Logic (2016)
44. The Four Tools of Dialectic; How Aquinas Orders God's Attributes in the Two Summas
Class of 2017-04-20
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/2-logic-2016/044-the-four-tools-of-dialectic-how-aquinas-orders-gods-attributes/

[0:00] Remember what the four tools of dialectic, were? I call them the four tools of dialectic. Now, the first one is the selection of what probable premises, right? Probable statements, right?

[0:40] Now, what's the definition of probable statements here? What makes a statement probable? We talked about that. I think didn't we? Yes, we did. Is it the quantity or the quality of men holding, right? So in terms of quantity, if all men say this is so, right?

[1:05] Ah, or if most men say this, right? Then the opinion is probable because of the number of men, right? holding this, right? So maybe there was a time in which most men, if not all men, said the sun goes around the earth, right? All this nonsense about the earth turning on its axis, which I can't really believe. you know.

[1:28] yeah. So if all or most men are saying that the sun goes around the earth, right? It rises in the east, goes across the sky, is being pulled or part of its course, right? And then down the other side, you know, what the French say, "succous they say, the sun goes to bed, right? Yeah, Alaskan's dead. Big job, right? And so

[1:54] that's one part of probable statements, right? If all or most men think that, right? Or then there is a threefold one: if all or most men, or the most famous men, right, in some art or science, say that this is so, right? Then it's probable because of the quality of the men saying it, right? But you might want to add to that that you're saying this as regards something pertains to their art or science, right?

[2:30] So if all or most doctors or the most famous ones say that smoking is bad for your health, right? Then that is a probable opinion, right? Okay. They're trying to get this, this, you know, climate business, right? Huh? Well, all scientists, you know, agree now that you know because they say that it isn't really so, you know. I mean, maybe they're they're falsifying, you know, the fact at all saying to saying that, you know.

[3:00] And as I talked to you know, engineers and they really have some skepticism about this, you know. So I'm not sure, you know, or the people who are going along with it, you know, they've been kind of they kind of created that that large number of people. So, so it's got to be all or most or the most famous ones in a particular art or science, right?

[3:21] When speaking about the matter of that, what art or science, right? So a Hollywood actor is talking about this, he has no excellence about this, right? Huh? I mean, if he says something about about acting or something, that might be you know taken more important, right? Huh? Because that seems to pertain to his art, right? Which is acting, you know, pretending and so on, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:47] Um. So in Thomas, I've been reading, re-reading the De Veritate, you know, this disputed question, and he's taking the objections often he's quoting Damascene or Augustine or somebody else, right? Huh? And so he's a man who's famous, right? Huh? In his art or science, he's speaking about a matter of what theology, right? Huh? Okay, what he is competent in. So there's those five main things, right? yeah?

[4:15] or most men, right? Because the number of them, or all or most men in a given art or science, or the most famous of them, right? Huh? Okay. I think I was quoting last time wasn't a Haydn, right? Mozart's last quartet of the sixty dedicated to Haydn. Um it's called the uh dissonant quartet sometimes There's a little bit of dissonance in the beginning, right? People, you know, are puzzled, you know, for you know what Mozart made such a mistake, you know, and and and they, you know, brought up the Heiden who was the man who was competent.

[4:50] He says uh Mozart brought it that way, he had a good reason for doing so. You know, I mean, I have no idea he had a good reason for doing, right? So I mean, you find that you know that respect for Mozart. right? If Mozart did it, you know, it must have been uh, uh, good, right? huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. This. What? Oh, I just had noticed something when I was in the world that there's a phenomenon you could call it the celebrity intellectual, where you have somebody who may be a pioneer in their own field, like Noam Chomsky at MIT in linguistics, who goes into a completely different field, for example, politics and culture, in which he has no competence whatsoever, and yet is held

[5:33] up as an icon, a sort of guru, when he really not only does he not seem to know what he's talking about, but he's also extremely ideological in a Marxist way. But it's amazing how charismatic people like him have such a cachet. Even some of the great physicists who worked on the atomic bomb, you know, have these naive opinions about communism so on. You know. What? Was Oppenheimer one of the...

[5:59] Yeah, yeah. He had associates and so on. So it's got to be a matter of the own thing, right? Now I always, you know, compare Wagner to Mozart in opera, there, you know, because Wagner says in opera that the the words are the male element, right? And the music is the female element. And Mozart says, you know, that in opera the words must be altogether obedient to the music.

[6:25] Like Mozart said, right? Then that's how you how you how you should be doing, right? Everything's turned into something musical, right? Huh? In fact, some mention the plots of Mozart's operas, you know, which he didn't write himself. You know, they're kind of stupid or kind of, you know, they, you know, but you know, but they've been turned into the musical, right? You know, that's that's not too bad.

[6:48] So, um, so the first thing you want to say about the selection of probable statements is what is a probable statement, right? Okay, that you might reason from an opinion of all or most men, or of all or most men in a given area of science about a matter that area of science, or the most famous thing, right? Okay.

[7:12] Um, now Aristotle seems to put in there also that you can divide these probable statements according to their subject matter, right? And also you can what not only distinguish them that way, but then order them right from the general to the what particular, right? Okay. I always

[7:37] quote those words of Shakespeare, or if not the modesty of nature, feeling sorry then is from the purpose of playing, who's in both the beginning and now, was and is to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show up to nature to show virtue her own feature scorn her own image the very age and body of the times, form and pressure. Why I take this as a probable statement about what the dramatist should be what doing, right?

[7:58] Because Shakespeare, you know, this greatest and most famous dramatist, right? Who's performed all over the world, four languages even, right? Um, said this is what a play is, right? So like this, what is natural, right? So,

[8:19] okay, that's the first tool, right? Now, what is the second tool, right? Okay, distinctions. Yeah, the senses of the word, right? Okay. Now Aristotle in the book on places would give the what. Places for this.

[9:06] Philosophers often, you know, get taken up with the word places, right? But I think you know if you take the adverb there and say a place is where you look, right? To see if a word has more than one meaning, right? Aristotle gives different places, right? The most important places are to look at the what opposite, right? And if it has more than one opposite, even a name obviously it has more than one sense, right?

[9:35] But even if you recognize one opposite and multiplicity meanings, then the other one's got the multiplicity meanings, right? Okay. Or you use the word in combination, right? Okay.

[9:49] There's a whole bunch of places there, right? So I just use example of what's the opposite of conservative, right? Or liberal. What's the opposite of liberal? Sometimes it's conservative, sometimes it's what servile, and sometimes it's what stingy, right? So does liberal or liberality have one meaning then? No, because conservative and what stingy don't mean the same thing. In fact, conservatives tend to be more giving to charity than than liberal.

[10:27] Liberals, guy, who's generous with what other people's money, yeah. And then the but we speak of the liberal arts as opposed to the what servile arts, right? So the word liberal has got three meanings compared to those three what opposites it has. So there are places where you can look, right?

[10:56] Now the third tool is what finding the what differences of things. It's interesting that he uses the word finding there, right? Finding the differences of things, right?

[11:30] Then the fourth tool is the consideration of the likeness of things, and there he says you can what find the likeness of things in the same genus, right, or species, right, or the likeness of what ratios, right? In the same genus, or a likeness of what

[12:18] ratios? So like the ratios is a much more distant likeness, right? So I can say two is to three as what four is to six, that six is to nine, right? Is eight is to twelve, and I can go up as high as I want to, right? Further and further away to still a what likeness, right? Two trillion to three trillion, it's like two to three,

[12:50] okay? So the mind is what. Exercised, huh? By practicing these tools, right, huh? But notice the difference in practicing the third and the fourth tool, right, huh? You know, which exercises your mind more?

[13:21] Finding the difference of things that are far apart, or the difference of things that are what? Close. Close. Yeah, yeah. Um. It is harder to do, right? Okay. Um.

[13:50] What about likeness, which exercises the mind more? Find the likeness of things that are in the same species or genus, or finding the likeness of what? Two different what? Ratios, huh?

[14:10] Well, there the mind is exercised, right? Because you can see the likeness of things that are what? Far apart, huh? Okay. Makes sense, huh?

[14:24] Aristotle speaks of finding the difference, but then he speaks of you know consideration of the likeness, huh? Because you find the difference, right? Ah, you you found the difference, right? No real problem. But if you consider a likeness, you can be often be deceived by likeness, huh? Because you might think that things are alike in a way that they are what? Not, huh? Okay. I always take a simple example, and I say, um, you know, start off with with a proportion which is first known, or if it's called a proportion, like arithmetic, right, huh?

[15:06] You say four is to six as what? Two is to three, right, huh? Okay. Now two to three is the ratio of a prime number to a prime number, right? It is. Yeah. Right. True. So four is to six as two is to three. It must be the ratio of a prime number to a prime number. Is that true? Well, you didn't consider the likeness, right? Is that what the likeness consists in?

[15:38] That's a ratio of a prime number to a prime number between those two. Okay. In what way is four to six like two to three? Exactly. What? In what way they are like? What way is that? Parts and a whole makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just that four is less than six. Like two is less than three, right? Because then two would be to three as four is to five.

[16:06] Yeah, or two hundred or a hundred or two, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what does it mean that four is to six is two is to three? Exactly, what way they are like? You have to stop and think about, right? See? And I used to say to the students, you know, I'd say,

[16:23] if you can supply the fourth term in a proportion, that's a sign that you understand the likeness, right? So if I say seeing is to the eye, is hearing is to the, now, if you correctly give the fourth term, that sees that you see the likeness here, right? So then I'd say to my stupid students, I'd say two is to three is four is two, and they would say five.

[16:50] You know? You know, times you know I didn't use example for six, like previous, I just said two is to three is four is two, and and invariably in a class, college students say five, right? Well, the distance between four and five is the same as the distance between two and three, right? But is that in what the likeness of a proportion would consist? See?

[17:18] Well, the way that two is to three like four is to six is that two is what? Two parts. Yeah, and four is like two parts of what? The three parts of six. So imagine six being made up of three twos, so to speak, and four made up of two twos. So four is two of the three parts of six, right? And that's obviously two is of three, right?

[17:43] See? So now you have considered the likeness in what way they are a what, like, right? Okay. Now Aristotle is investigating the first matter,

[17:57] the matter underlying substantial change, right? Okay. If a lion should eat me, for example, right? A man would become more lion, right? Okay. So Aristotle works out a what proportion, right?

[18:22] That the first matter is to man and lion, right? Or man and dog, or whatever else you want to take, as clay is to what? Sphere and cube, right? Well, sphere clay is an actual substance, right? And sphere and cube are two what accidents, right? In this genus of what quality, right? Was the first matter? Like an accident to a substance Uh like a substance to two accidents.

[18:57] Is man and dog or man and horse or man and lion, right? Are they what two accidents? Well, I don't see how the first matter is to man and dog like clay is to what?

[19:14] I don't see that. Do you? No. Um. These are two accidents, right? The shape is accidental, and man and dog seem to be something more than shape, you know, two different kinds of substance, right? Well, you haven't considered sufficiently the likeness, right? In what way they are alike, right?

[19:41] Aristotle said this is the only way to know the first matter. It's not knowable by itself, right? It's knowable only by this what? Proportion, okay.

[19:55] And and what does the likeness consist? Yeah, just as the clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, but not both at the same time, right? If it becomes one, it ceases to be the other, right? So the first matter is able to be a man or a dog or a man or lion, right?

[20:24] And when it's one, it can't be the other, right? And becomes the other, it ceases to be the former, right? That's what the likeness is, right? See, you got to kind of think about that, right? What way they are like then? Okay. But man and dog are not like sphere and cube, as both being what substances, right? Or both being accidents, right? You have misunderstood the likeness, huh?

[20:50] So it's kind of interesting the choice of Aristotle's wording, consideration of likeness, right? You have to see in what way they are what Alike, huh? Okay.

[21:12] The substantial form and accidental form are alike, and they're both are what act, right? In comparison to something, right? Do you want to overextend like this, huh?

[21:27] Okay. Now, let's come back upon the the order of the four here, right? You can kind of see why these have come first, right? Because you want the tools for dialectical arguments, right? And dialectical argument is a syllogism or an induction, right? But the syllogism is what

[21:54] from premises that are seen as probable, right? So obviously the selection of probable statements is most what close, you might say, to the what dialectical syllogism, right? Well the consideration of likeness put last down here, right, is useful for what induction, right? Okay. But it's also useful for the if-then syllogism, right? Okay. See,

[22:24] sometimes you reason from one what ratio to the other ratio, right? But now, why does he put the distinction of the senses of the word next to this probable statements rather than the sec, the third and fourth tool, which seem to be talking about what things?

[22:47] Why is this distinction of the senses of a word? Um why is that put s second in order among the four tools? Statements are made of words, and so in order to understand statements, you have to see what the words may be. Yeah, seems to be proximate to that, right now. Okay.

[23:13] Now, purpose might, you know, be quoting Shakespeare as his final doing, right now. And Shakespeare says what? Very smart guy, Shakespeare, right? And he's wiser, I think, than the modern philosophers. Kind of scandal, right? Doesn't seem much of a modern philosopher, son. But Shakespeare says that reason is the ability for large discourses, right? Looking before and after, right now. Now you might take this as a probable statement about what reason is, right?

[23:51] But what does he mean by saying looking before and after? I guess a number of things. Yeah. Because the word before has what number of meanings, right? Huh? Okay. And is it just in one of these meanings that reason looks before and after, or is it in two or or three or you know? Before. So now me being a dummy, I go to the the second post predicament, right?

[24:26] In the categories, right? The extent of my knowledge, right? And Aristotle has a pretty good distinction there of the what central chief senses of before. The first sense of before is in what time, right? Why should that be the first sense of before? Probably

[24:53] because it's most known to us from motion. Yeah, things in motion, right? It's tied up with the before and after in motion. Time is actually the number of the before and after in motion. So that's if things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, and our knowledge begins with our senses in motion, which stretches most of all. Well, then you might say that

[25:18] motion, the first sense of before, for us, right, must be what tied up with time, right? Now you could join that, right? Lay alongside of it, right? Before in the motion itself, right? And before in the what road or path that you are moving down, right? Huh? Okay.

[25:49] So, but those would be senses that are laid alongside, right? That first sense. Okay, so that's the first sense of before, right? And then what's the second sense?

[26:10] Yeah, I know is that being. One thing can be without the other, but the other can't be without. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it seems to me you can lay alongside that the sense of what, cause being before effect, huh? Because what's before in being, what what's after in being rather, depends upon what is before in being, right? Huh.

[26:39] But if I have a pile of bricks, I might not make a brick walkway, I might make a brick house, right? Okay, or a brick fireplace or something, right? Um. So.

[26:53] There seems to be some dependence upon a brick fireplace or a brick walk or a brick house upon bricks, right? Bricks can be without a brick house, but can't a brick house without bricks, right?

[27:07] Right, take you know for clear examples, you know, the letters C A and T can be without what? Yeah, can the word cat without the letters C A and T? Say.

[27:25] But you can't simply say that C A and T are the cause of, of cat because the word cat doesn't might be causes an act instead, right, or something, right? But those meanings seem to be you know somewhat similar, right?

[27:44] And I think I was mentioning how I noticed Thomas when he talks about the first part of thinking about God, which is thinking about the existence of God, whether God exists, right? Huh. Well, in both Summas, he gives five arguments, right?

[28:04] And four of them are the same. Okay. I don't mean to why there's one difference there? Um. In the Summa Contra Gentiles there's two arguments from motion, right? The first two arguments from motion. In the Summa Theologiae, the first argument is from motion, but the second argument is from what, the maker. That's the third argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Okay.

[28:44] And the last two are similar, right? Huh. But the the Summa Theologiae has this argument from able to be and not be to something that must be, right? And then something must be. To another but it must be to itself, right? To the idea that God is... Well, that argument is not given as one of the five in the Summa Contra Gentiles, but in that's in chapter what thirteen in book one.

[29:15] But in chapter fifteen, it's given, In chapter 16, it's given. So there's seven arguments. Like seven? yeah, yeah. I was kind of struck, you know, by the fact that I was talking about thinking about God, right? I like to do that, and thinking about God has how many parts?

[29:48] Three. No. There are five parts. Five. parts. Yeah. Three of them we share with Aristotle, right? And two of them just we believers Christian believers, have, right?

[30:04] So the first part of thinking about God is thinking about his existence, whether God exists, right? Because if God doesn't exist, then the investigation is over, right? As Thomas says, theology is over. Okay. Then the second part is what?

[30:23] Attributes. What kind of thing is? Well, yeah, Thomas refers to the second part here as the consideration of the substance of God, right? And then the third part is what? Operation. What he does. Yeah, the consideration of what God does, right? Both what he does remains within him, like his understanding and willing, and what he does that produces something outside of him, like his creating himself. And then, and so we share those three parts with Aristotle, right?

[30:56] Aristotle talks about God existing, and then God, what, the substance of God, and then God's understanding, right? Huh? He understands himself and so on. And but then we have an addition. We we think about the what, Trinity, right? Which Aristotle didn't think about, huh? And then because the second person of the Trinity, the Word was made flesh, right? Then there's a fifth thinking about God, right? Huh?

[31:26] Okay. So there's five parts to thinking about God, but the first three we share with Aristotle, and the last two are unique to us Christians, right? Who believe that there are three persons in one God, right? Huh? And that there is,

[31:51] and that the Word of God, that the Son of God, one of the three, became man, right? Huh? Became flesh, huh? Right. That kind of struck me, you know, that there are five parts in thinking about God, and then when Thomas, in the first part, right, he's just thinking about the existence of God in both Summas, he gives five arguments, right?

[32:16] And then he gets into the substance of God. How many parts do you think he has? Five. Yeah. And in Summa Theologiae, those five are in this order. He first shows that God is altogether simple, right? He's not composed in any way, right? And then secondly, he shows that God is perfect and therefore good, right? And then third, he shows that God is what.

[32:47] In Summa Theologiae. Unlimited, yeah, or infinite. And then fourth, he shows that God is what. Unchanging, yeah. And then fifth, he shows that God is what one, right? Huh? Now in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he first shows that God is unchanging, not fourth; it's first, right? And in fact, not only does he do it first, but he gives two arguments, right? Instead of one, right? It's in the Summa Theologiae, right?

[33:24] And then he goes to what the simplicity of God, right? And perfection of God, right? And his being good, right? So, and then what does he do? Then he goes to his being one, and last his being infinite.

[33:49] Now, if you summarize the order, the two of them, you can say they both have this in common: that they consider the simplicity of God and the perfection of God next to each other, and they both consider the simplicity before the what perfection, right? And they both consider the unity and the what infinity of God after those, right? Although Thomas in the Summa he takes up the infinity third, right?

[34:29] And he takes up the simplicity, the unity last. Okay. Now Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentilis, he takes up the what right after the perfection of God and so on. He takes up the unity of God and then so first order, right? Now Thomas looks before and after. So why does he do this?

[35:03] Well, we'll come to that, right? But the wild card is is especially the what the the the unchangingness of God, right? He's immobile, right? Because in the Summa Contra Gentilis, that's number one, right? And here it's number what four in the Summa, right? Four, four, those differences, right?

[35:31] Well, there's a connection between the unity and infinity of God; those two, right? Which they both take up after the other two, right? And what is their connection?

[35:52] Well, the unity, right, of God is very similar to the simplicity. In fact, one of the arguments that Thomas gives the simplicity of God is from Plato that the One is before the many, which should indicate that God is One, right? And he ties up the infinity with what the perfection of God, that God's perfection and His goodness is what endless.

[36:23] And Thomas follows those two after the first two, but he gives first the unity because it's closer to the simplicity, right? And in the the the little work by the Compendium of Theology, right, the unity of God is considered with the simplicity of God, right? To that close, right? Of course, the Summa Theologiae considers the what infinity God right after the perfection of God because it's very tied up with that, right?

[36:53] But why does why does he put the the last the what unity of God right in the Summa Theologiae? But next to the last in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right?

[37:13] Well, as I was saying last night to the class here, a lot of people in their study of theology they've heard this phrase De Deo Uno et Trino, right? And the Summa Theologiae, in the same first part of the sum as it's called, right? There's the first part, the second part, third part. In the first part, he's going to take up the Trinity too, isn't he? So maybe he wants to emphasize that there's only one God despite there being three persons.

[37:47] Because people are scandalized to hear this, the Muslim, right? They think we're saying there are three gods gods. We're falling back into polytheism. You know, they're really terrible people really really terrible people in that respect. So maybe he puts the unity last as that's the last thing you want to consider if you're considering Deo Uno et Twino, right? But Thomas in the Summa Conte Gentiles, is not going to talk about the Trinity until the fourth book.

[38:14] It's not going to be in the first book at all. Now, the reason why he does that, right? Because he's writing the Summa Contra Gentiles not for beginners that he's doing the Summa Theologiae, but he's doing it for the Dominicans who are meeting the Muslims in Spain, right? And so he wants to distinguish the things that can be known by natural reason as well as by faith, and how you're going to talk about those things and the things you can only know by faith, right?

[38:42] It's going to be quite different. how you're going to talk to Mohammed about those two things, right? So it's all in the fourth book that he has the things that are known only by faith, the Trinity and the Incarnation, right? huh? He doesn't have the same problem. He's got to emphasize the, you know, that's that's something you know, you know, forget about that for the time being, right?

[39:02] He's going to talk about those things that are known by natural reason as well as by faith, right? In these first three books, the Summa Contra Gentiles. Okay, so he can follow the order of the unity before the infinity, because unity is to the infinity a little bit like simplicity is to perfection. I mentioned I was in time with my students Wednesday night there, you know. Would you think of God's simplicity as being endless, or would you think of His perfection and goodness as being endless?

[39:34] Oh, His perfection, you know, right away they say like that, you know. You see what I mean? And so Thomas follows the same order in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? He speaks of the simplicity of God before the perfection of God in both Summas, and then he speaks of unity before the what? Infinity, right? This perfect order, right? But the Summa Theologiae, you're going to talk about the Trinity in the same part, right?

[39:59] So you want to make? End on a note of only one God, you know. Get them into your head and and however we understand the Trinity, it's not going to end up in being one God. Who's that? Well, you'll find out when you get to the part of the Trinity. But I mean, okay, but you know, but you know, if you understand the Trinity in a way that doesn't that goes against, you know, then you got some problem here.

[40:27] We'll see when you get to this recent fidelity over here. Okay. Now it's interesting what Aristotle or Thomas does in the Summa Theologiae when he takes up last the unchangeableness of God and the what the unity of God, right? He he proves them both by three arguments each, right? And two of them, one is taken from the endless perfection of God. he doesn't have to what change because he's got everything.

[41:09] He's got it all there. Yeah, and and and he's got you know, you know, if it's universally perfect, it can't be two gods because there'd be no difference between the two, right? One of them had to have something the other one didn't have, but one of them wouldn't be universally perfect, it wouldn't be God, right? You know, so he can he can use the endless perfection of God and then the what the simplicity of God to show that God is what

[41:36] one and that he's what unchanging, right? When you study, you know, natural philosophy is basically about motion, right? Or immobility, as Thomas says, right? Movable thing, right? Huh? And the first thing you learn about a movable thing is in Book One. It's composed of matter and form, right? Huh? And so if God is not composed anyway, he can't be a movable thing, right? You know, so that's okay.

[42:09] And if he's universally perfect, nothing he can gain by changing, so there's always a way to change, right? Like he's seen something, he's got it, he's got everything, you know. You know, but he gives the guys everything for Christmas, right? You know. I know in the natural history, and well, God's got everything, right? Huh?

[42:30] What can you really give God, right? You know. As you compare it, you know, you know, in this kind of a parable way, you know, I'd say, you know,

[42:42] when your mommy and daddy give you a little allowance as a kid, right? And it's out allowance, you have to buy them a Christmas present, right? Well, we're giving them something, you're not because you, you know, you're giving them back what they gave you, right? Huh? You know. And sometimes all we could afford was a rose, a single rose from my mother. You know, my mother always thought that the clerk in the forest store didn't pay enough attention to us with our one rose.

[43:13] You know, he does something else. You know, a couple dozen for some people. But anyway, but it's quite beautiful the way he does the summa, right? He's done the simplicity of God, right? And the perfection of God, and infinity of God, and then he has what two middle terms to be used both to show that he's what unchanging, and to show that he's what only one. That's what he does, right?

[43:51] Now in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he begins, you know, the treatment of the substance of God by showing that God is what unchanging, right? And he's very brief,

[44:08] but he goes back to the arguments for the existence of God. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, there's two arguments, twice as many as are in the Summa Theologiae, for saying that God is unmoved, unchanging, you know. And he develops the two arguments much more fully than he does in the Summa, right? He'll say, "Oh, it's based upon these two premises, and the first was A, B, C reasons, and for the second A, B, C, you know."

[44:37] Oh boy, you know. So I mean, you're really, you know, more than twice as what the Summa Theologiae, right? Okay, and that's really impressive, right? You know. So when Thomas gets that's in the thirteenth chapter, right, he gives the five ways in the Summa Contra Gentiles. And chapter 14, he he spends most of time saying you're going to know more what God is not than what he is.

[45:04] It's only in you know, by division that you know God as he is. And so he almost takes it for granted now that we know God's unchanging, right? Okay.

[45:18] But then before he goes to the next one, which is what simplicity of God, right? Where he goes like he does in the other Summa, to say that God is what

[45:33] eternal, right? It's attached to you know to God being unchanging, right? And so that's the fifteenth chapter, right? And then comes the what glorious sixteenth chapter, right? Like this Summa Theologiae, right? And what's the sixteenth chapter? You know there are five arguments in the fifteenth chapter to show that God is what. Eternal, right? And then the sixteenth chapter is six arguments, five and six and fifteen and sixteen.

[46:08] That's all I remember. He gives six arguments to show that God is what pure act. Yeah. That's you know the major little term for showing that God is simple, right? So justly, right? For showing that God is perfect, to showing that God is infinite, right? Everything falls into place, right? Now he makes use of you know God being pure act. but it's kind of what St. Augustine's whole chapter is devoted to it, huh?

[46:40] Six arguments, right? You know, very very impressive, right? What he does there. I think it's the six arguments that St. Augustine too. So, so, and then what's in the seventeenth chapter?

[47:00] Well, you know, I was talking to Warren Murray on the phone there because I said, Warren, you know, you know how they give the little title at the beginning of each chapter and see what kind of shit to this. Warren, is that really in the original text? And Warren thought it was not in there, right? See. And when I look at the you know I have the I have the the one that they took from the Leonine, right?

[47:21] And it's got those titles, but the seventeenth chapter is not saying what the title says. The title says that there is no matter in God, which is true. But what actually shows in the seventeenth chapter that God is not is not matter. He's not the cause called matter. See. Which falls immediately from his being pure act, right? Huh? He has other arguments for it too. He's got four arguments there altogether.

[47:50] He's absolutely magnificent, right? And if the first cause was really matter, everything would be by chance. That's all the arguments he has in there, right? Huh? And if the first cause was what matter, then it would things would proceed from it by its motion, by its being changed. We always said God is changeless, right? So, and then he spends the second half of the chapter with the stupid opinion of David of Dinant, who said that God and first matter are the same because they can't they're not distinguished by anything, right?

[48:24] But they're distinguished by themselves because the one is pure act and the other is pure what passive potency, right? Huh? So it's really powerful, right? Huh? And so you are really impressed with the idea that God is pure act, right? And then chapter eighteen, the composition, right? Well, in chapter eighteen, he does the reverse of what he does in Summa Theologiae, right? In Summa Theologiae, you have a questionnaire of eight articles, right?

[48:54] On the simplicity of God, right? And the first six articles are particular kinds of composition that are what denied of God. It's not until the seventh article that you argue that there can't be any composition whatsoever in God, right? And of course, since you've gone through the six main kinds in the real world that we know, right? You are struck by what? Inductive argument, and then you have a syllogistic argument, right?

[49:26] Well, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you see that God is what pure act in a much more what formal way, a complete way than you do in the Summa Theologiae, and then this is the main reason for saying God is not composed, because if He's composed, either one part is as to the others' ability to act, or all of them are to the whole as ability to act.

[49:48] So I mean, he begins the syllogistic way, right? And then he goes down particular kinds in later chapters, right? God is not a body. God is, you know, there's no distinction in God between his being. and his nature and so on, right? No distinction between God and his nature, right? And so on. So the word is a little different than the two summas right? One for Summa Theologiae is more for beginners, right?

[50:13] You've got to do them by hand, by propositions, less universal, right? A powerful mind that's really been prepared by understanding that God is pure act has got the middle term, you know, see all these things like that, you know. And I always say I'm a lazy son of a gun, you know. I don't want to do little terms, you know, ding ding. You know. But but Easternism is more particular.

[50:34] There's too many descendants, you know, to these ones. And the one, you know, you know, God having a body, right, takes up, you know, even more developed than it is in the suma theology. But

[50:50] so it's interesting, right? That that. But if you go back, and now you see, my goodness, it goes all the way back, of course, the understanding ability in act, ninth book of first philosophy, the ninth book of wisdom, as I call it. The ninth book of wisdom has how many parts?

[51:13] Three, yeah. Now, what you do in the ninth book of wisdom is, in following Shakespeare, you're talking about the distinctions of ability and act, and the order of ability and act. Now it's in the third part that you talk about the order of ability and act, and that's the basis for eventually seeing that the first cause must be what pure act, right? But in the first two parts, you're talking about the distinctions of what a built-in act.

[51:46] What does Aristotle do in those two parts, There's two parts devoted to that, right? Well, in the first part, he talks about the act which is motion, right, which you you consider most of all in actual philosophy, right? And then he distinguishes the various kinds of ability for motion, the ability to be moved, the ability to move, another, right? And then the distinction between a natural ability and a rational ability, and so on.

[52:21] What you realize, as Aristotle point out in the ninth book, is that what the first meaning of act for us is what motion, motion, yeah. That's kind of profound. Just think of that, right? So he begins in the first of the three parts, right, of Book Nine.

[52:47] Thomas says three and nine have the same symbolism, right? The number and the square number of it have the same meaning, right? In the first of the three parts, right, of Book Nine. um he talks about the number of the numb He talks about the act which is motion, and we know ability through the act for which it is an ability. So he talks just about those abilities that are known through motion.

[53:12] Our motion is the act most known to us. So he started with us the act which is most known to us, and in the final part of Book Nine, right, you realize the order of act and ability, and that although the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's an act, it is what

[53:36] simply simpliciter, as opposed to secundum quid, acting for ability because you go from ability to act only by reason of something already an act, right? So in the water when I make tea in the morning, it goes from being cold to being hot, right? From being able to be hot to being actually hot, but it does so by reason of the stove or something, right? That is actually hot, right?

[54:02] So simply, what? Yeah, yeah. Because you realize now, you know why the the moderns, Hegel, Hegel, not Hegel so much, but Marx, right, when he speaks of dialectical materialism, or the early Greeks when they made matter the beginning of all things, they're making the fallacy from things of confusing what is so simply with what is so in some respect, right? Aristotle points out in the thing that goes from ability to act, ability before act, but since it goes from ability to act by reason of something already an act, simply speaking, universe act is before.

[54:44] That's why the first being, the first cause, will be pure act. Now you realize how the summa contra gentiles, right, in having two arguments for motion instead of one, twice as many arguments as the summa theodogiae for motion, and they're much more developed, much more explicit, right? You know, so it's four times as much, maybe.

[55:11] You're starting from the act which is most known to us, you can go all the way to the pure act, right? Which he does in the sixteenth chapter, right? That's amazing, right? He goes from motion to see that God is motionless, right, and then from there to see that God is what? Pure act, right? That's absolutely marvelous. He does

[55:36] that. Far, far superior to the Again, that's right? that's the summa contra gentile, that's the summa theologian. Okay, I mean there are differences, right?

[55:50] So if you look before the consideration of substance, right, in the summa contra gentiles. you have the cruisances of God, but much more, more than twice as much. You would say, you know, the argument for motion, right? So it's natural, kind of, that he begins consideration of substance by saying God is unchanging, and eternal, right? And that's how he can lead into the full development of God being pure act, right?

[56:19] It's very impressive, right? See, but then you see some things you look after, right? In the Summa Theologiae, say, well, in the same book he's going to talk about the Trinity. You know, he'd better, you know, have solidified the fact that it's only one God, and no matter how you understand that Trinity, it's God being understood in a way that doesn't make you have more than one what?

[56:47] God, huh? De Deo Uno et Trino, right? You know, magnificent, magnificent. So it's kind of beautiful to see these two two ways, right? Now they both have the same five things to show about the substance of God, and the order is somewhat different, especially where motion is concerned. Another difference I mentioned too, that the infinity is taken up before the unity in the Summa Theologiae, more logically.

[57:19] You know, you can say that the unity of God is to the infinity of God more like the what simplicity is to the perfection, right?

[57:36] And that's why the the beginning of theology, the unity is right there with the conservation of simplicity, right? Everybody sees that the infinity is tied up with the endless perfection of God, the endless goodness of God, right? And we talked in the arguments,

[58:00] you know, for God being what unchanging and for God being one. He argues from the endless perfection of God. Combine the two together, right? You know.

[58:11] Interesting. Yeah. Would you say that the summa contra Gentilius really did its job as far as the Reconquista and their reconversion of Spain? Yeah, if you talk to a man, yeah, yeah, you know how to how to meet the Muslims, right? Huh? Because you don't defend you don't you don't defend the Trinity by trying to prove it by natural reason. See, because then then you realize that that's not a very good argument that you have, right?

[58:40] You can't really have a an argument that's necessary by natural reason that there are three persons, right? Even though Aristotle says we use the number three in praising God, but I mean that's that's very weak, you know, to argue that Aristotle knows the Trinity because of that, right?

[58:56] And so. What you do with the the Trinity is you have to know it by what faith, you know, by by by Scripture and the teaching of the Church. And what you do with the Muslim is to show that this does not contradict the truth that we know by natural reason and by faith too that there's only one God, right? And we can show why, you know, it's not absurd what we're saying, right?

[59:23] Although it's above our mind, right? Okay. You say that we had heard a talk by Riley, probably Riley or somewhere. Yeah. Who was a? It's based on a book of his called "The Closing of the Muslim Mind." About where there was a time where philosophy was possible in Islam, but then that branch of Islam lost out to these anti-philosophy factions. so that. Reason essentially was abandoned. Yeah.

[59:56] Yeah. And was the Summa Contra Gentiles written before? that abandonment occurred. Well, it maybe occurred in some places and other places not, you know, huh? Yeah, yeah. But there was some open-mindedness there in Spain at that time, you know. Basically, the difference is between the Sunni, who who reject reason, and the Shia, who accept reason. Yeah. That's the difference. Well, curious because I wonder if the summa contra Gentiles would be a very useful evangelization tool with some of the Muslims who have come and are involved in highly technical, highly professional realms.

[1:00:35] I'm thinking of a lawyer that I knew who became, I think, head of a Muslim university or something in Canada. But being steeped in Western legal reasoning and logic to a certain degree, that preparation might have made some chinks in the armor through which something like the Summa Contra Gentiles might actually. I also think, you know, that if you went up to the Muslim universities and they really respected, you know, Avicenna and and and uh and what's his name?

[1:01:12] Averroes What? Yeah, yeah. So, on um uh that talk to them, you know, but apparently they kind of forced out those philosophers, you know. I think in the thing in there. Yeah, yeah. I suspect too, you know. I know I don't know too much about what they actually teach about these things, but I gather from what people have told me anyway that they don't really think that God is bound by the by the principle of contradiction, right?

[1:01:41] Yeah. And so it's kind of kind of hard to... and uh, you know, Thomas always, you know, speaks of God's will as having a reason for what it does, right? huh Why they have the will of God is kind of arbitrary, right? Yeah So why can't he be a Trinity What? By that reason, I mean using the principles of jiu jitsu you say, well, why isn't it?

[1:02:05] Why can't he be a Trinity Yeah. One God You see, apparently Mohammed emphasizes it a lot because they were polytheists when he started, and he was trying to you know react against them, you know, and then it seemed like the the Orthodox Christians, although he wouldn't call them Orthodox, had stepped back into kind of you know pantheism or polytheism. And he learned about Christianity from heretics, anyway.

[1:02:33] so their idea of Trinity Incarnation anyway One of the big issues is that uh the Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam has been pouring huge amounts of money into the universities in the West to um uh spread their version of Islam And um so uh it's it's quite amazing how they have all these Muslim study departments that they funded through Saudi money Wahhabi Muslim Islam I should say