De Anima (On the Soul)
106. Summa Theologiae I, Q.79, Articles 4-5: The Agent Intellect and the "Father of Lights" of James 1:17
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[0:00] right? And therefore, we're getting, in a sense, the gift of of our light here, right? But the fact that he is what? Changing. He's unchanging, right? Here you're coming down here to what? Thomas is saying that we have discourse, right? Motion, right? So part of the reason why the light of our mind is derived from God is that our mind has what? Our mind is changing. Yeah.

[0:34] Our mind understands by emotion, huh? And therefore, it must depend upon a mind, right? A higher light and so on that is unchanging, right? And so it's interesting that he adds that here. I mean, it's in there with the text here, huh? Yeah. Kind of strikes me that way, huh?

[0:54] Okay. We'll come back to that text again, but just I was kind of looking at it, you know, say, gee, it's one way he adds that there. I mean, why it's appropriate there? But there might be more than one reason why it's appropriate. It's kind of interesting the way he speaks there.

[1:13] You have there were any paralogia and there's ook any paralogia. Paralogia means change, I guess. Then you use the word apouskiasma, right? Which has the idea of shadow change, right? Huh?

[1:39] I mean, another thing too, especially in the sentences Thomas quotes some of the earlier thinkers there who spoke of our mind as having an intellectus obumbratus, huh? You see that? That's a very common thing, huh? An overshadowed what? Understanding, right?

[2:02] And that's why we need to have discourse, huh? I see. He'll tie those two things together, right? Well, why the the angels don't are not spoken of as having intellectus obumbratus, right? Because they understand everything right away and without need for any discourse, right? Where our mind is kind of overshadowed, you know, kind of in the dark, you know, and gradually being lightened as we reason things out, like we're trying to do now, right?

[2:29] Gradually, you know, getting a little bit of light on these things, a little bit of light, getting a little bit of light in the cracks, so to speak, as we reason, right? So I think that's beautiful the way it says that, right? Because it says it has that reference to light and shadow there, right? There's not even the shadow turning in God, huh? You know. Well, Aristotle is always using the different sciences.

[2:53] Each science has its own tropos, its own way of turning, right? And you have to turn your mind a different way, right? I've seen that in the one of my favorite authors, there, Washington Irving, there, you know, in the in Montjoy, a beautiful story, but this young man is found under the influence of a teacher who is more poetic than philosophic, and he's you know he's got these beautiful poetic words, you know, but that he's mistaking for the pearls of wisdom, right?

[3:24] It's just this beautiful rhetoric, so to speak, and but it appeals to the guy because he had this poetic turn of mind. So he used that expression, the turn of mind, right? And I said that's that's exactly, you know, people's minds are turned the wrong way, and then they can't, you know, understand philosophy, they can't understand theology, they can't understand something, you know, because their mind just turned the wrong way.

[3:47] But there is not even the what shadow of a turning, it says here in in Saint James, huh? Let's read more of this passage here, huh?

[4:03] And has an imperfect understanding because it does not understand all things like the angel does or God, and because in those things which it does understand, it proceeds from what potency to act, huh? Okay. So he's talking about how our understanding must have its power derived from a higher mind, right? Because of these three reasons, huh?

[4:31] Okay. It only partakes of understanding, right? You know, Well sometimes we'll call an angelic mind, intellectual period, right? It's like its whole nature is to be that, huh? So we partake of understanding, huh? We have understanding by motion, right, huh? We have more discourse than understanding, huh? That it's a very way way Shakespeare defines it is very good, huh? Its ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right, like its seeking to understand, huh?

[5:05] So it's in motion, and it's what doesn't understand all things, obviously, and it's in potency, right, even to things that it what can understand, huh? Okay. Therefore, it is necessary that there be some higher understanding by which the soul is aided to understanding, huh? As I am always praying to my guardian angel there, right? Okay. It's presumptuous of me to try to understand something without invoking the help of my guardian angel, huh?

[5:33] But it's kind of beautiful, you know, if you read the Timaeus of Plato, right? Where Timaeus is trying to discourse about the whole universe, right? And he says, "Well, we should pray first, right? " And he says, "Well, I mean, you know, we should pray before doing anything, really, you know, he says, but especially when you're about the whole universe, right? I mean, you know, you really need to be, you know, some Help you know it's kind of marvelous.

[5:58] I mean, you know, our our nitwits, you know, in the modern academic world would think of praying before they study. You know, I mean, that would be you know, they they make as he say fun of it, right? You know, you know, like you know, like I guess there's some kids there, you know, in the Catholic schools who don't study and pray and expect to pass. You know, and that's challenging God in the wrong way, obviously.

[6:24] You know, they should study as hard as possible, but but you but you have to pray nevertheless. Even if you're Thomas Aquinas, you should pray, right? You know, you have Thomas's prayers. You know, they say before prayer.

[6:43] Okay. Now, but having said that, Thomas says now some people go a little bit astray, right? Some People lay down that this what understanding that's in a separated substance, right? That that is the agent, like what Aristotle is talking about, right? They confuse this ability that we have in our own soul to make understandable and act, what is in the images, right? With that superior understanding, right?

[7:16] From which our soul, maybe as well as our power of understanding, is derived. You see the difference, huh? Yeah. Some posit right, and he gives some of the Arabs down there in this footnote here, Avicenna, I believe, huh? Some posit that this understanding is according to a what separated understanding, right? Or excuse me, they posit that this intellect that is in a separated substance from man to be this act of understanding, right?

[7:51] Which, as it were, enlightening or the images makes them to be understandable in act. He says, given that there be some separated right active understanding, huh? nevertheless, it is necessary to posit in the human soul itself some power partaken of from that superior understanding, through which or by which the human soul makes things understandable and act. And he starts to give the reason for this, for just as in other natural things that are perfect, apart from the universal agent causes, they have their own powers, right?

[8:38] In each of these perfect things, huh? Derived from the universal agents, for not only does the soul generate man, but also in man there is the what generative powers, right? Sexual powers, and likewise in the other perfect animals, right? The sun. Yeah. They had some universal causality here, but nothing is more perfect among inferior things than the human soul. Whence it is necessary to say that in it there be some power derived from a superior understanding, to which it can what understand or not understand, but illumine the what images, right?

[9:19] Okay. And notice if it didn't have that, it wouldn't really have what liberum arbitrium, as we say later on, huh? Wouldn't have really free judgment, huh?

[9:30] So its understanding would simply depend upon this exterior substance, right? And therefore, wouldn't really have free judgment, huh? And therefore, freedom. But Thomas here appeals not to that, but to the experience that we have of separating the universal from the singular, huh?

[9:53] In this, we know by experience, right? When we perceive that we separate universal forms from particular conditions, which is to make things understandable and act. And you can see, you're doing geometry, right? And you're learning about the parallelogram of the rhombus, right? That you're separating out these things. But no action belongs to something except through some principle or source that is formally inhering in it, as has been said above when we spoke about the possible understanding.

[10:25] Therefore, the power which is the principle of this action that we experience in ourselves must be something in the soul. And therefore, Aristotle compares the act of understanding to light, which is something we see in the air. But Plato compares the what? Separated intellect impressing things upon our soul to the sun, as Themistius says in his commentary in the third book about the soul.

[10:54] But the separated intellect, according to the documents of our faith, is God Himself, right? Who is the creator of the soul, and in which alone, and in whom alone, it is reaches its beatitude, as will be clear below. We take out the end of man. Whence from it the human soul partakes of intellectual light, according to that of Psalm 4. Sealed upon us is the light of your what?

[11:26] Face, O Lord, right? Huh? Has been impressed upon us something the light there, huh? Okay. Okay. Now I'm going to start to reply to the objections. To the first, therefore, it should be said that that true light illumines as a universal cause, from which the human soul partakes a certain what? Particular power has been said, right? So you might say that the natural light of our soul, which is this active intellect, right?

[12:01] That light is kindled by the word of God, right? Okay. But nevertheless, we have a light in our soul which is a partaking of the what? Divine light, huh? Yeah, that's not divine. Is what I'm wondering about I mean is it a part of the divine light? Is it induced like? heat? Well, you say part partake. we don't mean that you divide up the divine light, huh?

[12:24] okay? But that you are what? Receiving something like it, but in an imperfect way, right? Or part means what? Imperfect, right? In the way Saint Paul uses the word sometimes. Now we know. It's partly, yeah, yeah, imperfectly, right? In the mirror, darkly. Yeah. Okay. So we have the power to separate the universal. We experience that act, yes. Sure. Okay. So that. Ability is something that we have gotten from God, and so we say, you know, this is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world.

[13:04] You could understand that in more than one way, but you could sooner use it as referring to the natural light of reason, and if you have to kind of respect the natural light of reason as well as the light of faith, right? Because they're both derived from God, and when Thomas will say, you know, that reason and faith can't really be in contradiction, right? Among the many reasons he'll give is that both lights are what derived from God, right?

[13:32] So the light of reason, the light of faith, can't really be in opposition, how it might appear at sometimes to be, right? And so you have to respect both lights.

[13:47] And of course, when he says this is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world, he's seen to emphasizing almost the natural light of reason, because not everybody has faith, right? Yeah. So maybe not everybody is, you know, actually enlightened by the light of faith, huh? Okay.

[14:08] Okay. That second one was the text that I mentioned. That we have to go back to the Greek to show that Thomas's interpretation is fits the text, huh? But Thomas's Aristotle is talking there. They said first of all about the passes over the possible understanding, the ability to understand, and then he sees the need for the ability to make understandable an act, what is in the images, and the need for the act of understanding.

[14:37] Then you have these two, and then he he talks about the what combination of the two, right? Huh? Where the two working together give us the state of actual understanding, right? And in that state, we're not sometimes understanding, so he's not understanding. That's what's being misunderstood, huh? So the second ought to be said that the philosopher, that those words of the philosopher, the philosopher in those words, I should say, is not speaking about the act of understanding, but about the understanding and act, right?

[15:13] Whence supra, above, he set forth that the same is what knowledge of the thing according to act, huh? Or if he understands this about the agent intellect, huh? This is said not because on the part of the act of understanding it sometimes understands and sometimes doesn't understand, but on the part of the intellect which is in what potency that we sometimes understand, sometimes don't, huh? See what he's saying there?

[15:47] No. Okay. There's two ways he's solving this, right? One is to say like he doesn't come to the gamma, where he says that Aristotle is talking there. About the combination of these two, the intellect and act, right? Right. And he's saying now, when these come together, right? Yes. Then you're actually understanding, right? And when you're actually understanding, you're not sometimes understanding, sometimes not. Mm-hmm. When you're actually understanding, the two are okay.

[16:18] Mm-hmm. If you want to take it in another way, the reference just to this, right? All right. Then he's saying that the fact that we sometimes understand, sometimes don't, is due to the defect of this power. This is already always active, you might say, right? Mm-hmm. But it's due to the defect of this one, right? Mm-hmm. Okay.

[16:43] Maybe the images too, right? Mm-hmm. It's that is another very interesting text of Thomas where, um, when he talks about the two things in knowing, grasping. Right and judging, right, and attributes grasping more to the images where you get something to grasp, right, but judging more to the active understanding, right, yeah. But in that sense, the perfection of knowing, which is judging, comes more from the active understanding than from the images, right?

[17:14] But having something to grasp, right, comes more in its content from the images, huh? Yeah. Now the third objection, huh? Why can't men always understand, right? If he has the active and the passive thing there, right?

[17:53] He says to the third, it should be said, if the active understanding was compared to the possible intellect, as the object acting upon it is to the power, right, as the visible act is to the sight, it would follow that once we understood all things, right? Do you see that?

[18:13] Since the agent intellect is that by which all things are made, understandable. Now, however, it does not have itself as the object, right? But as making the objects an act, right? Do you see that?

[18:33] For which is required besides the presence of the acting upon understanding, the presence of the images, huh? And also the good disposition of the sense powers, huh? And exercise in these works, huh? As I found out, I was trying to do solid geometry, right? You know, my imagination wasn't really forming the images I needed to do this, right? And so I constructed a few things with these little, you know, pieces of cardboard, right?

[19:03] Yeah. And we had one of them hanging down from the the light of the kitchen there for months, you know, trying to get my imagination up to solid geometry, right? Icosahedron there going on, just going, just did it. Icosahedron there trying to more and more form these crazy figures in my imagination. huh didn't have that problem solid plain geometry, but solid geometry really gets some some problems there.

[19:31] the dodecahedron right? um. And because through what one thing understood. Other things become understood, right? As through terms, propositions become known, right? And through the first propositions or principles, conclusions be known. Like the three acts of reason that we talk about.

[20:06] And as far as this is concerned, it does not differ with the agent intellect with something of the soul or something separated. See what the objection is saying, right? The objection is saying, "Hey, if this is the one that receives, this the one that acts upon it. Why doesn't it always what fully act upon it and then always understand everything? Well, it's not the object that acts upon the thing, but the one that makes the object in potency the actual the object.

[20:39] So you need the images, right? And the proper dispositions in those internal senses, huh? In order for them to be proper, what tool, right? Of the reason, huh?

[20:52] You know, in the great Monsignor Dionne, you know, and he explains some of these words, like the the word beginning there in the fifth book of metaphysics. There, you notice in a lot of these words, the first meaning of the word is something sensible, huh? And then as you move into the later meanings of the word, you get to something that's not sensible, and we have a dependence all the way back upon that sensible meaning in order to understand the later meanings.

[21:20] That's you kind of see the dependence there of us upon the image all the way back there, right? And Dion saw that thing very clearly, you know, but anybody ever really saw it so well, you know, they brought it out so well.

[21:37] So in that sense, the it's not like you know seeing God, you know, huh? God's not making something else understandable. He's what's going to be understood. He's going to be seen face to face. So

[21:54] the images, the phantasms, how much is the collating power needed before, before the intellect came? Well, already you already see something of the influence of reason in its discursive ability, right, huh?

[22:27] In the senses, right? In the interior senses, right? What they call the cogitative power, right? And you see an experience, right? And Aristotle speaks of experience as something mainly that man has, right? Or the other animals, huh? Because an experience is a kind of a collatio these latin words, are, bringing together, right? Of many images, and then you have things like recollection, you know, that take place in the memory sometimes, just like almost reasoning, you know, from one image to another.

[22:59] Like what were you doing, you know, yesterday at four o'clock? I don't know. But then you go back and you say, "Well, I went to chapel two, and then I came out, and that, that, that, that, that, right? " And you kind of, you know, work your way back, right, to what you were doing at four o'clock yesterday, huh? But you couldn't remember at first, right? But kind of like that, kind of like reasoning in a sense, you know.

[23:21] So who's that guy? Okay, came out chapel that day, and there was a guy standing. He looked familiar. I don't know who he was. Turned out to be a student from in Gone to Anna Maria, And it came down taking one of my curses one time.

[23:40] Is that what you call the particular reason? a couple yeah, yeah, or the cogitative part—they call it sometimes particular reason, right? that's why i was clear to say universal here, right? because sometimes we use the word reason equivocally, right? to name, the cogitative power is what they call it too. but it's it's it brings together individual images, right? Something like universal reason brings together universal thoughts, huh?

[24:12] Aristotle sometimes uses, the book on memory and reminiscence he uses the word "syllogism even" right in talking about these images, right, and recalling something through some images to other images. So when the understanding abstract, you say it gets a universal. It understands universals. The imagination, the images from the cogitative power. What is when it when it brings the things together? What do you name when it gets just an experience?

[24:53] Experience, yeah, yeah. And be careful because experience is sometimes used, you know, for sensation too by people, you know. But when you give the order of sensing, memory, and then experience, experience means anyway collection of many memories of the same sort of thing, huh? Okay. So, Latin phantasm. Phantasm is is the is a the Greek derived word for image, huh? Okay. okay yeah, so let's see the word "images" got so many uses in in latin.

[25:28] you know, you know, you know that sometimes they want to talk about images in this sense in the inward senses. They they want to use the word that's more tied, right? You might say a statue is an image. That's an image of somebody. The statue over there, or the painting is an image of somebody, right? And so they they tend to use a lot of time the Greek word there, but.

[25:51] Okay, and of course we get our word fancy, you see, from that. Do you say? Ah, you know what I'm saying? Because the connection between and fancy came to mean you know, do you fancy her? But because you know the connection between imagination and and romantic love, huh? See? Yeah. Now these things get stored that we form these experiences from a particular reason. They get stored in a a form of sense memory.

[26:18] Then yeah, yeah, yeah. Aristotle compares it, you know, in the rhetoric in the in the second book of the Posterior Analytics, you know, to these scenes at Rome, you know, where the troops are fleeing, you know, and one guy turns around makes a stand, right? And then that encourages others, and that guy turns around makes a stand, another guy, you know, another guy, right? And all of a sudden you get something firm there, right?

[26:36] You know, that's that's experience. You know, he said we're one image, you know, sort of just you know flipping through your head. All of a sudden one stops, right? And then you know another one stops and Longinus naked, you know, and finally you know get a whole army there. That's experience. So he puts experience between the images and the. Well, you see, what you have is is sense, memory, experience.

[27:06] That's the way he speaks of the premium of wisdom, right? Yeah. And then you start to have analogy universal after that. Okay. Yeah. So it's not just directly simply. Yeah. One image, or maybe. No, no, no, no. Okay. Now, the fourth objection again is important because the fourth objection was saying that, um, how could the soul be what? Both in act and in ability, right, with respect to the same thing.

[27:41] Well, it's not in act in the same way. To the fourth, it should be said that the understanding soul is in act immaterial, but it is in potency to the determined what forms or likenesses of things, huh? But the images or phantasms are the reverse, right? They are in act, right? The likenesses of certain species, right? But they are in potency, what? Immaterial, huh? Once nothing prevents one and the same soul, in so far as it is immaterial in act, to have some power through which or by which it makes things immaterial in act by separating them from the individual conditions of matter.

[28:30] Which power is, of course, called the agent intellect, huh? And another power receptive of these species, which is called the possible understanding, insofar as it is in potency to these what species of being.

[28:47] So it's not with respect to the same thing, is it? Huh? It's not the the the agent intellect had in act these forms, right? And the passive intellect had these forms in potency, right? You have the forms in act, and you have in potency. No. No. In in the soul you have what actual immateriality, but not the actual forms, right? In the images, right, which in the body, huh?

[29:16] You have the actual likenesses, but not universal or immaterial, right? Right. So one thing is in act, and the other is in potency, but not the same, with respect to the same inside the soul, right? Huh. Okay.

[29:34] So it's it's a it's really kind of a tricky thing there to to see, right? The role that the images play in giving the determinate likenesses of things, right? And the immateriality and universality of them that the agent intellect is responsible for, right? So in that sense, you need the images, right, to get the what definite universals, right? But you need the agent-like for those likenesses that are actual there, but not immaterial or universal.

[30:07] They are singular there in the images to become what something universal. But so you know the read English philosophers, you see they can't quite understand that, you know. They can't quite distinguish between the image of triangle and the what what the what you understand, right? And you know, I know I showed that passage in Locke, haven't I, or you know? And Locke is trying to understand the general idea of triangle, and is it isosceles, or scathe or, what is it, you know?

[30:39] " And he's trying to imagine the triangle in general, but anytime you imagine triangle, you imagine either isosceles, scathe or equal. So you kind of like like like Herr Antegris, he thinks it's kind of what all none of these things, right? They're all rolled together, you know. And I can't quite see what it is, but it's because he's confusing in a way the image with the what thought.

[31:08] I can understand what is common to the three kinds of triangle, right? But I can't imagine a triangle which would be a singular triangle, right? That isn't one or the other, right? In particular.

[31:29] Yet that we understand universals seen in the experience we have of the universal demonstrations in geometry. Or the reason why, say, the interior angles of a triangle are equilateral is tied to what a triangle is in separation from whether the sides are all equal, just two of them, none of them, right? Just draw that line parallel to the opposite side, Euclid or

[31:58] exterior. What you want to do two things at the same time? they shake, I mean, the Euclid, you remember? Yeah. You want to show if the exterior angle is equal to the two interior opposite ones, and then finally you could just draw right to the top and again do it that way.

[32:17] Okay. So it's very easy to confuse those two. And in English, the word "idea," you know, is used sometimes for image and sometimes for a thought, right? So I say to the students that the philosopher has an idea; it should be a thought. But if your girlfriend says, "Do you not get ideas?" You probably means images, right? Because you are probably not doing much thinking at this point.

[32:43] I try to get out there somewhere the idea however I can, but but but people do confuse it too, right? And that's why, as they say, in this wonderful story of Mountjoy, there, right, where the guy is confused, what? These poetic images with philosophy, right? But there are people out there. We're doing it all the time, right? They're looking for something. What? Other people in here, sir.

[33:12] Yeah, something that will appeal to their imagination rather than to their reason. Where's that in the sketchbook? It, it, yeah, well, not sketchbook, though. It's a different collection of his papers, you know.

[33:30] Um, you end up with something that's neither good poetry or good philosophy. Sometimes this way, you know, because a poet, as such, is aiming at what pleasing the imagination, huh?

[33:52] And the images say, even the images in Scripture are more ordered to the mind than they are to the pleasing the imagination, huh? You know, the Lord is my rock. You know that. Such beautiful images, something like that. You know, you know. But I mean, but but it helps you to understand something about God, eh? You know, there wouldn't be particularly great poetry, huh? Would it? Lord is my rock, yeah.

[34:28] Death lies in air like egg white, untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field. That's poetry. Lord is my rock. That's not poetry, really.

[34:40] Or it was more like like the images of Aristotle or Socrates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very simple, yeah, yeah. Here, the four roots of all things says says Empedocles right? Earth, air, fire, water—the four roots of all things. Very good. So they say that the immaterial idea

[35:18] is in the image. Well, see, see, if you go back to the the De Anima, right? Aristotle wants to distinguish between thinking and imagining because they're sometimes confused, right? Okay, and even people who know the difference, you know, will use the word sometimes what interchangeably, right? And you know, if you look at Henry V, that's, I think, is an example. Sometimes, huh? Shakespeare is asking the audience, right, in the in the choruses, right, to fill out, you know, but We can't represent.

[35:51] We can't represent, you know, these vast empires and the and the and the great war going on here, you know, and and so we have a couple of guys out there, you know, quacking and imagining, you know. But sometimes you you appeal to you know your imagination, right, and sometimes to your thoughts, you know, you know to to fill out the the picture here, right? You see.

[36:09] And so we say, I think that's so. I imagine that's so. You see, we tend to, especially we're not too sure, right? We're more apt to you know use imagining and thinking to change, even imagining, say, understanding. Wouldn't do that so much, would we? But what what Aristotle does when he first shows are not the same. He takes thinking more in the third act, right? And he says that I can imagine something without having any reason to to to for it, huh?

[36:41] So I can imagine a terrorist out there, right? But without having any reason for imagining a terrorist out there, or I can imagine something out there is going to bring us in. uh a filet mignon. Now or something, or a lot of money or something, right? See, but I don't think there's a terrorist out there, right? I don't think there's a man going to bring in some money now or something, or you know, round of beer or something.

[37:09] I have to have some reason to think that, right? You see, okay. So he says to the students, I can imagine myself winning the Massachusetts sweepstake and, you know, won ten million dollars. I can imagine that. But said, I can't think that I won ten million dollars and I haven't even bought a ticket. I have no reason to think I won ten dollars and I haven't even bought a ticket, right?

[37:29] You see what I mean? See, I can imagine a terrorist out there without having any reason to think there's a terrorist out there, but I can't really think there's a terrorist out there having a reason to think there's one out there. And then he says, consequently, if I merely imagine it, I don't necessarily have much any emotion, right? See, but if I think there's a terrorist out there, I'd really be scared, huh?

[37:53] You see, if I thought I'd won 10 million I mean, you know. I just imagine it all; it's no big deal, you know. You see what I mean? Um,

[38:10] that's the first way he distinguishes them, right? Huh? And I think it would be also easier to distinguish them in the second act than in the first act, huh?

[38:20] See, is an image a statement? Say, no. See, um, uh, if I imagine you with a long nose, like Cyrano de Bergerac, right? Am I saying that you have a long nose? No, see, the difference there, right? See, but now if I'm thinking about what a triangle is and I imagine a triangle, it's a little harder to tell the difference there, right? But when I'm thinking about what a triangle is, you have this subtle difference there that it's something universal, right?

[38:55] If I'm imagining a triangle, it's always something singular, and a triangle is not what a triangle is, even though there's a connection there between the two, right? See, so eventually he distinguishes even between them in that very fundamental part, right? But that's harder for the mind to see, right?

[39:18] Okay. Now the fifth objection was saying, "Hey, we get this ability to understand, or this active under ability, this understandable light from from God, right? Huh? But if this was a power of the soul, we'd be getting it from the soul because the powers flow from the soul, as we saw in the earlier article when you were here, Father. Okay. Thomas says, "Well, that's no problem because the soul itself is created by God, right?

[39:52] Huh? So, whether we get the power of understanding directly from God or? We get the soul directly from God, right? And through the soul, the power. Either case, right? We're all set here.

[40:11] So he says, since the essence of the soul is immaterial, created by the supreme intellect, namely God, nothing prevents the power which is partaken from the supreme understanding or intellect, namely God. Nothing prevents that power that partakes of it, but which abstracts the matter to proceed from its essence, just as its other what powers is concerned, huh? Okay.

[40:41] So, being I thought it was appropriate to look at this passage in the first chapter of the Epistle of Saint James here, that 17th verse that we looked at already a little bit, right? Because of the fact that we were introduced to what this light, this agent intellect, right, which Aristotle compares to a light, right? Okay. And we also the idea that this light is what derived from God in some way, right?

[41:12] Okay. Now let's go back to the text here. If you have it here, if I read it again in Greek here. Um pasa dosis, right? I guess dosis would be the verb, or the I mean the verb form. Every giving, right? Pasa dosis agathe. Every what? Good giving, right? Okay. Now that's a strong, but in logic we call that universal affirmative, pan, right? Okay. Every. And pan dorema, right?

[41:52] Every gift. So it's very explicit, right? Every gift that is what Teleon, huh? That's the word for what? Perfect. Okay. Okay. And that's how explicit that is, huh? It has pasa and pan, which are the same word. I mean, it's different grammatically, isn't it? Every good giving and every perfect gift, right? Now you know good and perfect go together, don't they? And that's why in the Summa Theologiae, the consideration of the divine goodness is attached to the consideration of the divine what?

[42:32] Perfection, right? Okay. You have the five attributes of God there: the the simple, right? That he's perfect, that he's what? Infinite, that he's unchanging, right? And that he's one, right? And to his being good is attached. I mean, being perfect is attached to consideration of the goodness. Of God, right? To his being infinite, his being everywhere, right? And to his being unchanging, his being eternal, right? Okay.

[43:06] And you see, that connection, of course, in the ninth book of Wisdom, right? The connection between good and perfect. So notice what he's saying here. How explicit this text is, huh? Pasa, I mean, you can hardly be more more explicit than that, huh? Every good giving, right? And pandorema teleion, every perfect gift, right? It's almost like saying the same thing twice, right? But you know, Anothen is from above, right?

[43:38] Estan it's from above, kata bainon coming down, right? From whom? Apo tou patros ton photon. Now, why is he called the Father of Lights? Why is it that every perfect

[43:58] gift and every good giving, right, is coming down from the Father of Lights? Isn't that indicating that if not the greatest at least among these perfect gifts are the lights he gives, right? Why is he called the Father of Lights if if you didn't want to emphasize the fact that the lights that he gives us are what a agathe dosis huh Giving, a teleion dorema, right? Okay.

[44:35] So it makes one think of this. I don't have it on the board anymore. That this light that we call Aristotle compares it explicitly. If you go back to De Anima, remember that you know that the agent is like a phos, you know, a light, an intelligible light, huh? That that is in the stream, what? A great gift, right? It's it's something really to be what thankful for, right?

[45:00] It's a great gift, right? And then Nick should say, you know, go on to that and say what that the light of faith is another one, you know, because this is coming down from the Father of Lights, the light of faith, huh? So that's also a what a dorema teleion, huh?

[45:24] And this light of glory that is a dorema right? It's in the plural, the Father of Lights, huh? That these perfect gifts that come down from him are the gift of light, huh? And at least there is three gifts that we might possibly get, right? The one we all get, the light of reason, huh? That we have to nourish, right, and respect, huh? Um, it's kind of marvelous that this.

[45:59] Text, you know, of Augustine there, that's a mention there, with John Paul II there, you know, you know how Augustine for a while despaired of knowing the truth, just like the modern philosophers do a lot, you know, the way Descartes did, huh, and so on. And you know, around this time, you have the dialogues at Cassiciacum, right? Huh. And of course, the contra academicos is the one where he's trying to get out of this, but skepticism that the later academics had about knowing the truth, huh?

[46:32] Say. And then once you get out of that, then you've got to avoid what Presumption. presumption boldness, right? And then the next word is Deordine, see? See, the dialogue called Deordine is very badly translated, right? The title of the dialogue in Latin is De Ordine. The way they translate it is on divine providence and the problem of evil, because that question comes up in the dialogue, right? What Augustine brings out is that they're not ready to what answer that problem now that it's out of order to try to answer that before you know all these other things.

[47:17] That's the whole point of the dialogue. But but the the English reader right might pick it up and say, oh, I'm interested in that great problem, right? And you know, and what Augustine's point there is not that, but it's about the fact that you have to take up these things in a certain order. Otherwise, you're going to be what? You won't understand. Yeah, and guess what the words are of Saint James right before the passage read.

[47:45] Me planasthe huh? Do not err. Adelphoi mou agapetoi, my beloved, huh? Brothers, right? But because you know, it's probably the context of the the evils he's been talking about before then, right? Huh? I'm kind of struck by it right here because planasthe comes from the Greek word to what? To wander. To wander, yeah, and to wander means what? A disordered movement of your mind. As I tell the students, you know, when they hang up a sign on the machine out there saying "out of order," that means the machine isn't functioning well, right?

[48:19] It might not give you your money or your drink or whatever for your money. I think it might not give you a drink, vice versa. But but when our mind is out of order, it makes mistakes, right? So do not err. And then he talks about this perfect gift, which is a light coming down, right? I say. So

[48:42] I I take that that part up to there. As what? Um. Kind of a scriptural basis for saying we should respect greatly these three lights, huh? Because this is kind of almost like singling out when calling him the Father of Lights, huh? In the context now of what talking about a perfect gift, right, and a good gift, right, coming down from above, right? It comes down from the Father of Lights.

[49:12] You know, well, the lights refers to what? I mean, there's only one light that is God Himself, right? Huh? So, referring to the many lights that He's giving us, right? And they come down from Him, all of them. Actual light of reason, the light of faith, and then the the light of glory, yeah.

[49:39] Then he goes on with whom has no place change, right? There's no change in them, right? Or shadow change, and we're seeing the connection between that. Right, It's kind of struck by, it. When Thomas emphasized in the fact that our mind being what mobile, right, and in the dark

[50:00] depends upon a higher mind, okay. So we ask my angel to straighten out my mind, right, okay, and we ask God, you know, Deus Illuminatio mea, and so on. But now, what is the next passage? The next line, say eighteen, there.

[50:23] Well, I'll read you a couple of translations here. The first word is "boulētheis," right, and that goes back to the word for what. The what? Kind. Yeah, or go back to the idea of the will too. Okay, and I notice in one translation here it says of his own will, right? Okay. Um.

[50:54] You know, God. You know, is by his will that God produced us, not by nature, right? Okay. Boulētheis, anyway, that's the first word. Apekyēsen he brought forth, right? The translation says of his own will he begat us, right? Okay.

[51:15] With the Logos Alētheias Word of truth. He brought us forth, Logos Alētheias I see. Now I'm struck by that because, um, you know the the prayer of Thomas, the Communion prayer, the Adoro Te Devote, right, huh? And the second quatrain is talking about what? The senses not knowing him, right? Visus tactus, right? Gustus, right? I see the host, I touch it, I taste it. Visus tactus, gustus, in te fallitur, right?

[51:58] They don't see that Christ is there in the bread, do they? Yeah. Sed auditu, right? But by the auditu solo tuto creditur right? Creditur, right? You know. Okay, faith is ex auditu as Saint Paul says. But then, what? Nil hope verbo, veritatis verius, right? Huh? Okay. He's believing Christ, right? Because nothing is more true than this. What? Word of truth, right? Okay.

[52:40] He says, "Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius," right? Okay. This is my body, right? This is my blood. So he's believing Christ, right? Ex auditu You know, Nil hoc verbo veritatis. verius right? We have the same thing here in Greek, except instead of verbum we've got logo, right? And alētheias, truth, right? So he brought us forth by the word of truth, huh? Now I mean, I always can understand that too, but if you say, you know, beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was God, and later on you say all things were made, right?

[53:20] So the word, especially us, right? You know, and he's the word of what? Truth, right? The wordy, right? And he goes on to say, huh? Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. That's one way to translate, right, huh? Histo enai in to be, right? We might be himus, right? Aparkein, kind of like the first fruit, right?

[53:56] You know, tone outo getismaton. That's the word for creatures, right? I don't know in Greek rather. Then we might be kind of what forefront of his creatures, right, huh? Okay. But why are we at the forefront of his creatures? At least you know in the material world, anyway. It's a reason. Yeah, because of that light that we receive from him, the light that of the agent intellect, huh?

[54:24] Because there he seems to be talking almost about our creation, almost right. I mean, almost about our natural light, huh? Yeah. That's that's very striking, huh? Yeah.

[54:41] I was looking for that passage, and I and I I kind of skimmed through. I thought it was in James. I just looked around, I couldn't find it, you know. And so I said, "Hey, what is it? Is it that was in James? " Yeah, right. So then I said I looked at Jude, you see. Oh, okay. And I didn't find it Jude, and then I came, you know, back to to James and found it, right?

[55:00] And just says, "Dinosaurs in the night there. " I got thinking about it in bed, and then. I was very much struck by by this this passage at the end of Jude. I said, "This is a entirely different thing now. " I mean, just struck by. You know how how I've always spoke of great with great admiration for the the proemium to the Dei Verbum Verbum, right?

[55:30] And what I think is so good about the proemium to the Dei Verbum is that it begins by talking about eternal life, right? And then it comes down to faith, hope, and charity, right? And that it links those two together, I think, is what very important, right? Huh? Because it's faith, hope, and charity that direct us to eternal life. Huh? Okay. And so you could say the ultimate end there is eternal life, but the more approximate end is faith, hope, and charity, right?

[56:02] Okay. Now I was struck by this passage in the in Jude. I guess it's just one chapter, right? It's what twenty five verses or something like that. Okay, but this is the end of it, huh? Okay. He says, I was quoting that passage from verse nineteen where he'd be talking about the bad and so on, right? And avoiding that, right? The psychikoi, right? Okay. But then he says, at verse twenty there, huh?

[56:34] But ye beloved, right? Building up yourselves, huh? On your most holy faith, huh? That's faith, right? Praying in the Holy Ghost, that refers to hope in a way, huh? Because hope is that whereby we pray, right? And you can study that, you know, because you know how they speak of the Holy Spirit, you know, groaning in us, you know, praying, Sometimes you attribute that to the Holy Spirit, right?

[57:03] There could be reasons for that, but okay. Keep yourselves in love of God, right? So we have the three theological virtues there, touched upon. By name, you have faith and love, but the other one is indicated there by the middle. Okay. And then, what does it say, right? Goes on and says, "This is in this one translation, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, right?

[57:29] " There, in one verse, you have the connection between the three theological virtues and what? Eternal life. Yeah. See. Now look at them more carefully at the at the Greek here. Um.

[57:45] He says, "Humeis de agapetoi you beloved, huh? " Yep, epoikodomountes right? The very well translated, building up, right? Huh? And of course, we speak of faith as being the what foundation, right? Huh? See the whole life, huh? You know how sometimes when they take those words of the Psalm there,

[58:09] unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain. Who build it, right? And sometimes they take the house to refer to the church, right? But sometimes they understand it to refer to the individual soul too. And then the foundation is faith. The walls are hope, and the roof is what charity, right? Huh? Okay. So, in fact, faith is defined there in the epistle of the Hebrews, right, as the substantia, right, the hypostasis, right, Of things hoped for, conviction of what is not seen.

[58:40] So it's called a foundation. So he says, "Epoikodomountes building up, heautous yourselves, te, huh, in the hagiotate the most holy, humon pistei in your faith, right? Okay, that's the first thing. Piste is that same word that Saint Paul uses, you know, the famous one, you know, these three remain, right?

[59:04] Ah. Okay. Then he goes on to say, "In pneumati hagio, in the Holy Spirit, proseuchomenoi, praying in the Holy Spirit, right? That refers to what? Hope, right? Whose act is to pray? And then heautous yourselves in agape, that's the word that Saint Paul uses to keeping yourselves in agape theou teresate keeping yourselves in the love of God, right? Huh? And then prosdechomenoi, awaiting, right? The mercy, right, to Elias, right, to Elias, to kuriou hemon Jesou Christou of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ, eis zoen aionion right?

[59:48] Huh? See, that'd be a beautiful verse to bring together with the what? Premium right to the proemium right, okay. Now, if you go to to Saint Paul there now, in that famous passage there where these three remain, I was going back and looking at it again, you know. And if you look at the context there, see just before he talks about that, what does he do? He's talking about seeing God face to face, right, which is the eternal life.

[1:00:27] See, so he leads up to and he says, "When I was a child, I spoke with a child that part, right? This is a child now, and then he contrasts now. For now, we see through a glass darkly, right? Okay, and glass means there a mirror, right? Huh? Greek word for mirror is esoptron For we see, uh uh,

[1:00:59] yeah, in a riddle, in enigma, then we will see what face to face, right? Prosopon, pros prosopon. Now I know mirror said part. That's what I was saying before the St. Paul used the word impart to mean imperfectly, right? Doesn't mean we know a part. part of God or something like that, right? We know him imperfectly. Then what? I shall know even as I am known, right?

[1:01:25] Well, that's that's partly because you will see what God through God being joined to your mind is a very form of your mind, right? So God knows all things by knowing Himself, right? And we'll see God through God rather than through some created form, right? Okay, so we'll know Him as we are known. It's very explicit the way Paul puts it there, huh?

[1:01:57] And then he says, "Now there remains pistis, meaning faith, right? Elpis, hope, agape, right? These three things, but the greatest of these is what love, right? Huh?

[1:02:12] See, if you see that connection between the things, then you can you know unfold it more, right? Huh? Because we're talking, you weren't here, Father, but we're talking about the text in the Catechism of the Catholic Church there, the definition more or less of of hope there in the Catechism. And it begins by saying, you know, it's a theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life, right?

[1:02:39] Okay, and goes on your time by dependence upon God. So there's obviously a connection between hope and eternal life. That hope is the desire. Is a virtue by which we desire eternal life as our last end. The Catechism says, right? Trusting in the promises of Christ and relying not our own abilities, but on the grace of God, and so on, right? But obviously, you know, if hope is a very desire, right, for that eternal life, you see the connection between the two, huh?

[1:03:15] But in the case of faith, huh? When Thomas is explaining the articles of faith, he'll take the definition of eternal life in the words of Christ in chapter seventeen of John, right? Where he says, "This is eternal life to know you, the one true God, and Him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ." And that's when Thomas divides the articles of faith according to the divinity of Christ and the humanity of Christ, huh?

[1:03:41] Okay, but that's when he also explains. You see, the definition of faith is in the words of Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, right? That it's the what substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen. And when Thomas explains that first part of the definition, substance, right? It's like a foundation of the things hoped for, the beatific vision. I mean, eternal life, right?

[1:04:06] It's kind of a foundation insofar as we believe what we shall see later. And what is it that we believe in the divinity and humanity of Christ, right? And that's the way you divide the articles of faith. One way, divide them, anyway, right? And that's what we'll see in the in the what

[1:04:25] in eternal life, huh? And you know, there's other words that Saint Christ says, you know, that talk about the good shepherd and so on, and they will find nourishment going in and coming out. And Thomas says, coming in to contemplate the divinity of Christ, coming out to contemplate His humanity, they'll find nourishment in both. You know, beautiful, right? So,

[1:04:51] you know, as Thomas often says, even human things, you know, belief comes before understanding, right? But if it's the order in the supernatural order there, right? But the very fact that belief is divided by what it is that we will know in eternal life, huh? What we believe, you know, in this life is what we shall see in eternal life, huh? So it's beautiful, but then you get to get to charity, agape, then is a new and entirely different connection with eternal life, huh?

[1:05:24] Because charity will be found in eternal life, except it'll be even more perfect than it is now, right? Faith and hope will disappear, right? But faith will be replaced by the vision itself of God, and the hope will be replaced by the firm possession of Him, right? But the charity will both make us what fitting to receive the beatific vision, right? But it also will be perfected there, okay?

[1:05:54] And of course, that's kind of hinted at when you say "Hallowed be Thy name," because praise proceeds from love, huh? And He praises worthy God. Okay. Well, then I looked at the other passage. I said, "Let's look at the other passage there, which is the famous one that they always quote from St. John's, one three two, is it?

[1:06:18] John's epistle, where he talks about not seeing God face to face, but seeing God what? As He is, right? As opposed to what we do in theology, where we see God as He is not. I mean, falsely, but but He's not, right? You know, He's not composed. He's He's not limited. He's not da da da da. So, John's letter, the letter. Yeah, John. Okay. Yeah, one three two.

[1:06:47] I think it is. Yeah, so anyway, he says, Chapter three, there, 1st epistle of John. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Now, in the second verse there, one three two. That's why I remember it on 1, 3, 2. 1st epistle of John, third chapter, second verse.

[1:07:20] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, right? And it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. That's interesting. We should be like Him, right? For we shall see Him as He is, right? Okay.

[1:07:42] Um, in His light, we shall see light, right? So we'll be like Him in order to see Him. And He will be what the form of our mind, right? Just as He is the understandable form, whereby He understands. Okay, but notice how Paul goes on. It doesn't go. I mean, John doesn't go on to all the theological virtues, but he says, right? And everyone having this hope, right, in Him, right.

[1:08:10] Okay, so he he goes right on to one of the theological virtues, right now. Everyone having this hope in Him purifies himself, right? Like that one, I mean, God, I guess, is pure, right? He goes on about deferring sin and so on, But even there, there's a connection with the theological virtues. The other time mentions it. Huh? I was kind of struck by this one of John.

[1:08:36] I mean, of Jude, because it seemed to me that that came right at the what end of the epistles, right? Now, now I was struck by you know I done I started you know reading some of the commentaries on the epistles you know and I was struck how central this idea of faith, hope, and charity is. But one thing struck me very much was I got you know I started back, I started with Thessalonians right, and then Colossians worked my way back right, and Philippians and so on.

[1:09:04] And what struck me was that the First Epistle of Thessalonians and the First Epistle of Colossians, they both begin, you know, with the greeting, you know, and then he's giving thanks, but giving thanks for their faith, hope, and charity. Yeah. Just look. Let's look at the Thessalonians here. Right after the the second verse of the First Epistle of Thessalonians, right after he he he's greeted them, he says, "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers."

[1:09:35] Right down. And then the third verse, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, right, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Is that's a principal thing to thank to be thankful for that He has in them that He sees that they have faith, hope, and charity? Yeah. Okay. Beautifully said. Well, then you look at the first epistle to the Colossians. right at the exordium, right?

[1:10:07] First two verses, huh? Verse three says, "We give thanks to God, huh? " And the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ, right? And of the love which ye have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, right? You know, St. Thomas, in one of these ones where that comes up, he just says, you know, these are our chief goods: faith, hope, and charity, right?

[1:10:34] And if you go to the the end, you know, of the Gospel of Matthew, where he sends them forth, right? You know, make disciples of all nations. Thomas says that refers to what? Faith, and then baptizing them, right? Well, that's in connection with hope, because just as we attribute prayer to hope, because you're, you know, relying upon God's help, right? So we go to the sacraments for God's help too, right?

[1:11:03] Mother Teresa was saying that Margaret, right? She'd go astray. If she didn't go to communion every day. She just lose her way. She said, "Okay." And then the third thing was, what the

[1:11:20] text was? I now forgot. Last time you mentioned Matthew, the end of Matthew. Oh, yeah. And then the last thing he says is teaching them to what? Obey the commandments, right? So the first thing refers to faith, the second one, third thing obviously to charity, right? And then the middle one to to something that that could be appropriated to hope, especially. Of course, you get a little bit when you look at the epistle to Timothy there.

[1:11:48] You know that, you know, the first thing he's got to establish is the faith, hope, and charity of the citizens there, of the flock. And then he has to, you know, after that he's got to take care of some material needs too, but but it's such a central thing. Yeah. So that's really very good that premium to Dei verbum, right? Yeah. It's really, really you could you could illustrate it with with what Jude says there.

[1:12:11] You