De Anima (On the Soul)
110. Summa I q.79 a.7: Is Intellectual Memory a Separate Power? Augustine, Peter Lombard and the Authority of Aquinas
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/110-summa-i-q-79-a-7-is-intellectual-memory-a-separate-power/

[0:00] have some boys who are not Catholic here, and it's fine, you know, but let me warn you that a lot of them have become converts. And they do, That's the kind of thing that happens, you know? Sometimes, you know, you have a few people who are not Catholic. The Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly.

[0:26] Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic Doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written. Let's walk to Article Seven and Question Seventy Nine, if I remember right. Yes. I was so? rudely interrupted by exams and the. purgatory of correcting them. All done now. Yeah, yeah. Any choice quotes for us? Well, there was a nice, you know. I tell you about this common fallacy, huh? Where they mix up the different senses of "end."

[0:57] Well, in Introduction to Philosophy, the last part of the course that we've done, the Phaedo, and the Phaedo is on the final exam. In the Phaedo, there is a discussion where Socrates talks about how the philosopher should be willing to die. And that's where he gives the famous definition of philosophy as melete thanatou, the practice or exercise of death, right? And Socrates says, "Well,

[1:27] when the philosopher is pursuing moral virtue, he's resisting the inclination of the body, so he's sort of separating his soul from his body. Okay, so you don't become courageous by you know following the inclination of the body to run away, right? You don't become temperate by you know following the body and its urges, right? You don't become mild by giving into that anger in your body, right?

[1:54] So it's kind of a separation of the soul from the body there, and death is a separation of the soul from the body. So it's a practice of death, right? Usually, I mention how you know sometimes in Christian asceticism, you know, they'll speak of mortification, right? And what's the word actually mean? Mortification. To make dead. Yeah, yeah. And what they're referring to is is kind of the separation, right, of the soul from the body.

[2:20] The soul is kind of dying to itself. They say sometimes, right? Okay. I think mortification is very much like what Socrates is arguing there, right? And then he argues from from the mind, and of course, usually there I talk about how I quote my mother, you know, who said, "I think concentration is really important for a student." Oh. My mother used to say she thought about the college and that was her idea, right?

[2:45] Well, concentration is the opposite of what distraction, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when the mind is concentrating deeply upon something, it seems to withdraw from the body, which is the great source of distraction. Oh yeah. We're distracted by what's going on in our body, or we're distracted by noise is coming through our body, right through our ears and so on, right? Mm-hmm. And then Socrates another argument there in terms of the the forms, right?

[3:10] Huh? See, the forms the soul is turning away from material world. Yeah. And trying to know the forms, so that's the way Socrates shows that philosophy is a practice of death. So as one student says, well, the philosopher is interested in the end of life, because you talk about that ethics, right? The end of life, of course, the end of life is is death, right? Therefore, death is very central to the consideration of the philosopher.

[3:36] So you always get somebody in one of those courses that, on the very same word, you know, gets followed up, huh? Just like the word derived from the the negative, endless or infinite, huh? They always mix those up too, huh? Like Feuerbach did, and like Melissus did, and one's own students will do. Okay, Article Seven.

[4:03] To the seventh, it proceeds thus: It seems that the understanding, memory, or intellectual memory, and the intellect itself, or the understanding, are other powers, right? Of course, Augustine here gave rise to this thought a lot when he talked about the memory and the intelligence and the will. For Augustine says in the tenth book about the Trinity, he places in the mind and mind now, of course, is about the spiritual part of the soul, right?

[4:41] Memory, intelligence, and will, right? But is manifest that memory is a different power from the will. So likewise, it is other from the what intellect, huh? I think a lot of times people reading Augustine, he seems to be saying that memory and understanding and will is going to have the image of the Trinity in these three. Yeah. And they seem to be three different what powers in Augustine's position, huh?

[5:08] Yeah. So maybe he gives rise to this article, huh? Yeah. I know a man who's writing a doctoral thesis in Augustine, something about Augustine, and he seems to be under the impression, you know, that for Augustine, memory is a separate faculty from the understanding or reason, and of course, from the will too. But okay, Thomas will deny that's really what Augustine says, and he'll we'll see that in reply to that first.

[5:35] But but Augustine seems to be, in a sense, or the misreading of Augustine, maybe misunderstanding Augustine gives rise to this question, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to hear about the fact that um the word the the translation on what is it here? It's the word mente, mente, and its translation in English. They use.

[6:14] Oh, okay. In English, they give soul, and in the Latin, it's mente. Yeah, yeah. I think isn't it Yeah well I think the the word, if you translate mente in Lat, in English, by mind, it has too narrow a sense. I think. Oh, I see. Yeah, I see. In English, we use the word mind sometimes as a synonym for the understanding or the reason, right? Now, sometimes you see in psychology and so on they use the word mind.

[6:42] There used to be a psychological column in the newspaper called "Mirror of Your Mind." But as far as I can figure out, what you mean by mind is anything going on within you of which you are conscious. So it might involve even the emotions and the will as well as the reason, right? But I think Augustine uses the word mens sometimes for the the soul, but in particular, what we call the spirit, sometimes, right?

[7:08] Okay. The soul, in so far as it what transcends matter, the soul, in so far as it has powers, and come with the angels and God, right? In so far as it has understanding and will, and so on, right? So he's talking about that, the soul. So not altogether a bad translation, but mens is you know almost like a synonym for a spirit, to assist So as to why, you know, St.

[7:35] Thomas or he's just quoting Augustine, they're using mens instead of some form of animus. I mean, I just expected animus to be there. That's all. Yeah, I know it is. mente, yeah. But even Aristotle, he uses the word intellect as a word to name the what, the that whole part of the soul that is immaterial and doesn't have bodily organs. More than intellect. Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you.

[8:01] And that's of course where you find the image of the Trinity, right? Okay. Right. Okay. In this spiritual part. Yeah, of man's soul. Okay. Now the second argument here. Moreover, there is the same reason for the distinction of the powers of the sense part and the intellectual part. But memory in the sense part is a different power from the sense. As has been said above, Okay, you remember the reason Thomas gave for that?

[8:33] right? That the power which is apt to what receive easily, right? When you immediately sense is not apt to what retain, right? The moist receives more easily, but the dry what retains, huh? I sometimes quote that word of Heraclitus: "The dry soul is wisest and best." Okay, I make a joke about it that way. Drink here. The dry soul is wisest and best. What does he mean by that?

[9:04] If not the soul, then what? Yeah, retains what it has heard. Right. What's worth retaining anyway? Okay. That soul is dry. The wet soul maybe is what. Loses doesn't hold anything, huh? Okay. So that is Heraclitus again. Yeah. That's the way of understanding that that phrase is. I mean, it's not the meaning of it too, but in other words, it was tied up with the bodily nature of what the sense powers, huh?

[9:35] And his understanding of those bodily powers—that's not the same power that can easily receive something, and it's something that can what retain, right? Because the moist and the soft, right, easily receives, but doesn't retain, huh? Just like in the making of a statue, right? If I have a piece of clay, I can easily what, or dough even, right? I can easily mold it into some shape, right?

[9:58] Right. But that can easily lose its shape too, can it? By the pietas, there, you know, it's it's what it's hard to put a shape into marble or something hard like that, but it what it stays there, right? Yeah. So this is saying, you know, that same kind of analogy here, right? That there's a likeness there between the memory or the sense powers, intellectual powers. So if memory is distinct from the sensing powers, right?

[10:32] The one that knows something in its presence, right? Then the same thing up in the intellectual thing, right? It's separate powers, huh? Okay. Moreover, according to Augustine, memory, understanding, and will are equal to each other, huh? Very concrete way of speaking, huh? And one of them arises from another, but this is not able to be if memory were the same what power with the understanding, huh? Is not therefore the same power, huh?

[11:14] Remember when Aristotle said that imagining is what emotion made by the sense and act? Then there's going to be some what difference between the mover and the moved, huh? Okay. Or if my reason moves my will, right, to love something by its consideration of the goodness of it, huh? They must be distinct powers, huh? So if one of these arises from another, there must be distinct powers, right?

[11:42] Okay. I will see all the time the soul is that, huh? But against all this, huh? Of the notion or definition of memory is that it be a treasure house, right? Or a place that conserves species or forms. But the philosopher attributes this to the understanding in the third book about the soul. He says that the soul is the place of the forms of Plato, and in particular the understanding, right?

[12:12] It's the place of the forms. As for Aristotle, the universals don't exist in the world by themselves, right? Universal only in the mind, huh?

[12:23] So the soul in its mind or reason rather, understanding retains the forms. So it's not a separate faculty, huh? Therefore, in the understanding part, memory is not another power or ability from the understanding.

[12:49] I answer. It should be said that has been said above. The powers of the soul are distinguished by diverse what? Objects, let's see. Yeah, by diverse notions of their objects, right, or definitions of their objects, huh? Okay.

[13:18] In that the definition or reason of each power consists in being in order to that to which it is set, which is its object. Okay, that's something a little abstract, and you say it like that, but he's saying what

[13:39] the definition, you might say, huh, of the seeing power, the power of seeing, consists in its being what ordered to its object, right? Which is what color, right? Okay, and the digestive power, right, has relation to what food? Okay, and each power, right, is in reference to its what object? Yeah. Okay. Now sometimes you'll say, you know, the powers are distinguished by their acts, and the acts by their what?

[14:20] Objects. Yeah, yeah. Now I explained that definition or reason by Shakespeare. He says its ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, and I ask, what does it mean to speak of a large discourse? There's various meanings it has,

[14:42] but the first meaning I always give is in terms of the what? Yeah, what the discourse is about, right? And it can be about the large in two different senses of large. Can be about the universal, which is said of many things, and therefore, as it were, covers a large area, right? Or it can be about the large in the sense of the great, right? And large in that second sense is opposed to small in the phrase small talk, right?

[15:14] So you speak of small talk. The talk is being called small because of its object, what you are talking about. You're talking about little, unimportant things, right? Okay, so small talk can be understood. We all understand that thing. That's what we mean by small talk, don't we? Yeah. Then large discourses can be simply taken to mean a discourse about the what? Large. So that kind of comes first to mind when I say that, huh?

[15:48] And as I explained to the students, the discourse of the philosopher is larger than that of other men. Is what? Larger than that of other other men. Okay. See, in the sense that the discourse of the philosopher is more what universal than that of other men, and he discourses about the greatest things, like the soul. And ultimately about the universe and even about God Himself, right? Okay.

[16:22] Okay. And of course, the discourse of the wise man, the metaphysician, the first philosopher, is the largest of all, because his discourse is about what is said of all things, right? See, now the moral philosopher considers all human goods, but not all things, right? But the wise man considers what? What is said of all things, namely, being in one, and he considers the largest thing in the second sense too, that he considers the first causes, right?

[16:57] The angels and ultimately God Himself. So his discourse is the largest of all. Now it has been said above that if some power, according to the its proper definition, is ordered to some object, according to the common definition of the object, that power will not be diversified according to diversities of particular differences. Now what does that mean? Well, he shows an example here. As the seeing power, which regards as its own object, regards its own object according to the definition of what color, right?

[17:46] It's not diversified through the diversity of what white and black, which are particular what colors, right? But now the understanding regards its object according to the common notion of what being, right? To be or not to be extends to all things in that sense, right? And that the understanding, the possible understanding, what I call the what undergoing understanding, right, is quo est omnia fieri Aristotle's phrase, that by which it is able to come to be all things, right?

[18:27] Okay. quo est omnia facere understanding is that which is able to make all things, right? Okay. Whence, according to no difference of beings, is the what

[18:46] difference of the? Is there diversified any difference? You might say I'm almost saying it twice. The possible understanding, huh? It has no what. You don't distinguish. Or maybe it's abit you take difference in abit too there, huh? But the possible understanding, the undergoing understanding, is not diversified. By any difference according to beings, right? Because it extends to all beings, right? Okay, you see that? Okay.

[19:23] Well, then, how do you get this difference between the acting upon understanding and the what? Undergoing, okay. Well is another division of being, isn't there? Act and ability, right? Yeah.

[19:42] Nevertheless, he says the power of the acting upon understanding and the power of the undergoing understanding is diversified, because with respect to the same object, it is necessary that what another beginning be the active or acting upon power which makes the object to be an act, and another the what passive power, the undergoing power, which is moved. By the object existing in act.

[20:19] So, in a sense, these two powers are equal in their extent, right? But one is active with respect to that, right? And the other is what? Passive or undergoing. And thus, the active power, or the acting upon power, is compared to its object as a being in act to a being in what? Potency. In other words, in the images, you have something that is what? Understandable in ability or in potency, right?

[20:51] And the active power, right, makes what is understandable in potency actually understandable. So it can act upon the what? Undergoing understanding. But the passive or undergoing power is compared to its object in the reverse way, as a being in what?

[21:15] Potency or ability to being in act. Okay. So the object of the undergoing understanding is something understandable in act, right? And that acts upon the what? Passive understanding. The possible understanding, as it's called here, right?

[21:46] That's kind of interesting, there, right? Huh? You can have two powers there, right? Despite the fact that the object of both of these powers is completely what? Universal, right?

[22:01] But one is related to that power as act is to what? Ability, right? And the other as ability is to what? Act, yeah. Okay. Now, to get into the next questions, we'll be getting into the will, right? I found the will has a universal object too, right? The good. But don't confuse it right now. This with this Bring it in don't complicate things unnecessarily, right now, right?

[22:29] Okay. See, we're used to the to the sense powers, you know, where and they have a particular object, right? And the eyes are adapted to to color or light, huh? And the ears to sound, and you know, my nose is so stuffed up to you know the the what odors of things, right? Huh? And my tongue to the taste of things, the flavor of things, huh? And my sense of touch, you know, the hot and cold.

[22:59] Maybe there's different ones, you know, for I don't know, hot and cold and hard and soft. I don't know. You have particular objects, right? When you get these powers within the the mind, as Augustine calls it. In the spirit, right, in the immaterial part of the soul, But then there's three powers, right? The acting upon understanding, the undergoing understanding, and the will, and they're all completely universal in their object, right?

[23:33] So that's more subtle the way they're going to be distinguished, isn't it? So let's leave out the will now because that doesn't come up yet until the next question. But these two powers, how do they differ? How can there be two powers whose object is what? Both. Yeah, yeah. So when you come to the common sense, right? Yeah. That we study the common sense is like the common terminus of all the outward senses.

[23:56] So its object is the sensible, right? There's only one common sense, right? Why is there not only one power here, right? Well, if there were these forms that Plato spoke about, we wouldn't have an understanding up here, huh? The undergoing understanding, but as it is, our soul, being the form of a body, is naturally turned towards the body and to the images, and they're understandable only in ability.

[24:27] So we need, by nature, this other ability to make what is understandable only in ability or potency actually understandable. So we have these two powers: one that is to the understandable as act is to ability, or as an act of power is to the matter, as Aristotle says, right? And the other is like what?

[24:53] To act, yeah, yeah. Okay. Thus, therefore, no other difference of powers in the understanding is possible except that of the what possible understanding and the what agent, intellectus agens, the undergoing understanding and the acting upon understanding. Once it is clear that memory is not another power from the understanding, for to the definition of a passive power it pertains for it to conserve, just as to what receive, huh?

[25:40] For Maybe Thomas is not speaking as fully as he could there, right, huh? Because in the senses you have what a potencia passiva, right? But it's not the same one that receives and that what conserves for the reason he gave, right? That the quality of matter that enables you to receive easily is not what enables you to what retain, huh? Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. But here he's saying that, but you don't have a body organ here, right?

[26:11] Huh? Right. So you don't have the same reason. You come back to I suppose in the second part, right? Yeah, but it's kind of in the previous one where he asked whether memory is an intellectual power, right? He gave that reason, so you have to kind of you know look back to what he said there. Could we look back because I didn't see it in the previous?

[26:33] I saw it here where you just read, but was it objection two? Well, no. it's in the in the body of Article Six, there, let's go back for a moment here. Down about the third or fourth line there, text there. Article Six. Yeah, this is the one of memories in the intellectual part. Ah,

[27:04] in parte in sensitiva, in the sensitive part, he said this happens as regards some powers in so far as they are acts of bodily organs, right? In which are conserved some species without actual apprehension. Okay, no one asked exactly that one, I guess. No.

[28:07] So is it the paragraph where he has that it's repugnant? The foresaid position is repugnant to reason. That paragraph. Here's on this texture. I thought it was in this text, but I remember talking about it last week because it's one of the texture Thomas talks about this. Where he gives the reason, you know, it's the anima coming to the anima. But the reason he gives why it's not the same sense power that receives and that retains, right?

[28:51] It's not the same. Yeah, and the reason he gives that I've seen him give, you know, I don't know how satisfactory it is, but the reason he gives is that what enables a bodily organ to receive well, right? Yeah. It's being soft and and moist, right? Soft and moist, yeah. Does enable it to retain well. See, yeah. And what would enable it to retain well would not enable it to receive well.

[29:15] I'm right with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. So when back in question seventy-eight when he talks about the interior senses. I mean, it was back there. Article. When you get to the, yeah, I was in the article. Maybe yeah, you're right. On the interior senses. Yeah. Seventy-eight. Seventy-eight. Yeah, article four. Yeah, maybe it's there. Who does it? The interior senses are superlubrically accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all I'm saying is, yeah, I know you're going to read this.

[29:55] Sure way though. Mm I think he says. Yeah, yeah, there it is. Yeah, recipere autem et retinere, are reduced in corporeal things to diverse principles. For humida, moist things, right in the middle there of that It was actually the second paragraph in my middle of the second paragraph in my eddy. Text. I don't know what text you have. Do you find that part I'm sorry, I don't know.

[30:21] To receive and retain. Yeah, yeah. Chiperay ultimately. It's in the second paragraph in the middle. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Got it. To receive and to retain are reduced in corporeal things to diverse principles. Okay. For the moist, receive well and badly retained. Okay. It's reverse for us dry things, right? When's the sense power, when power is an act of a body organ, is necessary that there be another power which receives the sensible species, and the and the one which conserves them.

[31:02] There must be other powers, huh? Okay. All right. But you don't have in the case of the understanding because it's not a bodily organ, right? So you wouldn't need one or the other. But then he argues, if you remember earlier, he argues that what the understanding is more what stable, more unchanging than the sense powers, right? So if the sense powers have the ability to retain what they sensed, right?

[31:33] Then a fortiori the understanding should have the power to retain, right? All right. No. But in the case of the sense powers, it can't be the same power that retains and receives, right? Because of the characteristic of what matter, right? Which don't have matter in the case of the understanding, right? So it's going to be the same power that receives and what retains what it has received, huh?

[32:02] Okay. So so so here where we just read at the end of the body of the article where it says for it belongs to the nature of a passive power to retain as well as to receive. Yeah. He's that's a shorthand for a passive power of the incorporeal soul. Yeah, although you could take it in a broad sense, you could say the sense powers in general are powers that receive, right?

[32:25] Yeah. So we have in our receiving powers and our sense powers the ability to receive and the ability to return. retain, right? But then we can say in particular, but it's not going to be exactly the same power that does both, right? Okay. In the in the corporeal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you could say you know that both of these powers, the power that receives and the power that retains, they're both in general receptive powers, aren't they?

[32:52] Sure. Yeah. So that even in those receptive powers of the that are called senses, you have retaining as well as receiving, right? Okay. Okay. No. And so the question is whether you know it's the same power exactly that does both or two different powers, right? And there's a reason why. The sense powers is not the same power that does both, and that's because of the nature of matter, right?

[33:17] Okay. But then he argues against Avicenna, who said that our mind, our understanding, only knows when it's actually thinking, right? When it stops thinking about something, it doesn't retain anything of that, right? And Aristotle or Thomas argues against that, saying that hey, reason is what more stable, right? Than the senses, right? So if the senses retain the form they received in some way, even more so should the reason retain its form, yeah.

[33:51] Okay. The senses, they say, like we take things in through our proper common sense. He says they're like through our eyes, and then he calls we remember all the senses associated with that. He calls it fantasy or imagination, but it really acts more like memory, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, the English words are not used exactly the same way, right? Uses the word memory for what retains what the cogitative or the a particular reason.

[34:21] Yeah, yeah, or or what the estimative power does in the animals, right? Yeah. Okay. And then the imagination retains what the common sense perceives. Huh? That's why I remember it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We tend to use the word imagination for these tricks we can do with our memory, so we use the word memory kind of indifferently for what either power that retains, huh? Okay. Yeah, and that's what he calls the apprehension of intentions, the estimative or the particular reason.

[34:52] Yeah. We understand like an animal. In other words, the common sense knows only the per se sensibles, right? Yeah. But then the the estimative power knows something not sensed as such, right? Yeah. When you sense this, I don't I was giving the example that cat, you know, who was scared by the belt of the like a snake, or the way they say these little birds, you know, who are the the victims, so to speak, of the big birds, right?

[35:18] Even after they're born, you know, the big bird flies over, they they crouch down, you know, yeah, as if by instinct, right? Now it's that shape, or or they say, you know, certain animals, they'll when they see the wolf or where it is, right? When they see that shape or that color where it is or that smell, right? They recognize an enemy, right? Yeah. It works too because the other morning, you know, a couple weeks ago, I stumbled over Rosie.

[35:43] I didn't see the dog at all. Yeah. Now whenever I get up in the morning, Rosie sees me coming. Before that, nothing would get her move. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just thought of this. She really did remember. Yeah, you mistreat an animal, and they'll remember it. I've been trying to. I know. I know. Hardly ever since Reverend Father Darnell. Yeah.

[36:13] Yeah. Usually, almost like walk right, almost under nose, right? Doesn't blame. Blames it here. But ever since I did that, when I get somewhere else, when I start coming back, yeah. I'm going to get her. Yeah.

[36:30] All right. Well, thank you for the discourses. Very helpful. Okay. Okay. He said somewhere, so back further. He's helpful there. Okay. Now the first one is the argument from authority from Augustine. They say this is important because even today I hear people, you know, maintaining that Augustine has a different opinion, right? Yeah, I hear that all the time. Yeah. All the time. Exactly. Yeah. Very

[37:00] vociferously. Sometimes you know they'll they'll they'll question Thomas. You know, Thomas. You know, trying to save Augustine. You know, sometimes from himself, so to speak. Yeah. But anyway, let's see how he answers this one here. The first, therefore, it ought to be said that although in the third distinction of the first book of the Sentences, that would be Peter Lombard, right? Huh. Okay. And you know that the sentences was used for what?

[37:30] Centuries. Centuries, you know. There was for centuries. Yeah. It's kind of a standard textbook there in theology, right? And it's what I read of the sentences. I mean, it's mainly quotes of Augustine, right? Drawn from different works, you know, and brought together, you know, Augustine would take up the same thing in various places, you know, kind of ad hoc. But there's other church fathers and things of that sort, so Thomas wrote a commentary on the sentences, right?

[37:57] Yeah. And actually, he's going to do the Summa. He was thinking of revising his thing on the sentences, and he decided to write his own work, you know, and order it a little bit differently, you know, than the sentences ordered, maybe better. But but you know, for several centuries, I don't know how many centuries it was, but three, four, at least centuries there. That was you know.

[38:17] Ten, eleven. You you would that would be you know when you'd be a lecture on the sentences for number of years. There would be part of your things. It's a very important book. Was he a good mind, or is it just the fact that? Oh yeah. Well, I mean, it's Augustine, but I mean Thomas sometimes disagrees with him too, you know, but you know. You mean Peter Lombard himself?

[38:38] Yeah, yeah. He's a pretty good mind. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's a pretty good. Yeah, he's a good good. And it's kind of amazing how much authority the book had, right? I think he was a bishop, I think, you know, Paris. But Thomas sometimes, you see, disagrees with his what he says. Yeah. He has a famous opinion about charity being the Holy Spirit. Chris Thomas, you know, he says, "Well, with charity is given the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as charity, right?

[39:09] " Yeah. The Holy Spirit is not a theological virtue. But he's tied up with that virtue although in the third distinction of the first book of the Sentences, it is said that memory and understanding and will are three what, vires or powers, right? Nevertheless, this is not according to the intention of Augustine, who expressly says in the fourteenth book of the Trinity, Trinitate that if we take right memory, understanding, and will, according as they are always what present present to the soul, whether we are thinking or not thinking, right?

[39:57] They seem to pertain only to what memory. But understanding intelligentiam, now I say, by which thinking we understand, right? So he's taking understanding. there. not. For the power of understanding, but for the what act of understanding, right?

[40:21] And that I call will here, or love, right, or dilectio, which is the more precise name for the love of the will, the chosen love, which joins that offspring and his parent, right? Okay.

[40:43] From which it is clear that Augustine does not take these three things for three different what powers, right? But he takes memory for the habitual retention of the soul, right? Understanding for the act of understanding, right? And will for the what act of the will, right? So, occurred to you from reading Augustine's text there, right? That he understands it the way Thomas understands it. You heard my famous saying, you know that Aristotle, my rule of thumb.

[41:25] Aristotle means what Thomas Aquinas says he means, right? And I don't say there's some exception to that. Maybe you know, because Thomas doesn't maybe know the Greek or something, you know. But I mean, there's a rule of thumb, I guess that's the way to think. Aristotle means what Thomas Aquinas says he means. Why do you want to apply that same principle here to to Augustine means what Thomas Aquinas says he means?

[41:54] Those are some pretty heavy-duty principles. Sounds a lot, a lot, a lot of problems. Yeah, but I mean, there's a text he having in front of you, you know, which I'm sure is not being misquoted. There, Thomas seems to be what

[42:15] understanding Augustine as Augustine understands himself, but not as Peter Lombard understands them, right? But most people get into the what understanding of Peter Lombard, right? Now, it's just like if you if you read, I think the average person read the twelfth book of the metaphysics, where Aristotle takes up the knowledge of God. Do you know that passage? And if you just read it, you know by itself,

[42:49] you would seem to be saying that all God knows is Himself, and it would be below the dignity of God to know anything, right? Okay.

[43:02] And Thomas says, no, that's not what he means. He means that the object that defines God's understanding, right, is Himself, right? And it's only by understanding Himself. That he understands other things, huh? Okay. Now, I was just a student coming to the house. They were doing the de anima, there, the first book, right? In the first book of the de anima, Aristotle takes up the position of Empedocles.

[43:31] I don't remember that at all. Empedocles is the guy who says in the famous fragment that by earth we know earth, and by water water, and by air air, and by fire fire, and by love love, and by hate hate. And apparently, the idea was that we know these things because we have them in us, huh? Okay. And Aristotle says, "Well, if that's so, we'd be always knowing these things, huh?

[43:58] And we'd not be in what an ability to know them, right? Okay. And you wouldn't have to be acted upon by the object; you'd have the object already in you, right? Okay. But among the other difficulties he gives, you know, there's ten difficulties he has there in one lectio. The difficulty he has is that in another place, Empedocles says there's no hate in God. Okay, just love in God, right?

[44:28] That's very interesting from a number of points of view, right? Of course, from Empedocles, it's love that brings things together, and it's hate that what separates them, right? So if there is hate in God, then God would not be eternal, would he? Immortal, would he? He'd be corruptible like these things down here. So that perhaps is part of the reason at least why he said that there's love in God but no hate in God.

[44:53] Okay, maybe he also had some what you know, moved by the truth itself, right? He was led to the idea that that God is just love and no hate, which is very interesting from the point of view of but Saint John says God is love itself, huh? But Aristotle quote that, say, and then he'll say, "Well, then, according to your principle, God would not know hate. " And we'd know something God didn't know, which is absurd, right?

[45:24] See, Aristotle gives a contradiction to absurd, right? If your position is correct, then God would not know something that we know. That's laughable. You know, it's absurd, right? Now, in the third book of the metaphysics, the third book, or the first book. Anyway, Anyway, in the dialectic of the of the metaphysics, there Aristotle repeats an argument against Empedocles, huh? You know, so these two places Aristotle says this absurd, laughable, right?

[45:59] Well, he's going to turn around then the twelfth book and say, "Aristotle, God knows nothing but himself, huh? " Can't he? The meaning of the text, you know, that would be laughable, isn't it? And so Thomas says, "No, he's determining. What is the primary object of the divine mind? Right. See, it knows nothing else directly, immediately. Right.

[46:26] Except itself. Right. Himself. Yeah. And by understanding himself, he knows all other things. Okay. If something else was the primary object of the mind, then it'd be what undergoing and so on, right? And be contrary of God being pure act and so on. Okay. I think most people misunderstand the text of Aristotle there, and they think you know that God has, and that's what they think God is denying what, or Aristotle is denying divine providence, right?

[46:56] If he has no knowledge of anything but himself, well, then he has no concern about us, you know. He can't be provident to know about us, right? You know, but that's absurd. And you can see in other places, you know, where Aristotle talks a little bit about you know divine providence, and he's talking about happiness there, you know, and you know how it's very probable, you know, that God has something to do with our happiness, right, and so on.

[47:21] You know, it's not his position, obviously, but I think most people who look at the at the metaphysics will misunderstand that text. I guarantee it. And it's a very common misunderstanding of it. I think you know, myself, even reading Augustine, you know, you get the impression sometimes that you know these are three powers of the soul in which you have the image of the Trinity, huh? Yeah.

[47:42] And apparently, no less a thinker than Peter Lombard, right there, who's so you know careful to follow Augustine, right, comes up with that opinion, huh? You see, and yet Thomas has a pretty good texture to excuse Augustine from such

[48:04] a misunderstanding, huh? Can I ask them? When Johnson one time there about Cardinal Kajetan, huh? Oh yeah. His mistake, you know, is a commentator was trying to comment directly on Aristotle. He's showing a comment on Thomas's commentary on Aristotle. Cajetan does go off, you know, when he gets into the animag. They say ends up being saying Aristotle doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul and so on, and like Thomas has invented this and so on, right?

[48:37] So just remember that rule, huh? The rule. Yeah, Aristotle means that Thomas says he means, and I think I you know I see that a lot. Maybe more questionable to give the rule that Augustine means what Thomas Sisi means, but and I'm willing to give it a give it a try.

[49:01] Well, the church does say that St. Thomas expresses that he inherited all the mind of the fathers and was the greatest reader of the fathers. Yeah, it seems to inherit the mind of all the fathers because he so reverenced them, yeah. Yeah. You know, while we're at this, it is very pertinent. I'm heard a homily with the Norbertines on California that not only and the claim was that the church teaches this.

[49:26] I don't know where that not only is Saint Thomas unsurpassed, but he is unsurpassable. Now, has anyone ever heard that? I read where the Pope said in a couple different places, Matthew, you gave me, Father Matthew, where they say if anyone, if any of the fathers say anything that disagrees with Saint Thomas, go Saint Thomas. The only and another one says the only way to go against Saint Thomas is if there's a very, very grave reason.

[49:58] Yeah, the Pope said that. That's not exactly quoting, but any any other father go along with him so long as he agrees with Saint Thomas. I always use that text from the Second Vatican Council, the one on the priestly. education there, okay, yeah, and this where it's talking about the order of reading Scripture first, right? Okay. And then reading the Church Fathers, and then it talks about Thomas.

[50:27] Okay. And you know, first you should meet these things in Scripture so far as possible, right? Right. And then it speaks about what once you read the Church Fathers for what they have contributed to the understanding of the particular articles of the faith. Okay. And if you look at the exact text of the Latin, the exact text, it kind of tells you something about the Church Fathers—a kind of a ad hoc theology, you might say, in the Church Fathers.

[50:54] So what does that mean, ad hoc? I mean. Okay, it means that this heretic at this time has denied this article. Okay. So that forces the Church Fathers to defend that article against that heretic. Right. And and so they develop an understanding of this article of the faith, right? Under those circumstances, huh? And then it talks about the Church councils, but yeah, something like that in the Church councils, where this council arises because of this heretic, you know, or these heretics, you see.

[51:27] Yeah. And so the the this Church Council is has in mind this or that error that is prevalent at the time, right? Okay. So Luther's and people like that, you know, are being refuted in a sense in the Council Trent, right? Sure. See, but Arius and other people may be in the earlier Church councils and so on, and and Nestorius in earlier Church councils and so on.

[51:53] Um, and then it says finally, in order to penetrate the mysteries of faith as much as possible, they should proceed under the guidance of Thomas. Penetrate the mysteries of faith as much as. Yeah, that's very strong, right? You see, and also it adds there and to see their connection. You see, because Thomas, you see, has got the benefit of these ad hoc considerations of this or that mystery.

[52:16] You see, and then he can you know put forward in an orderly way like in the Summas, right? Right. And to some extent, you know, Lombard is anticipating that, right? Because he's trying to bring these things together in an orderly way. To see sacred doctrine as a whole, right? Okay. So it's very strong that says that, right? Yeah. Um. That putting kind of Thomas kind of you know in a special place there, you see.

[52:46] That's why did I give you those pages when you were doing the role of contradiction? You remember? And I was showing the role of contradiction philosophy a bit in experimental science and physics and then theology. But the text I did with theology, I did three texts. The first one was on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, where our Lord leads the Pharisees into a contradiction. And then I gave the text of Augustine, where Augustine says.

[53:16] Heretics, you know, help us because they force us to consider this article, right? And and Thomas himself, you know, he talks about how Augustine, you know, in his you know the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians, how as he got into controversy and defended it, he spoke more and more what accurately and more carefully, right? You know, and even his own writings, you know, he gets more careful, you see, because he he sees the necessity of being very precise about these things.

[53:44] And then I give that text I just referred to, you know, because it touches upon Thomas, right? If anybody's read Thomas, you know, everything begins from a contradiction, right? You know, sed contra contra there, and this is kind of abbreviation of the question disputatae, right? We have even more arguments on both sides. So that's a very good text. I mean, there's all kinds of texts on the authority of Thomas, but that's a very good one.

[54:12] Okay. So