being, right? This is clear from the distinction of being in the fifth book of wisdom.

[9:14] But as Aristotle's second definition of towards something meant to exclude relations of reason, as well as relative secundum dici. Perhaps the use of to be in the second definition for nature indicates that one is thinking of being in things and not just in reason. When Hamlet says to be or not to be, that is a question. He is speaking of being in things and not in what reason.

[9:43] Now some have thought that all relations are something of reason, that they arise from our mind comparing things, right, and not in things. But this is a mistake.

[9:57] But the reason for this mistake is the weakness in being of relations. Thomas speaks of this weakness. Those things which are ad ad aliquid towards something seem to be what more remote, right, from substance and other genera, from this that they are weaker what being. Whence they exist, inhere in substance by means of other genera. So double and half are in substance by reason of what Quantity.

[10:32] quantity. So quantity is closer to substance than double or half, right? Okay, such as equal and unequal, double and half, by means of quantity, right?

[10:49] Now father and son, right, implies what some kind of quality and some kind of acting upon, right, generating, huh? Moving the mover and the moved, father and son, the commanding lord and the slave, huh? By means of action and what passion, huh?

[11:12] And this, because substance is existence in itself, right? But quantity and quality are beings another, right? But relativa are not only in another, but towards another, right?

[11:38] I think you meant talking about the war at the south there, master and slaves, right? Oh, it's just on the. It's hardly anything. The reality of existence in things of some relations is from their being accidents or having a cause in their subject, right? Relation is something real in creatures as having a cause in its subject, right? So am I really your teacher?

[12:19] I'm teaching you. I'm a teacher by reason of something real in me, right? Some knowledge, I hope. The following text of Thomas is useful for understanding what is responsible for relation being real.

[12:38] That's what he says here in this beautiful text, and guess where it's from. Ah, being ground down by that de potentia. That's powerful stuff. That's really really impressive. Relation, according to the what ratio of its genus, in so far as it's relation, does not have that it is something.

[13:05] It's not something in itself, right? Yeah. But only that it is towards something, right? It's nothing in itself. What is double in itself, right?

[13:21] That it be something what secundum rem, right? It has from that side by which it is in something, right? Now either this is the thing in the Trinity there, either as being the same secundum rem in divinis right? So is the fatherhood of the father, right, something other than the divine substance? Two different things. So the father is composed of his divine substance and his fatherhood. He's all together what simple God, huh?

[14:01] So the fatherhood of the father and his divine substance are the same thing, right? So that's very much a real thing then. His what fatherhood, right? His being a father, right? It's the same as his substance, right? Okay. Now that's not true for us, right? See, our accidents are not our substance, right? Let alone our relation, our substance. My God, right? You know, because because because double and half and taller and shorter is even more remote from being my substance than quantity is, right?

[14:34] But even that's not the same thing, right? People sometimes confuse the size of the thing with its substantial being, right? It's closer. So he says it's real either because it's the same thing as the substance secundum rem, as in divinis, right? That's a very profound statement. Now, as you can see, how powerful this is. Or as having a cause and its subject, right? As in creatures, right?

[15:04] So there is a cause in me of my being taller or shorter than you, hence my size, my height, my quantity. Right, and so that's a real relation, right? That I'm taller or shorter than you, right, or equal to you if I am, right?

[15:27] So you have to beg my reality in a sense, right, from that quantity that I have, that size I have, right? If I didn't have any size, I couldn't be double you or taller than you or shorter than you, right?

[15:44] Are you taller than your guardian angel? I'm shorter than him. Yeah, I was thinking metaphorically, right? The relation, no, the English translation there. The relation, by reason of its generic nature as such, is a thing, but it is purely relative, ad aliquid, right? That it is something real is due to the fact that it is in a subject, right, which is its cause, which is either identical with it, as in God, right, or as its cause, as in what creatures.

[16:27] That's really profound what he's saying. Relation, as Thomas explains, is not an accident from its being alone towards something, right? Because an accident is something existing in another, right? But my my relation is only towards another and has no foundation in me. That's not an accident in me, right? So he says this is very profound. Illud autem quod ad aliquid dicitur. That which is said towards something does not have the ratio, the notion of an accident, something exists in another, right?

[17:07] From the fact that it is ad aliquid, right, towards something, but only from the fact that it is what Inest. Okay. Yeah. well that's what the notion of an accident is yeah Yeah. And hence it is that relation alone, according to the ratio of its genus, remains with what substance in divine things, but there it is not a what accident, huh? But it's real because the same is the substance of God, right?

[17:41] You can see how Thomas, influenced by his master, there, what? Well, who said that? Who said that in in God you have just two categories, substance and relation? Boethius. Boethius, yeah. I sometimes suggest that Boethius is the greatest mind in the Church between Augustine and Thomas, who are probably the greatest minds we had, huh? You know, but Boethius is really something. He comes in between, right? Thomas learned a lot from him.

[18:16] He was very influential, right? Boethius started out to make known to Greek philosophy to the Latins, right? So he started translating Aristotle and so on, right? So Thomas referred to his translations sometimes and so on. But he wrote, you know, works, you know, great works in theology, right? Great works in in philosophy, right? A great mind, Boethius. I guess there was there's been a little bit of a you know tradition of him being a saint too.

[18:50] You know, he's not he's not even canonized, I don't think, formally, but there was some you know local worship of him as a saint, right? Not worship, but praise Yeah. Whence some relations are a reason only because they have no foundation in the thing of which they are said, right?

[19:17] Now another little text here from the sentences. In relation, there are two things. One is the respect of the relation by which it is referred to what another, in which consists the ratio relation, right, towards something, right.

[19:36] And again, the being of the relation, which it has, according as it is what founded in some thing, right. Either quantity, as in us, right, say, you know, or the essence, I can God, right, or something of this sort, huh?

[19:57] Now, the man who considers relations according to the respect in which the ratio relation consists, from which it does not have that it's what implies something inhering, right. Whence they also find such relations placing nothing really in the thing, right? In account of this, they say they are assisting or exterior affixes. Getting mixed up in heresies about the Trinity too. Okay. Those relations are said to be affixed or assisting, which properly do not have a foundation in the thing, but only from the what relation to another, to the thing about which they are said, as right in the column, huh?

[20:42] Which is said of it to the fact that man is on its left or something, right? Are you there on my right? You there on my left?

[20:57] See, see, I'm the center of things here, huh? And you're on the right, and you're on the left. Yeah. In the distinction of the ten highest genera, the one we had from Thomas genera before. Thomas separated quantity and quality from towards something, because the former, he said, er said what, absolutely right.

[21:27] What are said absolutely place something in that in which they are, by what is private to what they are, but a relation does not have to do this.

[21:37] Another little text here from Thomas in the sentences. I told you much in Daniel. I've forgotten texting you. The sentences. We're all waiting. What the hell is this text? He's gonna give us the text.

[21:57] Those things which are said absolute, right? That's the Latin there. According to their what own reasons or notions, place in that right. In which they are said to be right, as quantity or quality, right? So the size of my body, right? The condition of my body. How am I today, right? Healthier. I'm sick. Whatever is. Whence neither of these are found, right?

[22:35] That they're not really what in God, huh? Of which they are said truly and properly. In account of this, we cannot say about something that is said from time, except that it changes through the what reception of that which before it did not have. But the relations according to his ratio does not have that it places something in that of which it is said, but it places only what a relation to another.

[23:11] Whence there is found some relation, not really existing in that of which it is said. And therefore, in such things, these relations are said newly, not to their change, but of the change of that to which they are said. Yeah, the relations they're said temporarily in God, right? Like his creator wasn't always a creator, right? Huh? That's because of the change that took place. And I'll see if you can call that change.

[23:49] The following text of Thomas brings out well what relation has in common with the other accidents, and what is proper or what private to them.

[24:03] Incidentally, they talk sometimes about the common good and the proper good. You know, proprium. I usually translate proprium not as proper, but as what private. huh I think it gives more the sense that you want to give you know.

[24:26] Now this is from the Summa Theologiae. In each of the nine genera of accident, there are ten highest genera. The first one is substance, and then the other nine are what accidents. In each of the nine genera of accident, there are two things to consider. One of which is what belongs to each of them, according as it is a what accident. And this commonly and all is that it is in esse in subjecto subject.

[25:01] That's what you had in the early chapter, right? In the antipredicaments, right? You had universal substance and particular substance, universal accident, singular accidents. Well, some things are said of another; other things are not said of another. Right, some exist in another, and some do not exist in another. Right. So, what's common to all the accidents is they exist in the what? Another, right?

[25:25] Another that can be considered in each of them is the proper ratio of each of these genera, right? Okay. So sometimes we say quantity is the measure of substance, and quality is the what? Disposition of substance, something like that. They'll say the proper ratio of each of these genera. And in the other genera from relation, this is a very subtle distinction between the two, right? As in quantity and quality, even the proper ratio, the notion of the genus, is also taken according to a comparison to the what?

[26:05] Subject, right? For quantity is said to be the measure of substance, right? The size of substance, right? Quality, the disposition of substance, right? But the ratio, the proper ratio of relation, is not taken according to a what? Comparison to that in which it is, but according to comparison to something outside. How great is the difference between those first two accidents of quantity and quality, and then relation, right?

[26:44] In some sense, they're all in the subject, right? Huh? But the notion of quantity in particular and quality particular has a different what? Connection with the subject, right? One is the measure of the subject, the size of it, and the other is how it is, right? But what does relation say? Yeah, just strange thing, right? Very strange thing.

[27:14] From what then does relation have existence in things, right? This is strange thing, right? And I often say to students, they say, you know, that relation is a really difficult thing to understand. Aristotle says the difficulty in understanding can be in the thing itself you're trying to understand because it hardly is, or it can be in you because the weakness of your mind. Relation, you get hit at both ends.

[27:41] Yeah. Because relations of father and son, Holy Spirit, right? There the difficulty is in us, right? Because your mind is not adequate to understanding those things. And but in the the regular relations, right? Creature things, there the difficulty is what? In the thing itself, that hardly is, right? Aristotle, you know, talks about.

[28:10] That in the three looking sciences, huh? He says that natural philosophy is more difficult to know than geometry, huh? Or arithmetic. And wisdom is more difficult to know, right? And he says the cause of difficulty. Why is it more difficult than geometry, right? Natural philosophy. Yeah, natural philosophy.

[28:37] Yeah, because it's mainly about motion and matter, right? And matter is considered by itself as not actually anything. It's only something in ability. Very hard thing to know, right? And motion is what the act of what is able to be, in so far as it's able to be. And you know, Descartes says, "What do those words mean? " You know, he's jumbled it. He can't understand what he's saying, right?

[29:03] I remember us first doing the definition. There, still in high school. I said, "I think I understand it. " You better be careful about what you are saying. You understand that way.

[29:15] So the cause of difficulty is there, right? Okay. But wisdom or first philosophy is more difficult than geometry and arithmetic because of the what weakness of our mind.

[29:30] That's kind of distinction you can make in other things. You can make it in love, right? So I say it's difficult to love the common good. It's difficult to love God, huh? But the cause of the difficulty there is in you. The common good is a very great good, and therefore very lovable, right? So if you have a hard time loving the common good, right?

[29:58] The problem is in you. It's not in the common good, and therefore, sorry, if you have difficulty in loving God, well, God is not only good, but is goodness itself. He's good of every good. It should be easy for you to love God. So if you have difficulty loving God, the problem must be in you.

[30:18] Thank you. See, but then see now, if you have a hard time though loving cancer, I say, huh? Is the problem in you? No, the problem is in cancer. Is not a very lovable thing, right? Okay.

[30:34] I have a hard time loving rock and rolls. That's not your problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's in the thing, right? That's not your problem. So that that's a nice distinction, huh? And to make in love, but you can make in knowing, right? So, but you hit with both difficulties in knowing relation, right? Because relations down here, right, are difficult to know because they hardly are. So it's like the difficulty of having ability, or I mean, matter, or motion, the difficulty in knowing the the divine, the Trinity, right?

[31:13] It causes difficulties in us, right? Our mind is just too weak, too weak, right? So Aristotle, in the beginning of the eight books of Natural Hearing, now he says that what is more known to us is what less known, simply. Less known by nature, he says, or he says less known simply, right?

[31:40] So we have to go from what is more known to us to what is more known by nature, he says. Huh? It's true, right? To give a reason. To give a reason. Well, there he he he manifested by three kinds of examples, right? Huh? And

[32:02] he's showing that we know things what in a confused way more than we know them what distinctly, right? I was saying to my student there, Richard, the house. They said no. I gave her a glass of dry red wine to drink, right? You'd be more what? Sure, you're drinking a dry red wine than you're drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, and she agreed. But the wine is less known when it's known to be dry red wine than it's known to be Cabernet Sauvignon.

[32:30] Huh? They could fool me too, I'm sure. But they couldn't fool my brother Marcus. He he was a he was a you know. He knew where to do it. I told you that story, you know, where Ron McCarthy, you know, first president of Thomas Aquinas College, there he gave a dinner for the faculty, where he put other wine in in bottles that he'd saved, you know. They're going to be fooled, except my brother Mark said this is not bad.

[32:56] You'll be able. And if you come with me, Mark would catch him, you know. But I probably would've been fooled. I gave it to him, you know. But we had when we had a private together, Mark and I, you know, just little wine left over for the body. He saved a little, contained it into the week, would have a little test, you know. And I test him, and he tests me, right?

[33:17] Well, I get maybe what thing right, maybe fifty percent of the time. He was always right. Yes. No. So he was the the great authority, you know. Always tell you my my my first lesson he gave me was the two greatest red grapes in the world are Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. The two greatest white grapes are Pinot Chardonnay and Johannesburg Riesling, you know. And I always I keep repeating it to everybody, you know.

[33:46] I mean, I teach it to the grandchildren, you know. But he was he was good. So nothing he says in this page in the middle of page eight here. It is the nature of relation. That it has a cause in other genera of things, right?

[34:20] Because it has a minimum of the nature of what being as the commentator now. This is a verum, right? Whence, although relation per se does not what in the motion you don't have a relation to. I'm trying to become double, you know. Trying to become taller because in ad-aliquid there's no motion, as is proven in the fifth book of natural hearing, so-called physics. Nevertheless, from this that motion ends per se at some being, of necessity there follows some relation, right?

[35:06] So, you see the grandchildren sometimes think they're growing taller, some of them than the parents, right? At least the shorter parents anyway. For from this that the motion of alteration, which is in the genus of what quality, that it turns to in white there follows a relation of likeness to all things that are what? Yeah.

[35:35] But did I really become white? I mean, excuse me, did I become like others, or did I become white? What was the real becoming in me? The whiteness. Yeah, I became white, right? It's in quality, right? It's not really relation, but there's a relation following upon my becoming white, right? I'm like other things that are white, huh? Okay.

[36:03] So for from this that the motion of alteration ends in whiteness, there follows consequitur, right, huh? Consequitur, sequitur means to follow, I guess. The relation of likeness to all things that are white.

[36:23] Similarly, from this that the motion of generation terminates at form, it follows this relation according to which matter is said to be under what form.

[36:37] Although how much how and toward something are said as substance by reason of something in it, there is an important difference in the ratio of towards something and the ratio of quantity and quality in understanding what they are. Another text here from Oh my goodness, the De Potentia. I could shiver my fear, you know. My fear is aroused when I see that title, the De Potentia. I mean, my God.

[37:05] Relation in this differs from quantity and quality, because quantity and quality are certain accidents remaining in the subject. My size remains in me. My knowledge remains in me. Relation, however, does not signify, as Boethius says in the book on the Trinity, as in a subject remaining, right, but in transit towards another, right?

[37:39] I'm taller than you. or I'm shorter than you. or I'm equal to you, right? Right. It's a strange thing, this relation. Very, very odd, odd, odd being, huh? Odd being being, I mean.

[37:56] Whatever is attributed to something as from it proceeding to another does not make composition with it. Just as neither acting upon with the agent, right? Because you're acting upon something outside of you, right? That's another genus.

[38:15] On account of this, also the philosopher proves in the fifth book of Natural Hearing, the so-called Physics, that in ad aliquid there cannot be any what motion,

[38:29] because without some change of that to which it is referred, the mutation can cease to be from only mutation of another, Right. So I've known parents who are taller than their children, and then all of a sudden, children are taller than their parents. yeah, and they cease to be taller than their children. That's a shocking thing, right? But it's because of the growth, right? Change in quantity, right?

[38:54] Huh? You know, it's not the real change was in growth, wasn't it, right? In their father relation of being shorter than your children. Okay.

[39:13] Same way about what action, right? I'm thinking about father right now. Okay. Nec metamorpho et impropriare, just as one changing to act from idleness, right, is it to be changed, right? Okay. Which would not be if relation or action acting upon signifies something in the subject remaining, right? Okay. When I act upon something, am I? Where am I?

[39:47] I mean, the thing I'm acting upon, right? I kind of right seems to be. That's the term. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I was I was reading Thomas there in the De Potentia there. I think I mentioned this. I mentioned last time, but he's arguing, you know, that God created us by will, by choice, by his wisdom and his will, not by his what he didn't naturally produce us.

[40:27] And one of the arguments he does, he says, well, God's creating us is not something added to substance, right? His operation is his substance.

[40:45] So the act by which he he created us has to be an act that what remains in him, right? His substance, because it's a substance. Now, what kind of acts remain in the doer? The acts of knowing and willing, yeah, and therefore he must have made us by knowing and willing. So the subtle argument, you know, huh? You know. The De Potentia just grinds up my mind.

[41:18] Thomas doesn't just powerful. Must have been a popular teacher there at the University of Paris, right? You know, because all these things, you know, the copology seems off by hand. You know, kind of thing.

[41:47] Okay, now let's look at another text here from the Scriptum Super Tertio. It should be said in regard to the first question that union is a certain what relation. Now, every relation, according to the philosopher in the fifth book of wisdom,

[42:06] fifth book after the books of Natural Philosophy, is founded either upon quantity or what is reduced to the genus of quantity. That's the ideas like what being, yeah, but also one, you know, you know, being the same or like something, huh? One is tied to quantity, or it's based upon action and what passion, right?

[42:34] One is reduced to the genus of quantity, as it were, being the beginning of discrete quantity. And upon this is founded identity, right? Huh? According to something is one in what substance, huh? Equality, according as is one in quantity. Likeness, according as is one in quality, right?

[42:59] Unitio, however, is a certain axio or passio, right? By which from many is made something in some way what one, huh? And this action there falls upon this action, a relation, which is union, right?

[43:22] Okay. Can be applied to to marriage. I wonder. Is how I got into this. Well, like he said, relations are very hard to understand,

[43:36] especially the in-laws. Yeah, yeah. From the way we use the word relation in English, right? You know, we speak of our relations, right? Huh? You know, I hate this this word relationship, right? My teacher, Kasurik, you know, he says, you know, he says towards something, right? He didn't say relation, even you know. Hey, Thomas, you know, I mean, I mean Aristotle but. you know we use relation in a sense of talking about the genus, huh?

[44:04] Now, relations of these relations, huh? Both these and others, some arise from the motion of both, right? From the change of both. And there's necessary that these relations be really in both of these extremes, just as what, fraternity and things of this sort, okay?

[44:29] So your father really generated you, right? And you were really generated by your father, right? So you that, you know, if I'm kicking you, you're really being kicked, right? And so there's something in me and something in you, right?

[44:49] Okay. But some arise from the motion of one without the change of the other, which happens in those things in which one depends on another. And in such the relation, secundum rem, is in that which depends upon the other, and the other is according to reason only. So. You know, when we study the substance of God, we realize that He's unchanging, right? In the Summa Theologiae, I think that's the fourth thing that Aristotle or Thomas shows about God, right?

[45:26] But in the Summa Contra Gentiles it's the first thing he shows, right? Hence, in one, therefore, secundum rem, and the other, secundum rationum only.

[45:43] since therefore, in the incarnation, there is not any change made in the divine nature, but in the human, which is drawn to unity in the divine person. This relation, the union there, secundum rem, is in the natura humana.

[46:05] He really is united to the second person, right? But in the divine, it's according to reason, what only, right? Okay. According to what the philosopher says, some things are relative, not because they themselves are referred, but because others are referred to them. When unity secundum rem, is a creature, right? Now, to the third, it should be said that the union which is said of God is neither the Creator nor the creature, because insofar as is in Him is at anything secundum rem, but according to reason only.

[46:50] But the ratio is not what false, because it's founded upon the relation of the creature to the what Creator. And of course, Aristotle talks about being a reason, there He talks about it as being something what being is true.

[47:13] God is truly our Creator, because we truly, yeah, but our being His creature, we mean the creatures of God that we depend upon God and so on. That's something very real in us. But there's no change in God when He created us, huh? So He has no kind of no relation with Him Yeah. It's a one way street. But notice he says non tam in ratio is false, all right?

[47:47] It can be said to be true, because it's founded upon the relation of the creature to to Creator, just as about the other relatives which ex tempore de Deo de creatura right? And hoc modi, right? So they'll talk about the relations that are said of God ex tempore right? Which are all relations of reason, right? But the relations that are eternal, right, like the Father, the Son, and so on, they are real.

[48:12] Okay. Another text like De Potentia again. Okay, it's necessary that in things themselves there be a certain what order right now. And this order is relation, right? Now, Thomas often will speak of relations being an order right now. You realize how much tied up with reason, right, to understand these relations.

[48:48] Whence is necessary in things themselves to be certain relations according to which, or by which, one is ordered to what another. But one is one thing is ordered to another either according to quantity. Or according to an active power or a passive right now, and from these two, only are attended something in one with respect to something extrinsic. Now, what convinced me that this this is real, this being taller or shorter, right now?

[49:25] I used to watch this cat there, my daughter's cat Tabitha, right. Sometimes they play with the mouse. Do they catch you know? And I said, what would she be doing to me if I was the size of one of these mice or a toy soldier, right? Yeah, playing with me, playing with me. They'd try to run away from me. Yeah. So the fact that I'm quite a bit taller than the cat, this is something very real that I'm.

[49:53] I'm thinking about it. I'm glad you came out. That's the part about that really convinced me. You know, I mean, maybe emotional, using my reason, you know, and moving my reason along, but

[50:12] something good rhetorical argument to the reality of this kind of a relation, being taller and bigger than that cat. Now, thing is measured not only by intrinsic quantity but also by extrinsic quantity.

[50:30] Through the active power, each thing acts in another, right? And by the passive it undergoes from what another. But by substance and quality, something is ordered to itself only, not to another, except secundum quod huh? According, what? To which quality? Either a substantial or matter, huh? Insofar as they have the ratio of an active or a passive what power right now. And according as in them is considered some ratio quantity, right?

[51:12] Insofar as one in substance makes the same, and one in quality like, in number or multitude, huh? De simile and diversum and the same, and unlike, according to something more or less considered in the other. Thus something is said to be what,

[51:35] to another, other, I guess. Okay. And account of this, the philosopher in the fifth book of wisdom assigns the species of relation. Right. Some he speaks of as it is down as being caused from quantity, and some from acting upon and undergoing.

[52:04] Now, in this text from the fifth book of wisdom, fifth book after the book of natural philosophy, the ratio of these modes is this: since relation, which the relation which is in things, consists in the order a certain order of one thing to another, right? Huh.

[52:26] It's necessary that in as many ways there are relations of this sort, as in many ways it happens one thing to be ordered to another. Right.

[52:37] One thing is ordered to another either according to being, as the being of one thing depends upon another, and thus it is the third mode. Or according to an active and passive power, according as one thing receives another, or confers something upon another. Right. This is the second mode. Or according as the quantity of one thing is able to be measured by another, and thus it is the what first mode.

[53:10] So one could think a lot about the connection between the word order and the word what relation, right? Now, one more text here from the Quaestiones Quodlibetales questions which you will. They do all kinds of things. This I do these for my light reading you know. A little variety in your life, you know, because you jump around, you know, kind of, you know, whatever was on people's minds at the time, you know.

[53:46] And I would rush into the chair's office there with my questions, you know, this and that and so on. I remember up there one time seeing Monsignor Dionne and I just kind of gathered some questions, you know, from different things I was doing, you know. And of course, he didn't see any connection among the questions, so he was kind of.

[54:06] But I wasn't, you know, presenting a elaborate thing, you know. I was, you know, making sure that I answered his question in this area properly, and then. This thing and some other course I was teaching, you know, it's something that you know. So I was asking a number, you know, kind of ad hoc questions, you know, and he didn't know where I was going.

[54:29] Great man, Dante. Okay. Relations. Bottom of page ten here, right? Relations differ in this from all other genera, because those things which are of the other genera, from the very ratio of the genus have that they are res naturae, right? Just as quantities, that's as opposed to res rationes, right? Just as quantities from the ratio quantity and qualities from the ratio quality. This is something he said before, but in a different way he said.

[55:02] But relations do not have that they are res naturae from the fact that they are what towards another, because there are found certain respects towards another which. are not real, but rationalis tantum. Oh my goodness! And an example there, Aristotle. First point out as the Simplicius right? The noble is referred to the science, not by a real relation, right? Existing in the noble, but more because the science is referred to it, according to the philosopher in the fifth book of the metaphysics.

[55:37] smart guy, that. You see why Kasurik said compared to Aristotle, he had the brain of an angel and he said. That's a relation, or not?

[55:51] But relation has, as he said before, in other texts we looked at, it's a res natura ex sua causa, right? Through which one thing has a natural order to another.

[56:09] Which natural order, in real one, is in these things, the relation itself, right? Whence right and left in the animal are real relations, because they follow upon certain natural what powers. But in the column, right, that famous example, they are with respect to reason only, according to the order of the animal to it, right?

[56:34] Now, from the same thing, one has that something is a being, and then it be one. This is the one that's convertible with being. And thus it happens that there is one real relation only, on account of the unity of the cause. Is this clear about equality? For that is what, on account of one quantity, there is in one body one equality only, although there are many respects according as there are diverse bodies to which one is what equal.

[57:07] But do you have, you know, really, if I'm the same height as two different men, do I have really two really two different relations to these two men?

[57:21] Yeah, but I mean the I'm equal to this. I'm equally tall to this man, or taller. I'm taller than both these men, right? Because of the same thing in me, right? My size, right? My height, right? So do I have two real relations here, or one?

[57:49] Yeah, yeah. But Thomas says now, if I teach you geometry and I teach you logic, then I get two real relations to you. But if I'm taller than both you guys,

[58:08] it's not by two different sizes that I have. So that means you have only one relation to everybody Everybody's shorter than you Everybody in the world shorter than you. Maybe so, yeah. Real relation, yeah. But you can speak of more relations, you know. Reason can multiply them, right? I'm taller than him. I'm taller than him. I'm taller than him. I'm taller than the chair, you know. But that's kind of a what?

[58:33] Empty multiplication that reason can do, right? Maybe we should stop now, but I'm sure we'll finish with this yeah okay. From the same something has that is being that is one, right? And therefore, it happens that there is one real relation only, on account of unity of the cause, as is clear in equality. As is the example. For account of one quantity, there is one body, one equality only.

[59:10] Although you could distinguish many respects, right? Huh? According to it is being equal to diverse what bodies, right? Huh? If, however, according to all those respects and being multiplied, there really were relations in one body, it followed in one there would be infinite accidents, right? And indeterminate number there, right?

[59:39] And similarly, the master is by one relation the master of all those that he teaches the same thing. Okay. Although there are many respects, right?

[59:54] Thus also one man according to one real what? Is the son of his father and of his mother, right? I didn't know that. That's good to know.

[1:00:07] Because one nativity he receives one nature from both, right? Huh? So I have a different sonship of my father. I'm the son of my father and the son of my mother. that's two sonships of me. Your mother and father. is then? Yeah. Yeah.