Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
78. Distinction, Order and the Strange Lack of a First in Motion (Physics Readings 7–8)
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/078-distinction-order-and-the-strange-lack-of-a-first-in-motion/

[0:00] going to depend upon an unmoved mover, right? And all of a sudden, there's God, right, staring him in the face, right? Not face to face, but somebody staring him in the face, huh? And reveal, huh? Okay.

[0:25] Name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Amen. And help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:59] Okay, I think we're on page ten of the reading. We're in the middle of that seventh reading. Okay. Now, just to recall for a moment, you a little bit where we are and what's going on here. In these three readings here, six, seven, and eight,

[1:19] you're dealing with the distinction or division of motion and the order of the parts of motion, right? Okay. And if I remember rightly, in the sixth reading, we're talking about a couple ways of dividing motion, huh? And now. In the seventh and eighth meetings, we're concerned with the the order, right?

[1:50] And what is the distinction order of distinction order? What's the distinction and order of distinction order? Like to state questions like that make them hard. Yeah.

[2:11] It's the distinction order of the senses of before. Well, what's the distinction between distinction and order? Order presupposes distinction. Distinction is before order in our knowledge. Okay, and also in being too, right? Yes. Now things can be distinct without having an order among them, right?

[2:40] Like a calf and a baseball bat. I don't see if they could order among them, right? But they're distinct, right? But they can't have a before and after if they're not distinct, according to the axiom of before and after. Nothing is before after itself, right?

[3:00] So, what does distinction mean in general? When are two things distinct? Let's put it that way, a little more concretely. When are two things distinct?

[3:11] Yeah. Yeah. When when one is not the other, that's the safest answer, right? Okay. And when are things in order? One is before the other. Okay, one is before or after the other, right? Okay. Now, that's a distinction, right, between distinction order. Now, what's the order of distinction order? You're saying what?

[3:45] Yeah, distinction is before order in what sense? Of before. Second sense, yeah. Distinction can be without order, but not vice versa, right? And then in our knowledge, right? Okay.

[4:02] So if I saw no distinction between today and yesterday, I couldn't say today was after yesterday, right? If I saw no distinction between wine and water, I couldn't say wine is better than water, right? While water can be without wine, but not vice versa. Okay. I couldn't see the before and after, so I saw distinction, which is before in the fourth sense.

[4:34] Yeah. Yeah. Because. Order would seem to be more the the end, right? Okay. So God has made creatures distinct in order to have a what an order in the universe, and the order of the universe is the greatest good of the universe after God Himself, right? But it's the greatest good, you might say, within the universe, right? But the whole universe is ordered to God, so He's the chief good, right?

[5:09] Okay. So he talked about the distinction then of the parts of motion in the what sixth reading, right? Now in seven and eight, he's going to be talking about the order. So it's pretty clear what he's doing here, right? In six, seven, and eight. But what's the difference between seven and eight? Say, well, in seven, the concentration is upon. first, right,

[5:39] and in eight, the concentration is on before, right? Okay. And but they still pertain to order because first is defined by what before Before and after, right? Okay. Now, and I think the part we saw already last time, he's shown in what way there is a first in motion, and now he's going to show, starting the second part here, in what way there is not a first in motion.

[6:12] In what way is there a first in motion? There's the first. There's the first. First, in which it has changed. Yeah, yeah. You talk about the complete change now, right? Huh? Okay. So, what is not a sphere is becoming a sphere, right? Huh? There is a first when it has what become a sphere, right? Okay.

[6:49] And as he points out, when it's changing, huh, from A to B, right? When the change is completed, it's where. B. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Now he goes on to point out a second thing that. What does he conclude about that? Where first is in the term to which it's changing. That's indivisible. Yeah, yeah. The Greek word would be atomon. You know, forget the word atom, right? It's indivisible, right?

[7:30] So when I was becoming a man, right? I won't try to say when exactly I did become a man, but when I was becoming a man, huh? When I first became a man, or when I first had become a man, right? I was at any period of time.

[7:55] Okay. Why can't you say there was some period of time when I first had become a man? I was born on January 18th. Let's say, right? I mean, I became a man before that, but let's just take that which is more known to us, huh? Ah.

[8:12] When I was first born, let's say. Ah. Was that any period of time? No. Why not? Because you have been both unborn and born at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Especially, clearly, you have contradictories there, right? Huh? Okay, so if you said I was born on January 18th, the whole day I was not firstborn well, have you been born in the morning already, or is it in the afternoon when I was born?

[8:45] If I was born already in the morning, that wasn't first born in the whole day, was I? The same you could say about any period of time, right?

[8:55] So I'm going to be born at the end of that time, and the end of that time being a limit is what? No time at all, right? Something indivisible, right? Okay. Now, in the middle paragraph on page 10, he's now going to trans go over to the second paragraph. uh consideration that there's nothing. There's no first distance you travel, right? There's no first distance you have traveled, right?

[9:26] Huh? He's looking at now from the beginning rather than the the end of the change. So he first wants to distinguish these two. So in the middle paragraph on page 10, if you have your reading there,

[9:43] that into which something has changed is said in two ways. The one in which first the change is perfected, right? And we talked about there being a first when the change has perfected, and that that change is that first is invisible, right? The other in which it first begins to change, huh? Okay.

[10:06] Now he says the one called first according to the end of the change is possible, right? Okay. And exists for the change can be perfected. And there is an end of the change, which has been shown to be what? Indivisible, right? Because it is the what limit, huh? Okay.

[10:34] That's interesting. On in even looking at in in terms of of limits of quantities, right? The limit is always what? Not a quantity of the sort of which it is a limit, right? So the point is the end of a what? Line limit of a line. The line is extension, but the point is no extension, right? The line is the end of the what? Triangle or something like that, or the square, right?

[11:04] It's the end of a surface that has length and width, but the end has no what? Width, right? A surface like a square, I'd say, is the end of a cube, right? And has length and width, but unlike the cube, the body, it doesn't have any what? Depth, right? Okay.

[11:28] But now he's going to contrast that. He says the one according to the beginning, though, right? Is not at all. For there is neither a beginning of change nor a first time which was changing. Okay, that's kind of strange, isn't it? That that there's no what first, huh? Okay.

[11:54] So he says, let AD be the first in which, huh? I suppose he's thinking of time here, right? This is not indivisible, for it would come about that nows were next to each other, right? Okay. Now, if you said that that the time which I begin to move is something indivisible, then there'd be a first time in which I am in what motion, right? Namely, that first indivisible, right?

[12:32] If the continuous was composed of what indivisibles, right? Okay. A B C D, right? So I'm at rest in A, and then B would be when I'm first in what motion, right? Okay.

[12:51] So he says, this is not indivisible, for it would come about that nows were next to each other, and this goes back to the general consideration of continuous, that no continuous thing is composed of what? All right, indivisibles. Of indivisibles, and and no continuous thing is indivisible either, right? Okay. So everything continuous is divisible forever.

[13:17] I think it's kind of a second one that if you take that there is motion in that indivisible. Further, if it rests in the whole time CA before it starts to move, it will rest in the A at the end there. Thus, if AD is partless, it at once rests and will have changed, huh? It rests in A while in D it has changed, huh? That's kind of assuming, you know, what the opposition is saying, huh?

[13:47] Now, since it is not without parts, it is necessarily divisible, and it has changed any of this. Now, dividing AD, the time which is first changed, if it has changed in neither, it has not changed in the whole. It's kind of obvious, right?

[14:09] If it changes in both, it also changes in the whole. If it is changed in one of them, it is not changed in the whole.

[14:19] Thus, it is necessarily changed in each. It is clear then that there is nothing in which it has first changed, for the divisions are what unlimited, right? Okay.

[14:34] So that I begin to move today. What did you say? I first began to move today. Was it this morning? I first began to move, huh?

[14:56] So it wasn't moving this morning. I didn't begin to move today, did I? Wasn't until this afternoon that I got up. That's not true. You see my point, right? Okay. So if I was already moving this morning, when did I first begin to move?

[15:19] At six, between six and seven, six, the first hour. Hmm. Of time is divisible forever, right? Is any time which I first began to move?

[15:35] No. Because any time you say is the first time I begin to move, if I'm moving during that whole time, you'd have to say right, then in half of that time I'm already what, moving right? That is not the first time, right? So only if you make time something indivisible or composed of indivisibles, which we've excluded from our study of continuous, would it be possible to have a first time beginning movement?

[16:04] Aristotle's going to come back to this when he argues that nothing moves itself. Let's see that. Look at look at Thomas's statement of those arguments there in the beginning of the Summa Contra Gentiles

[16:22] Okay now looking at that from the point of view of time, right? Neither is there anything first of what has changed that has changed, huh? Let DF be the first of the DE that has changed. Now, how's you thinking about this in this second way of proceeding here at the bottom of page ten, huh?

[16:48] Is it as if the body DE is changing through parts? It's like it's like I'm shoving something through the doorway here, right, huh? Okay. And how much of the thing I'm shoving through the doorway comes in first?

[17:09] See. Yeah, the same problem there, right? Did I first shove it in the first foot? You might say of the piano, wherever it is. See? No, because half of that foot is going to get in the door before the whole foot gets in, right? Well, is it half a foot then that first gets in the door? No, because a quarter of a foot is going to get in the door before the what, half a foot gets in, right?

[17:40] And because the body itself is divisible forever, what's the first amount or length of the body that has come through the doorway? None first. It's very strange, right? Nothing is first. Nothing is first, but there is a time when something's moving. Yeah, but is there a first time when it's moving? No, no, no. There is a time. when it's moving Yeah, yeah. There's no time in which it's first moving.

[18:14] That's the point he's making, right? And there's no part of the body that has first gone through the door. It shows what a strange reality is. what? Emotion. Change, right, right, and it's from this, son, that he will reason, huh, later on, right, that the body cannot be in motion to itself, right, because that would be in motion to itself. What first, but not because of anything else.

[19:03] I know this this is based upon what he showed earlier. Everything that changes has been shown to be divisible, right? Let HI be the time in which df has changed, huh? If then df has changed in the whole, you see the whole length df has gone through the doorway in each time. In half of that time, something less will have gone through, and before df will have changed, and again another before this, right, because the time it is forever.

[19:34] First, there will be whence there will be nothing first of the changing that has changed. So from the thing said so far, it is clear that nothing is first, neither of the changing as he's just shown, right, nor of the time in which it changes, huh? Okay.

[19:58] Now it comes to a third way of looking at this, which is that according to which there is change, right? But the thing itself which is changed, or according to which it is changed, does not have itself likewise. I make a distinction here because sometimes the change is in terms of something which is as such a quantity, like when you change your place, right, and the place is like a continuous quantity, right, or when you have growth where the what?

[20:32] There's a change of quantity, a continuous quantity, something continuous, as opposed to what a change of quality, right, where you don't have this continuity as such, although you have a certain continuity insofar as it takes time, right?

[20:49] But the thing itself which is changed, or according to which it is changed, does not have itself likewise, huh? For three things are said to be in change: the changing, which he's talked about in the second argument, and that in which there is change, which is one way of referring to the time which changes in place, like in the first argument, and that to which or according to which it changes.

[21:12] And he gives the example as a man might be the thing changing, right, in some time he's changed to white, huh? Now the man and the time are divisible, but there's another account about the white except that all are divisible at least by what accident, right? Insofar as the time is divided, huh? For that to which white or quality happens is divisible. But there will not be a first in whatever things are divisible by themselves, and not by accident, as in magnitude.

[21:43] So let the magnitude be a b, and let something be moved from b to c first. If then b c is divisible, there will be something before c to which it has changed. Again, other before that, and always thus, in account of the division never coming to an end.

[22:02] Thus, there will not be a first which it has changed. So what he's saying there is, I'm going to run, let's say, a mile today.

[22:13] Is there a first distance that I run? No, no, no first distance I run. Have to run half a mile before I can run a whole mile, right? And a quarter of a mile before I can run a half a mile, right? And because the distance is continuous, is divisible forever, right? So there's no first distance I run.

[22:42] Strange, right? Likewise, in the change of quantities, thinking now of growth, right? Okay. When I'm growing between five feet and six feet, right? Is there a first amount that I grow? Now, if it takes time, right? Okay. It is clear then that only in the change according to quality can there be the indivisible through itself, but even that can be divisible, what, accidentally, right? Insofar as it's in time, huh?

[23:20] Okay. Now, from what he's shown here in the second part of this reading that there's no first in the beginning of motion, he's going to argue about the before and after now in the eighth reading, right? He's going to say, does moving come before

[23:46] having moved, or, more generally here, changing before having changed? Does moving takes place before you have moved some distance, or have you moved some distance before you're moving a certain distance is completed? Both. He's going to

[24:20] argue both, right? Huh? He's going to argue each in turn, huh? Okay. So before having moved any distance. You are moving some distance, right?

[24:37] And while you are moving some distance, you'd already have moved some distance. It's a very strange before and what after, right? Very strange, very strange reality.

[25:04] Wonderful and strange. Shakespeare is always coupling those two, right? You know, in Hamlet, you know, he says, "Strange and wonderful." Then it's a strange you give it welcome. the old saying going back to the to Homer and so on.

[25:24] So it begins in the eighth reading. Since everything changing changes in time, okay and something is said to change in time As in first, and as by another, as in the year, because it changes in the day, then necessarily the changing changes in each part of the first time which is changing. This is clear from the definition for the first has been spoken of thus, but is also clear from these things.

[25:57] Let xr be that in which first is moved, that which is moved, and let it be—that's xr only—stands for a time, there, right? And let it be divided by k for all time is divisible. Hence, it either is or is not moved in the time xk, and likewise again in kr. If then it is moved in neither, it would rest in the whole, for it is impossible that the move move in none of this.

[26:27] If it moves in either only, it will not move in xr first, for the motion is by another. Necessarily, then, it is moved in each part of xr. Having shown this, it is clear that everything moving has been moved before. For if it has been moved to the magnitude kl in the time xr first, in the half what moves equally fast and starts together will have moved the half.

[26:56] If the equally fast has moved some distance in the same time, the other will necessarily have moved its distance, so that what moves will have moved. Now Thomas says he he's using two bodies there, right? He says you have two bodies that are starting off, and this one body is going to go this distance, right? And the other body going equally fast starts off and stops right here, right?

[27:29] Okay. So the other body has obviously has moved this distance, right? But the equally fast body is going to continue moving, right? In that time that the other body that stops here has gone this distance, it will have gone what this distance, right? So before it goes through this whole distance, it will have gone this far, right? Okay. So you manifest that Thomas says because this is more actual than it has gone that distance, right?

[28:02] Okay, you stop and you're going to rest, huh? But this is also has gone that distance, right? So before it goes this distance, it has gone this distance. So before going this other distance, it has gone some distance that is a what part of that distance is going, right? Okay.

[28:29] Somewhere during the time it's going this distance, it has gone this distance already. So before it is the going this distance has been completed, right? It has gone already. So shorter distance, right? Okay. Now it shows a little bit differently in the next argument here. Now notice that first argument is taking two different bodies, right, to make it more manifest. huh? Because As Thomas says, act is more known than ability.

[29:07] Further, if we say that has been moved in the whole time xr, or in general in any time, and taking the ultimate now the same, for this is the determining, and time is always between nows. So likewise in the others, it will be said to have moved, huh? For always together with the division, there will be a time determined by the nows. If then every time is divisible, and time is what is between nows, everything changes will have changed without what limit, huh?

[29:44] So this time, even in one body, is divisible forever, right? Each of these divisions is a now, and it has moved a certain distance, right? And before this moving any distance is completed, it already has moved some distance, right? Okay. Marked by those nows there, okay?

[30:12] Another slightly different way of showing it here in the second paragraph. Further, if what continuously changes, and neither ceases nor arrests from change, necessarily moves or has moved anything, and one cannot be changing the now,

[30:34] okay? It is necessarily has changed according to each now. Thus, if nows are limited, everything changing will have changed an infinite times. Okay. So he's saying that what? This is divisible forever, right? Each division is a now, right? And in that now, there's no what? Motion or rest for that matter, right? So it either has to be moving or has moved in any of those part of the time or in the time.

[31:12] So in the nows, it can't be moving. So in every now, it must have what? Have moved a certain distance, right? Okay. So before moving any distance, it has already moved some distance. Okay.

[31:38] So that's been shown, as he mentions here in the beginning of the third paragraph. Not only is it necessary that changing has changed, right? That what is moving has moved, right? But now, also the reverse. But also, what has changed necessarily was changing before.

[32:07] For everything that has changed from something to something has changed in time. For let it have changed the now from A to B. It has not changed the same now in which it is in A, for it would be at once in A and in B. And it has been shown before that what has changed when there is change is not in this, where it started from.

[32:31] If in another, there will be a time between for nows are not next to each other, huh? So, if each of these nows it has moved some distance, right? Well, there's always a time between any now and any now you want to take before that, right? So before the now which it has moved, there was some time in which it was what moving, right? So before every has moved, there's a moving.

[33:05] Okay. Now this is not the same as the question which came first, the chicken or the egg, right? But and that may actually have an answer to it. That question, by the way, In the ninth book of wisdom is answered. No way.

[33:30] But in here, there's no what saying which came first, right? Which came first, moving some distance, or could it have moved some distance? Yeah, only if you take the same distance, but yeah, yeah. So

[34:03] when you're moving some distance, you've already moved some distance, and before you move some distance, you're moving some distance. So neither one comes what first, huh?

[34:21] Very strange result, isn't it? Motion, huh? Neither one being the having moved and the moving. Neither one is first. Yeah, and and. And the two being moving and having moved, yeah, or changing and has changed.

[34:45] Now, is that true about thinking? No, no. Thinking is going to be more like numbers, right? Okay. Okay. You can see that even numbers, right? That there's a next number after two, right? Which is three, huh?

[35:10] There's nothing between two and three. Contrary to modern mathematicians, there's nothing between two and three, huh? Okay. Because the one is even simpler than the point, right? So just as there's nothing between two and three points, huh? Even more so, there's nothing between two and three ones. So there's a next one, right? And if you're going up, as it were, the numbers, right? There's a next number, right?

[35:43] There's the first number you come to after two, which is three. The first number you come to after three, which is four, right? But because it continues to divisible forever, there's never a first but? Length, right? Okay.

[36:06] If you wanted to, you know, you could put you could put lines like numbers in order of length, right? You know, you could say, okay, that, something like that, right? But there's another line in between these two, right? Okay. So what is the next longest line? See, after this. Once you could add a point to this, and that's the next longest line. But the point, what? Adds none, right?

[36:42] Was it Zeno? I guess one of those guys who said that the point is nothing, right? Because you add a point to a line, the line is no longer, right? Therefore, a point can't be anything, right? And but that's kind of assuming that what is is something what? Continuous, right? Oh yeah. A point is in some way, but it's not continuous. Yeah. That's why Thomas, I told you, Thomas uses that when he's speaking of the goodness of the creature, the goodness of God, huh?

[37:16] In saying, you know, that the the goodness of God is to the goodness of the creature something like a line is to a what? Point, huh? So the point adds the line is no more than the point alone. So the goodness of the creature added to God is no more than what? The goodness of God. That's kind of to help our mind understand, right? Because if the goodness of the creature added to the goodness of God was something made of something better, right?

[38:01] Then there'd be something better than God, right? And he'd be like a and a part of this whole goodness, right? And that's to misunderstand, huh? So the goodness of God, and you can argue, you know what? You know, God is kind of morally obligated to create us because it was better that the creature be in addition to Himself, right? Once you realize that the creature added to God, if you can speak of added to God, right?

[38:33] Is no more than God alone, right? Then you realize that God would know. even more obligation, you might say, you know, to create us in order to make something better than himself alone, right? See, and then you realize how gratuitous God's creating us is, right?

[39:00] Thomas would quote, you know, he had a senator there, a philosopher, you know, he says God alone is liberal, right? He gets nothing, out of what? He's so generous, right? You know, yeah, it's pretty gratuitous in God's part, huh? Absolutely gratuitous, huh? Amazing thing in the Summa. I think I mentioned the other way. Thomas shows that, huh? Where he says that the creature partakes of the divine goodness, right?

[39:34] And just as Socrates and the arm of Socrates is no more than Socrates, so God, but partakes of God is no more than God alone, right? Okay. When I say even heaven, there is what kind of awe of God, right now? Kind of a filial fear, I suppose, of God, right now. So we realize how how what utterly gratuitous it was that he created us, huh? Kind of an amazing thing to think of that.

[40:16] How superfluous we are, not from our point of view exactly, you know, but from the true point of view, right? You know, yeah. So this whole thing with the moving and the changing, and so having moved, you would have already moved. This all seems to be a property of the continuous and infinity, because if it were possible that that weren't so, then you wouldn't have something continuous.

[40:53] Right, but the continuous is something which is divisible, right? Something that is not indivisible, something that is not composed of indivisibles, right? Okay. The same way, if you if you start, you know, on a line, you know, if you have a line there, right? If you start there, what's the first length on the line? No, see, so before every length there is another length, right? And since the end of a length is a point, before every length there is a point, but since that point can't be linked to the original point, before every point there is a length.

[41:32] See, that's the analogy as to what you have in motion, right? See, because motion is like length, it's something continuous, and has moved is like a what point, right? It's the end of a motion, and it's a it's indivisible, right? It's a limit. Now you you you say that there is no first length to something moved, but there is a first position from which it moved. There's no length, but there's a point because there's no length.

[42:07] You can say that I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But not in terms of motion, right? There's no first distance it goes, huh? Correct. And but there is a first point where it begins.

[42:22] Yeah. So what's the mystery of that? I mean, why do? It's like the human mind creates this. Not creating it. but That's the way the thing is. That's the way the thing is. And

[42:40] this is not the way thought is, right? Huh? But but again, this is important to understand because later on we contrast it, right? With thinking, but also later on we reason from this to a thing as not moving itself, huh?

[43:04] The thing that motion can't belong to a thing first to itself. There's no motion that belongs to it first. Yeah. So it's always kind of from the outside that has motion. It's kind of a strange reality, huh? We look at the arguments there, Thomas. Well, you know, we look at this at the Summa Contra Gentiles, where he summarizes. You know, the arguments for the unmoved mover in books seven and eight, right?

[43:32] But basing himself upon both the definition of motion in book three and on book six, right? Both ways he'll do that, huh? In the Summa Contra Gentiles, it's more complete there. The Summa Theologiae is much more contracted there about the argument for motion, right? The Summa Contra Gentiles has two different arguments and many ways of showing different premises, you know. So

[44:01] that's kind of a summary of book seven and eight, but based on six and three. But it's even more contracted, you might say, in the later work, the Summa Theologiae. huh? Now, one thing: in reading Thomas, is you go through the works of Thomas. Ah. I don't think there's really that much of a what development of the teaching in the sense that he's teaching something new that hasn't taught before.

[44:32] So much, but sometimes something is more explicit in earlier work. But in the later work, although something else may be made more explicit in the later work, because he takes up certain questions that he didn't take up in the earlier work, but I

[44:55] kind of discovered that in reading Thomas. So you've probably been very taught that one example. You know, when I was first thinking about order, right, and I had come to conclusion that order means what before and after, right, in general, huh? And then I was reading Thomas. I think it was in the Questiones Disputatae de Potentia, where he takes up the Trinity and so on, right? Okay, and Augustine says in there that there is a what

[45:32] in the Trinity. Augustine says. There is a order of nature, right? Okay, in which this is from that, okay? Which this is from that, but not an order in which this is before that, okay? But not an order in which

[46:07] this is before that. Now, if you look at the kind of the collection of the creeds, you know what they have in the Enchiridions and so on, right? You'll see, like in the the what's called the Creed of Athanasius, right? The Athanasian Creed, which is of great authority. It's very explicitly said there's no before and after in God, right? Okay. Okay. Now, when I first saw this text in the in the

[46:42] De Potentia, question was just we talked De Potentia, which is a fairly later work of Thomas. I said, "Oh, gee, maybe I misunderstood, right? Maybe before and after is not the definition of order in general, but it is one kind of order, right? Okay. See, so looking at this text of Thomas, you know, you could think that, right? Yeah. You see, it's not this kind of order, but it's that kind of order, right?

[47:15] And I didn't have a copy. In fact, you couldn't get the sentences out of print, right? That Thomas was commenting on, the sentences at that time, right? And years later, I got the third, fourth volumes, you know, and finally, you know, one of these these outfits that you know collects old books from seminaries and other places, you know, all of a sudden it appeared and I quickly got it, you know, okay.

[47:43] But before that, you know, I was up at Dewalt. My friend had a copy of the sentences, so I was reading these things, you know, on the Trinity from the sentences. and there Thomas is much more explicit, right? Oh, see. And there he says that the genus. If you get what I'm saying, the first thing involved in order is distinction, right? And then he said, "Well, distinction is not really the definition of order; it's presupposed to order, right?

[48:13] Okay. So that's the first thing he points out: distinction is presupposed to order. Then he says the genus of order is what before and after. Oh, see. But then you have what differences, right? Okay, one of which would be if I what. Generate my son, right? I am what before him, right? Okay, in in one way, right? See, um, so we have particular differences there, right? Okay, and then he said, when we apply the word order to God, we keep one of the differences and drop the what genus, genus, right?

[49:08] Okay. Now, I was prepared to understand this text because of you know Father Father Bolea and other people, right? And Father Bolea was often pointing out not in regard to this particular text, but how Thomas will sometimes say

[49:30] when a word like "say, scientia, is carried over from the creature to God, you drop the genus but keep the what difference, right? See, so

[49:51] for example, you might say science is a habit of demonstrating, right? Okay. Now, in God, you have no habits; you have to demonstrate, right? Okay. But demonstration is a syllogism, making us know the cause and that it is the cause and it cannot be otherwise, right? Well, God has no need of a syllogism to make known something, right? Yeah, okay. So all that generic idea, right? That's a habit or demonstration making known.

[50:24] No, that's all. But the last part, knowing the cause and that which is the cause and that otherwise, yes, you see, okay. And of course, Aristotle teaches us genus is taken from matter, right? In difference from form, right? Okay, that the the genus, in a way, is to the difference the things we know as matter is to form.

[50:56] Writing very clearly, so just as the matter can be what formed in various ways, right? So the genus by the differences can be determined in various ways, huh? So the genus of man is animal which is taken away as more material, than, man, and the difference would be rational or has reason, right? Okay. Well, of course, matter is to form, I'll put this more clearly. there now.

[51:24] You say that the genus comes to the differences as matter is to form. What matter is to form as what ability is to act, right? Well, God, of course, is what. Pure act. So anything that pertains to matter or to even the ability to be actualized in some way has to be denied of God, right? Okay. But what is more formal or actual? If you understand without this imperfection, then can be carried over and applied to God by a certain likeness, huh?

[52:03] Okay. So I was very familiar with that thing. It comes up a lot in other texts of Thomas, huh? So, for example, you apply the the various virtues to God, you say, you know, that God is just, right? Well, you drop the genus, which is habit, and everything is purely actual, God. It's in there in the form of an act rather than in terms of a habit, huh?

[52:29] And that's one way to understand the Psalms and says God doesn't sleep, right? His sleep is analogous to a habit, right, rather than to the act. Um. So I was quite familiar with that teaching there, especially blazed it and turned it into heads all the time. So when Thomas explains more fully the doctrine here about order, right, he explains that they're dropping the genus, right.

[52:58] There's no before and after of God. But you're keeping what? The difference, or one of the differences, right? Okay. And that's if you look at this text without having this full explanation of it, you might think that there are two kinds of order, right? You know, one order is before and after, the other is this from that, right? The order of one thing from another, right? No, no.

[53:28] But Thomas is not as explicit there, Even though in other things the De Potentia, right? That he hasn't explained before, he's more explicit about them. Like, for example, in one of the questions there of the De Potentia, he had the most complete explanation of the kinds of relations that he for Thomas apparently, you know. You see. So though he's talked about relations before, he's never talked as explicitly about relations as he has in this question of the De Potentia, right?

[53:59] But something else he's very explicit about. He's what? More contracted, in, later on, see? And I find that myself, even as a as a as a teacher, but even more so as a one who's writing or speaking about something, you know. If I've gone into something, you know, at some length before, right, then later on I kind of what assume that in a kind of a summary form, right?

[54:30] And maybe develop something new that I haven't seen before. I worked on before, right? You see. Which is fine for me, but for the student who hasn't maybe seen the earlier more explicit treatment of something, right? It could be what stultifying or even. You know they could misunderstand a bit what I'm doing. You know, okay.

[54:55] But I think that's a common thing in Thomas. Maybe other authors too, to some extent. But I mean, I think you have to take that into account. Can I ask again? Then, in that first definition, when we say order of nature, in which this is from that, yeah. Then, then what is that? So we've dropped the genus because we're talking about this in reference to the Trinity.

[55:17] So the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy, you know, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, right? And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That's from one beginning, huh? Okay. And now, is this this is a difference then that which is from? the. This is this is a difference of one kind of order, right? One kind of order.

[55:40] You see? Yeah. Okay. Now I might have, you know, a certain order to you people, right? But it's not based upon my having generated you, right? Okay. I have a different order in particular towards my children that I generated, right? Oh yeah. Okay. You see? So the act of generation pertains to the order between me and my children in particular, right? The act of teaching or something like that might pertain to my order with respect to you people, see?

[56:16] Okay. Okay. Um. So when when Aristotle or rather Thomas when he shows that there's no before and after in the Trinity, he goes back to the senses of before and after that we saw in the categories. and he shows in the fact that they're distinguished, distinction comes before, they're distinguished by relatives that one can't be before the other, right? You see? Just like double and half, you know, take you know relations that are more known to us, double and half, one can't be before the other in time, can they?

[56:53] Something can't be doubled in time for something else to happen. No. And the same in what knowledge. you have to know relations together, huh? They're no reference to each other, right? Okay. So in various ways he'll show, right, that one member of the Trinity is not before, right? I mean, God the Father is God, and God the Son is God, so they're one is not better than the other, right?

[57:21] Ah, God the Father is not more God than God the Son is God, and so on, right? So you've got to eliminate every sense of before, right? Inductively, right, going through each one of them. From the fact that they're distinguished relatives. Um. So as I say, you can misunderstand that text, and I was misunderstanding it. It wasn't, but maybe I misunderstood. You know, I mean, maybe my thinking was even mistaken, right?

[57:47] You know, the fact that order always meant before and after, but then, but then later I found this text here, so I always go back to this text and I quote that when I talk about it, you know. Um. Okay. So

[58:04] is there an order between double and half? Well, certainly not an order of time. It couldn't be an order of time, could there? No. And is is one before the other in knowledge? No. No. No. Well, again, one can't be without the other, right? No. The second sense of before is what.

[58:36] When this can be without that, then that vice versa, right? Well, the double can't be without the half, or vice versa. So not before in that sense, right? Okay.

[58:47] There is no order. Well, I mean, maybe you could have some some other kind of order between the quantities themselves, right? You know, but that would be looking at what they are absolutely, right? Yeah. Okay.

[59:07] So is the difference? Is it specific? Is it a further difference of the second kind of order here for the Trinity? No, see, in creatures, in creatures,

[59:28] if I generated you, right? You see, then there'd be a particular order between you and me because I generated you, right? And you should honor me, right? Right. Okay, in some sense, I'm before you as a cause and so on, right? But when you apply this to God, right, you keep the difference. The son is from the father, right? But you deny the what genus that the father is in any sense before the son.

[1:00:04] Okay. I say you should understand that in these simpler things, because the Trinity is the most difficult thing to understand of all. But go read Thomas when he asks, "you know, what is scientia, right? " In God, right? Huh? Okay. And of course, the scientia is first known as it's found in man, right? And the genus of scientia is really what? It's a quality, a habitus, a disposition, right?

[1:00:37] It's an accident, right? See. Well, none of that can be said of the scientia of God, right? Okay. But what we know by this scientia, right?

[1:00:52] God knows even more so, right? Okay. And he doesn't know it ever in habit, but always actually. See, so we have to remove everything of imperfection from that, huh? Okay.