Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
84. Can a Philosopher Deny God? Humility, Wisdom and Likeness to God
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/084-can-a-philosopher-deny-god-humility-wisdom-and-likeness-to/

[0:00] So do I have a right to use my mind any way I want to use it? Oh. See. Now, some people think you have a right to use your your sexual organs any way you want to use them, right? You know, whatever pleases you, right? Huh? You know. Well, so when I discuss this, you say, "Well, now when you say the same thing about your mind,

[0:27] you know, use your mind to, you know, deceive and to be mistaken and to abort the truth and so on, right? Mental contraception, right? It's okay with you, right? You know. But no, it's not. I think part of the thing about the sexual organs is that they're ordered not just to the what the pleasure of the individual, right? But they're ordered to what reproducing yourself, right? But even more than that, they're ordered to what the preservation of the species, right?

[1:05] They're ordered to generating new members of the the city, the nation, right? They're ordered to generating new members of the church if you're Christian, right? Huh? So it's ordered to what a common good, right? And so you can't just use that as if that were ordered to your what private good, right? Huh? Private good is always subordinated to the common good, huh? Okay. So you have to use them in a way that is compatible with the common good, huh?

[1:45] Any other use is going to be perversion, right? Of the way it should be, huh? But notice the same thing could be said about the mind, huh? Albert the Great, there, my old teacher, Kierkegaard, used to have a beautiful passage from Albert the Great where he says that if you use your mind to know anything other than God, right, or the use of knowing God, right, unless you be forced to it by some you know necessity, like you got a farm today or something, right?

[2:12] But if you don't use your mind ultimately to know God, you have a perverse attitude towards the mind, right? You see. But notice, huh? To know God is really the what? End. Yeah, in sense you might say it's the common good of reason. You can say even more broad if you wanted to that that wisdom is the common good of reason, huh? Wisdom is ultimately a knowledge of God, right?

[2:42] So I should use my mind in a way that is going to what lead to what to God, huh? It's interesting. I was reading the student newspaper, not newspaper, student paper there, and of course he's criticizing Heidegger. I don't know if Heidegger is a atheist or an agnostic or what he is, or if he knows what he is. You know, but he's sort of what critiquing

[3:18] Heidegger in the light of Christian theology, right? Catholic theology, right? Okay. And that, to me, you know, as a Catholic, is quite acceptable, right? Okay, it's quite contrary to what Karl Marx says, right? If you look at Karl Marx's preface to his doctoral thesis, right, he quotes with approval David Hume, right, who says no one should be allowed to judge philosophy, right? Philosophy is altogether supreme, right?

[3:52] Now this is quite contrary to what the Greek philosophers would say, right? That human wisdom is what the highest court of inquiry, right? That it can There's no wisdom higher approach. human wisdom could be what judged or arraigned before, right? Okay.

[4:15] But notice now this, of course, is more what. The theologian does right when he when he judges the philosopher right. Okay, so I got thinking about this, and maybe he could make another argument

[4:32] just within philosophy, right? And that is, can you be a philosopher if you don't think there is a God? Well, notice, huh? Yeah, you do not think there is a God if you think. If you think there is no God. Then you're a what fool? Okay. There's

[5:31] two psalms, I guess. Psalm, yeah, like 32 or something. I think 52 in the old numbering, and there's one in Psalm 13, something like that. Okay. Yeah, but there's two places where it says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Okay. And Thomas, you know, he comments on that more than once, but in the third book of Summa Contra Gentiles, we're looking a little bit at today.

[5:59] He says that he's talking about what man's ultimate end is. Of course, man's ultimate end is what to know God, right? And Thomas is going through the various ways in which we know God, right? And he'll talk about the way in which everybody, even the multitudes, you might say, right, who've never studied philosophy, have a certain awareness of God, right? Okay. And then he'll talk about the knowledge that the philosophers have by demonstration, right?

[6:31] And then he'll talk about the knowledge we have of God by faith, you know. He's going through all of these and sees any one of these, you know, satisfy man's mind, right? You know, eventually he's going to argue through the idea that we have to see God face to face, right? You know, but but I'm not going into into that more than that. But when he's commenting on this, right?

[6:51] You think there's no God, then you are really stupid, he said, right? He said because there's so many signs, even to the ordinary person, right, who's never, you know, seen the demonstrations, right, that there is a God, huh? And it's kind of interesting comparison he gives there because he says,

[7:15] just like if someone in fact you didn't have a soul, he would be what? Ignorance is a very obvious what sign that you have a soul that you're alive, huh? Okay. So if you think there's no God, then you are a fool. Okay. Don't come back and think about the soul, because it's interesting to make that comparison, right?

[7:47] Because nowadays you'd say people speak as if they didn't know they had a soul, right? Or it's news to them. Okay. And you know what's going on here, you know? And go back to to.

[8:07] The Greek philosophers, right? And when we look at Aristotle's first book about the soul, right, he goes through all the opinions of his predecessors about what the soul is, right? And there is disagreement as to what the soul is. As Aristotle says, it's one of the most difficult things in the world to know exactly what the soul is. But there is absolutely no doubt at all that man, even animals, in some sense, have a soul, right?

[8:39] So much so that the word "animal" is named from the Latin word for soul. An animate matter, right? Matter that has a soul, right? Absolutely no disagreement at all, no doubt at all about our having a soul. All the doubt is about what the soul is, huh? Exactly, what is it? And it kind of strikes us as you know our mental climate today, right? That people strange, right?

[9:08] Why doesn't he discuss, you know, or get obvious to have a soul? Everyone knows that, right? Okay. Now you follow all the way down to as late as Shakespeare, right? Huh? And it's very striking

[9:25] in his play there, much ado about nothing. Do you know that play at all? But in that play, Hero, The young lady there is falsely accused of being unfaithful on the very night before a wedding. And of course, this is due to the villainy of Don John. You know, eventually he's exposed. See in the play, right? But the the groom to be and his his his friend there are are misled by Don John, right?

[10:04] And so when they come for the day of the wedding, they what? Instead of marrying the girl, they denounce her, right? You know, in chamber in front of the whole congregation, right? She faints, right? She's completely innocent, right? And and and the father, you know, is like you know this is his only daughter, and he's just like you know he's almost going to forgive her, right, you know.

[10:29] But the the the wise friar who's going to marry her, right? He's watched the reaction of the girl, from the soul charge and so cherish, right? And he's he's pretty well reading character, right? That her reaction is what? Not that of guilt and like that, right? Surprised. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and but it's her modesty, right? And he's convinced that there is some villainy behind this, he said.

[10:56] And so I won't give you the whole story, right? But you know what he does. But anyway, you know, actually, it's much ado about nothing. No, it's not okay. But anyway. It almost leads to a fight between a couple of men, right? Because Benedict and Beatrice, you know, who are always making fun of each other, but they're falling in love, being tricked into love. But Benedict, Beatrice is the cousin of Heroine, and she's so convinced of the innocence of her cousin, right, that she's getting Benedict, you know, to challenge the groom, right, to a duel, right, to defend the honor of her cousin, right.

[11:40] Because Benedict wants to be sure that Beatrice is sure of the innocence of Heroine, and so her expression is, you know, he asks her to be sure about this, and she says, "I'm as sure that she's innocent as that I have a soul. " See, but notice the expression there, right? Like if I were to say, you know, "I'm as sure about that as the two plus two is four, " right?

[12:05] And that's kind of what we call an hyperbole, right? You know, because I can't be really sure of this as I have the two plus two is four, right? But I say I'm as sure of this as the two plus two is four. I mean, I'm very sure about it, right? I mean, you know, because I'm taking something that's altogether certain, right? The two plus two is four, right?

[12:26] So their very way of speaking there indicates that Thomas is talking about in the Summa Contra Gentiles, what you see in the Greeks, right? There's no doubt at all, right, that she has a soul. So there's some kind of real stupidity going on,

[12:43] you know, and and why that kind of stupidity going on is, you know, the classic explanation is by Charles De Koninck right, the introduction to the study of the soul, right. Okay, but we'll come back to that when we start to study the soul, right? Okay, but it's interesting that Thomas makes a comparison there because he's talking about this one. You know, the fool has said in his heart, "There is no God, " right?

[13:14] But the man who thinks there is no God is very stupid, very, very dense, you might say. That's right. Um. So can a man be a philosopher if he thinks there is no God? Say. Not a very good one, you know. In all these free introductions to philosophy, get through the mail, and I keep on saying, "We're talking about dogmatic, " you know. They all have a section, you know.

[13:56] It's usually most these introductions to philosophy they're usually grouped around, you know, number of problems, you know. Okay. And one, of course, will be whether God exists, right? As if a philosopher has got to be a man who's got a more or less. Open mind about this question, right? Okay. Okay. Now,

[14:18] is that true, right? Or does the philosopher really have to think there is a God, right? Even before he has, you know, we might call demonstration that God exists, like let's start to look at one of them today here. See, does he have to already think that there is a God before, right? See, can he really be a philosopher without thinking there is a God, right?

[14:50] Especially, you know, can he be a philosopher thinking that there is no God? Well, if you think there is no God, and you're a fool, therefore, right? You know, it's true what Scripture says there, right? The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Well, can you be a philosopher if you're a fool? See You don't have to be wise to be a philosopher, right? See, the word philosopher means what?

[15:22] A lover of wisdom, right? Huh? You must love wisdom to be a philosopher, right? That is a fool. Love wisdom? No, no. He wouldn't be a fool if he loved wisdom, would he? Right.

[15:38] So, I would say that a man can't be a philosopher if he doesn't think there is a God, right? Because a fool, can't be a philosopher. Okay. So even before you get as a demonstration, right? In strict sense, making you know, huh? That there is a God. He's got to know. He's got to think in some way, right? That there is a God, right? See. This might be necessary a Christian now, right?

[16:15] Right. Now, there's all kinds of sides that going back to the Greeks, huh? And going back to the man that they attribute the coining of the word philosopher, right? You know, they called Pythagoras wise, and he says, "Don't call me wise. God alone is wise. What shall we call you? Gotta call me something. Call me a lover of wisdom, right? Okay.

[16:45] They see that recognition that there's a wisdom higher than man's wisdom, right? If man can be called wise at all, right? It's only in some inferior way. But that's involving recognition that there's what a God in some sense, right? Who's wise in some fuller sense, right? Compared to man, huh? So you see the very origin of the word philosopher, right?

[17:13] Now, associated with it's another thing, huh? There's a certain humility in the origin of the word philosopher. See, not only the love of wisdom, which is what is in etymology that, but in the coining of the word, it also implies what that man's wisdom, if he has any. Subject. Yeah, he belongs to God's wisdom Subject to God's wisdom to God's wisdom, right? Okay. Now you go to

[17:44] Heraclitus, right? huh You know, a next great mind there in a sense. after Parmenides too, but but I'm more familiar with Heraclitus. I thought more about it. Heraclitus has these famous proportions, right? As a child is to a man, so is man to God, right? In wisdom and beauty and everything else, right? Okay. Or as an ape is to a man. So is man to God, right?

[18:12] So man is homo sapiens, the wise ape. Compared to the ape, man is wise. Just like the father, the man compared to the child is wise, right? Knows everything, daddy knows everything. But compared to God, daddy doesn't even know anything. Okay. So again, it is that same humility, right? Heraclitus says the divine nature has understanding, the human doesn't. Yeah, it's the divine nature. By being God, understands, huh?

[18:49] See, have that same kind of what humility, huh? He speaks of human law as being fed by one divine law. Okay? And you find that same thing in Empedocles right? Creatures of the day, right?

[19:06] This is the speeches of the day right There's a contrast between man's wisdom, you get to to Socrates. That's very much in evidence, right? Why did the Oracle Delphi call? Said no one is wiser than Socrates. How can someone so ignorant be wise among men, right? That's because men don't. You know what they don't know, right? Okay. So he's certainly not wise in the way God is wise, huh?

[19:29] You saw that in Aristotle there, right? And he says either God alone should be called wise, right, or God most of all. So can one really be a philosopher without that humility that you see in the Greek philosophers? And could there be that humility without thinking there is a God?

[19:56] Now you see the Greek philosophers. And I saw pride is being one of the main causes of what deception, right? Yeah. I mentioned that fragment of Empedocles right? He says, "You know, creatures of the day, we don't live very long. " And men, having seen, you know, part of life, they boast of having seen the whole. Well, boasting, of course, is the first what species of pride, huh?

[20:23] Okay. So without the humility, there's going to be no what? Wisdom, right? No real pursuit of wisdom. And then the Book of Proverbs, I think it is, ubi humilitas, ibi sapientia, where there's humility, there is what? Wisdom.

[20:49] Aristotle talks about pride there, huh? Some parts. Through boastfulness, he says, right? Another humilities. Okay. He's talking about, for example, those who possess rhetoric and think they possess political wisdom, right? Part of this through boastfulness, right? Through pride, okay.

[21:16] So can you really be a philosopher without that humility, huh? But humility is in reference primarily to what? God, you are placing your own mind under God, huh?

[21:31] But if you don't think to any God, I think human wisdom is the supreme wisdom, like Marx says, right? We reject anyone who does not accept the human mind, right? As the highest divinity, right? You know.

[21:51] Okay. So maybe you can't be. You can't have the humility of the philosopher. Can you be a philosopher in the way the word arose, right? Now,

[22:09] another aspect of this. You read the introductions to philosophy there among the Neoplatonic philosophers, huh? They go back to Plato, they go back to Aristotle, but they give a number of definitions of philosophy. And the one of the two definitions of philosophy they take from Plato is the famous one from the Theaetetus, huh? Now, have you ever heard the definition of philosophy in the Theaetetus?

[22:42] It's becoming like God so far as possible for a man, right? Okay. So they take this as the definition of philosophy from Plato, one of the chief philosophers, right, of all time. Philosophy is becoming like God so far as possible, as far as possible for a man. Okay.

[23:21] That's very definition of philosophy. Plato, huh? From the Theaetetus. I know the Theaetetus huh And notice the Theaetetus is the one where you also have Plato saying what's the beginning of philosophy, right? Okay. Then that part of the wonder, right, that I gave you before, huh? Okay. So the beginning and the end, so to speak. Oh yeah. The Theaetetus is the key dialogue, huh? Well, if philosophy is becoming like God so far as possible, how can one be a philosopher without thinking there is a God?

[24:01] Okay, because you don't know the end, you don't know the end. Yeah, and you don't know what you're trying to be. Is it? Okay. Now, when you turn to Aristotle, of course, you know there's two main kinds of philosophy, right? There's looking philosophy, and there's doing or practical philosophy. The the culmination of practical philosophy is what part of practical philosophy?

[24:42] The ethics, or domestics, or politics. Politics. Yeah, political philosophy, right? Okay. Now, when Aristotle is doing Nicomachean Ethics, right? He's kind of laying, as we say sometimes, the elements even of political philosophy. And of course, he's talking there in the beginning of Nicomachean Ethics. What is the end or purpose of man? What is the end or purpose of human life? Right. How important it is to know what that is.

[25:12] Right. Okay, and something that man has by nature, by the way. Okay, and but he also asks the question: To what art or science does it belong to talk about the ends or purpose of human life? And of course, he sees there is a proportion between the arts and the ends that they aim at. That the art that commands another art aims at a more what? Noble end, higher end.

[25:43] Yeah, yeah. And so you see that in the distinction between the chief artist and the subordinate artist, right? So why does the doctor command the pharmacist, right? Well, the end of the pharmacist is to make a good medicine, right? The end of the doctor is what health, right? Well, you can see that the medicine is subordinated to health as an end or purpose. So the art that aims at health is going to command the art that aims at what medicine, right?

[26:19] Okay. And Aristotle develops that at the beginning of the Ethics ethics, huh? How there are many arts, but one art sometimes commands another art, right? And how there are many ends, but then one end is going to command another. So in some way, he points out the political art commands all the other arts. Okay. So I can't drive an automobile without getting my license here, right? I can't practice just go down and start practicing dentistry down here or medicine without having but in some way And so I'm being certified by the state, right?

[26:56] Okay. When the president of Assumption College officially, you know, bestows the diploma, right? He says in virtue of authority invested me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, right? And the board of trustees of Assumption College, you know, that's official formula, right? You see. Okay. In a sense, Assumption College is licensed, you might say, right? By the state of Massachusetts to grant what degrees and the sort, right? Okay.

[27:26] And they might even, you know, say to me, you know, you shall practice doing the purpose, the military art, starting tomorrow. You for it? You know. So because the political art, in some way, commands the other arts, right? It seems to be the chief art, and therefore it must be aiming at the chief end, right? Which is happiness, huh? But then Aristotle makes the important distinction there.

[27:55] He says it's lovable, he says, right? To help achieve happiness for one man, he says, right? If you, as my friend, I hope you be a happy man, right? Or if I help my my son or my daughter or somebody to be happy, right? You know. You know that's lovable, right? And desirable, right? He says it's more godlike, right? To achieve happiness for a whole what city, right?

[28:26] Okay. So the nobility and the excellence and the desirability for the philosophy is seen in terms of its being what more like God, right? Like God, of course, moves towards the good of the

[28:47] whole universe, right? We can't do that, right? You know these galaxies out there, or nothing out there, I don't know so then I have no control over them. I can control this galaxy, this solar system, but if I'm the head of the state, I could at least what, you know? So the very desirability, you might say, is is seen in terms as being divine, right? Okay. Now, when you get to looking philosophy, the culmination is what wisdom, right?

[29:14] Huh? If you recall from the looking at the premium to wisdom, actually shows the wisdom aims at the first causes, right? Then he goes on to show that it's looking knowledge, right? That it's liberal, that it's what not a human possession, right? But it's the what the most honorable and the best knowledge, the most desirable knowledge, because it's the most divine knowledge, right? And he shows that it's the most divine because it's kind of knowledge that God most of all would have, and because it's about God, right?

[29:52] Huh? Okay. So the desirability of the culmination here, wisdom, right, is again in terms of what Plato is saying, right? You're striving to be like God,

[30:06] and actually, when you come to know what God is, you'll realize that God knows himself, and by knowing himself, he knows everything else, and so you become most like God in knowing God himself. Okay. So we're striving to be alike God, and in some way, this is being done everywhere. Universe, everything is striving to be like God, so that we saw in natural philosophy there, the critique of Plato there about matter and lack of form, that form is something God-like, right?

[30:42] Because God is pure act, and form is an act. So when you're forming something, you're making something like God, right? Even making the what the chair, okay? And Plato in the Symposium and Aristotle in the second book about the soul, when they talk about reproduction, right? Not just in man, but in the other animals and even in the plants, right? He says in reproducing, the animals and plants are trying to be like God so far as possible.

[31:19] God is immortal. The plants and animals are not immortal, but by reproducing that kind of animal, that kind of plant gets a kind of what immortality. So they're seeking to be like the immortal so far as possible, right?

[31:42] So it's not just some you know unheard of thing in the universe, and man is trying to become like God, who's a philosopher so far as possible. The plants themselves in their own way, right? All nature is trying to be like God so far as it can, right? Form is something God-like, and so they see that.

[32:06] Now, at the end, if you study the Nicomachean Ethics, at the end there, Aristotle has gone through all the virtues, and you see that in sense the virtues of reason itself are the supreme virtues, and that

[32:25] the practical wisdom foresight is the supreme virtue of practical reason, right? And wisdom is the supreme virtue in the looking reason, right? And then he compares them, right? He says, which is better, right? Which is better, practical wisdom or just wisdom, right? And he says, well, practical wisdom is something human, right? And wisdom is something divine, and God is something better than man, right? Therefore, this has to be even higher than that, right?

[33:00] So this is very the very idea that you make this wisdom your goal, which is what the word "love of wisdom" means, right? That wisdom is your end, your goal. Everything else, you can get to that. The great desire to look at that is seen in terms that it's being something like God, right? So, if you don't think there's a God, all this what? This makes any sense?

[33:29] So, even without going, you know, to Christian theology, right, and criticizing Heidegger and other people for, in the light of that, which is perfectly okay, right? But that's a task for the theologian, right? But even as a philosopher, one might say, can you really understand what philosophy is, or have the humility necessary to pursue it, right? Or have the desire, right, for it without thinking that there's a God, right?

[34:04] So you don't have to know God that well, right? But that there's a God who is, you know, much more wise than we are, right? As providence and so on.

[34:17] If you're a fool, how can you be a lover of wisdom, right? What does the great Goethe say? The German poet there. Now, this one quote is very interesting. to remember, we are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

[34:40] Who says Goethe? Oh, Arthur Faust. We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. That's the way they translate sometimes. So I say to students, I say, if you love disgusting things, you are already disgusting yourself, right? If you love beautiful things, right, then you are in a way somewhat beautiful yourself already, right? If you love wise things, right, then you already are to some extent what wise.

[35:11] If you love foolish things. You are already, to some extent, a fool. So, if a man loves wisdom, he can't be a fool, I don't think. But if he thinks there is no God, he's a fool. You know, somebody could defend, right? Just in terms of of even the philosopher,

[35:40] and also if you can't do philosophy well without humility, huh? Yeah. Whereabouts in the Theaetetus is that quote? Oh, I couldn't give you the exact number, but it's when they discuss what philosophy is.

[36:04] It's not hard to find, though. I can find it for you. But much better if you just went through it and found yourself. But it shows you the importance in the way of the Theaetetus, huh? In terms, even apart from the main discussion, right? Discussion about what episteme is, right? But you have the beginning of philosophy, right? And the way what the goal of it is, right?

[36:39] But we saw that passage too, where he talked about wonders being the beginning of philosophy, huh? He's very clear about that. Now, there is no other beginning of philosophy, but then he has this kind of wonderful statement there where he says, "It wasn't a bad genealogy. The man who said that was Hesiod, the poet who said it, right? That Iris is the offspring of what Thalmas, huh?

[37:09] And Iris is the what? The messenger of the gods, right? And Iris is the what? Rainbow personified, right? And Thalmas is wonder personified, right? So he's saying that Iris is the offspring of what wonder, right? Like I mentioned, how Iris appears in the vision there in Shakespeare's last play, or farewell to the stage, farewell to life, the Tempest, right? When Iris comes in, you know, someone says, "Hail, many-colored messenger, many-colored the rainbow, but messenger, right?

[37:56] Okay, but but why is Iris both of those? Say, is it by chance that Iris is both what the messenger of the gods and the rainbow personified? Is there some connection between those two? Which you have in Homer, right? When Iris is spoken of.

[38:17] What does the rainbow and the messenger have in common? Messenger of God. Next. Earth to heaven. Yeah, yeah. So the rainbow unites heaven and earth, the place of man with the place of God. So the rainbow unites man and God, right? It's kind of a natural sign of that, huh? That's why God uses it in the Old Testament too, right? After the flood, right? He points the rainbow as a sign of the reconciliation between man and God, right?

[38:50] So it's a natural sign the union of man and God. What does the messenger do? The messenger of God unites, yeah, man with God, right? So what he's saying there, the great Plato or Socrates, is that what wonder unites man with God, and it does so on the side of our reason eventually, right? Because it makes us look for the cause, and if the cause has a cause, the cause of the cause, and ultimately, it makes us look for the very first cause, but the first cause is God.

[39:28] So it seems to me, you know, through the great Greek philosophers who are not Christians, right, and have no introduction to Christian theology, and as far as we know, they didn't know the Old Testament either. But it would be kind of inconceivable for them, right, to talk about philosophy without supposing that there's a God, right? You know, and so it seems to be kind of a modern hangup, right, that to be a philosopher you have to have, you know, an open mind as to whether there is or is not a God, right?

[40:06] Huh? You know. Closed mind about it being a God. Yeah. And even like in in in geometry, huh? If you don't think that a theorem is true, if you don't guess in a sense that it's true, right, you probably would not look for a what. cause. Yeah, a reason why, you know. I'll take a very simple example, you know, from the fifth theorem, there in Euclid Euclid, which says that in a what triangle where these two sides are equal, you would guess that the two angles here at the base are equal, right?

[40:49] See. I think you know if I'd never studied Euclid and you had talked to me about a equilateral triangle, right? To me, it just seems kind of natural to guess that those three angles will also be what equal, right? See, which you can demonstrate from this theorem here, right? Here. So before I demonstrate that. Before I have a syllogism or continuous syllogism showing that these angles must be equal, I've already guessed that they are equal.

[41:25] I already said they're equal. The same way here, right? And but if I didn't think that, I I wouldn't look for what the proof of it, right?

[41:44] Just like you know the I think you committed the the murder of the crime, right? Something you know. So I'm gonna go poking around your quarters there, looking for evidence and so on. But I wouldn't be looking around your quarters in particular and checking up on you if I wasn't already thinking that you're the guy. Do you see? You know. So I mean, if a man didn't think that there was a God, he probably wouldn't make what a much greater effort necessary than for knowing this.

[42:18] Even to know that, he probably wouldn't make the effort unless he thought it was so, right? See, but unfortunately, how would he ever make the effort to know God or even to you know to know the demonstrations of God, like we're gonna be looking a little bit at today? If he didn't already what think that there was a God, huh? You know.

[42:43] He thinks there's not a God. He probably look for reasons why there's no God. He can find such reasons, right? You know. You know

[42:58] he's going to start off prejudiced, you know, against any arguments for existence of God, huh? Okay. Now, in both Sumas Thomas gives, as you maybe know, five arguments for existence of God, right? But they're not altogether the same in the two Sumas, huh? Okay.

[43:27] Now, now as in graduate school, I had a course from Charles De Koninck on the five ways there in the Summa Theologiae. It was kind of like a seminar there with last year students, you might say, right? And but each of us had to give a paper on one of the five ways, huh? But a paper discussing some author's presentation of that argument, right? And you could take either a modern Thomas, so called, right?

[44:13] Or you could take a modern philosopher, right? And I happened to take Descartes because I was writing my doctoral thesis on a comparison of Aristotle and Descartes. Now I was kind of familiar with the text of Descartes.

[44:29] And Descartes, of course, had misunderstood the major premise, and he had misunderstood the minor premise of the argument he was discussing. But this was true about everybody we read; they had misunderstood the very proof that they were trying to what? Yeah, yeah. So Descartes said he thought he could demonstrate the existence of God, right? We would not be so presumptuous as to say so, he said. But he's kind of cautioning us there about the difficulty of the what proofs, right?

[45:03] Huh? Okay. And how we're very much, you know, dependent upon either this common knowledge we have of God, right, or upon the faith. that. We have right, huh? So De Koninck said he was more convinced that God existed from what his mother told him than from this, right? I think there's a lot of, you know, common sense in what he's saying, right? Um, there is a bad, you know, tendency in some ways, good and bad, I suppose, good intention, but bad in some ways.

[45:35] You know, it's kind of in the older days, you know, when the Catholic colleges were more Catholic in a sense than they are now. You know, the idea of teaching, you know, young beginners there, the proofs of God, so they can go out and convince the world, by an argument that they don't themselves probably understand fully and couldn't maybe defend, right? And so on. So dangerous in some ways, right?

[46:03] Kind of some naivety about about the difficulty of the arguments, right? So on the one hand, you want to see something of the argument, but you want to be slow to that you comprehended it fully, right? Okay. And something that you

[46:21] come back to many times, right? Okay. And the reason I'm doing it now is not because, you know, given the difficulties, I want to to exhaust into the arguments or come to an adequate understanding of them, but just so we'll tie up some of the things we've studied already, right? So you see how they're being used, right, in the very first arguments, huh? Now, what we're going to be looking at here is the first two arguments in the Summa Congentiles, and at least the first one here today.

[46:59] I don't know if we get through the whole first one, but the first one. But the first two arguments in the Summa Contra Gentiles are both drawn from motion, okay? And then the third argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles is the one from the maker or efficient cause, as they call it in Latin, huh? Okay? Now, we're not going to be looking at that, but that's the third one in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[47:24] In the Summa Theologiae, only the first argument is from motion, and the second one is from the efficient cause, huh? Okay. And we can talk about the last three, but just want to emphasize that first part there, right? Okay. So in the Summa Congentiles, there's two arguments in motion based on Aristotle. In the Summa Theologiae, only what one, okay? And that one, in some sense, corresponds here to the first argument here, the first of the two here.

[48:05] But as you see, as you start to read this, if you compare it with the Summa Theologiae. There's basically two premises that Thomas or Aristotle has to back up, right? Two premises that are used in the chief argument, right?

[48:23] Sometimes you see the technical term, you know, pro syllogism, meaning a syllogism to back up one of the premises in the main syllogism, right? I sometimes like to call them backup syllogisms or secondary syllogisms, right? Okay, but in the main argument, the chief argument that I have the conclusion that there's an unmover, you have two basic premises which Thomas will say here are in need of being what proven, right?

[48:53] And there'll be three proofs of each of those. In the Summa Theologiae, there's what one of those three proving one of those premises, right? And one of the other three proving the other premise, right? So as you can see, the Summa Contra Gentiles is much more what

[49:17] explicit, right? Much more developed as far as that first proof is concerned. It's a much fuller, statement of it, huh? Now, I think I mentioned how

[49:34] in reading Thomas, now if you get a text like say the Marietti text, let's say, right? Marietti text is very nice when you read a article in the Summa. They usually have like a footnote there which would give you references to other places where Thomas discusses that, right? So you may discuss the same question in the Summa Theologiae and in the Summa Contra Gentiles. You may discuss it also in the Quaestiones Disputatae, right?

[50:03] It may be talked about in one of the commentaries even on Scripture, right? Or in the commentary and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, right? Okay. So maybe you know five, six different places where the same thing is talked about or more. That's kind of handy if you're zeroing in on one particular question you want to go into it and various things. And sometimes he'll say something in one place that he won't say in the other, right?

[50:33] And sometimes it's more developed in one place than another place, right? Okay. Now, but notice the contrast here between thinking and writing. In thinking, we go from the confused to the what distinct, right? Okay. So in the course of time, we think things out more what fully, more distinctly, huh? We spell them out more, huh? Okay. But now. Is that same thing true about writing? That a later writing of the same author would spell it out more than the early writing?

[51:20] Oh, that's a separate thing? No, no. See, a man in some writing he might, for some reason or other, go into this thing more, right, and spell it out more. And then the next time he takes it up in the later writing, he's more brief, right, and leaves it to you if you want to go into it more to go back to the earlier writing where he was more explicit, right?

[51:49] Okay. I find that myself all the time, right, in my own writing, that sometimes I'm really working on something, I really work it out in some detail and so on, and then maybe what I've worked out and the conclusions I reached I use in later work, and I may briefly refer back to what I did, you know. So sometimes my later writing is on the same thing is less what full than the earlier writing, right?

[52:20] Okay. So I mean, you have to realize that, like I think I mentioned, one very great thing for me in my thinking about order and distinction and so on. That I was being misled almost by the later writing of Thomas, where he's so brief, you know, the question on his disputatae de potentia there, and but then I went back and I looked at the commentary on the sentences, which is quite earlier, you know, relatively speaking, among Thomas's works, he was more explicit about things, right?

[53:00] And I really needed that more explicit consideration, and I might have been what kind of would have misunderstood the later text, right? Okay. So the Summa Contingentilis was written before the Summa Theologiae. okay, and on the first on the argument for motion, it's much more what, yeah, much more complete, huh? Okay, and the Summa is much more contracted, right? Okay.

[53:38] And it's interesting because when he takes up the five attributes, you know, the divine substance, he has the same five in both Summas, but the order is somewhat different. And in the Summa Theologiae, you know, the order is: God is simple, God is perfect, God is infinite, God is unchanging, and then he's what one, one, yeah, two comes in after the operations, right? Okay, so there among the five.

[54:14] Is unchanging is number one, right? Here, it's the first one. In fact, he takes it almost for granted when he gets through with these, because he's he's developed so much in here. Right? He goes right away almost to the eternity of God, which is attached to the unchangeableness of God. Right? See, that's kind of reflection of the fact that he's been so thorough talking about the argument for the unmoved mover.

[54:39] Right? You know, I get people one time comparing the two Summas, verses. There, you know, there's something to be learned from both. Right? Because given the order in which he shows them, he sometimes reasons from one to the other. Right? And

[54:58] so, the reason let's say, from perfection of God, or from the infinity of God, or from the simplicity of God, is being unchangeable. Right? More explicitly in the Summa Theologiae, because he takes up the unchangeableness after those three. Right? Here, it's the first one. Right? But there's something to be learned. from this too, as I point out in my paper on the subject,

[55:24] yeah. But now, see if you compare what he says about the soul in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles. It's not as developed or explicit as the Summa Theologiae. The Summa Theologiae you multiply the questions about the soul much more in detail than you do here, right? You see. So, although you could start with what he does in the Summa Contra Gentiles and says about the soul, you get kind of a more complete and more detailed picture of the soul and its powers and so on in the Summa Theologiae, right?

[55:59] Yeah. Um. And again, with the the treatise of the and the angels in the Summa Theologiae it's much more detailed, particularly right? But here again I think they have a very fundamental. There's some very fundamental questions here about them that it may be more explicit and more developed than you know that there are angels, for example. You know, some arguments here that are more more developed. See, but you know, assuming that there are angels or knowing that there are angels, then going into more particular questions about them, right?

[56:38] The Summa does it more. Um. So, uh, you get to the the the Trinity, right? Uh, the Summa Theologiae, you might say, goes into more questions about the Trinity than than the the Summa Contra Gentiles does. But the Summa Contra Gentiles goes much more into the what scriptural texts that indicate that there's a Trinity and the understanding of those texts and the refutation of the of the heretics who now misuse some of the texts and misunderstand some of the texts, right?

[57:17] So, if I was going to study the Trinity from the two Summas, I would begin from the Summa Contra Gentiles because you should start from Scripture, right? And and make sure you know that you understand it what Scripture is saying about the Trinity, right? And then go into these other questions that we raise after we have a basic understanding of what Scripture is saying about the Trinity.

[57:37] Go to the other Summa, right? You see. So, if someone thinks you know they understand the argument for motion, see, in the Summa Theologiae, they say, well, let's go back and go into a little bit more, you know, and and

[57:58] here you see in a way almost it's a summary of the teaching of the whole of the eight books of the natural hearing, the whole of the so-called physics, right? You may not notice that, right? From the other one, do you see that? Okay.

[58:16] So, let's take a look here at the first proof. So, y'all have the text there in front of you, okay? Chapter thirteen. Okay, I'm going to kind of translate the Latin text here.

[58:37] I was going to take in my give her a chance, you know, or see an opportunity to buy the kind of the the Leonine edition of the Summa Contra Gentiles They they'd be a special one, you know, for all of us You know, got a nice low volume. That's got a nice. It's a bigger print than the Marietti, you know, it's a very nice one. I want to keep it home.

[59:06] Want to keep in the office, but it's raining so bad. I said So, I'll I'll I have it on my computer too. I just print it out. So, I'm going to expose these Push this books to possible room. water damage, you know.