De Anima (On the Soul)
44. Why the Understandable Doesn't Always Understand; Reading Aristotle through Thomas; Liberal Education
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/044-why-the-understandable-doesnt-always-understand-reading-aristotle/

[0:00] So in 334 now he's talking first of all about how the reason itself becomes understandable, right? And sometimes they compare our reason in the order of understandables to what first matter in the order of the material world, huh? It's only something potentially, huh? Inability understandable, and it doesn't become actually understandable itself until it understands something else, and then it becomes actually understandable when it becomes actually what understanding, right?

[0:43] Well, of course that's going to give rise to that the other side of the problem there. If it becomes actually understandable when it becomes actually understanding, so that the understanding in act is the understandable in act. Why don't other things when they become understandable also actually understand? Very very interesting objection Aristotle has there, huh? And it is itself understandable just as are the understandables, huh? For in what is without matter, the understanding and the thing being understood are the same.

[1:22] For speculative science and what is thus known are the same, huh? The speculative science is the science that is concerned simply with understanding, right? Speculative is a Latin word for looking, huh?

[1:38] Now, let's check the Greek here. It's going to be. Yeah, hegar episteme he theoretike, right? Okay. So you see how I translate these, right? Like we speak of theoretical philosophy, and we'll speak in Latin of speculative philosophy. Well, I translate that as looking philosophy. People says, "Well, you don't. I don't understand what you mean if you say looking. That is word theoretical or speculative. But theoretical is just the Greek word for what?

[2:30] Looking, theoria, and speculative from the Latin word for looking, right? Looking means trying to see, but trying to see in the sense of to understand, right? So we call philosophy theoretical when the end of it is just to understand, as opposed to practical philosophy like ethics, where the end is to do something. In Latin they translate that by speculative. But when you put these words into English, you see speculative today means usually what?

[3:01] Guessing, right? You know, speculating on the stock market or something like that, right? Well, I mean geometry is a part of speculative philosophy, but it's not guessing. It's understanding, right? Things necessarily. So speculative in English doesn't actually capture what speculative means in Latin. In theoretical, it means kind of some kind of you know, you know, I mean that translates to real world kind of a theoretical construct, right?

[3:32] While the actual word looking at theoria, looking at, is very concrete in some sense, right? You're looking at something, right? And that's a beautiful word, you know, for Euclid's things there, theorems, right? I like that word, huh? A theorem is something to look at, just like a sunset is something to look at, or a beautiful rainbow is something to look at, right? Or a beautiful painting is something to look at, huh?

[4:01] But these are something to look at with your your mind or your reason, huh? Right? By the painting or this thing is something to look at with your eyes, right? Do you ever read the thing of Boethius there, the Consolation of Philosophy?

[4:21] Well, you know, Lady Wisdom comes down to console him, right? Sophia or sapientia in Latin. It's feminine, right? So wisdom. He's in prison there, right? And falsely accused and so on. And Lady Wisdom comes down to console him, and so written in the form of a dialogue between Boethius and Lady Wisdom, right? And beautiful dialogue, huh? And as the commentator says there, the Summa of St. Thomas, you know.

[4:54] Women are better at consoling than men, right? He represents wisdom as a lady, right? Well, there's all kinds of symbolism in the clothing of Lady Wisdom, but you know, you'll see on here the letter Theta, huh? and then the letter pi. Okay, what theta means what theoretical philosophy, and pi, practical philosophy, and Theoria is higher on her clothing than than pi, right? But her gowns are what kind of torn, right?

[5:31] And the symbolism of that is that men, in grabbing for wisdom or truth, have what dismembered, right? Like the great Empedocles says, you know, men seeing a part of the truth, they boast they've seen the whole, so they're kind of divided up and torn and lacerated. So her gowns are a little bit torn, right, and so on. But the words "theoretic or "theory" in English don't really give you that concrete meaning of looking at, uh looking at.

[6:03] So he translates "it by the Latin word as speculative but I would translate it simply as looking, " episteme, right? Looking, reasoned out knowledge. What is known are the same. That has raised then to the other side the problem here. One must look into the cause of not always understanding. Now, the average dimmer like me reading that would probably say, "Well, he's asking now what he's talked about before.

[6:32] That reason doesn't always actually understand. Sometimes it's what understanding ability. " But actually, he's talking about here, as Thomas explains, is why it is that the understandable doesn't always understand.

[6:49] Now, why is that so? If the let's phrase the problem again here more formally. If the understanding in act is the understandable in act,

[7:23] if what understands is what is understood, right? And what understands obviously understands, right? Why is it that what is understood doesn't always understand? What understands is what is understood.

[7:54] Why? To answer that question. Well, the thing. Let's say I mean the pencil is understandable, but it doesn't have the faculty of understanding. That'd be one way of answering it, kind of a simple way, right? Okay. Does that really show

[8:20] answer the problem completely? Because there you're talking about the ability to understand, right? Right. But here we're talking about actual understanding, right? Okay. So what actually understands, right? That's something more than just the ability to understand, right? Okay. And of course it's interesting that in God, you know, there's no real ability to understand separate from his actual understanding, right? Otherwise, God would be composed he would be not pure act, right?

[8:55] So if you look at just the actual understanding, that is the understandable. So why isn't the understandable actually understanding? If what is actually understanding is the understandable, why isn't the understandable not always actually understanding? Okay. It's still kind of a problem, right? This thing is getting sideways, you know. All right. Well, notice, huh? In the case of our reason, huh? Its object, as we saw in the previous part here, the object of our reason, what is understood, is the what it is, right?

[9:50] Of something sensed or imagined, right? But it's got to be separated from those things in order to be actually understandable. It's got to become, therefore, in a way, immaterial before it's actually understandable. By those things that are being understood, in this case, that cat that walks around here, he's material, and that chair that's understood, that triangle, it's it's in some way material, it's in the continuous at least, right?

[10:25] Okay. And as such, it's not actually understandable. So the material thing cannot what actually understand. It's not actually the same as understanding until it becomes immaterial. But the thing in itself doesn't become what immaterial becomes immaterial only in the mind, huh? Now, no. So he says here about that. One must look in. This is the bottom of page 37. Now, 335. One must look into the cause of not always understanding, as they say.

[11:07] This student here would probably think, you know, you're talking about why is it that the reason doesn't always understand, right? But actually, Thomas says in the context there that he's referring to why is it that the understandable doesn't always understand, huh? Well, he says it's because in these things that we're talking about, these sensible and and and imaginable things, among things having matter, right? Each is among the understandables only in potency, right?

[11:44] I prefer the word understandable to intelligible. English, right? Okay. So they're understandable only in potency. Hence, the mind will not be present in these, because, as we saw, the understanding is what immaterial, right? For the mind is a potency of such things. It's an ability to receive these things without their what matter, right? Because it itself is without what matter, huh?

[12:38] I don't know if the translation. is exactly right? It's a little confusing there. Let me just try to read the Greek here. kind of a little translation. Ah, in those things having matter, right? In potency is each of the things understandable. Okay. The understandable. Um.

[13:10] What has matter is not understandable, and Act, he's saying, right? Okay. So that to such things there will not belong nous that's the ability to understand, right? For Nous, the understanding, the reason, is an ability, a dunamis, he says, without matter, right? It's a ability without matter of such things.

[13:46] And to that, he says, belongs the what? Understandable. Okay. I don't know why he put that in brackets there, having matter. I don't know why he gets that. It's not in the Greek anyway.

[13:59] Okay. So he's saying that these material things that are in a way understood, right? They're not actually understandable until the what it is of them has been what? Separated from their individual matter, right? And then it's actually understandable, right? Yeah. But then it becomes one with something that is actually what? Immaterial, right? Right. Yeah. So that's the reason why the understandable, these understandables, right? Don't understand. It almost.

[14:37] But in the case of the angels and of God, just to make an allusion to that, right? They're understandable in act in their very nature, because their very nature is immaterial. What you begin to see there is that something is understandable to the extent that it is separated from what matter. So the more immaterial thing is, the more it's understandable, and something that is actually immaterial is not true of a dog or a cat.

[15:08] So the actually immaterial, like the angels or God, is actually what understandable. So everything that's understandable in that way understands. But these material things are not in their material nature actually understandable. They're only able to be understood, and they become actually understandable only when what they are is separated by the act of understanding. We'll be in the next chapter, right?

[15:38] And therefore, they become one only with something that is already material, namely understandable. But. Wouldn't that mean that the angels and God would be equivalently intelligible? Aren't they both equivalently immaterial? Well, they're understandable in different ways, right? But we have to get into the differences right now with them, right? Okay. But as far as being actually understandable, that's true about both of them. Okay. Even though God is much more understandable than the angels are, but not to us.

[16:17] That's a famous distinction Aristotle makes. You know that what is more known to us is. Less known, what is more known by nature, or knowable, is less knowable to us, right? Because the weakness of our mind, huh? Okay.

[16:35] I notice we we we didn't talk about that last sentence in the previous part there, but it's relevant to this here too. After he distinguished in three twenty nine and three thirty the object, the last sentence there in three thirty, generally therefore as things are separable from matter, thus also are they things which concern the mind, and that's the reason why looking philosophy is divided into natural philosophy, mathematical philosophy, and metaphysics or wisdom, huh?

[17:11] Because these things are all diversely separable from matter, right? Natural things cannot be understood without matter in the ordinary sense. You have to bring matter in at least in a general way in understanding what they are sensible matter. The mathematical things are found in matter, but they can be understood without that sensible matter, but not without this extension, this kind of understandable matter, Aristotle calls it, but a kind of imaginable matter.

[17:45] But the things studied in metaphysics involve what no matter at all, right? You see, so that's why there's three parts of looking philosophy, as he'll show in the sixth book of wisdom, huh? But you begin to see this already in the distinction between natural philosophy and mathematics. So because the moderns have not seen that, they don't see the basis for the distinction of the three parts of looking philosophy.

[18:14] What you learn from this, you see, is is is kind of a gateway to understanding the angels and God, because you see here the connection between immateriality and understandability, huh? That something has to be separated from matter to be actually understandable, and as things are diversely separated from matter, they're understandable in different ways, huh? It reminds a little bit of what you know Heisenberg said, you know, when he's talking about even within the domain of you know Heisenberg's a great physicist, right?

[18:50] Next to Einstein, some people say he's next to Einstein, but Heisenberg says you know that when you go into a new area of physics, you know, when you go from Newtonian mechanics, let's say, to quantum theory, you have to learn a new meaning of the word understanding. Interesting way of putting it, right? But in a way, the other side of the coin is these things are understandable in a different way.

[19:21] But looking back, they're not just looking at that. You say that within physics, right? This is within the physical sciences. It's only one part of natural science, huh? But if you stand back and look at the whole of looking philosophy, you could say that well, the things studied in natural philosophy and the things studied in mathematics and the things studied in wisdom are understandable in a different way, right?

[19:45] So that in a way, understanding means something different. See, because understanding a man, let's say, or a dog, or a tree involves matter in some way, at least in general. You can't really understand man without flesh and blood and bones, and tree without bark and xylem and phloem and whatever else is in there. And but understanding, you know, a geometrical sphere or geometrical cube is not understood with any of that kind of sensible matter, at least, right?

[20:18] But it's not understandable without extension, huh? But now when you try to understand God or an angel, they're understood even without what extension, huh?

[20:31] That's very difficult for us, right? And we more understand that they're not continuous than what they are in a positive sense, huh? Okay. 235 is as part a lot of it has to do with just two two meanings of the word understandable. One in the sense of understandable that is able to be understood. and understandable as No, no, he's asking there why it is that

[21:12] if what if understanding an act is in some way being the understandable, right? Say what's that? If understanding in a way is being the understandable, right? Just like sensing is being the sensible. Then why is it that what is understandable doesn't always understand? If they seem to be the same, right? You know. Well. You know,

[21:44] when you get to study, you know, the angels and God, you find out that they're both what immaterial, and you realize they're both actually what understandable, right? And they both what understand. In those cases, the understandable does understand, right? But when you talk about understanding material things, right?

[22:12] Material things are in some way understandable. But they don't understand. Yeah. The paradox there is that in order to become actually understandable, they have to be made in a way what? Immaterial. Right. And that's why he's going to talk about the act of understanding. Okay. What makes what is able to be understandable actually understandable, right? Yeah. And therefore, he's going to compare the act of understanding analogously to to light, right?

[22:53] Because in a way, light makes things that have color actually visible, right? And without light, the colors of the things in this room are not actually what visible. They're visible only in what potency or ability, right? Now, without the act of understanding, which is like a spiritual light, right, immaterial light, the sensible and imaginable things, right, But what it is of these sensible and imaginable things are not actually what understandable.

[23:35] So he compares it to light, right? This is the light which enlightens every man who comes into the world, right? But this light that is the agent intellect, as it's sometimes called, the act of understanding, is kind of a partaking of the divine light. You know, we'll share, right? But it's so weak in us, right, that we have to have get fortified by our guardian angel, right? And by God Himself, right?

[24:07] So that's why when you pray there, you know, God enlightens them. Or ask the guardian angel to strengthen the light of your mind, right?

[24:20] That thing that light that Aristotle's going to talk about here next, now. And some things can be seen by that natural light, you know. The Church teaches that you could even know that God exists, right? That's an article of faith, now. That the existence of God can be known by the natural light of reason.

[24:42] It doesn't mean that most people can know this too well, you know. But it's possible to know it by the natural light of reason.

[24:50] So the way these objections, although they're in a way answered in this chapter in this ninth reading of Thomas's division, they're kind of in a way should leave you a little bit of uneasiness, right? And you have to see, in some sense, the from them or begin to see the need for this what act of understanding.

[25:16] But the other way of kind of approaching the need for the act of understanding is to realize that there is no world of forms. If there was a world of forms that were acting directly in our mind, then you wouldn't need this act of understanding.

[25:35] And incidentally, you know, when they explain, you know, the the light of glory, right? And Thomas said the light of glory says is not like this light that Aristotle talks about, right? Because the light that Aristotle talks about in the next chapter is to make something understandable that is only understandable in potency. Well, the light of glory is not to make God understandable to us. I mean, to make God understandable act because he's he's dwells in light inaccessible.

[26:07] He's most understandable. See, he's the most understandable thing there is. But not to us, because the weakness of our mind. So the light of glory is actually disposing our mind, right, to receive God into our mind, as both that by which we see and what we see, huh?

[26:29] But it's not to make God actually understandable. The problem's not in him, like is material things, right? You know. See, in a way, Kant was right when he said about material things are not knowable, right? The thing in itself is not knowable. but he should have said it's not knowable in act in itself. It's knowable in ability, right? Because then he ends up not knowing anything, right?

[26:58] In that position. But I mean, it's like you're saying, like like the great Empedocles says, right? You know, men having seen a part of the truth, they boast of having seen the whole, right? So in seeing in some way that that material things are not knowable, he didn't distinguish between knowable and ability and actually knowable, or to be more precise, to be understandable in ability and to be actually what?

[27:29] It's one thing to not be understandable in any way, and nothing to be understandable in ability, and therefore not to be understandable in what? In act, right?

[27:46] But as you know, the moderns and human mind in general has a difficulty understanding what ability, right? Even the great Plato there kind of confused the ability of matter. Remember that with the lack of form. That's where the Platonists got into the business of saying that matter is evil, right? You find explicitly in Plotinus, right? Because they they confuse matter with non-being, huh? That

[28:24] confusing your your ability to know with your ignorance. It's not through your ignorance that you're you actually come to know, but through your ability to know, right? If your mind was your ignorance, then you'd be in pretty bad shape, huh? Yeah. So it's extremely subtle what Aristotle says there in the second difficulty, right? And it takes a wit like Thomas, huh? To illumine the dim wits like us.

[29:02] But for the nitwits then. Kind of interesting, huh? Because in Aristotle, you know, it's Hesiod who who made this distinction between the wits and the dim wits and the nitwits, huh? And he said he said best of all is a man who can understand these things by himself, right? Next is the man who can learn it from the man who can discover it. But he who can neither discover it himself nor learn it from another, he's useless.

[29:29] White is the way the English translation is together, right? And well, Thomas is more kind in the comment he says he's useless as far as the acquisition of knowledge is concerned, right? He can have some other some other worth, right? You know. So if these things, you know, if you can't discover these things by yourself, like Aristotle did, or you can't learn them from Aristotle, then you're useless as far as what getting philosophy, right?

[29:56] You know. So, the Greek seven wise men said, know thyself, right? Are you a wit, a dim wit or a nitwit, right? I say. And? I think you know the problem with with a lot of the modern philosophers is that they're dim wits and they think they're wits. And,

[30:21] you know, Monsignor Dion said one time about even about the great Cajetan. you know? he shouldn't have commented on Aristotle directly. He should have just commented on Thomas.

[30:37] I mean, to comment, it's kind of interesting, huh? He gets gets off, gets off, and he tries to comment directly on Aristotle. He has to be, you know, filtered through Thomas, right? And and when Cajetan kind of you know compared the the order among our minds. It's not identical by any means, but it resembles a bit the order you find among the angels, right? Where, you know, angel illumines the angel below him, and he illumines the one below him down the line, right?

[31:06] And so this is kind of where Aristotle illumines Thomas, and Thomas illumines us, and we illumine maybe our students, something like that, right? But if we lose this order there, we, you know, if we try to go directly to Aristotle, right, going through Thomas, we we tend to miss a lot, you know, and even misunderstand the text. I remember one time when when someone describing a conversation there that when Monsignor Dion was having with with John Galt there, and they were trying to understand the the first chapter there in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle gives six meanings there the word beginning.

[31:46] And when Aristotle gets to the second meaning of beginning there, he makes a comparison to beginning with what's more known to us. Well, some people think that's the second meaning. And Galt was understanding the text that way, which he could. He's just looking at the text. And Dion said, "No, no, look what Thomas says about about that."

[32:11] So my rule of thumb, you know, is is what Aristotle means, what Thomas says he means, right? And there might be you know some cases you know where where Thomas has maybe a defective Latin translation, something like that. You know, he might miss something, you know. I mean, I don't say that's wrong, but but I mean, as a rule of thumb, I'd say you know Aristotle means what Thomas says he means.

[32:36] And but the more you read Thomas, you know, you realize what the help he is to understanding Aristotle. The way he divides the text, the way he explains what he means, but this, you know, a text like this is very difficult, and you really need somebody like Thomas to proportion it to

[33:02] you. You go back and you read, you know, the the uh the Greek commentators even you know, on, Aristotle. Then you go and read Thomas the commentators. You know, it's amazing to see how much, how much he's penetrated. You know, you know. Although Ammonius is very good, you know, but you only have Ammonius in a few things there, you know. Ammonius Hermaeus. There's several of Ammonius, but this is the teacher of Boethius, huh?

[33:33] You know, but it almost seems as if Aristotle wasn't quite aware of how much everyone else was below him that he would have thought, you know. Well, you see, see, we're not sure, you know, for there. Some people speak of these things as Aristotle's notes, right? Some people speak of them as being the official notes of the school, right? Well, you know, if you saw, you know, sometimes a professor, you know, he's going to give a lecture.

[34:09] He might, you know, put an index card, you know, kind of a a very brief thing, you know, and he would know how to expand it as he got in class, right? You see, maybe he's a little bit. So I mean, it is very concise, right? And whether it's intended for publication, in that form, you know, I'm sure these things would be expanded upon by Aristotle in the way that we try to do it there, Albert Thomas and so on, to expand upon them, right?

[34:38] And so I mean, I don't think I wouldn't say Aristotle's not aware of that, right? But you got to realize too that in the ancient schools, the vocal word was much more what a part of the teaching than for us, right? The written word. We rely a lot upon the written word, huh? But before the printing press, too, you wouldn't tend to waste words the way we do.

[35:05] John Locke, you know, apologizes at the end of the essay, misunderstanding, you know, for being kind of pretentious, but he's too lazy, so to go over it again. And see, well, these guys here, they're not going to waste words, and everything has to be maybe copied out by hand, yeah, yeah. And so you kind of need a real tradition there of of living teachers to understand these words, and and.

[35:30] De Koninck said, you know, you know, he used to remark about De Koninck was a young man who wanted to become a Dominican, right? And then he was in poor health, you know, and and he was bedridden for I don't know a year or so, you know, so they wouldn't accept him in the order, you know, because of his physical conditions. But what was he going to do, laying in bed there?

[35:54] You know, he started reading Thomas very carefully, right? And you need you need he thought, you know, a period of time, right, where you're free of all the usual distractions of the world to really get into these texts and to understand them, right? And he sometimes compares it, you know, in Thomas's own life when he was locked up by his brothers there, you know, and they're trying to keep him from becoming a Dominican, right?

[36:17] And and he's supposed to memorize the Bible in there and memorize the sentences and so on. I mean, he got into these texts, right? And But like you, you need, you know, kind of a period. I know my own life, you know, the especially my last two years or so in college, you know, my my brothers had gone away to school, my father had died, just my mother and I were there, and she's a very quiet woman and didn't play the TV or radio or anything like that.

[36:48] It was kind of like a monastery almost, you know, but kind of the quiet there. I just didn't read, and I could, you know, I could read up in my room, I could read in another room, I could, you know, it's nice to be able to go to, you know, the speeches of all of it, you know, and and it was a period of what kind of a very quiet, thoughtful life, right?

[37:08] And you kind of need something like that, huh? You know, to read into these texts, but you need, you know, with Thomas or Aristotle, I mean, you got to read them and read them again, you know. When I when I was first with Kasurik, you know, he'd always, you know, tell me go read that Dwayne, tell me to go read that, And I'd come back with more questions.

[37:31] he'd say, you don't read very carefully, Dwayne, he'd say, you know, go through it like that. So after a while, you know, Berth comes and you know, learn how to read, do I? So you start to read very carefully, right? You see, and you realize how much is is is in this, huh? You know.

[37:55] When you read, you were accused of not reading well. Would you read? When you began reading very carefully, whenever you approach a text for the first time, would you read it with great scrutiny, or would you first read it through generally, getting a general view, and then go back through it? Well, either one, but I mean, you realize you've got to, you know, you know, it's like my father used to say, you know, to my brothers and I about driving the car.

[38:28] You know, when winter comes, he says you have to learn how to drive again. You know, I mean, have to be out so much more careful than you would be. So I'd say, you know, when you start to read someone like Aristotle, you got to learn how to read again, right? Because you have to read them with the care that you don't.

[38:48] Thomas, when he talks about that in the secunda secundae there, he talks about being teachable, right? Huh? You know, and reading the words, reading these words carefully, he says, frequently and with reverence, with respect, huh? So you have to read these words carefully, frequently. With reverence, that's where you become teachable.

[39:29] That's the way Thomas, you know, read Augustine. That's the way he read Aristotle. You know, I suppose he read just about everybody that way. But I mean, especially those you can learn from. But if you don't read Aristotle carefully, frequently, and with reverence, you are not going to really learn much from him. In the same way, unless you read Thomas this way,

[39:53] I mean, it's so it's so dense in a way. I think people sometimes get turned off by that, you know. But they want to read something like *Cupidal or something*, you know.

[40:04] You know, that's not the way you read this stuff. And if you do so, you are going to get indigestion. Back the way, if you read the life, somebody you can say a lot in a few words and keep on pulling things out of what he says, huh?

[40:22] Just in these few words, sir, you can anticipate all kinds of things that you know you are going to have in mind when you start to study God and the angels, which is the end of studying these things anyway. Thomas says, "I study the body, so I can study the soul. I study the soul, so I can study the angels. I study the angels, so I can study God.

[40:41] That's it, he says. " You know, Christ prays and prays out loud for our instruction, right? And you know, whole seventeenth chapter is about the prayers of Christ, right? And he prays first for himself, then he prays for the apostles, right? Then he prays for all those who will receive, you know. And and there is an order in which he prays, right? And you can say the same thing, you know, that you have to pray first for yourself, and then pray for those who are close to you, whatever kind of persons it may be, right?

[41:25] And then finally, somebody pray for the whole church and for all men, you know. But there is a certain order in which you pray, right? And in that

[41:36] sense, charity begins at home, right? But it's interesting that Christ shows it, right? He prays first for himself, and it's kind of an amazing thing, in a sense. And then he prays the apostles who are most closely associated with him and his his work and his life, right? And then he prays for all of us, you know. That's amazing.

[41:55] Very trusting in Christ, for, the prayers themselves, but so much to be learned there. Because you keep on pulling more and more, you see more and more in these in these gospels. You know, you kind of wonder there, you know. I remember, but the way I kind of remember that you were reading

[42:22] some of the lies of St. Teresa of Avila, not Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Avila, and so on. You know, you can read what the saints say, you know, but but in a way, that saint too is going to say, you know, how she would use the Gospels, you know, was that the method she did? Remember, you read that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[42:38] I remember it, you know. And I kind of come back to that because whatever these other saints are going to say, they don't have, you know, they don't help you in some ways because they suddenly expand upon something or something, but it's all there in the Gospel, there, you know. And you keep on, and the more carefully you read the Gospels, and especially Thomas's commentary there, the more you see in that, right?

[43:03] I mean, it's just it's funny because I was I was in my computer today and I was sending some things to my brother Richard there. and doing some stuff in logic, and Brother Richard's, going back and forth. And you know, I got I got this this folder I call Current. You know, I get all kinds of stuff in there and stuff. Think that's in there. So this thing says exposition.

[43:24] What's that? I don't know what's in there for it, but I opened it up. It was Thomas' commentary on the seventeenth chapter. I must have put in my computer for some reason. Maybe I was lucky to be writing them. So I started reading reading a canon. I said, "Isn't that marvelous, you know, that he prays first for himself." And Thomas is saying, right? He's teaching us, you know, all kinds of things about praying, you know.

[43:46] But I never really heard that question asked too much. Who should you pray for? Are you? Huh? I mean, maybe you touch upon it obviously, in various ways, you know, but not the kind of explicit way, you know. And what does Christ, you know, teach us by his example, you know? You know, and it is kind of marvelous the way he does that. That's important, you know.

[44:09] Yeah. Of course, he's explaining, you know, that this is eternal life in there, right? To know you alone, I was mentioning earlier, you know, and whom you sent, right? And Thomas is saying, well, you spend what life is a little bit, right? And how life is applied to the mind, right? And then, like we're saying, that the understandable understanding becomes the what understandable, right? Well, what's understood here is God and God's eternal life, right?

[44:50] So that understanding God, seeing Him as He is, is what eternal life, because the understanding is the understandable, right? You know, but just you know, one thing after another, you know. I say, "Jesus," and I read it over again. I say, "Understanding God." It's like it's like I never read this before, you know, and you forget or I thought, you know, forget which is in there, right?

[45:17] And how much more is said in the Gospel than in any one book, or any many books, you know, of the saints, right? It's amazing. Understanding God is like understanding eternal life, because He is eternal life, right? And the understanding is the one that's understood. in a sense. Doctor MacArthur saying, "He said, 'Well, he didn't really. He said he didn't really know enough to really be able to say this, but his experience, what he found, is he found he learned more about Christ and who He is through the letters of St.

[46:11] Paul than the Gospels. Yeah, the Church kind of holds up the Gospels principally, but in some sense, I don't know, maybe St. Paul makes it more explicit or something. Could there be a proportion thing? Like you know, I find a lot of times where I feel I get more out of reading other stuff than Gospel stuff. Maybe I get the least out of. But is that maybe because I'm not there spiritually, and I need that?

[46:43] Well, you need somebody like the Church Fathers or Thomas, right, to unfold the meaning, right? You see, I know it's like when Thomas goes through the Gospel of St. John there. It seems he's using Augustine and Chrysostom the most, right? Occasionally, some other Church Father brought in, you know, but it's not like he's using all the Church Fathers explicitly, right? But usually get what Chrysostom said about this passage and what Augustine says.

[47:12] That's why I remember going through there. Occasionally, be Hilary and other people come in, you know, but but that's what you need somebody like Thomas. But Thomas, in a way, like Cajetan said there in the Premium to the Summa, he seems to have inherited, right, the mind of all the Church Fathers because he's so, what reverenced them. But you see, that especially with Chrysostom, when we just had his feast there about a week ago, and kind of impressive I don't know Chrysostom, I don't know, you probably have a different calendar, right?

[47:45] You're so late, St. John Chrysostom. He was 13 right now. Hi, how you doing? Yeah, he's very impressive, man, in many ways. You know, how many times was the exile was from? Driven out of Constantinople, and so on. Yeah, but getting back in.

[48:06] But that's what you need somebody like that, huh? Otherwise, the words kind of kind of roll off you, you know. You don't really see more in them, right? But you go back and you read Thomas's commentary, and he's kind of bringing that show,

[48:22] and then you get realize how much are in those words. Thomas Thomas says there, when they come to Matthew I think it is that never does one fully unfold the meanings in Christ's words. Huh? I got to talk up at the Tribune School this Friday, see. You know the old former headmaster calls me up and he says they're having a pop-up, except for the parents, right? You don't know what liberal education is, that's the only way to say a few words about liberal education in itself.

[48:51] So, okay, so I've got to do this. So I got thinking about it again. You know, I was thinking about you know I'm going to talk about liberal education, so on. But more than one way you can explain why it's called liberal education, right? One way to approach it is to say that it's an education that's for the good of reason,

[49:17] rather than for the good of your body, like medical education, right? Or the good of your house, or the good of your food, like you go to the CIA the Colony Institute of America for the good of your food. You go to mechanic school for the good of your automobile, right? But this is what's good. What good is this for? It's for the good of reason itself, right?

[49:40] Okay. And you say, well, if man is better than the other animals because of his reason, right? Maybe we shouldn't neglect the good of reason. So it's best, right? But then you begin to see this is one reason why we call liberal education

[50:06] that the slave is one who what works for the good of another. So when reason is working for the good of the body, or the good of the automobile, the good of your house, it's in a way enslaved, right, to the body or the house or the automobile. But when it's pursuing its own good, then it's what like a free man, right? Okay.

[50:35] That's the original reason for speaking of liberal education and servile education. It's by an analogy, right, to the free man and the slave, and the slave exists for the good of his master, for the good of another. Therefore, right, not his own good, but the master seems to exist for his own good. So liberal education then is an education a reason for the good of reason, as opposed to the servile education, which is an education of reason for the good of the body, or the good of the house, or the good of the car, the good of the food, the good of the you know whatever it may be, right?

[51:20] Okay. And then I was saying, you know, and and the church of the father sees some connection in this with Christ's conversation with Martha, you know, right? Martha has chosen the better part, right? And it should not be taken away from her because Mary has chosen the better part, right? And because Mary has chosen right in a sense, the good of her mind, they're listening to Christ, huh?

[51:50] But Martha is concerned with the good of the dinner or something, right? Good of the household, right? And it shall not be taken away from her. It's going to be completed in the next world, right? Okay.

[52:03] But then you have to, you know, be aware what they're thinking and say, you know, of course, Now we need more Marthas in this world than than Marys, right? And even the man who has liberal education, he may have he has to what? He's forced to often pursue the good of something else, right?

[52:25] But reason is really only free when it's pursuing its own good, huh? But then I got thinking about the words of Christ, huh? Which I heard often quoted in church and various places.

[52:40] Christ says, "You shall know the truth, right? " And the truth will make you what? Free, right? Now, what's what's the usual explanation given of those words? You're here in church, you know. and people talk to us a lot too. Maybe even.

[53:08] Either free from sin or free from. error. Yeah, yeah, But but a lot of times it seems that they have in mind, you know, free from sin, free from your passions, you know, the thing. And are you thinking of in terms of?

[53:29] And that would be part of the meaning of the words, not denying it. But another meaning of the words is that when reason is pursuing truth as its goal. It's pursuing its own good, right? And then it's free. And that and that's even more so when we know the first truth which God, when we know the first truth, which God, in a sense, is interested in, right?

[53:55] The the first truth which is God Himself, right? in the beatific vision, right? Then reason will be completely free. It won't be enslaved anymore to the body at all, or to the house, or the car, or clothing, or money, or whatever it might be, right? See. And if reason takes any concern about the other things, it won't interfere with its contemplation of God at all. See. So reason will no longer be what enslaved when it knows the first truth, right?

[54:31] And insofar as it knows the truth, right, even this life is an anticipation of that, huh? That's why I say Mary has chosen the better part. but she shall not be taken away from her, right? She'll be. continued or completed here in the next life, right? That's become the meaning of it, you know. That that's in Christ's words. There,

[54:54] are you a king? And he says, well. But his son is born and his kingdom of the world might give testimony to the truth, right? That he is a what? His kingdom is a kingdom of what? Truth, right? That's good reason, huh? Aristotle shows in the second book of wisdom that the knowledge that wisdom is a knowledge of truth, and kind of Antonio Antonomasia you might almost say, right?

[55:25] And shows that consideration of truth belongs more to looking knowledge than practical knowledge, huh? Because it's the very end of looking knowledge, and it's not the end of practical knowledge, and because practical knowledge is often concerned with contingent truths, right? Like I say to them, you know, is France France is the enemy of England in the Napoleonic Wars and the French and Indian War; it's the friend of England maybe in the First World War and Second World War, right?

[55:58] You know, but those kind of contingent truths, right? They sometimes true, sometimes not true. They are important for the practical life, but then he goes on to show that that that the cause is more true than the effect, and therefore the first cause is most true, and as things aren't being, they aren't true, right? So the wisdom, being about the first cause, is always most true. Therefore, consideration of truth belongs, even on looking knowledge, to wisdom most of all.

[56:29] So Christ says, you know, you should know the truth, and that should make you free. Yes, one particular meaning of those words may not the only meaning is that when reason knows the truth, it's knowing or achieving its own good, and that's what it is to be free, huh? To pursue your own good rather than the good of of another, right? Like the slave that's

[57:03] Interesting, huh? and just had the old Oxford in English, you know, and it's abominable translation in some cases. The way they miss, you know, how much you miss, you know, and and and just falsely translating, you know, and

[57:51] you realize, you know, this day was. How good it was for him to just like get some Greek in, but had him all twisted, you know. Very choice, Richard. That you got him the same, considering my advice. That was it.

[58:09] I told you the story tonight, you know. I came down to have my list of courses, and come over and he says, "Where's your Greek?" I said, "My Greek." I said, "Why aren't you taking Greek?" And I said, "Well, I said, what other things I'd rather take?" He said, "There's no reason." He said,

[58:26] "You know, you need somebody to tell you that stuff. You know, that's not a reason. You're going to study philosophy, so you take Greek." That was it. What did I do? I took Greek. You know, I was very proficient at it. You know, stumbling through the Greek, but I managed to learn a little bit, right? And then, and then, then I got tied up with Koval there.

[58:46] who used to do these odd things and we'd read some texts of Aristotle in Greek, you know, just kind of you know, scrubbing your way through it. So eventually, I got a little familiar with the Greek, but whatever Greek I know, you know, a bit of marvelous help to me. All kinds of things they can do, you know.