De Anima (On the Soul)
38. Part 2: God Without Parts, the Trinity and Number, Debate on Number, and History as Incomplete Inquiry
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/038-part-2-god-without-parts-the-trinity-and-number-debate-on/

[0:00] So, in a way, it's almost the same thing to say God is not composed, and it isn't a composition anything, and to say God has no parts, right? And is not a part of anything. But there is one, as they say, whole and part, the universal whole. You see, and in a way, you do show them theology. You know, you know how the Mohammedans they think that we're

[0:31] you know they're polytheists, you know, because we say the Father and the Son, right? So they don't really understand what we're saying, right? See, but

[0:43] God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are one God. They're not three particular gods, you see. But if the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, were three particular gods, then God would have parts in one sense, in the sense in which universal whole has what parts, right? It's very important, you know, and especially you know comes up when they say the Trinity that God is not what doesn't have these three parts: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right?

[1:23] That the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit are in no way a what parts. They're not parts of God, and they're not parts of the Trinity. strictly speaking, they're not parts at all. A part is always something what imperfect, and that's an extremely important thing to see. And obviously, the Mohammedans are misunderstanding, but what Christianity is, the Church is teaching there, you see.

[1:57] So it's important to see that God has no parts, even in that sense. So, in what sense then we say that the use of the number there is one and three. Well, look at that. in the treatise on the Trinity, when you get there, right? Yeah. But it's not the three that is studied in the science of numbers. In other words, you know,

[2:31] if that was so, then see, the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, would be more than the Father and the Son. That's that's something where people can easily go astray, right?

[2:58] See, the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, as St. Augustine so well teaches, and and Boethius following Augustine and Thomas following them both, right? The Father and the Son and Holy Spirit are not distinguished by anything absolute, but only towards each other, right? Yeah, right. So I mentioned how you know if you've been taught by Aristotle there, right? And you know that in the categories he talks about Father and Son and and double and half and so on, he doesn't call this relation; he calls it what?

[3:36] pros ti, which in Albert, you know, Thomas would be translated ad-aliquid, right? Towards something, right? So it's not something in itself, but towards another. Yeah. That's very important to see. It's not nothing absolute. It's towards another. And that's why, as you say, the you know the Greek there of St. John, he says in en arche en ho logos, beginning was the word, kai ho logos en pros ton theon kai theos en ho logos.

[4:10] Ton theon there is standing for the what the Father, right? And the Logos was God, right? Okay. So if you to say that that the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit together are more than the Father, you'd be making what?

[4:42] This multiplicity something absolute, rather than what towards another. Okay. And that's what you have with the original number, right? So if the Father and Son, Holy Spirit were three gods, you know, the Father and the Son would be more than the Father, right? And the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, would be more than the Father and the Son, right? But they're not more because their distinction is not in something absolute.

[5:18] What is absolute? They're one and the same. The Father and I are one. I still think you haven't explained how parts of number are put together. What I'm saying, I'm saying,

[6:04] the word "put together" right is what equivocal. Yeah. It's equivocal by reason, right? And seems to me that it's one of those names, right,

[6:21] that is placed first upon the continuous or what is in the continuous, right, and then it's carried over to other things. And it seems to me that any kind of composed whole, right, as opposed to universal whole, right, I don't think the case universal whole. We'd say that it's put together from its parts, right? So you know, Thomas makes a distinction there. Aristotle does too in the first reading there between the composed whole and a what universal whole, right?

[7:10] But he sees a certain likeness of what ratios there, right? You see, the this is the you know how Aristotle proceeds there, right? You know, he's manifesting that we know things in a confused way before distinctly by three kinds of examples, as Thomas explains. Okay. And the first kind of example is a sensible composed whole, right? A whole that is put together from its parts, but that can be sensed.

[7:48] And he points out that in such a whole, we seem to know the whole indistinctly at first, and then gradually we distinguish all the parts. Okay, so he's using that to manifest that in fact we know things in a confused way before distinctly. But then he makes a direct comparison to this, right? Okay. Now he uses the fact that a sensible composed whole is known indistinctly at first, right?

[8:20] Before we distinguish all the parts, uses that to manifest the universal thing that we know things in confusion before distinctly, right? Which is a reason why we should do this, right? He also makes a direct comparison to this in disproportionate. Okay. That's incredible! What he does there, in a way, right? But shows how clearly he understands what he's doing. But in seeing this proportion, right? See, that helps me to understand in the chapter on part and whole, right?

[8:54] How the word whole and part could be carried over from the composed whole and its parts, right? To the universal whole and its parts, right? That there is a certain what? Proportional likeness therapy instead of distance, right? Okay.

[9:13] Then the second example he takes is the what? Understandable composed whole, the definition, right? And maybe it's easier to see than matter before, which is other sense, because in a way I can understand. quadrilateral and equilateral, and right angle. Independently, one of the other, right? And then you kind of bring them together, right? Okay. If matter and form, it's kind of hard,

[9:53] but I mean, at least you know when you name the genus and the differences, you can have them. I mean, separately, right? You know, a little bit. You know, kind of helps the imagination and the reason to see this, right? But Aristotle, it's kind of interesting. He leaves out the one that is most concerned about in Book One: matter and what form, right? Okay. So, what is a number, right?

[10:22] You say a number has parts, right? Okay. You go back to the categories, and you say they divide quantity into continuous and discrete, right? And the difference is that what they have in common, though, is that they both have parts, right? But the difference is that the continuous has parts that have a common boundary, right? Parts immediately a common boundary. So the parts of the line near the point, and the parts of the surface have a what line, parts of a body, of a surface, and so on.

[11:03] But the discrete quantity is one whose parts do not meet. So he says in number seven, let's say, we're going to take the two and the five, and the three and the four, and we're going to divide, right? We don't meet any common boundary, right?

[11:22] Um. So, but when you say that two and three are parts of five, let's say, are they composing parts or subject parts? Composing parts. Yeah, you can't say two is a five. Like you would say that two is a even number, right?

[11:47] So two is a what? A subject part of what number? Yeah, an even number. Yeah, but it's a composing part of five. So we say five is put together from two and three, right? Okay. But now, when you come back and examine those words "put together," right? They themselves would seem to be what?

[12:19] Equivocal, right? And the first meaning of "put together" is where you you put them side by side, so to speak, right? And they their extremities what become one, or at least they they coincide, or they touch, right? Okay. And that can be the meaning of put together when you have a what matter and form, right? Or when you have genus and differences, right? In the definition of of square, does

[12:56] right angled and quadrilateral meet somewhere? They have a common boundary, right? The same way with matter and form; do they meet somewhere, right? Okay. But

[13:14] still, we might say, right, the definition is put together from the genus and the differences. Do you see that? Doesn't seem to be too far, right? But you couldn't say put together of the what subject parts, right? You couldn't say that that

[13:30] number is put together from odd number and even number, right? Unless you are down a lot. Okay. See? Okay. So, are the parts of a number put together

[13:49] in the way that the matter and form are put together, right, or genus and what differences are they put together like two halves of a semicircle? The head maybe resembles to both, right? Because it is a quantitative whole, right? And the circle you could say is more than the semicircle, right? And and five is more than three or two or right, you know.

[14:17] But in other ways, it's got to be like the definition or like matter and form, because like them, it has no what boundaries, right? Yeah, it

[14:35] seems that's the only likeness, but it's really more to me. It's more like parts of putting together the parts of the semicircle. That's what I said. It's sort of in between, right? Because it is a quantitative whole, right? And therefore, it's more like the semicircles, right? Or the triangle making it the parallelogram.

[15:14] But yet, it's more like matter and form or genus and difference than the continuous hole is. In some sense, but there is it seems there is another. There is a. That real composition of matter and form in the number, and the form is not the either two or the three or the last one, but it's all the all the ones are like matter, and there's some other form,

[15:53] fiveness or something. Well, no, you see, what makes it to be five is the fifth one. So you have to see that there's an order there, right? But that's not the form of the numbers. The fifth one, right? The form is. Well, the form is what makes it to be actually five. The fifth one makes it to be five. I think that's the implication. It makes it to be a...

[16:21] You see, I'm a grandfather, right? Okay. And I think I think my seventh grandchild, right? Miles, a little boy, right? Okay. So Miles made my grandchildren be seven.

[16:57] Now Kate, she's my first grandchild, I believe it. Special attention, Kate, she's the first grandchild, right? You know, I was just saying that, right? The first grandchild means something, you know. Like your first child is, you know, the beginning, right? I mean, the father, the mother, right? So first grandchild is a special place, right? But Kate didn't make my grandchildren be seven, right? Miles made them be seven.

[17:20] Whoever comes next. Yes. Set triplets. If you have set triplets, then another one would be the. What would be the form? Oh, the last without the rule. I think it's it's like you could say it's like the form. Yeah. The last one, but it's not the form. The form is something other than any of. No, but but see, number in a sense arises by counting, right? And counting, there's what an order there, right?

[18:02] And that's what people say, you know, you know, and how sometimes when you're when you've got to have certain number of things, right? And you know, you know, you misplaced things, or else, you know. And we should have seven books here, or seven, whatever it is, right? You know. I don't know. Here's one, okay. Two. And finally, you get to the seventh one, right? You know, or it's maybe over there.

[18:27] You got lost. You know how that does, right? Ah, and this makes what? Seven. You see that? Yeah, I do. Could be. It's like it's like we're going to have a class here. We're going to have let's say seven people, right? And we need seven chairs, let's say. There's only six chairs in here, right? And so here's one, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, we're short. We're short.

[18:56] Someone's going to have to stand, right? Oh, there's a chair over here. Okay, that makes seven. Okay, right? It's the seventh chair that makes it to be seven. But that wasn't the form of all the others. No, no. I said it's not. I'm not saying it's the same meaning. You see. Okay. But I'm saying there is a real, there is a proper meaning of form and matter in numbers.

[19:23] And the form, in the proper meaning of form and matter, is not the last one. But all the ones are material with respect to that form. No, to see, if you look at them as being just seven ones, right? And so they're all kind of, you know, you know, you're democratic here, right? They're all equal, right? You see, and there's no order among them, right? But then, what makes them to be one?

[19:52] There's nothing to make them one. They remain seven ones because they can't come together like like the two semicircles because they don't have an extremity. So, you're going to be back. You've got to be computer, computer.

[20:08] That's fine. That's why I see the mistake. It still isn't answered how they come together. No, but you see, coming together there doesn't mean, right? What it means when you you speak of the circle there, right? Right. What does it mean? It still, it doesn't mean matter and form either. No, but as you say, it it it it has a likeness to matter and form, right? Yeah.

[20:41] It has a likeness to the quantitative parts too, right? Because after all, seven is a quantity, right? Okay. And so if you say the first meaning of parts is quantitative parts, you might say well, seven then is like that, right? Okay. But

[21:04] you can't put together these seven ones, whatever it is, like you put together the parts of the continuous. And you have to put them together in a way like matter and form put together. But also in a way unlike matter. Yeah, but but so what are they really? Well, the point the point is that that you have to see ability and act there.

[21:39] Yeah, but my grandchildren are seven now, but they could become eight, you know. It's very arrogant that makes me think they're going to become eight, but they make one of these days become eight.

[21:58] How would seven become eight? By addition of one, right? In the strict sense, according to. The same way, you know, if you if you add reason to animal, you get a man, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean that that's not just playing with words. I mean there's real likeness there, right? You add one to seven, what do you have? No longer have seven anymore, you have eight.

[22:22] Yeah, when you add the time. Take away one from eight, what do you have? No longer have eight, you have a seven. You take away reason from man, and all you get is an animal, right? A beast.

[22:36] I can see some truth on both sides. It's a likeness. You say the likeness, but seems like we're still not saying that is the eight ones

[22:47] are are an eight in ability. No, but it's like it's like what I was saying here about the the the the word cat there, right? You see, um, the word cat, the three letters in the word cat, right, are able to be the word cat. You're able to be the word act, right? Are able to be abbreviation there for Thomas Aquinas T-A-C, referred to, it, right? Okay, maybe other things too, right?

[23:20] I don't know what T-C-A means, but anyway. But assuming those letters are able to be the word cat, able to be the word act, right? Okay, what makes them to be one or the other?

[23:33] See, well, it's in the order, right? Well, well, the order is not really seen as a form, though it is a likeness to form, right? Well, it's a different kind of order in the number, but but but order is like what form of the number? Just like the order of the letters is like the form of the word, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's something other than the last one.

[24:00] The last is the name of order. When you add the when you add the one to seven to make eight, what does add mean?

[24:27] What has something of the idea of what actualizing that ability, right? Well, so you add. If it didn't, if it didn't, then then you'd have really a seven and a one, right? You wouldn't have an eight.

[24:55] Suppose I add the seven to the one. Yeah, you're forgetting that once you see ability and act here, you're forgetting that that in the strict sense you're able to be something when you're one step away from it, huh?

[25:25] Yeah, but I. So so so if you say one is able to be eight in the strict sense, no, one is able to be only what two.

[25:38] Two is able to be what? Three, right? And three is able to be four. But strictly speaking, three is not able to be five, right?

[25:56] Using one of the senses. So that would seem to be a reason for distinguishing adding from making actual, because I can add two and two in the strict sense of add. Yeah, I don't just yeah, but that's yeah, that's that's more the kind of calculation, right? Where you treat the numbers as as units, right? It's a collection of twos in this case, right?

[26:27] I don't know. It seems. Just adding two and two makes four, even not just four units, but once you kind of contract it, which we were saying before, right? You know, just kind of simplification of that, right? Two can become three by addition of one. You get another one, you get four. You just kind of run it together, right? Unless you're imitating, you know, the other way around and saying that four is two twos.

[27:12] I'm saying that that's like saying two is what two ones and not one two. As you democratic mind and your democratic customs, when I think of two as two ones rather than one two,

[27:31] so you want two to be more than one. But the one that I add to the seven to make the eight. it doesn't exist by itself. Well, you have to see that one though as as in a certain order, right?

[27:56] Otherwise, you don't understand what the number is. I still think the form of the eight is not the last one. Something else. How many of us are here at the table? Three. As someone else comes in, he makes it four, right? Yeah, maybe the fourth one. The fourth one would make us four. Think about that.

[28:34] Right. You know, you know how something you need a foursome, you know, for. And golf, whatever it is, right? Or a game or something, you know. You know, you have you know four people playing cards, something, right? You need a fourth, right? When I first gave the subject, you know, some some faculty wife asked me if I played cards with my pet. She wanted to give me a sidekick involved in the card playing thing, you know?

[28:59] But but, but in order to play this game, you need maybe four people. let's say, right? You know. So maybe they have three people who are crazy about playing cards, right? And they need a fourth person, right?

[29:13] So the the the three are made four by that fourth person, right? That was the the fourth person. So. What about this power of retaining images? You talked about. You said it's separate. Sure. Of a historia investigation to be what incomplete. Okay. And Aristotle is not determining every question about the soul. Okay, that's the way Thomas understands why Aristotle uses that word there, right? Okay. Now, to me, to me, apart from you know explaining Aristotle uses the word, right?

[29:57] It also shows what we mean by what history, right? You see, why should this name history, which means originally simply investigation, right? Why should that be given to what we call history in college today, right? Right.

[30:19] And if you go back to what Thomas says about the word historia, it's the nature of history to be incomplete. That could be said by antonomasia of what of the investigation of human affairs, huh? You know, as one historian said, history is always more complicated than we think. See, and if you're trying to you know to the history of a country, there's always individual facts and so on that you can't be sure enough, right?

[30:56] See, even if you write the biography of somebody, right, you talk to everybody you can find who knew him and get his letters. You know, there's still things in a man's life that what will always what escape you, right? Huh? You see, nobody could possibly know everything that somebody thought or felt or did, even maybe, huh? In his whole life, huh? And

[31:24] you know, apart from men hiding these things, it's impossible, right? So, so you know, I was talking to this one historian one time, Mister Stage, you know, and he says, "You go to convention and say, you know, what do you teach? " But you say history. What do you mean? I teach American history. Well, which century? You know, which decade? You know, which you know, what aspect of the decade you're in?

[31:52] You know, it's kind of endless, right? Yeah. Yes, sir. Um. So, um, more than philosophy or science, it's the nature of what human history, right, to always be what.

[32:12] Yeah, and they're always kind of looking at it again, and you know, and I was kind of kidding one of my colleagues there, who's a admirer of Lincoln, you know, with the recent book called the The True Lincoln, right? And I was kind of down in the book, right? And I know what the book has really, you know, put up some things. You know, nobody knows much about Lincoln or something, you know, but I mean.

[32:33] They're always kind of you know going back with these people right, famous men like that, and they're trying to bring out something. There's always a new biography of Churchill coming out. There's always a new biography of, you know, MacArthur coming out. You know, and another biography is coming out now of Teddy Roosevelt, and you know, there's always going to be another biography of Kennedy or the biography of Roosevelt or you know, and revision things.

[32:56] You know, but it's it's kind of in other words, this name, you're naming this investigation into human affairs, by antonomasia there, given that understanding there, right? That you're always searching, right? You never quite arrive at it. It's always it's most of all incomplete, right?

[33:34] It's the nature of this kind of of knowledge, you want to call it knowledge at all, uh, to be incomplete, right? You see? In the way that geometry is not, huh? See? These theorems, and that's it, you know. That's it, right? You know, you kind of reach some kind of closure, they say, right?

[33:56] But it's other things you never do, right? You know. And I happen to be reading, you know, Keegan's book there on the Second World War. He's a very good historian, you know. And you think about these things again, and you realize how many these little details, right? You forget, you know, and how many more there are to be discovered, and so on. And they're always digging in the ground and finding something new, revising their, you know, even their chronology, among other things, right?

[34:33] And you know, I've got a lot of you know books on Shakespeare. I mean, I've read a lot of editions of them, you know. Yet these ones are going to have these big discussions that you're all going through, really. And all the discussion, you know, of when Shakespeare wrote these plays, they're always revising. You know, they're always disagreeing among themselves, and they can never quite, you know, through the South, you know.

[34:56] The same way the chronology, you know, the crucial category of Mozart is more or less chronological, right? But there's all kinds of inaccuracies they discover, right? You know, so you may have a higher number of it be actually earlier, right? And and and sometimes they discover, you know, the the the original manuscript of Mozart, right? In some cases, and at different times of his life, Mozart used different papers because different paper was accessible, right?

[35:22] So sometimes they can date these things, you know, by the kind of paper that they wrote it on, right? And then they check revise, right? But again, then somebody else goes around and says, you know, but but you know, you know, we found that there was this other kind of paper, also, you know, at this time the Mozart was going through, you know, so he might have written it at this time, you know, you know, it's it's endless, right?

[35:52] You see, you know, you see what I mean, and you get a sense of that, and you start saying history is always more complicated than you think, God. And the

[36:05] I've got to see in the same history book it'll say give you three different scenarios. This person thinks it happened this way, and this is why, and you know. Yeah, yeah, and and I just read Keegan there again, and

[36:19] what are they saying? Um, you know, you know, when you study the Second World War, the first thing you come to is the invasion of Poland, right? You know, and the Molotov uh, Ribbentrop thing, you know, so the question is, what did they say? And then you have the next year there, you have the invasion of France and collapse of France, right? British getting out was what would you say?

[36:46] And and what's the next thing coming up after that? See, well, can involve down the Balkans, right? And Churchill was was carrying some troubles down in the Balkans and Greece and so on, and finally Hitler you know invaded you know Macedonia went down to Greece and so on, took it all over, right? And then then he had this kind of a disaster. They finally take over Crete, you know, lost a lot of men.

[37:17] But you know, I've read many historians say that that this is what delayed his invasion of Russia, right? And the delay the invasion of Russia was crucial, you know, because they were like twenty miles from Moscow when the snow came, and then the Germans didn't have winter equipment or anything, winter clothing. Yodol, I guess, so you know, had refused to issue you winter clothing because he didn't want to give away the idea that we could fail to get Moscow before the winter came.

[37:54] And and there was what you know was it you know frostbite the Germans, you know, and you know it was like five thousand men had toes and amputated and all, you know, because the Russians had the right boots, you know, so the Germans go, "Buddy, stop there," you know. So you can say, you know, another two weeks, maybe they would have been able to, you know, you know.

[38:16] But he says no. The start of the war with with Russia was was determined by the what the what pattern, right? And they had to have to wait for the spring rains to dry up and so on, right, and so on. It had nothing to do with they didn't come down at all, the Greece and thing at all. Why are we also being said the reverse, right?

[38:33] I don't know for sure, you know. Could he have started the invasion earlier? But so I mean they're constantly revising these things, right? So it's a nature of this very much a study that's starting to be but incomplete, and

[38:55] something. Yeah. Okay, so I just mentioned that, right? But so in the Summa Theologiae, right, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, he distinguishes four inward senses, right? See, and one is called the common sense, and one in the case of the other animals is called the what? Estimative power. a little bit like we'd call instinct in a way, estimative power,

[39:34] and so the common sense knows what. the per. se sensibles, right? What's the common center of all the efforts to see with the outward senses. But the estimate of power to see something that the outward senses don't perceive as such—that something in this shape is a an enemy? Of something in this, this smell is to be fed or to be eaten or not, right? Okay.

[40:04] Okay. So you know, you know how an animal maybe smells something, and they're a smother young, you know, and they don't have to feed them, right? So this is the power. And then use the word imagination here. And here I think he's using memory for this, right? For the to retain these, right? Okay. But we might use memory for what retains this image today, right? You might use the imagination not for something other than this here, but for the what ability to manipulate these images, right?

[40:49] Okay. And so we would use the word memory, imagination, maybe, images, words, memoria, imagination, a different way, right? So you got to just bear in mind what he's he's distinguishing, right? And and the distinction between these two is one reason, right, for the distinction between these two, and a different reason for the distinction between these two and what these two, right? And

[41:26] and here the difference is that the animal seems to know what to do, right? With senses certain things, right? But it doesn't sense here

[41:54] that something is an enemy, right, or a meal, something to fight or to pursue or to eat or not, right? That's not perceived by the senses as such, right? See. So you know, you know, the sheep might see the the the shape of the fox, right? And then it estimates that that is something fearful, right?

[42:33] But the shape of the fox is not dangerous, right? So, so, this seems to be apprehending something, but this is not right. Something that's not sensible as such, right? Okay. So that something is an enemy or food or someone to be fed, right? You know,

[43:03] is something that another power