De Anima (On the Soul)
105. Summa Theologiae I, Q.79, Articles 3-4: The Agent Intellect, and Whether It Belongs to the Soul
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[0:00] yeah, but only with respect to one particular being, namely the body joined to it. Whence, nothing. Prevents something passive to be more noble than something what active, right? In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment guardian angels, speak to the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all that you're written.

[0:42] In the. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Looking at a text here in the Epistle of Saint Jude, huh? And he's speaking first, you know, of

[1:01] bad people, right? And he says, just to read the English here a bit here. But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you there should be mockers in the last time, huh? Those who mock, I suppose, who these things are. who should walk after their own ungodly lusts, huh?

[1:29] Now this verse 19. These be they who separate themselves, and the translation here says sensual, right? Having not the Spirit, okay. Um. Now the Greek word, of course, of Spirit there is just what pneuma, right? And it could be taken for the Spirit with a capital S, like that the one translation has here, right? But the interlinear translation just translates it.

[2:02] Ah, Spirit, right, with a with a small s, right? Okay. Now the next verse, you know, you'll be talking about praying in the Holy Spirit. They use the term the Holy Spirit, so that's obviously what.

[2:19] Yeah. Okay. Okay. But but the other one, not necessarily, we have to be taking that sense necessarily, right? Right. And well, what's interesting in the Greek word here is that they translate in the one translation here

[2:36] that these bad men are sensual, having not the Spirit, right? Um. There's actually the Greek. There's no article there. The Greek has psychikoi Psychikoi That's what Which comes from the word for what? Soul psyche Yeah, psyche, right? Soul. See. So it says now the the interlinear translation doesn't how it translates either. It says natural for psychikoi. And the other translates it as what sensual, right? No I'm just noticing the word psychikoi, which is taken there.

[3:18] In a bad sense, right? Okay, which wouldn't necessarily have to be taken in a bad sense. I mean, my soul magnifies the Lord. I mean, but but here in the context, psychikoi they're psychikoi, but pneuma, meaning spirit, right? We get the word pneumatic, huh Pneuma, agreed Pneuma me echontes, right? Now you could take it the sense of having no what, having not the Holy Spirit, right? As as one translation takes, or if you just translate spirit with the small s, it means that they're what psychic, in the sense that that we mean here.

[4:00] But they have no spirit. What does that mean? They're beasts. Yeah. In other words, when you contrast the soul and the spirit, and you're thinking of the soul in so far as it informs the body, and so someone who's concentrated, you know, in this bodily sense, which the way the word "sensual" has something in the meaning of that, right? You see, and these people would not be what cultivating these higher powers, these immaterial powers that are in the part of the soul that has powers not in the body, the pneuma.

[4:33] What verse is that? It's verse 19 there in Jude, huh? Jude 9. Okay. The verse comes after It's very twisting, but I don't want to get into it right now. Okay, But it's kind of a, I was looking for a particular passage you know I wanted to use here, and I finally ran across some interesting passages in Jude here. Okay, it shows you kind of use of the word there, right?

[5:03] You see. Now, notice the the plant soul or the living soul or the feeding soul. It has no ability except in the body, right? All of its abilities it has in the body, and the animal soul, the sensing soul, right, has all its abilities in the body, right? Although as Thomas says, the sensing abilities are not as depressed as the plant powers are, huh?

[5:41] But it's only the human soul, the understanding soul, that has abilities that are not in the body. Now, how many abilities does it have that not in the body? What may be called its abilities, right? Okay. Well, let's just put them on the board here for the sake of being. there. One, of course, is the ability to understand, right?

[6:14] And to be more precise, we can bring out that you're talking about. The ability to understand what something is, okay. And notice that what something is, like at least what it is of things that we know at first, is always something universal. So what a circle is is common to all circles, right? So it's something universal. What a cat is is something common to all cats, huh?

[7:00] Set of all cats. What a chair is, right? It's common, right? So it's the ability to understand what something is, which, if it also says, an ability to understand the something universal, right?

[7:18] The definition, of course, is a very distinct now to what something is, right? Okay. Okay. But you might understand what something is in a kind of a vague way, at least, right? Before you define, huh? Okay. So this is one ability that the soul, the understanding soul, the human soul has, that's not in the body, huh? Okay. Because everything that's in the body there is in the continuous.

[7:49] It's here or there, and therefore it's what singular or individual, right? Yeah. Okay. Now another ability that the soul has that we'll be talking about later on in this course is the ability to choose, huh? Okay.

[8:11] And this is the the will, huh? Okay. Now there's a third ability. What is that? What might we call that third ability, right? This is what I'm going to

[8:32] be talking about it starting today in this article. right? To illumine the phantasm. Yeah, Yeah. We might call this the ability to make understandable what is in the image. Okay.

[8:52] Ability to make understandable. And you make understandable now, actually understandable, huh? What is in the image? Okay. So when I imagine. A triangle, right? I imagine an individual triangle, or if I imagine the circle, I imagine an individual circle, and that individual circle is not yet actually understandable because it's singular and not universal. It's not simply what a circle is, and so this third ability, which is often neglected, huh, is the ability to make understand what an act to separate in a sense, or to abstract, as they say sometimes, the universal, right, from the singular, huh?

[10:10] Okay. So this is the ability going to be talking about here today, and that's compared to light a bit, huh? And And those are various ways of understanding light, but if you think of light as making the colors and different things around this room actually visible, right? Actually visible. Yeah. As if the colors around this room would not be actually visible, but only visible in ability or in potency without light.

[10:43] But light makes them actually visible, and then they can be what actually seen by the eye. And so, this third ability here is what makes something actually understandable, and therefore able to be what understood by the ability to understand.

[11:14] Let's look at the article three here. Now he's starting to tell us. Where there's necessary to what posit that there is an active understanding, right, or an acting upon understanding. If you want to use the English word, huh? Sometimes, you see the Latin thing, agent intellect. They'll call it sometimes in the translations, right? Huh? But this active understanding or the acting upon. To the third, one proceeds thus: it seems that is not necessary to lay down that there is an active or acting upon understanding.

[11:55] The first objection says: for just as the sense has itself to sensible things, so our understanding has itself to understandable things. Aristotle himself sometimes uses a proportion of that sort, right? He's bringing out the fact that

[12:16] understanding is an undergoing, right? Just like sensing is an undergoing. And so, in some way, the sensible is to the senses like the understandable is to the understanding.

[12:30] But because the sense is in potency to sensible things, one does not posit a what active sense, right? But only a sense undergoing, right? Therefore, since likewise our understanding is in potency to understandables, right? It seems that one ought not to lay down an acting upon understanding, but only the possible one. That's the second power out on the board, in potency to understand, right? I call it possible because it undergoes in order to understand, huh?

[13:08] It's an active one. Because at first, it's only understanding in ability, right? I notice this argument is based upon a likeness and. There's certainly a likeness between the two, right? But are they that much alike? Yeah. Okay. But you can see how the mind is easily, the great Plato says in the Sophist, I think it is, that that likeness is a slippery thing,

[13:42] especially when you have a likeness between things that are distant. And that's why I always give a very simple example to students of the point that I'll say four is to six as two is to three, right? But two and three are two prime numbers, right? It's a ratio of prime number to prime number, right? So four to six is a ratio of prime number to prime number.

[14:08] Oh no, that's not true, is it? Or two to three is the ratio of an even number to an odd number. Therefore, four to six. No, no, no. That's wrong too, right? See. So I said, what does it mean to understand the proportion, right? To understand in what way they are what. The proportion. What way they are like, right? And four is to six as two is to three, that four is the same parts of six that two is of three, right?

[14:38] If you imagine the six say they have three twos, four would be two of the three parts, right? So it's the same parts of, you know. So it's interesting in the dialectic there where you have the fourth tool of dialectic, which is the tool of likeness, and where especially the ability to see proportion is very important. And Aristotle will speak of it as the skepsis, you know, of the likeness, which kind of means what the consideration of the likeness, because you've got to kind of consider exactly in what way are they what alike, okay?

[15:19] You see, the scientists are using the likeness of wave, and there's certain likeness between all waves—water waves and sound waves, right? Light waves, but then there are certain differences in the way they're propagated and so on. Moreover, second objection: if it be said that in the sense there is also some agent, for example, light, to which you're going to compare the agents like they're on, right?

[15:53] Against this, light is required for sight in so far as it makes the what. Medium. Yeah, middle. Yeah, the medium, lucid in act, huh? For color itself, by itself, is a motive of the lucid. That's another way that some people would understand the role of light there. Thomas will mention that I think in one of the objections, right?

[16:22] But in the operation of the understanding, one does not posit some medium which is necessary to come about and act. huh? You don't understand through a medium like you see something through the air you're right? huh? Okay, or you smell something, and so on. Therefore, it's not necessary to lay down an agent understanding.

[16:50] Third, moreover, the likeness of the agent is received in the patient according to the way of the patient. That's the old principle: whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. Something you learn as a teacher, right? You give the same lecture now to thirty kids, and then you give an exam, and one guy gives you back perfectly almost what you said, right? Another guy, you know, you know, part of what you said.

[17:18] Another guy's got the thing wrong. You said, you know, whatever is received is received according to the mode of the what receiver? Okay. But no, I mean, they say you know, you put butter in the fire, and you put put a rock in the fire, and the butter, what? Yeah, it's received in a different way. Okay. Mode. There. Does that mean the way? When Englishy translates it, it's way.

[17:46] Yeah, but in a sense, the Latin word "mode" has got etymology of measure way Thomas and Augustine take it, it's a kind of measure, right? You know, shouldn't measure exactly what I say, right? But to measure the student's mind, a little bit like you have different cups, right? You have the water pouring there, and one's going to receive more water because its measure is different. huh? How is it going to receive less.

[18:14] huh? Does that mean it's some kind of act then in the receiver? No, it's a it's an ability or capacity or a disposition to receive either one, right? The mode, and we're all going to be filled by God, right, to the next world. Everybody goes to heaven, anyway, right? But each according to our what disposition, right? Huh? We die, huh? Yeah.

[18:44] But that, but then that's kind of a form disposition. Now, disposition is always reduced to what the genus of material cause, matter, matter in the stricter sense of matter, right? But a disposition on the side of the receiver is reduced to that, huh? Because because matter receives, huh? Okay. That's what I understand the Hail Mary, right? You know, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Well, full of grace is a disposition, right?

[19:21] Whereby she is what, with, God. The, Lord is with her. Yeah, yeah. Disposition to receive Him, so to speak. Huh. Okay. And that's why the Holy Spirit too is given, you know, with charity. Huh, which is disposing us in a way to receive Him.

[19:45] Okay, but the possible understanding. This is the understanding now that understands, and possible means that it's what, an ability, right? It's going to undergo it first. It's an immaterial power, right? Huh. But its immateriality is enough for it

[20:10] to receive in it forms in immaterial way. But from this, some form is understandable in act that it. Is what immaterial, huh? Therefore, there is no necessity to posit an acting upon understanding

[20:30] in order that it might make what in act understandable forms. Okay. Now, of course, the Thomas will be explaining if there were for our mind out there already proportioned to our mind understandable forms and act, we wouldn't need this what acting upon understanding, huh? In other words, if Plato was correct in saying that there is the world of forms, right? The world, the world of these universal forms out there already, then they would be what understandable in act, huh?

[21:13] You see. But is there, you know, what man is, what dog is, and what cat is existing in the world by itself apart from individual men and dogs? Aristotle argues against that in metaphysics, huh? And that's what he was forced by the truth itself, you might say, once he had seen something wrong with what Plato was saying, right? He was forced to what recognize this third power in us, huh?

[21:42] Okay. Because both Plato and Aristotle had some understanding that the understanding is immaterial, right, huh? And the understandable is something immaterial, and therefore, if there's something there actually understandable to act upon our mind, just as there's something actually sensible to act upon our senses, you don't need this power they're going to talk about here today, huh? But if all is out there, those images, right, which are understandable only in what ability, huh?

[22:19] Then you need some power to make actually understandable, those that are only understandable in ability, okay? Because understandable in ability only can't act upon the understanding. It's got to be an act to do so.

[22:39] But against all this is what the philosopher, and that's again referring by antonomasia to Aristotle himself, huh? But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book about the soul that just as in every nature, so also in the soul, there's something by which is able to become all things, and something by which is able to make all things. Now, what does he mean by something by which is able to become all things?

[23:16] Which of these abilities is that? The second one there. Yeah, the ability to understand, huh? And Aristotle said later on in the third book about the soul, the soul is in a way all things, right? Yeah. Because by the senses, it receives all sensible forms, and by the understanding here, it receives all understandables in some way, huh? And so when I have the definition of what dog or cat, I have dog or cat in a way in my mind, right, huh?

[23:51] And since my mind is open to knowing all things in some way, right? In some way through my soul and its ability to understand, I am all things. That can you see the natures of all things? Huh? And that shows kind of you know the tremendous superiority of man to the other animals, huh? And and in general of something that knows to something that what has no knowledge, huh?

[24:15] Because something that doesn't know is in every way limited, you might say, to its own nature, right? But something that has understanding, especially, can receive the natures of other things in this immaterial way that we call knowing? And so in some way it seems to be what all things, huh? Which is kind of anticipation, you know, of what God would be in a very simple way, huh?

[24:41] You know, when Thomas is taking God's words to Moses, you know, "Come, follow me, and I will show you every good." Thomas says, "It is Himself that is Himself, right?" Because all these things are containing God, but in a very simple way, right? But you see the nobility of the soul. Then some way it seems to what be open, right, to containing everything, huh? Okay. And you see that from the universe out to the mind.

[25:09] I know the difference between something and nothing, right? And so everything is something, right? In some confused way, my mind is is taking into account everything, huh?

[25:22] Okay. And making statements about everything in a way when I say something is not nothing, right? Now Thomas again here in the response here is putting out this difference between Plato and Aristotle. I answer that to be. Said that according to the opinion of Plato, Plato, there would be no necessity, huh, to lay down an understanding, an active understanding, an active understanding, an acting upon understanding, right?

[25:58] Whatever you call this, for making things what understandable act, okay. Except perhaps to giving somewhat understandable light to the one understanding as we said below, but let's leave that aside, huh? Why no necessity for Plato? Because Plato laid down that the forms of natural things subsist without matter, right?

[26:28] And consequently, that they were what understandable, right? Okay. And consequently, that they were understandable, because from this something is understandable. in act that it is what immaterial, and he called these things species, which means what form, the form that can be seen in a sense, huh? Or eidos in Greek, right? And sometimes they badly translate that in English to idea, which doesn't have the sense at all.

[27:01] What it means, huh? Better translate with a with a capital F, you know, forms, huh? By the participation, or from the participation of which he said, also bodily matter was formed, right? To this, that individuals would be naturally constituted in their proper genuine species, and also intellect, right, was informed by these things that might have what knowledge about the genera and species of things, okay? Now, although we're going to reject the position of Plato, nevertheless, it has certain likeness to what the truth is about God and the what angels, right?

[27:40] And then, what we call the ideas in God, right? The forms in God, um, whereby he makes things, right? Huh? Okay, he makes the material things, and he what puts ideas, you might say, into the angelic minds, huh? They partake in some sense of God, right? Huh? Okay, and so they have knowledge in that way, huh? Okay, and the likeness consists in this fact that unlike us, we get our knowledge of the material world from the material world through our senses, right?

[28:17] The what angels have a knowledge of the material world through thoughts that arise from God, right? Whose thought originally is the source of the material world, okay? And that's sort of interesting, huh? That possibility, huh? Yeah.

[28:35] Um, in a sense, you can realize there's three ways that my mind could have a truthful thought about these material things out there, right? Or, or in general, you can say there's two ways that thought and the material things there could what be in harmony, right? One would be if the thought produced material thing. The other would be if the material thing what acted upon the thought, right?

[29:04] The other would be if there was a thought that what produced material things and produces the thought, right? And you have all three possibilities there, right? Huh? Okay. God knows what the material world through his word through his thinking, because his thought is productive of the world, right? We know material world because it acts upon us, right? And the angels are the third possibility, huh? Covered all the possibilities.

[29:33] Okay. Now, why did Plato posit those those forms? Now, this is maybe a little bit off here to say it, but there's perhaps two ways you could say that Plato arrived at that thought. And one was because of the answer he gave to the central question, right? Okay. He thought that what truth required that the way we know be the way things are. Yeah. And therefore, if we truly know by definitions, as Socrates was showing that we were, right?

[30:17] And by definitions, we know the universal in separation. From the singulars, right? Then they must truly be that way, right? Okay, remember that. Yeah. Right. That's why he posited these two other worlds. He had the mathematical world corresponding to the mathematical sciences, where he thought he had truth, right?

[30:39] And then you had the world of forms corresponding to the definitions. Now, the other way he would approach it, I suppose, would be by saying that

[30:58] what is so through another presupposes something that is so through itself, right? So, if my coffee is sweet, but not sweet through being coffee, it must be sweet through something else, right? And if that's sweet through not to itself, it must be sweet through something else, right? So eventually, you got to come to something that is sweet through itself, right? Mm-hmm. So Socrates is a man because he's Socrates.

[31:32] Is it through being Socrates that one is a man? No. Otherwise, you and I would not be a man. We'd have to be Socrates, right? So none of us are a man through being ourselves, are we? Therefore, there must be something that is man through itself, and that would be. If you look at Plato's Greek, sometimes say man himself through himself, kind of almost like redundant there, almost, huh?

[31:57] The man himself through himself. Mm-hmm. Right. So that would be the form, right? Okay. Aristotle says, "How can you have man himself? " It's the very nature of man to to have a body, right? If he was material, he wouldn't be actually under, he wouldn't be in this world of forms. But anyway. So that. That's a question maybe for the metaphysics to answer, but I mean, yeah.

[32:35] Just Plato's application of that statement. Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that, right? You can see how Plato could be led to that, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. There's obviously a problem in this case, right? Because

[32:57] what a man is obviously involves matter, huh? Okay. Yeah. Okay. And maybe I'm a man not to having soul and body in general, but having this soul and this body, right? That's how we have to understand it, huh? Mm-hmm. But anyway, I'll leave that to wisdom. But because Aristotle did not lay down that the forms, the natures of natural things, subsist without matter, and forms existing in matter are not understandable in act, it follows that the what, the natures or the forms of sensible things which we understand, are not understandable in act.

[33:52] But nothing is reduced from potency to act except by some being already in act, just as a sense comes to be in act through something sensible in act. It is necessary, therefore, to lay down that there is some power, on the side of the understanding, right, that intellectual part of us, which would make understandables in act, right, through the separation of forms from the material conditions. And this, he says, is the necessity of laying down that there is this acting upon or act of understanding, right, this ability to make understandable in act what is in the what images, right, huh?

[34:33] Okay. This is a very subtle thing in Aristotle's part, huh? Yeah. Although Thomas says we have some awareness of that act in us, yeah. You see, we're starting to study some geometrical figures something we haven't studied before, right? And we're looking at the figures, you know, and then we're separating out what they have in common. We have some experience of that, huh? But it is something that's kind of obscured, nevertheless, right, in our inward experience.

[34:58] Okay. So this is sort of his his own discovery, this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in a sense, Plato had seen something already, right? He had seen that the the understandable in act is something what immaterial. Yeah. And but he had these things ready there, right? That could act upon our mind, you see, the forms, huh? Yeah. But once Aristotle rejected the idea for a good reason that the you don't really have man himself by himself.

[35:35] Yeah. But only this man or that man, huh? Then he was forced, you might say, by the truth itself, right, to see that we have this other ability whereby we could separate it, huh? So the universal man is is is man is universal. It would be said of many only in our mind, huh? And that's why the great Albert the Great, you know, he says the first thing to be considered in logic, he says, is universal.

[36:03] See, because logic, in a way, is about things, in so far as they're in our mind and what happens to them, right, from being in our mind. And the first thing that happens to them is to be what universal.

[36:20] And you go through logic and see that Albert the Great has, in a sense, hit the nail on the head, right? Because everything there presupposes some kind of what universality. One of the first things we study in logic, like in the *Isagoge of Porphyry, we try to make a little more sensible because of our dependence upon the senses. But we talk about names said of many things.

[36:45] That's the first thing to be considered in logic. And then, a fortiori, and you get to the syllogism. You are talking about if A is said of all B, A is said of whatever B is said of? If A is denied of all B, or said of none, then said of none of what B is said of. But you see the universality there right away.

[37:12] Okay. Now, to the first objection was saying was based on that proportion, right? That the sensible is to the senses as the understandable is the understanding. But he's pointing out now to the first. Therefore, it should be said that sensibles in act are found outside the what soul, right? And therefore, it is not necessary to lay down a what acting upon sense, huh?

[37:47] Okay. So the reason why you had to posit it here was because outside our soul, right? You don't have an actually understandable man. You know, actually understandable. In case you didn't know that.

[38:00] Okay, it's kind of funny, you know, if we try to say something about somebody, right? Everything we end up saying about him is really universal, isn't it?

[38:11] Okay. And it could be found in somebody else because it's still universal, right? This is the problem that Hegel has, right? He's trying to get the singular from putting universals together, right? Maybe if you said, you know, Burkwest is a is a a philosopher. He's a Christian philosopher. He's a he's a husband. He's a grandfather. He's a brother. He's a you know. Even that whole combination is still something that could be found in somebody besides what Burkwest.

[38:44] Yeah. I can do this point. That's Burkwest, right? You know. Then you are going back to your senses. You see? You know what you understand direct. What you understand directly of me is something that could be in someone other than me. Yeah. Right. So the singular things that we would say, like you went to this school, you graduated this day, you live at this house. It's back to the senses, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[39:15] Take somebody's word for it. And there's a little summary of doctrine that Thomas gives at the end of the first. We apply the first objection, and thus it is clear that in the what, nourishing part, right, the the feeding part, right, the three powers you have in the what plant, right, all powers are what active, huh? In the sensing part, all powers are what passive, huh? And that's true of both of the what the senses and sense desire the emotions, huh?

[39:55] Okay, okay. But in but speaking of all the senses, in the understanding part, huh? There is one power active and one what passive, right? Huh? I know you could divide the powers you wanted to into the active and the passive, right? You say, well, the first ones we study are active powers, right? The ability to digest my food, right? Huh? I'm eating my acting upon my food, right?

[40:25] Ability to grow, ability to reproduce myself, right? Okay. And then you go to my sense powers, the ability to see and hear and so on, right? To be acted upon by color and sound and so on. But then you get up here to the not up here, but way up there. Then you find you have what? As Aristotle says in the *De Anima*, there, huh? One part by which the soul is able to what?

[40:49] Undergo all things, become all things, and the other part by which is able to in a way make all things, huh? Okay. So this is the active understanding. Yeah. How about the interior senses that are in action? Well, then you have a little effect of that, yeah, yeah. But it's kind of you know a result, I suppose, of the the reason being already what? Somewhat an act, right?

[41:15] Okay. So you act upon these things, huh? Just like you might say you want to think about Jami now, and if you want to think about Jami now. my reason would be commanding my imagination. To form certain figures, right? Okay. Okay. Yeah. And but that's that's like you start to talk about reasoning and things of that sort, right? Where the mind already somewhat an act can now what?

[41:41] Move itself to some extent, huh? Yeah. Okay. But but basically you say we're being acted upon at the beginning of this. Yeah. Just like with the heart, the heart you know you're first acted upon, but then if you love one thing as an end, you can love something else as a means because you love that as a what? End here. Okay. Okay. Now the this abstraction or could you say like separating or drawing away?

[42:15] It's that's kind of a metaphor, right? You're not really. Yeah, it does. It doesn't mean that you're taking the very thing that's in there out of there, leaving something behind, right? Huh? It's more like you know when I would take a piece of paper, right, and I you know get the image of the thing, right? Okay. I stole the image from it, right? Yeah, it's not exactly the same as that, but I mean it's not as if you you have you know do you take it out, cut out the thing, you know?

[42:50] Right. See, but you've made in a sense something what like that, huh? Okay. You see. Yeah. Yeah. So so the the image you might say is an instrument of the act of understanding and making what? The the understandable enact. Okay. This will come out better as it goes on here because you'll talk about how the active understanding. Is something actual in the line of the understandable, right?

[43:24] But the particular likenesses, right, of things are found in the images. Okay, this will come up when you have the. But let's wait to the next article because that's when he talks about whether the the active understanding is something of the soul, right? Now, there are some people who said no. There is some other substance, like an angel, you know, that is this active understanding, right? Rather, this is an ability of the soul itself, right?

[43:50] And the problem for that was that it seemed like the soul was in what potency and in act with respect to the what same thing, right? And of course, he'll be solving the objection in the next one. So let's wait for it till that point. Okay. Okay. Then they just have to understand more fully exactly what the active understanding is doing, right? Now, you see why you need the image in order to get the thought, right?

[44:16] And not just the act of understanding, huh? Okay. Okay. So leave it until you get to there. Um. Now, to the third, it ought to be said that suppose the agent, right? Second way, skip this. Okay. Oh, excuse me. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. The second one, remember, was based upon the objection that what light is doing is not making these things actually sensible. It's just making the medium what an actual medium.

[44:54] It's like if I was to say the colors are really visible over there, but you have to see the colors through the transparent. Oh yeah. And the air is only transparent in ability, and it's like it's light that makes the air actually transparent. You can see that we can think that, right? Okay. Okay. And once the the air has been made actually transparent, then the colors can act directly upon the eye, right?

[45:17] Okay. Okay. And so this is saying, well, you know, there is no medium in the case of the understanding, right? Yeah. Okay. Then also Thomas' reply was: that there's two ways that or two thoughts that we'll have about what is the effect of light. To the second, it should be said that about the effect of light, there is a twofold opinion. Some say that light is required for sight in order to make the colors themselves, right, visible and act.

[45:48] Okay. And according to this, in a very likewise manner, right, and according to the same, the agent intellect is necessary for understanding, right? In the same way, the light is for what seeing with the eyes, huh? That just as colors are not actually what visible except through light, right? So the images of what's in the image are not actually understandable except the agent intellect, and there the likeness is very great between the two, right?

[46:19] Okay. According to others, however. Light is required for seeing, not on account of the colors that they become visible in act, but only in order that the medium, the transparent, become lucid in act or become transparent in act, as a commentator, which refers to Averroes, says in the second book about the soul. And according to this, the likeness by which Aristotle simulates the agent intellect to light should be noted as regards this that is necessary for seeing, just as that is for what understanding, but not exactly in the same way, okay?

[46:59] But thus the first way of understanding exterior light would be better as a what light is what takes place up here, okay? But notice later on when we talk about the the these other two lights, the supernatural lights, the light of faith, right? And the light of what glory, right? Well, the light of faith

[47:27] is like the natural light of reason in that it makes something understandable that wouldn't be understandable without it, okay? But the light of glory is a different thing, right? There, the light of glory it means that what it's a disposition of our soul or a disposition of our understanding to receive God Himself as the form by which we're going to see God. You see, it's not to make God understandable.

[47:55] God in Himself is most understandable, right? He's the most understandable thing there is. He's the most knowable thing there is, huh? Not to us, right? But he's the most understandable thing there is, so there's no need for light to make God understandable. But in order to see God as He is, we have to receive God, right? As the form by which we understand, in your light we shall see light, it says in the Psalms.

[48:34] In order to receive God as a form, our soul or our reason, our understanding, has to be disposed, right? And that disposition is called the light of glory, yeah. See, so there the word light, like here, is something necessary to see, right? Right, but is not to make understandable in act something, right? It would not be understandable in act without that light, huh? God doesn't need; He's light itself.

[49:05] You see, as Thomas says, "Lux Vera," right? Remember that in the communion prayer, "Lux vera." This is the beatific vision, right? True light, huh?

[49:24] I just mentioned that because you know here. That using the word light there in a different way, right? Just like here in the second explanation, right? It's necessary, but in a different way, right? Okay. But if you understand light in the first way, then it's exactly very much like this other, like the agent intellect is. In the third way, are you dropping part of the meaning, or is it?

[49:53] Well, no. You keep the idea that that something necessary in order to see, but but not to make colors actually visible, right? Okay. But if you say light is necessary to make colors actually visible, then it's very much like the agent intellect is a you know spiritual light, right? That makes something actually understandable. Actually, visible in a sense to the mind, right? Okay. So I usually give the first opinion myself because it's see.

[50:27] But in terms of likeness, there you can it helps you to understand it better, right? Okay. So they both. But by saying they use the word light, even if you understood the second way, right? You still use the word light, but you're using it with a little difference in the reason why the likeness would consist only in it being necessary to see, right? Okay. In the same way, I was saying that the light of glory is necessary to see God as He is, but it's unnecessary to see God by making God understandable because He's not understandable as such, right?

[51:02] Okay. So would they both be extensions by a proportion. Well, it would be a different kind of reason, see. Okay. Yeah. Or would they both be a proportion, a different proportion, or? Well, I don't know if you use the word proportion there, but you'd say that what is necessary before you can see something is called light. Okay. But if light is necessary in the first way, according to first opinion, right?

[51:32] Then the likeness is what much more what a proportion, huh? Okay. Okay. Just like I was saying about those three lights: the light, natural light of reason, the the light of faith, and the light of glory. Right. The light of of faith is more like the light of reason, right? As far as what it does, see. See, but by the light of reason, I can see that a whole is more than one of its parts, right?

[52:01] And therefore, I assent to the statement that a whole is more than its parts, right? By the light of faith, I assent to what three persons in God, or God became man, or something like that, right? I see. Um.

[52:19] But the light of glory is doing something a little different, right? See. It's not illuminating the object in the sense for us, right? Oh yeah. See. It's not making the object understandable, right? Yes. Except that what. What it is doing is making our understanding right, disposed to receive God as the form by which we now understand, by which we now see God as He is. Okay. Okay.

[52:55] You say the light of reason is. It seems like sometimes that doesn't refer to the active ability to principles or something. Thank you. I see. No, they they partake of it in a sense, see. Because sometimes I think the very word speaks of the. First things you understand, right? We see them in the light, very much in the agent intellect, and so they're kind of like tools of the agent intellect, and then they're used to know other things.

[53:29] So they already partake of that light for the agent intellect. Okay. So I mean, the conclusion is, you know, you are enlightened in a sense by, by the principles, right? But the principles are enlightened by the agent intellect. So that's a start for us.

[53:59] Okay. Now he says to the third thing, it should be answered that supposing an agent, it happens well that diversely has received its likeness in diverse things in account of their diverse disposition. But if the agent doesn't pre-exist, the disposition of the one receiving will do nothing for what getting the thing, huh? But the understandable act is not something existing in the nature of things, as far as the nature of sensible things is concerned, right?

[54:33] Which things do not subsist without matter, or apart from matter, and therefore for understanding those things, the immateriality of the possible understanding does not suffice unless there be present the agent intellect, which makes understandable in act by way of abstraction. Right. There's a text of Thomas somewhere else where he explains that word abstraction. It doesn't mean that you cut it out and take it with you, you know, huh?

[55:02] You see? Just like that's why I was comparing a bit. You know, if I take a tracing paper and I, you know, do this over a gravestone or something, or you know, I get, the, I take away the form, right? But I don't, what? Cut it out. with the Material, take it with me, right? Okay. Okay.

[55:27] So in a way, the the agent intellect, you might say, makes the understandable in act, right? With the help of the image, right? Which contains a likeness to that, in particular, but not in an understandable way, because it's singular. Okay. So it it it it gets the likeness from the image, right? But what it gives itself is the what? Actual universality, right? The actual understandability, therefore. And we'll see a little bit in the next article, right?

[56:02] Okay. Let's go on. We'll use a little of the scripture later. Maybe take a break for a look at the scripture. Okay. Okay. Whether The acting upon understanding is something of the soul. To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that the acting upon understanding is not something of our soul. For the effect of the active understanding, or the agent intellect, or the acting upon understanding—how do you want to translate that—is to what illumine to understanding, right?

[56:45] But this comes about to something that is higher than the soul, right? According to that of John one verse nine, first chapter of the Gospel Saint John. For this was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world. This is said about the word. Remember in the Gospel Saint John, we did that a long time ago, right? Therefore, it seems that the acting upon understanding is not something of the soul.

[57:13] So, what this argument is saying, huh? The what active understanding is make is enlightening us, right? Okay. But it's the word, right? Enlightens everybody who comes into this world, right? Therefore, the active understanding is not what something of our soul, an ability of our soul, but it's something outside our soul, right? Like the word, right? Okay. See, okay, that's a very interesting objection, right? And the point is that there is a connection between what the active understanding and the word, okay?

[57:56] Now come on, the reply to the objection, right? Okay. I mean, it's true that he's the true light, and knows the true light which enlightens every man coming into this world. But

[58:12] is that in part by giving us a light, which is the act of understanding, right? Okay. Moreover, the philosopher in the third book about the soul attributes to the active understanding that it does not at one time understand, and at the other time not understand. But our soul does not always understand, but sometimes understands and sometimes does not understand. Therefore, the acting upon understanding is not something of our soul.

[58:44] That's a famous text. If you remember that in the De anima, and a lot of people misunderstood the text, right? See, what Aristotle does there in the De anima is to talk first of all about this ability to understand, right, and what its object is, and so on, right? And then he sees the need for this second ability, right? Okay. And then he sees that what.

[59:15] Understanding is an essential result of both of these abilities together, right? And then he talks about the combination of both, right? You see, and that's what the objection, but Thomas puts it in there because it's a very common objection, right? People misunderstand what Aristotle is saying after that, right? He's talking now about the combination of these two together, right? And there you have our actually understanding, right?

[59:44] And then in that combination, both sometimes understanding, sometimes not. When the two are working together, now you're what always actually understanding. You see, so there's misunderstanding the text, and you have to go back to the Greek, you know. But but that's where Thomas reads the text very carefully, right? Now, if you ever read Thomas' refutation of Averroist, of course, there's many of them in different places. But the the De Unitate Intellectus, contra Averroistas, is kind of the the definitive work, right?

[1:00:17] really ma masterful thing. Thomas goes, you know, you know, I've learned about Augustine, you know, to the text, and if you go through that, you know, word by word, Thomas does, you are absolutely convinced that Thomas is correct, right? And he gets through it so thoroughly, you know, he says he marvels quam leviter errant how lightly they they err, you know.

[1:00:41] You know, just just don't have the, you know, that devotion to the word, right? Because Thomas says, you know, to be teachable, you have to, you know, apply your mind to the words of those wiser than you, right? Carefully, frequently with reverence, right? And Thomas does that with great respect for Aristotle or Augustine or someone like that. I was trying to find a text to read the other day there, and couldn't find it.

[1:01:14] But I ran across the old text of John Paul II when would be the one of the anniversaries of of Augustine's life, you know. Oh yeah, it's kind of a really I mean this is a thing. Yeah, it's really really very well written, you know, a very rich thing. I mean, we wanted to, you know, kind of have a little reading there for to, you know, urge somebody to read Augustine.

[1:01:41] Yeah, that reading is something I, you know, I really really just looking at it the other day, and very good, an awful lot to learn for Augustine.

[1:01:52] Okay, so I said the way the text goes is Aristotle takes up this first, and then he takes up the active understanding, right? Then takes up the combination of the two, and that's what he's talking about. If this text is is based on, but misunderstanding is if you're talking about the this ability all by itself, right? The active understanding is a combination of the work of both of these together.

[1:02:26] Moreover, the agent and the patient suffice for acting. If, therefore, the possible understanding is something of our soul, which is the undergoing or passive power, and likewise the active understanding, which is the active power, it follows that man can always understand when he wants to, which is clearly false, right? Therefore, the acting upon understanding is not something of our soul, because we'll find out the active understanding doesn't contain the likenesses of all these sensible things or imaginable things.

[1:03:04] But what it has is what understandability, you know, it's actually immaterial, right? And it's acting in that line, so it needs the what particular likenesses. Drawn from the what senses or the imagination, and that's why you know without experience you are not going to have what the thoughts you need, right?

[1:03:36] And you need experience of cats before you can separate out what they have in common, right? If you don't have that experience, you are not going to be separating out cat, are you? If I separate out cat, yeah.

[1:04:02] Now this fourth objection I was talking about earlier, your your objection, Father. Moreover, the philosopher says in the third book about the soul that the acting upon understanding is a substance in act, being an act. But nothing is with respect to the same thing an act and ability. If, therefore, the possible understanding, which is in potency to all understandable things, is something of our soul, it seems impossible that the active understanding be something of our soul, be both an act and an ability with respect to the same thing, right?

[1:04:39] That's a good objection because it's going to force Thomas to point out exactly what is the role of the act of understanding, huh? Moreover, if the active understanding is something of our soul, is necessary that it be some ability, some power thereof. For it is neither a passion nor a habit, huh? For habits and passions don't have the definition of an agent with respect to the passions of the soul.

[1:05:14] But passion is more the action of the passive power, and a habit is something that follows from acts, huh? Like our habits are acquired by repeated acts, huh?

[1:05:26] But every power flows from the essence of the soul. It would follow, therefore, that the active understanding proceeds from the essence of the soul, and thus it would not be in the soul by the partaking from some superior intellect. That's going back to the first objection in a way, right? Which is inconvenient. Therefore, the agent intellect is not something of our soul, right? Of course, Thomas would be able to solve that by saying, "Hey, but the soul comes from God too, right?

[1:05:55] Huh? So the fact that the agent intellect is a power of the soul and flows from the soul, right, doesn't mean that that agent intellect doesn't derive in some way from what the one who enlightens everybody who comes into this world, because the soul, which which that power flows, comes from God, right? Okay.

[1:06:16] But against all this is what the philosopher says, right? In the third book about the soul, it is necessary for there to be these differences, the active and the passive powers there, in the soul, namely the possible understanding and the agent. It's going back to the quote we had there in the previous article.

[1:06:40] I answered ad ... said that said that the active or acting upon understanding, about which the philosopher speaks, the one that makes understandable act, what is in the what? Images, yeah. Is something of the soul, to the evidence of which it should be considered that above the human understanding soul, it is necessary to lay down some superior understanding, from which the soul obtains the power of what?

[1:07:14] Understanding, huh? And what's the reason for that? For always what partakes of something, and which is mobile, right, and which is imperfect, presupposes before itself something that to its essence is such, right, and that is immobile and perfect. Now, obviously, what partakes presupposes

[1:07:43] what is so essentially, right? What is mobile depends upon the immobile. That's why the mouse, as Aristotle says, has a hard time getting across the pile of grain. Because it won't. Immobile to push out. Yeah, yeah, it is an immobile part, right? Okay. And that's why you can't walk in the water, right? Unless you're Christ, right? Okay. Um.

[1:08:20] And. And the perfect, huh? And the imperfect depends upon the perfect, just as the potential, right, upon the actual. But the. Human, the human understanding soul, is said by partaking of intellectual power. And what's the sign of this? Huh. That the whole of this soul is not understanding, right? We've all these other powers, right? The sensing powers and the digesting powers, the reproducing powers, right? So it seems we only have this in a kind of partial way, only according to one of our parts, right?

[1:09:00] Then we're kind of a what? What? Not purely intellectual, are we? No. Remember Augustine there complaining about his, he's got a bad tooth. Do you remember? Huh? Those days we were, my boy, a demiurge, you know, and then it kind of lays up Augustine for a while, right? Or interferes with the higher life, huh?

[1:09:25] It pertains also to the understanding of truth, or it attains to the understanding of truth with a certain discourse and motion. Right? Remember how how Shakespeare defined reason as the ability for large discourse. Right? And discourse comes in the word for running. Huh? So it has a kind of motion whereby it gets to know something.

[1:09:48] So it's going to depend upon what some mind that knows without discourse, huh? And when you study the angels and a fortiori God, there's no discourse in them. There's no motion, right?

[1:10:05] That's amazing. This text is going to show you just illuminates it, huh? It's amazing. Look at that text once more. You See that? Now you just see that, he didn't come I said You know, it's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

[1:10:37] Stop the press! Stop the press! Yeah, that's amazing, huh? So the text I want to talk to you about is in James' epistles, the first chapter, the seventeenth verse, right? And I won't try to say the whole thing, you know, but this is a famous passage. There he says, "Pasa dosis, agathe. Every good giving, right? Kai pandorema.

[1:11:20] Every, yeah, pandorema. Every gift, right? Teleon, right? Every perfect, right? Gift, right? Okay. Anothen from above, right? Esti is from above. Katabainon coming down, right? Huh? Okay. From whom now? Apo to from Patros, huh? The Father. But he's called Ton Photon, the Father of Lights, huh? Okay. Now you know how, on the Our Father we are taught to ask everything from the Father, right? Huh? Our Father, right?

[1:12:03] But here he's called what? The Father of Lights, huh? That's I want to talk about a bit, see? Okay. Okay. But then, what's the rest of the sentence? Right?

[1:12:19] Parho with whom? Ouk isn't huh? Any para loge? There's no change, right? Or tropes aposkiasma? Not even the shadow of a turning, right? Okay. And I've often seen Thomas quote that last part of the phrase when he's talking about God as being unchanging, right? Huh? That's a common text, right? It's a very important one. There's not even the shadow of a change or a turning in God, right?

[1:12:50] Absolutely no change in God whatsoever. And that's kind of the authoritative text, right? You know how I can assume about the Contra Gentiles He'll he'll give the reasons for those things that you can give reason for, right? And some of these things you can know both by reason and by faith, and he'll give the reasons, and then he'll give the scriptural passage. This would be a famous one for that, right?

[1:13:13] But just thinking of that now, here, see, that he's the Father of Lights, right? And why does it connect those two things, right? That every perfect gift is coming down from above from the Father of Lights,