De Anima (On the Soul)
65. Article Three: Are Animal Souls Subsistent? Sense vs. Intellect, Proportion, and Greek Humility
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/065-article-three-are-animal-souls-subsistent-sense-vs-intellect/

[0:00] Let's look at Article Three, huh? Now, apparently, some of the Platonists and Plato himself thought that the souls of the beasts were also subsistent, right? Okay. Hmm. So why would anybody think this? Hmm. Well, to the third article now one proceeds. Thus, it seems that the souls of brute animals, the beasts, are subsistent, huh? For man comes together in genus with the other animals, but the soul of man is something subsisting, right?

[0:36] Therefore, the souls of the other animals are subsisting. So it's kind of putting the souls all kind of on the same level, right? Huh? Okay. So if our soul is subsistent, why not the souls of the animals, right? Okay. Moreover, the senses have themselves to the sensible things, just as the understanding to the what? Understandables. Hmm. But the understanding understands understandables without the body, right? Therefore, also the senses grasp sensible things without the body, huh?

[1:28] But the souls of the brute animals are sensing, huh? Therefore, they are subsisting for a like reason by which the what? Soul of man, right? Which is understanding is subsistent.

[1:52] Third argument. Moreover, the soul of brute animals moves the body, right? But the body does not move, but is moved. It's not a mover, but it moves. Therefore, the soul of the animal has some operation without the body, right? And is a mover. That's one way to play the argument, right? Hmm.

[2:19] If the soul moves the body, it does something without the body, right? So the soul does not the mover, but the soul is the move. I mean, excuse me, the body is the not the mover, but the moved, right? But the soul is the mover, so it has the operation of moving things without the body, right? Okay.

[2:38] Now he's going to solve that by the third book on the soul, and the second and first by the second book on the soul. But against this is what is said in the book of what church dogmas. Thomas often refers to that, and I guess it's in the the Patrologia, right? Well, it's probably a little bit like the books we have sometimes. You know, they have a kind of a summary, right?

[3:07] Not a summary, but a collection of texts from the councils and so on, like the Enchiridion Symbolorum, right? Okay. So I have some of those books in my house, you know, and you've probably seen some of them. This bear

[3:20] comes from Gennadius and Maximus the Ancestor. Yeah. So it comes maybe from falsely attributed to Augustine. Yeah. Yeah. Gennadius. Okay. So I mean, we get volumes. Some they're taken from church councils and the popes, and some taken from the church fathers. You've probably seen those ones. Oh yeah. Yeah. The Enchiridion something. So this is some book that Thomas had me. We don't have in that form, but it's things like that, you know.

[3:45] We believe only man has a what Substantivum a subsisting or a substantial soul, a soul that is, you know, able to exist by itself. But the souls of the animals are not what subsistent, huh?

[4:04] Okay. I answered ought to be said that the ancient philosophers made no distinction between sense and what understanding, right? And the modern scientists are something like that too. And they attributed both to a bodily principle, as has been said, huh? Okay. Now Plato, in a way, goes to the opposite extreme, right? Plato distinguished, however, between the understanding and sense, but he attributed both to a what incorporeal beginning or principle, laying down that just as to understand, so also to sense belongs to the soul by itself.

[4:53] If that were true, then would follow from this that also the souls of the brute animals are what subsistent, right? Okay. Now it's interesting, huh? You know how truth is in between two extremes, huh? I've been teaching the

[5:13] Phaedo, right, of Plato there, and I think I mentioned this before, but there's two very probable opinions. About what the soul is, and one is the opinion of Socrates there in the Phaedo that the soul is an immaterial substance, distinct from the body, a complete substance in its own right, and so on. And then there's this other opinion, which is brought in by Simmias, that the soul is the form of the body, but kind of an accidental form.

[5:45] It's the harmony of the body, right? The organization of the body. And perhaps modern biologists, although they wouldn't use the word soul, they would attribute the living of the living body, right? It's being alive to the organization, the harmony of the body, and so on, right? Okay. Now, as I mentioned before, as we saw in the definition of the soul, there's a part of the truth in both of those opinions.

[6:12] The soul is something substantial as Plato saw, but it's not a complete substance. The soul is a form, like the other opinion said, but not an accidental form. The truth about the soul is that it's a substantial form of the body. Okay, so there's an element of truth in both of these positions. Huh? Now, Socrates, on the basis of his opinion, reasons that the soul existed before the body, and it will exist after the body.

[6:47] Huh? Thinking of the soul as being in the body, something like a man in in a room, or a man, the soul is somehow imprisoned in the body, right? In their death, it's freed from its prison, huh? Well, in that case, you know, you exist in the body. You exist before you're in the body or in the prison, and afterwards, right? Just like I exist before I come into this room, and after I leave this room, I continue to exist.

[7:13] I think I do anyway. Okay. But Simeon thinks that if the soul, what, is the harmony of the body, the organization of the body. It doesn't exist before the body, and it won't exist after the body. Well, the truth is in between those two. Which Aristotle finally saw, that the soul doesn't exist before the body, but it does exist. The human soul has to say it does exist after the body, right?

[7:45] Okay. And that's tied up with the element of truth in both cases, huh? Because the soul is subsistent, then it can exist after the body, right? But because it's the form of the body, the soul is created for this body, and therefore God doesn't create the soul until there's a body for it. That's why your mother and father are important, right? See, because they provided, in a sense, the body for your soul.

[8:17] Okay, so the soul doesn't exist before the body because it's going to be the form of a body, and so it's naturally created by God. When the body is ready for it, but because it's subsistent, it can exist after the body. The truth is neither what Simmias says that the soul existed neither before or after the body, the human soul, that is to say, or what Socrates says that existed before and after.

[8:45] The truth is it didn't exist before, but it will exist after. And likewise, the truth, more fundamentally, about what the soul is, is a substantial form of the body, right? It agrees with Plato in the soul being something substantial, It agrees with Simmias that it's a form. But disagrees with Plato that it's a complete immaterial substance, right? Like an angel imprisoned in the body, and it differs from what the idea that the soul was an accidental form of the body.

[9:20] So Aristotle takes the part of truth. In both, huh? Wow, yeah. That's kind of a marvelous thing to see, that. But here, in a sense, you see something like that too, because you have the people who would say the human soul is not immortal, right? Okay. And then you have the other side that says not only is the human soul immortal, but the souls of the animals are immortal too.

[9:44] What's your name, Orange? The name of that cat, right? Orange. I was reading one of my student papers here this morning. There, correcting some, you know, paper for the course, and and I think this this person thinks that the animals go to heaven too, you know. Ah. And so I had to write in the margin to say, "Pets, dogs and cats do not go to heaven." In case the person thought it seemed from the text that they were thinking that, you know.

[10:11] Ah. You know, you know the the old answer supposed to give as a parent to your child, you know, you know, when the cat dies or the dog dies, you know, and the child says, "Will my dog or my cat be in heaven?" And the answer is, if your dog or your cat is necessary for your happiness, your dog or cat will be there. Yeah. Good answer.

[10:32] Yeah. That's the proper answer to give the child if I can understand that that the dog and cat will be quite unimportant in the next world. Yeah.

[10:43] Another claim is that Saint Pio claims said something somewhere about animals being in heaven. Tell me, show me the text. Yeah. Did Aristotle have the Catholic conception of the soul coming from God? Yeah, yeah. He says in the generation of animals that the human soul doesn't come from the parents. Wow. And he knew that the human soul didn't exist before the body either. Yeah. But he knew it was going to exist afterwards, huh?

[11:19] That's incredible. Yeah. Um. One thing is is good about about the Aristotle time is that he comes before Christianity, right? Sure. And he comes before he's not really influenced by the Jews either. Right. So you can see that human reason, without the faith, could arrive at these truths, right? Yeah. Um, and you can see something of the divine providence there, huh? Yeah. I think it's Augustine, some of the church fathers, they speak of divine providence in regard to the Jews who are not converted.

[11:58] Hmm. And he said that the Jews who are not converted and who are opposed, you know, in many cases violently to the Christian Church, they were witnesses to the authenticity of the Old Testament, right? And the prophetic books, right, from which the Christians would reason, huh? That you know the fulfillment of these prophecies is in Christ, right? But the pagans, you know, if the Jews had all been converted, right, then the pagans would say, "Well, you guys must have, you know, forged these documents because how could how could Isaiah or somebody have spoken of the passion of Christ, you know, you know, all these years before, right?

[12:38] You see, you know, you must you must have forged those books in order to bolster your religion or something, right? But here the the violent enemies of the Christians, the ones who are stirring up troubles for Paul, as you see in the Acts of Apostles, right, they are witnesses to the authenticity of the very books on which the Christians reason, right? So you see something in divine providence that not that it was you know good that the Jews were not all converted, but that God brought out even of that something good in the conversion of the pagans.

[13:11] You see, and the same way here, you know, people sometimes when you oppose homosexuality or something like that, right? You know, people say we just oppose to that because you're a Christian or you're a Catholic or something, right? And we say, no, no, no, reason would tell you this is bad, right? And yeah, the famous text of Plato there in the in the Laws, right, where he proposes the Athenian Stranger, right, he proposes a law against homosexuality, right?

[13:46] Wow. And the reason for it is that it's against nature. Wow. You see, but Plato is not a Christian, right? You see, and and that's kind of marvelous, right? Or you know the the work in logic there the Isagoge that we use, which is written by Porphyry, right? It's Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, and it's necessary for understanding definition and division and demonstration. Well, Porphyry was violently anti-Christian, and St.

[14:17] Augustine, you know, talks about in the City of God. I guess some of the Christian emperors burnt some of his books because he wrote these you know treatises against Christianity, right? But the Isagoge is something that Albert the Great paraphrases. You know, Cajetan has a commentary on Thomas uses it in the what Summa Contra Gentiles to show things about God and so, but shows that you know that that this doctrine is independent of what Christianity, right?

[14:46] Yeah. See that the the pagan Greek and the Mohammedans and the Christians they all see the Isagoge as fundamental. So it's not because I'm a Catholic that I think the Isagoge or the teaching of the Isagoge is important, right?

[15:09] And it's not so not just because I'm a Catholic, right? See the same way with homosexuality, it's not just because I'm a Catholic that I oppose to this because the Church says it's wrong to practice these sort of things, right? But here's Plato this. Pagan, you know, in his last work, as it's regarded, the laws, right? You know, living in a society where this is a vice, you know, quite tolerated and and so on, right?

[15:33] But now the Athenian Stranger is proposing a law against it. It's against nature, contra naturam you know. The same way when Aristotle talks about adultery, right? In Nicomachean Ethics, for him, adultery is what always wrong, you know. And you know the the farce going on down south there. It was in Alabama there. The judge put up the the statue of the Ten Commandments, and they're making him trying to get him to take it out of the room, you know, you know, like like the fact that adultery is something that only a man who, you know, from the faith would know this, right?

[16:16] Yeah. Say, but Aristotle is as a perfectly clear example, right? You know, something that's always wrong, you know, and Aristotle always chooses examples very clearly, huh? And and in the the topics, you know, he's talking about honoring your father and mother, and he says, no, this is not a question, you know, this is not a difficult question, you know, who should honor your father and mother? He says, if someone says she shouldn't honor your father and mother, he doesn't need an argument; he needs punishment.

[16:47] Yeah, it's not a question. That's the fourth commandment, right? But I say the fact that Aristotle is uninfluenced by Christianity is it shows us that reason can arrive at can understand that you should honor your father and mother and that avoid adultery and so on, right?

[17:13] Okay. So Plato then, what? Although he distinguished between understanding and sense, he didn't what think of the sensing as being something necessarily bodily, right? Huh? And therefore that the sensing soul as well as the understanding soul could have an operation, right? That's incorporeal. But I say here again, you see, the truth is in between two extremes. One would say that no soul is what survives death, right?

[17:46] And the other one say, not only does our soul, but the soul of of orange and and so on, now these cats and dogs do, huh? But Aristotle laid down that only what to understand among the works of the soul is exercised without a bodily organ, but to sense and consequently the operations of the sensing soul manifestly happened with some what change of the body, right? Just as in seeing, huh?

[18:19] The pupil is changed in some way by the form of color, right? And the same appears in others. And thus it is manifest that the sensing soul does not have some operation by itself, right? But every operation of the sensing soul is of the what? Composite, right? The conjoint. From which it remains or follows that the souls of the brute animals do not do anything by themselves, and therefore they are not what?

[18:54] Since they do not do anything by themselves, they are not what? Subsistent, right? And then he states the same principle we saw in the previous article: similiter. As each thing has being, so it has operation, right? So if if the souls of the animals,

[19:13] the beasts, were subsistent, right, then they would have an operation not just in the body, right? But they don't have such an operation. Therefore, they are not subsistent. There you're reasoning correctly, I think, from the negation of the consequent, right?

[19:38] Now, as far as the first argument is concerned, the first argument said that why shouldn't be the same in all souls, right? Well, as you know, some things pertain to the genus and some pertain to the species, right? So he says to the first, therefore it should be said that man, although he comes together in genus with other animals, he differs in species, in particular. And the difference of species is attended according to difference of form.

[20:18] Okay, when you talk about the genus and the difference, say if you say man is a rational animal and the genus is animal, animal is taken from what's material in man and rational from the form. nor he says it's necessary that every difference of form makes a difference of what genus, right? We can still have a common what it is in general and differ what in particular, right?

[20:46] That's clear enough, okay? When Thomas talks about the division of soul into the understanding soul and the sensing soul and the feeding or reproducing soul, I think it's ultimate thing. He sometimes calls that a division of a what? Potestative whole, right? In other words, the whole power of the soul is found in the understanding soul, right? The animal has something of that power, but not all of it.

[21:16] And finally, the last thing, the the feeding and reproducing soul, the plant soul, has only some of what the plant, the animal has, right?

[21:36] Now the second argument was saying, well, the senses to the sensible as the understanding is to the understandable, right? What Thomas says, well, in a proportion there's always what some likeness, but there can be some what difference, right?

[21:55] So he says the sensing power in some way is to the sensibles as the understanding power is to the understandables, insofar as both are in what potency to their objects, right? Remember how Aristotle said that sensing in a way is an undergoing. Remember that that the senses sense by undergoing something by receiving something,

[22:21] and then when he got to the understanding or reason. He says that understanding also is a kind of undergoing, right? Okay. So neither one of these powers acts upon its object, but the object in some way acts upon it.

[22:39] But nevertheless, in some way they are dissimilar, right? In so far as the what sense power undergoes from the sensible with some bodily change, right? And the sign of this is that the what excellence, that the what the very powerful sensibles, they corrupt the sense, huh? So if you look at too bright a light, you're kind of what blinded, and you could be permanently blinded if you get to looking at a bright light, huh?

[23:14] In the same way, I mention how people, you know, exposed to large sounds, they become deaf to that sound. Like the men down in the factory there, they're always mentioning bang, bang, bang, and to me it's hurting my ears, you know. How can they stand this, you know? And they don't hear it anymore. And they say the young kids, you know, they listen to these rock bands, you know, and especially the ear that's on that side, they're actually getting deaf.

[23:37] You know, I mean, the doctor, medical doctors are concerned about their loss of hearing, right? Or I mention how they talk about how men tend to burn out their sense of taste more than women do, right? Because we tend to put more salt and pepper. I do more than my wife does, you know. I mean, sort of stuff and hot stuff, you know, and so so that they you're kind of losing your sense of taste there a bit, huh?

[24:08] But it's just the opposite in the intellect. But in the understanding, this does not happen. For the understanding, in understanding the things that are the greatest understandables, it turns is more able to understand the what lesser things, huh? And that's been my experience, right? If I go and I study the treatise on the Trinity here, right, huh? This is something that I can't fully understand. Is something very understandable, though, huh?

[24:38] And then when I turn down these lesser things; they seem so what easy, right, huh? Or take an example from from the students there at TAC, you know. I mean, the first time you do Euclid, you know, it seems quite difficult, right? But then you go on to these higher, more difficult kinds of math, you come back to it. Oh, that's so easy, you know. So you understand something, you know.

[25:03] And I know myself. And if I go from say plane geometry to solid geometry, solid geometry is more difficult, right? But after I've worked in solid geometry, I come back oh plane geometry. is so easy, So planes it's all plane it's all explained. You see, so you understand something very understandable, and you can understand something less understandable, right? That's why all the good philosophers I've known have appreciated Mozart, now.

[25:32] But Mozart's music, of course, is representing something that's understandable by participation, because the emotions partake of reason, now. But they can understand the less understandable for having understood the more understandable. See, but I can't what taste the the more moderately flavored something because I've I've what had something yes spicier spicier yeah see like like pepperoni I mean pizza to me I always say you know pepperoni is the soul of pizza right so but if I have a pepperoni thing or if I have spaghetti with a tomato sauce right I'm not going to drink a Cabernet Sauvignon with that because I couldn't taste it if I drink a wine at all it'd have to be a Chianti something that's rather strong and it's and piquant in

[26:29] its flavor right see so but when people go to a wine tasting something like that right they don't want hot tamales or something you know when they're tasting the wine they want something very plain like bread white bread something like that something that doesn't have a very strong what flavor you kind of maybe cleanse your mouth with some bread or something right you don't want something really potent huh because that's going to what interfere with your tasting huh see but with the case of of reason when reason considers something very understandable like God or the angels then it can turn to the lesser things and understand them what better huh

[27:17] so it's not it shows it's not bodily in the way the the sense organs are there's no organ there being destroyed or incapacitated right by the greatness of the object

[27:37] okay now notice like we've said many times you've got a proportion right you can say that the sensible is to the senses but the understandable is to the understanding and the thing about likeness is and especially the likeness of things that are far apart like in a proportion is you have to see in what way they are alike okay I always give a simple example of that I say start with mathematics four is to six as two is to three okay would you all agree that four is to six as two is to three okay now someone came back and said now two to three that's the ratio of an even number to an odd number right.

[28:29] Right. Therefore, four to six is the ratio of an even number to an odd number. What'd you say? That's not. That's not the proportion. Yeah, you misunderstood the likeness here, right? See, four is to six as two is to three, not in being a what ratio of an even number to an odd number. That's not what the likeness consists, right? Right. The likeness consists in the fact that four is the same what parts of six that two is of three.

[29:03] Now, for those who aren't very familiar with these, say, just imagine two four is being two twos and six is being three twos, right? Yeah. Well, four is the same parts, right? The six two is a three, right? Okay. So you have to, in seeing proportion, see in what. way they are, what alike, huh? Okay. Remember when we were talking about the first matter, huh? And we said the first matter

[29:37] is to man and dog, like let's say clay is to sphere and cube, okay? But now clay is an actual substance, and sphere and cube are something accidental, right? Two accidents, two different shapes. So man and dog are two accidents, and the first matter is an actual substance. Is that what the likeness consists? No,

[30:18] because man and dog are two actual substances, not two accidents. And the first matter is not actual substance, but it's substance in what ability.

[30:36] So at first, say what does a substance and ability an actual substance is an actual substance and accidents? Well I? I don't see the likeness at first, right? Okay, the likeness consists in this: that just as the clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, but not at the same time, right? And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other, right?

[31:02] So the first matter is able to be a man or a dog, right? But not at the same time, right? And when it's a man, it's still able to be a dog, but if it becomes a dog, it seems to be a man, right? Okay. So the likeness consists in the fact that the first is to the second has ability as to act, right? And but there are all kinds of differences between these things, right?

[31:28] But the likeness is not in that, huh? So the same way in this case here, you can say the sense is to sensibles as the understanding is to what understandables, huh? Right? Makes sense, right? Okay. And part of the likeness consists in the fact that the senses are at first in potency, right, to the sensible, and they're able to receive, huh? Okay. And the understanding at first is like a tablet on which nothing is written; it's in potency to the understandables, right?

[32:12] Okay. But nevertheless, there are what differences between them, right? Because the senses receive the sensibles in a bodily organ, right? The understanding doesn't receive the understandables in a bodily organ, and so in that respect they're not alike. So always in understanding a proportion, you have to understand in what way they are alike.

[32:42] That's why Plato says himself that likeness is a what dangerous thing. Now it's a slippery thing. Same thing you try to understand a metaphor, right?

[33:02] Call Christ the what lion of the tribe of Judah. In some way, the lion is like Christ, isn't he? But then you know, Paul says you know the devil was like a lion going about seeking whom he might devour, right? Well, sometimes we call the lion the king of the beasts, huh? Right. And Christ is a king. So in a very distant way, the lion is like Christ, huh?

[33:33] And that's why even what C. S. Lewis there was it, you know in the tales there it takes that simple kind of Christ Aslan right, but lion right, huh? But then the lion is also what like the cat sometimes cruel, right, to his victim and so on, right? And in that sense, it's not like Christ. Okay.

[33:57] So something could be like something in one way and unlike another way, and you have to understand the what way in which it is like it, huh? So we're

[34:14] not supposed to have a stony heart, right? But the Lord is my rock. You see. Now the third objection was the one based on the fact that the soul moves the body, right? Now we studied that in the third book, right? After we studied the understanding. Can I finish the second one. the little thing about there's a way. to understand the body. Oh, oh, Oh, okay. If in understanding the body is fatigued, this is by accident, right?

[34:44] Not that the understanding itself is fatigued, but that the organs that supply the object, right? Yeah. Okay. The images, huh? In so far as the understanding needs the operation of the sensing powers through which what images are prepared for it, huh? Yeah. Okay. And so, of course, the imagination in thinking in a way is a slave of reason, huh? It's there to assist reason, right? And so the imagination becomes tired because of the bodily organ, right?

[35:14] Yeah, makes sense. Then you sit down, you read a little Shakespeare, and refresh your imagination that way. Okay. Now to the third, it should be said that the vis motive on the moving power is twofold. The one that commands motion is the appetitive power, and this operation of sensing soul is not without the body, for the anger and joy and all the passions or emotions are with some kind of what bodily change.

[35:48] That's why in English we sometimes call the emotions what emotions because of the motion of the body. There we call them feelings, right? Because there is something sensible.

[36:01] Another moving power is the one carrying out the motion, and that's obviously bodily, right? To which the members are rendered suitable to obeying the appetite, whose action is not to move but to be moved. Whence it is clear that to move is not an act of the sensing soul without the body. What moves the body of the animal is the emotions, right? Okay, anger, right, or hunger or something of the sort, right?

[36:31] But the anger, the hunger, are something clearly what bodily, right? And so you know you are kind of aware of yourself if you get angry or stuff like that, or if you are afraid or something, right? It is a bodily change, right? Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, right? Say, you pick up the cat there, you know. The dog comes around, and I can feel the cat's body, little kitten, you know, you know, feeling that fear.

[36:57] I could, you know, that they're, you know, from my shoulder, but there is a bodily change going on, right? So the emotions are something what bodily, right? Okay. But there is something, but the emotions are something that rise above the ordinary conditions of matter. They involve sensing soul at least. A

[37:24] man also has emotions, right? And there is something bodily, huh? Say, why the will falls upon reason, and that's as we'll see later on. He takes it up. That's something immaterial too, the will. So

[37:41] choice is going to be an act that is not in the body, but the emotions or the feelings are in the body. So we have emotions in common with the animals, although they're higher in us than in them, and we have will in common with God and what angels, right?

[38:06] So metaphorically, though, C. S. Lewis calls the love of the angels as ferocious. Okay. So let's stop here now. Next time we'll try to look at the fourth article, and if possible, the fifth article, right? You can't do too much more than that, huh? There's a question for you if I could focus on something a little different. I was reading some spiritual author and he made a general statement that I really kind of wondered about.

[38:37] But he said that the ancient philosophers, Greeks, I guess, didn't have an understanding of humility. That humility really it's more a Christian thing. Yeah. Even on a natural level, is that true? They didn't really. No, they had some understanding of humility. Notice the guy who coined the word philosopher, according to the legend anyway, was

[39:04] Pythagoras, right? Yeah. And Pythagoras had made these wonderful discoveries, like the Pythagorean theorem and other things. Yeah, that's true, right, right. And people wanted to call him wise, right? That's right. And Pythagoras says, "Don't call me wise. God alone is wise." Huh. Well, what should we call you? We gotta Call you something? Right? right right If you gotta call me something. Call me a lover of wisdom. So, in the origin of that word, lover of wisdom, a philosopher, is not only the love of wisdom, which is in the etymology of the word, right?

[39:37] But in this account of the origin of the word, is also humility that man's wisdom is not like that of God, right? Yeah, right. Now you go to Heraclitus, who was the teacher of the teacher of Plato. He taught Cratylus, and Heraclitus says,

[39:57] "As an ape is to a man, so is man to God." Huh? Yeah. And he says that the ape is ugly in comparison to man. Man, you know, and is inferior to man, and now so so man is like an ape in comparison to God. And then there's another proportion, Heraclitus, who says, "As the boy or the child is to the man, so the man is to God."

[40:21] Right. See, there's some kind of natural humility there, right? Yeah, right. See, and then you see, you know, Socrates the same way. Socrates, when he talks in the

[40:32] Apology and so on, talks about how he got into this examining what the Oracle at Delphi had said, right? That no one is wiser than Socrates, right? You know, how can I be considered wiser than other men when I'm so ignorant, right? And then he realized that maybe the Oracle meant he's not wise like like like God is wise, right? But wise maybe in the way a man could be wise, knowing that he doesn't know, right?

[40:57] Yeah. And so there you have that humility. And then when Aristotle is talking about wisdom there in the proemium to wisdom, which we looked at, and he says that either we either God alone should be said to be wise, right, or God most of all, right, that we're either shouldn't be said to be wise at all, or else wise in some imperfect way, right? And so all the Greek philosophers, the great ones like Heraclitus and

[41:28] and what's his name, Anaxagoras, the guy who kind of inspired that first argument for the immortal, you know, he speaks of the greater mind, right, behind the natural world So that's the greater mind. The lesser mind is obviously ours, right? And the greater mind is responsible for the order of the natural world, the cosmos. So all the great Greek philosophers thought that God's wisdom is far superior ours, right?

[41:56] So humility there is really about placing yourself under God, right? Under God, like men too, but primarily under God, right? And when Aristotle talks about about

[42:16] certain errors, you know, he attributes them, you know, to To pride, sometimes alazoneia okay, which is which is the word that I was looking at the text there the other day because we've got talking about it. Look at the text there in Saint John there, you know, where everything in the world is what the epithumia, sarkos which they translate the lust of the flesh, right? Epithumia there is that desire of the flesh.

[42:45] Then the epithumia ophthalmon, the the lust of the eyes, right? Avarice, and then the alazoneia It says they try to tell you know life, but they translate that so it says pride of life. But alazoneia is really the basic form of pride, right? Boastfulness, right? Same. And Aristotle, when he's talking in the rhetoric there, right, he says that some men who possess political rhetoric they think they're politically wise, right?

[43:12] Partly through lack of education, he says, and partly through alazoneia and other human causes, he says, that's human in the sense of you know the defects of man. So did he see pride there as a what cause of error, right? Did he ever talk about an opposite virtue? Well, the opposite of alazoneia would be humility, right? Right, right. But does he ever talk about that specifically? Well, see, it's not when the virtue is taken up in the Nicomachean Ethics, huh?

[43:45] It's not. No. And and Thomas Aquinas gives a reason why he doesn't take it up there. And the reason is that Aristotle, the Nicomachean Ethics, is giving the virtues whereby a man is well disposed to living in the in the city, right? While humility is primarily through reference to what to God. Okay. Okay. Okay. So Aristotle is taking the virtues whereby a man is well disposed to living the city, like courage, whereby he defends the city, and and moderation, where he doesn't rape the woman and get drunk all the time, and other things that interfere with his duties, and where he has friendliness and you know justice and so on, right?

[44:28] Yeah. But humility is very respect to God, right? Yeah. But as far as the philosophical life is concerned, beginning, we begin to realize how you need the humility of the slave boys, I say, right, in the dialogue, where where Socrates shows him he's mistaken, and Socrates goes on to teach him this, you know. But most men, you know, when they're shown to be mistaken, that you get out of pride, they get angry, right?

[44:57] Huh. I say you need the humility of the slave boy to be a philosopher, and yeah, I was mistaken about that. I guess you know, you know, at least you got to be able to, you know, admit that you're mistaken, otherwise you're going to.

[45:19] You're gonna go on with your errors, right? Yeah. You know, out of pride, huh? Yeah. Now, a related one to this, another, generally, I once heard said that the ancients, a concept of a merciful God would be completely foreign to them. I kind of wondered about that. What a merciful God? Yeah. For the Greeks, you mean, or right, right. In other words, did Aristotle and his thoughts of God, did he ever come to any idea, or is that just beyond?

[45:54] Does that need the revelation? Oh, God! Oh, I don't remember. You know, I don't have any offhand, an explicit discussion of the mercy and justice of God. You know, yeah.

[46:10] I was thinking about this the other day, though. You know, distinction between thank, thanking, and praising. You know, there's no distinction in those terms. I thought saying the psalm, "Into his gates of thanksgiving, " of course, is a praise. But now, I was thinking, in the next world, right, when we're in heaven, assuming we get there, will we be thanking God more for His mercy or for His justice?

[46:34] Do you think? It seems a mercy. Yeah, we're going to be thanking him more for his mercy, right? Right. Okay. But now, some people are going to be punished, right? And the devil and those who follow the devil, in some way, right? Um. Uh. Now, are we going to be thanking God for punishing the wicked?

[46:59] Is it more praise? Yeah, I was wondering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that that. If you take these two attributes of God, found in all His works, mercy and justice, right? Well, it seemed to me maybe we'd be thanking him more for his mercy than his justice. Yeah. See, he forgave me my sins, etc. You know. And he became man and died for me, and all this sort of things, which is mercy, right?

[47:23] But as far as his punishing the unrepentant, then seems to me we'd be more what praising him for his justice, right? It's kind of interesting. It's kind of struck me that that that would seem it would seem more appropriate to you know to thank him for his mercy than his justice, right? But to praise him that he's he's so just, right? Because

[47:59] if you thank him for punishing the wicked, that sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? A little bit, you know. Uh, but you realize that that I think some people have a hard time understanding hell and these sort of things, right? Yeah. And what they don't realize is is that God is just as well as merciful, right? Right. And therefore, what we

[48:25] that we we praise him for his justice, huh? It makes sense. Makes sense to be said for that, huh? You know, more sure about the first one, you know. You know, and I mean, you could you could thank somebody for justice too. I mean, you could do that, right? But

[48:47] well, it seems to be more appropriate a way to praise him for his justice, huh? I thought, in referring to