De Anima (On the Soul)
127. Imagination in God's service, 'one' and being, and Q.82 a.1: Does the will will anything by necessity?
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/127-imagination-in-gods-service-one-and-being-and-q-82-a-1-does/

[0:00] Let's go look at the third objection again here. Okay, the third objection a little different now, and that was simply saying, why is it that the senses don't obey reason, right? And the what? sense desire can to some extent, right? Yeah. And he says, well, the exterior senses need for their acts the exterior sensible, right? Right. By which they are changed, huh? Yeah. And the presence of such thing is not in the power of reason, right?

[0:30] I want to taste wine now. There was no wine, just water. You know. Okay. But the interior powers, both the appetitive ones as well as the apprehensive ones, no, he says, he's thinking of what things like the imagination, right? Do not need what exterior things, huh? Right. And therefore, they are what subject to the command of reason, huh? So if you have dirty thoughts in your imagination, you can maybe imagine something else, right?

[1:01] Okay. Which can not only what instigate or mitigate the affections of the sensing power, but also to form the images of the what imagining power, huh? Now, I think I mentioned this before, but it's relevant here again.

[1:23] In the first question of the Summa here, the first question of the Prima Pars, Thomas talks about the necessity of theology and the the subject of theology, and then the method of theology and so on. And you know, there's an article there where he asks about the what metaphor, right? And whether sacred scriptures should use metaphors, and we've talked about that thing before. He also raises that question in the sentences, huh?

[1:49] And he gives somewhat the same reasons in both places, but I think there are some reasons given in sentences that aren't given here, right? And it's one reason. One reason he gives for using the metaphors is that even the imagination of man should be subject to God, isn't it? And so the metaphors, right? A sacred scripture have a certain appeal to the imagination, huh? Accessible to the imagination, huh?

[2:21] So now the imagination is being brought into the service of what God, huh? Okay. Now that's a kind of universal principle Thomas will give, right? So if you went to church, let's say, and you genuflect, right, huh? Okay. Um. Even your knees, so to speak, or your legs, right, are being brought into the service of God, right? Ah, and it's kind of a separate reason from the fact that the exterior also kind of stimulates the interior, right?

[2:54] So my my genuflecting kind of stimulates my humility or something within me, right? Sure. Okay. Again, when you're when you're hearing beautiful church music or something like that, right? Huh? You see, your ear, in a way, is being brought into the service of what God, or looking at the the statue of Mary or something, or the icon or something of that sort, right? If it's important that that your your your knee be a brought into subjection to God, how much more so your imagination, which is a much higher faculty, right?

[3:28] Sure. But again, the fact that the imagination often leads us astray, both into errors and into sin, right, means that we have to kind of train that. you see. And to some extent, you know, good fiction does that in one way, right? You know, there's something very healthy about Shakespeare's. You know, How would you think about the fact that young, vibrant people grow old? How do you say that in poetry?

[3:57] You know, the young, these all these nice young, fresh people out there are going to all die. How would you say that? Shakespeare says, "Golden lads and girls almost, as chimney sweepers, come to dust." Oh man. It's beautiful, you know. Golden lads and girls almost, as chimney sweepers, come to dust. You know, get the gold and the the dust is you know very appealing to the imagination, huh?

[4:24] See. And the scripture, you know, the metaphors are not trying to you know please imagination so much as the poetic ones are, but they do have some appeal to them, right? And then they what can lift the mind up. You know the fire, for example, is a metaphor for what? Well, it's a metaphor for the divine nature, huh? And then it's a metaphor for what? The Trinity.

[4:56] And it's a metaphor for God giving us faith, hope, and charity. I've seen all those in the church fathers and Thomas and so on, huh? See. In words, fire, let's say, by its what? Simplicity, right? Represents the simplicity of God, right? By its light, the the divine mind. By its ability to transform things, the divine power, and so on, right? Okay. But sometimes they use fire as a metaphor for the what?

[5:28] The Trinity, huh? And they say, "From fire proceeds two things: light and warmth. " From the Father proceeds the Son, whose light, and the Holy Spirit, who's warmth. huh? See? Or sometimes they'll say, you know, that the fire or the sun, right, It's like fire, The sun enlightens the earth before it warms it. And so God enlightens. Us by faith before we can what be warm with the love of him, right?

[6:05] You see, so something appeals to imagination those things, but you are being what you use the imagination now to raise your mind to these things in some way, and so

[6:19] so it's important, you know, that the imagination be brought into the service of reason and even in the service of the faith, and and you can see the terrible thing when when the reverse takes place, right? You know, you know, I was a kid. You always heard, "Idle mind is the devil's workshop," but it's imagination and all this. Yeah, imagine bad things to do, right? You know, the way kids get into trouble all the time because their imagination was not preoccupied with Homer or Shakespeare or you know, or even you know, C.

[6:56] S. Lewis's things or even the good old fairy tales. you know, They had to have their imaginations absorbed with that than what they get from the pornographic literature now. you know? let's take a short break and then look at the eighty-three article one. Okay. I'm really interested in this question, but I know it comes in metaphysics. but it's possible that I have a preview of it. The question of one and and how we uh how we use the term for God.

[7:43] Is there anything you could give as a preview to that, at all? So we're going to need to wait and be patient? Well, see, one means. again, it seems to be the one that's the beginning of number, right? Okay, and the one that is convertible with being.

[8:06] And Chris Thomas will ask, "What's the difference in meaning between being and one? " One doesn't add any reality to being, but what it adds is a negation, undivided. undivided being. So when Thomas takes up God being one, he's he's got to go back to what is shown before that God is the maximum being, right? I am who I am, right? And then these all together, what simple, right?

[8:51] So in no way is he divisible, right? Yeah. So he's most one. If you look here, at the sum, Right, just look back here. For the one on the one there. Yeah, I was actually reading it, and I wasn't getting too quick. Especially. in... You know, see, he first asks whether He takes up some general questions about the one, right? Whether one adds something upon being, right?

[9:15] For example, you've got to go back to what it adds, what negation, what division is negating, right? And then later on, he says that God is one. He will say.

[9:33] Well I think that convertible sometimes What do we mean when we say one convertible with being? What do we mean by that? Well, convertible in logic means A and B are said to be convertible if every is a B and every B is A. Okay. Now, Aristotle first. You know, explains how being and one are convertible in the fourth book of the Metaphysics, fourth book of Wisdom.

[10:08] But you can see it, maybe in the most inductive way, that if you divide something, it ceases to be. Right. Oh. Okay. Yeah. And so things resist their division just as they resist, you know, being put out of existence. Yeah.

[10:37] See, even an army, right, as opposed to a crowd, right, there's got to be a certain order, unity, in other words, it doesn't exist. And if you, you know, if you smashed up one of these chairs, would you have a chair anymore? No. That's when the parts are joined, right? Yeah. If the man and woman are divorced, they have a marriage, you know, do you have to do that?

[11:06] If you divide the letters C, A, and T from each other, you don't have a word cat anymore. It's in the first question of the De Veritate, right? That Thomas, following Avicenna, distinguishes what they call often the transcendentals. Yeah. But these are the most universal things, right? Okay. And Thomas will explain there how the most universals, the things that are equally universal with being, they can't add something real to being, right?

[11:46] But they have to signify something, right? They're not signified explicitly by the word being. And so, one is one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good is another one, right? Okay. True is another one, and so on. But you go back to the study of the soul to explain how good and true, because you go back to what Aristotle points out in the third book about the soul, that the soul is in some way all things.

[12:17] Yeah. And so you need something, um, uh, like our mind, our reason, right, or our will that is open to all things, right? And then, relative to which, you can speak of true and good, right? Is in some way covering everything. Yeah.

[13:01] So, what does it mean to say that two things are what distinct, or they can't be the one and the same? Yeah, you see, two things are distinct in a way is to say that one is not the other, right? Yeah. So, a distinction there, which is tied up with unity in some way, right? Mm-hmm. Um, is involved in negation there, right? Okay. And and and sometimes you know Thomas will take it as mainly a negation of what in distinction within you, right, or division within you, right.

[13:37] Other times he'll take as also including distinction of other things. Hmm. Okay. But even the idea of being distinct from other things is involved in negation, isn't there? Sure. One thing is not another. Yeah. You know,

[14:05] just just amazing. Thomas has treated there on the substance of God in both the two Sumas, and you know there he divides that consideration substance of God into five parts. you see, which is an exception to the rule of two or three. Okay. She follows right. But I think he's correct in doing it to five, right? Uh-huh. And uh uh I I was looking just this morning again at the

[14:36] one of the dogmatic constitutions of Vatican I there, and there's a chapter there on God, right. So many things said about God, right, and some things that I said about God in that chapter are pertaining to the divine substance, right. Others to the divine operation, right, and to his, you know, being the creator and so on. But they're all kind of tumbled up, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, like you know, you find one of the you know first three words, the word eternal, and then later on you find he's unchangeable, right?

[15:12] Okay. But Thomas puts those two together, right? Okay. Because God's being eternal falls upon as being unchangeable. Oh. And being unchanging, right? Yeah. You know the way Thomas will order things. Yeah. sure. If you look at the second Vatican Council there on talking about education of priests, right? Yeah. And especially in dogmatic theology. So we've got you should be meet these things as they are said in Scripture first, right?

[15:38] And then you should look at what the you know church fathers of the East and West have contributed to the elucidation of individual mysteries, etc. Right. And and also the church councils, right, who are addressing very often in part of the specific era of the time, right? And then finally, you should use that work of speculation. He says, with Thomas as a teacher, right, in order to understand as much as possible, so this ultimate understanding of these things in theology, and but add into their connection, right?

[16:15] Yeah, as you see, kind of the way Thomas, treats the substance of God, he knows exactly how to divide it, and then the order is very interesting too. But

[16:28] it's one of those things; it's very hard to give the exact reason. Say everything you want to say about the substance of God is type one of these five or comes under one of these five. But see that I just go to the list. You know, there is nothing what it says in the council there of Vatican one that Thomas doesn't say, right? But but but it's all distinguished in a very reasonable way by Thomas and ordered, right?

[16:53] And if you stay at the Greek philosophers, though, you'll see that Thomas is right. How matches what he does? This. We're out already. Okay, so now we're going to look at the will here, the rational desiring power. Then we're going to consider about the will and about which five things are asked. First, whether the will desires something from necessity, huh?

[17:31] And then secondly, whether it desires all things from what necessity? I notice he's asking this about our will, right? But he has similar questions later on. Actually, earlier here, on philosophy, later on, about the divine will, which is something that God wills necessarily, Not necessarily, right? Mm-hmm. and there are some things he does will necessarily, but other things, like us, he wills not necessarily, huh? But freely, right?

[18:01] Pretty gratuitous, huh? Now the third, which is a more eminent power, whether it's a more eminent power than the what understanding, and that's often the controversial thing in theology, right? Okay.

[18:32] And then fourth, whether the will moves the what understanding, right? Do I think about something? I want to think about it. Okay, and fifth, whether the will should also be distinguished by the irascible and concupiscible? Well, it's not going to be. Maybe something like them, but it's only one power of the will, huh? Just the reason is not there's only one and not five like the five senses, huh?

[19:05] Okay, so let's look at the first one: whether the will wills something by necessity. And it seems that the first one proceeds thus: it seems that the will does not desire desires nothing from necessity. For Augustine says in the fifth book about the city of God that if something is necessary, it is not what voluntary, huh? But everything that the will wills is voluntary. Therefore, nothing that the will wills is necessarily desired, huh?

[19:43] Okay. Now, of course, you've got to realize that the most common mistake in thinking is what? Permutation. Yeah, so the father of logic says, right? And it's of course, the word. Necessary is a word that Aristotle talks about in the fifth book. He talks about equivocal words.

[20:06] Okay. Moreover, rational powers, according to the philosopher, have themselves two opposites. But the will is a rational power, because, as is said in the third book about the soul, the will is in reason. Therefore, the will has itself two opposites. So nothing, therefore, of necessity is it what determined. Now notice this is a teaching there in the ninth book of wisdom. Aristotle takes up powers, right? And he distinguishes between a natural power and a rational power, and how the natural power is determined to one or two opposites, like fire necessarily will burn my hand and not cool it if I put my hand in the fire.

[20:56] But the doctor who has a rational power of operating, right? He can cure me or make me sick, huh? Okay. I can cook the steak or I can burn the steak, right? I know how to do both by my art of cooking steak, right? Okay. Now some people misunderstand that distinction between reason and the will, huh? But

[21:23] that's a very good objection, huh? Secondly, or third, rather, because by the will we are lords of our acts, right? But of that which is for necessity, we are not lords, right? Therefore, the act, of the will, cannot be of necessity, huh? I notice how the modern existentialists, like Sartre, for example, for them the will wills nothing of necessity, huh? And so they would be in accord with these objections, huh?

[22:02] Now against all this is what Augustine says in the thirteenth book about the Trinity that all with one will desire what beatitude. Somebody really want to be miserable. I mean, sometimes you say that if I don't catch it out of it. But somebody really want to be miserable? Wretched?

[22:25] Doesn't everybody want to be happy? See, they may not know what happiness really consists in, but everybody wants to be happy, right? Okay. So now as a little boy, I thought my father was a very foolish man, because with his money he could have filled the refrigerator with soda pop, and he could have grape soda and orange soda and root beer all day long, and been a happy man.

[22:56] So, you know, at that age, I desired happiness. but that doesn't really consist in it, right? Okay. If our will was not necessary, he said, but contingent, it would what fail at least in some and a few, right? Therefore, the will from necessity or by necessity will something. Now, what does Thomas say in his reply? I answer, it ought to be said that necessity is said in many ways.

[23:25] He's been taught that by Aristotle. For the necessary is that which is not able not to be. So he sometimes defines the contingent as what is able to be and not be, right? But the impossible is what is what not able to be, and the necessary is what is not able not to be, not able to not be.

[23:58] But he says this can belong to something in one way from an intrinsic or inward principle or beginning, whether it be a material thing, right? As when we say, everything composed from contraries necessarily is what corrupted, right? Because it can take on a contrary form, right? Why does he say contraries here? Well, because all change is between contraries. Oh yeah. Let's go through natural philosophy. Let's go back to natural philosophy.

[24:32] That's what Heraclitus first pointed out. Or he says from a formal cause, As we say it's necessary for a triangle to have what three angles equal to right angles, huh? Or in straight lines intersect it's necessary if these angles are equal, right? Or two is necessarily half of four.

[24:55] And that's what he calls this kind of necessity, right? This is a natural necessity, right? And absolute, right? Now sometimes the necessity from the end is said to be what

[25:11] hypothetical or conditional, right? We say, for example, food is necessary. Well, you don't necessarily get food, do you? Or you say it's necessary to eat Well, if there's some place there's no food. You won't eat, right? So you don't necessarily eat, do you? No. No. But if you're going to live, then you must eat. If you're going to live, you must breathe, right? You see. So they call it conditional necessity, right?

[25:45] If this is to be achieved, then you must have this, right? Okay. Now sometimes something necessary is something to be a period. Sometimes it's necessary for something to be well, right? Remember how Thomas in the first question of Sumas, asked whether theology is necessary. How's the answer that?

[26:09] I mean, if man is directed towards an end, right, that surpasses the grasp of his reason and so on, right? And and and man's going to have to direct himself to this end. Then he must have. some knowledge to let him see Does that mean though that everybody must have faith? They can't be anybody doesn't believe. No. There can't be a two that isn't half a four.

[26:32] Okay. That's a different kind of necessity, isn't it? That's that's because of what two is, right? Okay. That's because God has called us to an end higher than. our natural, end, right? Then we need this other thing, right? Okay. So it's necessary to love God. What would you say? Well, not in the sense in which it's necessary that two be half a four, because not everybody loves God.

[26:59] The devil doesn't love God, for example, right? But you'd say, if you're going to, you know, be joined to God, then you must what? Love God, right? That's. If this end is going to be achieved, then. This must precede, right?

[27:21] So, natural necessity is it? Now, necessity is from the form or from the matter, right? And he calls it also absolute, right? Okay. So yeah. Now he's going to look at necessity that comes from something the extrinsic causes, right? Okay. Yeah. In another way, it belongs to something, which is not able not to be. Excuse me. Another way, this general notion of necessity, belongs to something that is not able not to be from something extrinsic, right?

[27:53] And that can be either the end or the agent, right? And notice how the four kinds of cause—matter, form, mover, and end—enter into this discussion of necessity. If you go to the the fifth book of Wisdom of Aristotle, the fifth book of Metaphysics, the word necessary is taken up right after the words for cause. See.

[28:15] And Aristotle saw that connection, right? So that's the first part of the first group of words: are beginning, cause, element, nature, necessary. Then he

[28:29] goes to the names of the subject of wisdom, one and being, right? Okay. So beautifully set up. You can see here the connection between cause, discussion of cause, and of what necessity, right? Now he says, by the end we speak of necessity when something is not able to be achieved, right, without this, right? Or, second way, when one cannot achieve it, what? Well, without this. As food is said to be necessary to life, right?

[29:04] Well, that's the first sense, right? Okay. You can't live without food. And a horse is necessary for a journey. To journey well. To journey well, right? Okay. So, you know, if I say, is logic necessary? To journey well. Yeah, yeah. If you want to do philosophy well, you got to know some logic, right? Yep. Okay.

[29:29] I told you the story there of Epictetus, huh? The Roman philosopher. He said your route logic is necessary," and he had a kind of a student who wasn't too happy to go on this idea. And he said to the student, "Do you want me to prove to you that logic is necessary?" And the student said, "Yeah, yeah." It's tough, you know. He says, "And how will you know whether my proof is any good?"Okay, so that's the necessity of the end.

[30:03] They sometimes divide into those two, right? So, in the spiritual life too, right? Some things are necessity, right? Like the Ten Commandments, right? You know, other things for advenientia right? You know, St. Paul starts always taking the young man's conversation, right? The man says, "What is necessary in order to be saved?" And Christ starts doing the right the commandments, right? He says, "Why, I've done all that."

[30:42] He says, "If you wish to be perfect, right, then sell everything you have and give to the poor and come follow me, and so on." So he starts to talk about what we call the the counsels, right? The vows, right? But that's what advenientia right? Okay, you see the idea. See that distinction is very important. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good.

[31:14] Now, with the necessity from the agent, when someone is says we're forced, coerced by some agent, right? Yeah. Thus, that he cannot do the contrary, and this is called the necessity of force, huh coactionis huh.

[31:33] Now he says this kind of necessity of coaction is altogether repugnant to the will. It is a kind of a violence, right? For we call that violent which is against inclination of a thing, right? Would it be the inclination, the natural inclination of a thing, or the voluntary inclination? But the very motion of the will is an inclination towards something, huh? And therefore, just as something is said natural because it is according to the inclination of nature, so something is called voluntary because it's according to the very inclination of the will.

[32:14] Thus, therefore, just therefore, as it's impossible that something be at the same time violent, right, and natural, right. And the example that that you always have in ancient physics, right? If you let go of a stone, it naturally falls to the ground, right? Yeah. But if you throw it up in the sky, that's what a violent motion, right? Yeah. It's not a natural motion, right? Sure. You see.

[32:38] And so can the same thing be natural and violent? No. Well, likewise, the same thing cannot be violent and what voluntary, because voluntary means according to the inclination of the will.

[32:51] Okay. Thus, therefore, just as it's impossible. Impossible that something be at the same time violent and natural. So it's impossible that something simply be what forced or violent and voluntary, right? Okay. But now, does the other kind of necessity repugnant to the will? See, he says the necessity of the end is not repugnant to the will when to the end one cannot arrive except in one way, right?

[33:19] Okay. Just as from the will of going across the sea, it becomes necessary the will to will what a ship, a boat. But likewise, neither is natural necessity repugnant to the will. Okay, that's the kind of thing that what is the very nature of the will? You might say to incline to what happiness, right? Okay.

[33:49] Once is necessary that again makes a comparison. Just as the understanding of necessity in adheres to the first what beginnings, right? Something cannot both be and not be, right? The whole is is more than a part, right? So the will of necessity adheres to the last end, which is what beatitude, happiness. For the end, this is the famous proportion of Aristotle. The end is in things to be done, as the principle is in what speculative matters.

[34:28] See, so just as Euclid proceeds from understanding that a whole is more than a part to some other theorem, right, or even to the postulates, right, right. So the will for willing the end proceeds to will the what means to that end. So there is real proportion there.

[34:51] For it's necessary, and this is the general reason behind all this, both in the reason and the will, that what naturally belongs to something, and in unchangeable way, therefore be the foundation and the origin of everything else. Because the nature of a thing is first in each thing. In fact, first is in the definition of nature, if you will. And every motion proceeds from something. What? Yeah, yeah.

[35:20] Aristotle, you know, he gets into the biology books. You know, his example of the of the mouse trying to walk in a pile of grain, and apparently they've seen that, you know, because you you've got to rest upon something, what? Right. Yeah. Just that, like Archimedes' famous boat, you know, give me a place to stand, and I'll move the earth, right? You can apply the principle of the lever, and so he's got a place to stand, right?

[35:44] A place to rest before he can do this, huh? Yeah. You see, to get in the fulcrum, there, you know, at rest, huh? So,

[35:55] Thomas will often point out, huh? How we acquire what is not natural through what is natural, and the most obvious example of it is that all these tools that we use, right? We acquired the use of our hands, huh? And probably the first man only found a rock that was somewhat suitable for trying to do it. Maybe chiseled away, take out into a better shape. But you're acquiring that artificial tool through your hands.

[36:21] It's ultimately right. So you acquire what is not natural through what is natural. And Aristotle points out in the book on the poetic art that man is the most imitative of the animals, and that men are naturally delighted imitations, and that first we learn by imitation. So it's natural to imitate, huh? How is it natural to speak English? No, or French or some other language. But how do you acquire what is not natural to speak English?

[36:54] And so you speak French without that. Ah, how do you do it? By imitating your mother and father and others speaking around you, right? You know, you get these tapes to learn a foreign language, and you can imitate, repeat after the guy or whatever it is, right? Um, so you acquire what is not natural to speak English, what is natural to imitate. And so the same way here for the will and the reason, huh?

[37:23] What the reason naturally understands or naturally comes to understand, right? Like, what is not really aware of coming to understand or know that a whole is more than a part? You know, when did you learn that? You know, your mother and father said it to me now. No, just but you you sensed and remembered and experienced wholes and parts, and you started to understand what a whole and a part is, and that was kind of obvious to you that a whole was more than a part, huh?

[37:50] Natural understanding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's the beginning of understanding everything else, huh? You know, see, you know, I always take the example there in geometry of the postulates, which you can kind of state without. But you see, when a straight line meets a straight line, it makes equal angles. We call it right angles. That's the definition of right angle. Yeah. Now here's a postulate that all right angles are equal, right?

[38:19] And it's more or less obvious, but some might say, some of us understand the obviousness of it because you might say, yeah, you define right angle by equals, right? But you're saying this has made these two equal. This line has made these two angles equal, but how do you know these two are equal to those two? Well, all you have to do is imagine this laid upon that, right?

[38:46] Okay. Now, suppose you lay it upon there. Now, if this will give you some measure. If this line coincides with that, then it's obviously they're equal, right? Okay. But if it doesn't, you go off one side, this side. Okay. Now,

[39:10] I can come up with something absurd, right? You can say, well, since C made the two angles equal, right? Then angle CA here, right, is equal to angle CB, right? Okay. But since angle DB is only a part of CB, right? Then CB must be greater than DB because the whole is larger than the part. Yeah, you're kind of resting on the axiom, aren't you? Yeah. Okay.

[39:49] But now, if CB is greater than DB, then for the same reason, AC, which is equal to CB. Must be greater than db, right? Mhm So if ac is greater than db, then a fortiori ad, is going to be greater, because you're even more so, right? So AD will be much bigger than B, right? But it's also equal to it, right? It's in a contradiction, right? So you're resting upon the way the impossibility of something both being and not being and the whole being larger than a part, when you see this axiom, right?

[40:30] Some way, the axiom rests upon that, and sometimes you decide no odd number is even. Now you're obviously resting upon something that both be and not be, because in this case they both be divisible into two and not divisible to two and equal parts, where they both have a middle and not have a middle. So from those things you naturally understand that the whole is more than a part, so they cannot both be equal and not be equal, right?

[40:56] Okay. You understand anything else, right? And you reason from those things, right? Okay. Yeah. You know, and even that in that sixth theorem in Euclid there, were showing

[41:16] that in a triangle, if these angles are equal, the sides will be equal, is how the theorem goes. And he says, well, if the sides are not equal, well then will be longer, right? And then it makes no difference which one you say is longer. But from the longer one, cut off a line equal to the short, right? And then he draws a line there to the vertex.

[41:39] And now he has two triangles, which have an equal angle, right? Yeah. Contained by equal sides, therefore these two are equal. But obviously one's a part of the other, right? Yeah. So again, you're resting upon the axiom, aren't you? Yeah. So it's through those things that you naturally understand that you come to understand the things you don't naturally understand. And likewise, in you know, by analogy, it's through what you naturally will, right?

[42:09] That you come to will what you don't naturally will. You can also see that through the idea of the what motion, right? Depending upon something unmoved, right? So those things that we're moved sometimes to both sides, all right? And our mind kind of fluctuates between whether it is so or isn't so. We have to be determined by something that isn't both ways, right?

[42:44] I'm sure you're right, but I need to think about it. Yeah, yeah. See, even my mind is even the simple theory, right? See, before I see the proof, I might say, well, either they are or they're not equal. I don't see one or the other. I kind of fluctuate between the two, right? Yeah. But then eventually I determine it's this one because of something else that I know even better.

[43:02] See, so I have to be determined to something else. But the moderns don't see that. See, so you read John Stuart Mill, for example, the essay on Human Liberty. He talks in one of the sections on the liberty of thought. Well, for him, the liberty of thought is based in the fact that the mind never knows anything. Hmm. You see, anybody inclined to one side of a contradiction than another, right?

[43:30] Maybe something will show up in the future that would make it think the other one is so right. Oh. So, I mean, that happens with things you are not sure about, right? There is always revisionist history. You know, you never know the facts of history entirely, right? And and often something shows up. Yeah. And so,

[43:50] there is nothing immobile in the mind, according to him, right? And and likewise, for Sartre, there is nothing immobile in the will, right? You see, nothing that you naturally will,

[44:06] but the kind of forgetting that the immobile can't be without the immobile. You can't even speak of change without something not changing. Right. I can't fix it, you know, that baseball that got knocked out of the ballpark the other night, right? You know, it's changed its place, yeah. But if the ball didn't remain, you couldn't speak of a change of place, could you? See, in a sense, what you mean by change is that a thing is is different now than was before.

[44:35] Well, it's got to remain in some way to be different now than it was before. I run into you after a few years and say, "My, you've changed. You know, you are gray now or something. You know, but unless you have remained in some way, I couldn't say

[44:48] you are different. " Yeah. You see, so if your idea of change requires something unchanging, yeah, From the underlying it, huh? Okay. Now he goes back to the first objection, right? To the first, it should be said that the word of Augustine should be understood about the necessary by necessity of what force, huh? The one from the efficient cause, there, right?

[45:15] For natural necessity does not take away the liberty of the will, as he himself says in the same book. Okay, if you go back to that part of Book Five, this is my footnote. So Augustine was not deceived by this, right? But others are, right? Okay. You

[45:38] see, someone hears about us having free will, right? And they can think, "Well, free is opposed to necessary, isn't it? " And therefore, right? I think I spoke before of of how the distinction between the will and nature, or the distinction between the reason and nature, is like the distinction between two and three, or one and two.

[46:04] In three, there is. Two, the three is not just a two. So in reason, will there is nature. There's something natural, but it's not just a nature.

[46:21] It's a very subtle distinction. See, the same way you could say man. You know, I was quoting my my my mother there. You know, like me saying, "Man's an animal, right? " And I said, "Well, mother, he's not just an animal. " Well, that's better, she says. See, because if I just say man's an animal, I might be thinking he's just an animal, right? And so when Shakespeare, you know, says, "What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep a beast no more?

[46:56] " That no more is kind of going back to that likeness of of nature's of things to numbers, right? And so I say to the students, it's like if Shakespeare's arguing like this, he'd say, "What is the three if it be half a four? A two no more, right? " But in a way, there is a two in three. But that third one makes it to be three.

[47:21] Something like that here, right? With nature and reason and will. Nature is determined to one, so there's something of nature in the will, and the reason when they naturally understand something or naturally will something. When we regard to things down the road, right? Reason is able to what? Reason to both sides. And the will is able to what? Will more than one means, huh? Okay.

[47:54] So I am I want to be wise, but I mean the many things I can read to be wise, right? I was explaining to the student that I had there in the office the differences I'll say between the two things, right? And so the two divisions, right? The editorial reference. I took the example of Matthew, so find today. So I mean, I'll just download the. You know, I have the division of Matthew there in my thing.

[48:24] You know, I won't put the whole thing in all the subdivision, but I'll get it all on one page. You know, so I find it on one page, you know, without without subdividing the certain amount, right? But just give an example of how it proceeds, you know. Yeah. And you want to copy it for the mayor, man? Yeah, we have. Yeah, here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to have a copy.

[48:45] Yeah. Copying off the vendor. You know, I said the second page you have to subdivide the certain amount, but I'll try and put it on one page so you kind of see. We could copy the whole thing if you want. For if you want a copy, we could make the full. Yeah, no, I have no problem. I just need a machine at school and prints it out, and then I just.

[49:07] Want to put the whole thing in there? So I'm gonna save it for him tomorrow. My machine put page one there, other than two pages. Okay, thank you. Follow it easy enough, you know, down to the. And finding down to the, the chapters, you know, Thomas's commentary would subdivide all the way down to the the chapters. I mean, if I want to be wise, I read the Gospel Saint Matthew tonight.

[49:37] You see, well, for some reason that's a clear example, you know. Somebody's, you know, a little bit in the division of Saint John, you know. But that that illustrates it too, but this very well. so, Yeah I I briefly said, "now I'm I'm. thinking I'll pick up Saint Matthew now tonight, and start reading him you know, with the division in mind, you know, Uh huh because you tend to forget these things.

[49:57] You got to look at for."a while you see, even I do, and and so you can see there. There is kind of a freedom I have there, right? Yeah. I've been reading that you know, papal thing on the Eucharist there, but that's because I subscribe to the Pope Speaks, and, three or four months after the thing comes out, the issue arrives, and I read it, you know.

[50:18] So you can see something contingent there about my will. even though I tend to read good things. I'm reading the plays of Sophocles now, right? It's a Greek edition. if you wonder about some of the words, you know but the translation is just you know, the characters are warped past care, you know. I wonder why that was in the Greek, you know, but it's kind of interesting.

[50:41] One thing is warped; it's really kind of ruined, you know. Here's a human being who's warped now, you know. his fortunes are The way there was at the one place at the beginning our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. That's kind of the chorusing at the end. It's beautiful things. Sure. yeah I cannot love a friend whose love is words. I wonder how it said it in the Greek, you know, but it comes out pretty good even in the translation.

[51:13] I mean, if Sophocles is that good in translation, what would it be if you were at home with him in Greek, you know? Who was translating it? Do you remember? It's the one the big four-volume thing that came out. University of Chicago, you know. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Different translators, but. Excuse me, Dr Berquist Yeah Sorry I'm just kind of slow on this one. Okay, so I'm looking at this is Gospel of Matthew, the outline according to.

[51:40] Let's look. Let's look at it just when I finish. Sorry. Okay, sorry. Yeah, just finished what we're doing here. All right. Especially if we're being taped here, Don't be too disoriented. Okay. So Augustine himself, he says, if you look at the whole text, he distinguishes the two senses: of necessity, here, right? Huh. Natural necessity, right, and the necessity of what force, right? So one kind of necessity is opposed to the will, right?

[52:09] Yeah. Because notice, it's opposed to the inclination of the will itself. You're being forced from the outside, right? Sure. What this natural necessity is that its reason is naturally, I mean, excuse me, the will is naturally inclined in this way, right? That's not contrary to the inclination of the will, is it? No, no, no.

[52:33] Okay, now the second objection goes back to the text of Aristotle there in the ninth book of Wisdom, right? Where Aristotle makes a distinction between the rational powers and the what? Natural powers, right? And he says to the second, it should be said that the will, according as it naturally wills something. More corresponds to the understanding of natural principles or natural beginnings, what I call natural understanding, right?

[53:04] Then to reason, which has itself to what opposites, huh? Whence, according to this, it is more intellectual power than a rational power. That's another way of solving it, right? But no, it's intellectual saying. You are talking about reason naturally understands, right? So, in other passages, Thomas will say, you know, reason as a nature, right? You make distinction between what

[53:37] reason as a nature. One way to speak of it, and reason as what reason, huh? Okay. A little bit like I said, you know, the number three. Let's think about the two and three, right? Okay, and then you are thinking about three as three. No, you are thinking about three as two, or three insofar as it includes two, right? Sure. Okay. And when you say that three is is half of six, and two is not half of six, or the two is half of four and three is not half of four, then you are thinking of three as three, not thinking of two and three because the two and three is half of four, but it's not, you know, no, okay.

[54:28] When you add anything, so the same way here, if you consider a reason as naturally understanding some things, right? Then you are considering reason as a kind of nature. Considering reason now as not actually knowing something, but having to investigate them, right? And maybe having reasons to think, you know, maybe it is so, maybe it isn't so, right? Then you are talking about reason as reason, right?

[55:01] Okay. But here he speaks in a little different way. He says reason as reason and reason as an understanding, right? Okay. But he often uses understanding there for what I call natural understanding, okay? Yep.

[55:18] Because natural understanding is about those things you understand without having to reason them out, okay? I often call you know episteme following the Greek etymology there reasoned out understanding. Many times you have afterwards, right? Okay. But Thomas won't use that; he uses you know scientia for reasoned out understanding and intellectus just for the natural understanding, huh? Okay. Okay, so it's the same distinction, a little different way it's expressed.

[55:51] I can show you, other texts where Thomas would say, you know, that that it's more a nature than a than a reason, right? Okay.

[56:02] The third objection now is saying that, we're lords of our acts. Yeah. To the third, it should be said that we are lords of our acts, according as we are able to what choose this or that. As Aristotle teaches in the third book in the Ethics where he takes up the beginning of book three, choice, right? Because in the second book you see, he's defined a moral virtue as a habit with choice, existing in the middle towards us as determined by right reason, or it's a habit of choosing, right?

[56:40] What is in the middle towards us, as determined by right reason, huh? So he's put choice in the very definition of moral virtue. So he has to take up now what choice is, huh? He does that in the beginning of book three, and he takes up in book six what right reason is, what foresight or prudence, is, practical wisdom, is, huh? Okay. As Aristotle points out, there choice is not about the end, but about those things which are towards the end, huh?

[57:15] Whence the desire of the last end is not of those things of which we are the lords to do this or not, huh? Okay. Because when you study God's will, when God necessarily wills himself, God necessarily loves himself, huh? He doesn't necessarily love us, huh? He freely loves us, huh? And his love is in no way caused by any goodness in us, but any goodness in us is in some way caused by his will, huh?

[57:45] So it's kind of interesting, huh? That way, huh? Now you know you realize how gratuitous this is. You know Thomas quotes the Avicenna, the great Arab philosopher, who says God alone is liberal, you know, because the liberal man gives without expecting any return, right? And and this is only God really gets nothing out of his giving, right? And we get everything. See, nothing is added to God by his giving us something.

[58:11] Of course, you realize that your parents, if your mother could have married somebody else, and your father, or your father could have married somebody else, and then neither you or your brothers or sisters, if you have them, right, none of you would have been, right? And was there some reason why, why those who would be generated by your father and mother meeting should be they had a right to be more than those that if your father met somebody else?

[58:43] I don't think so. And even you know the biologists say you know that in the male emission, right? They they tell me there's what millions of sperm, right? Okay. So even one act there. You know, there's some reason why you have a right to be more than those other millions. You know, but see, but God's providence extends all the way down to your getting your parents meeting, and you're generating.

[59:08] You know, I know my mother told me the day she met my father, and how she almost didn't go to the place where she happened to meet him. You know, but but but but God's providence, you see, God's providence, you know, extends all the way down to these chance events. You see, you see, you realize that there's many others that could have been instead of you. You know, you realize that that wasn't because of some excellence of me that I was generated with somebody else, right?

[59:40] It was altogether free and liberal that he decided that I would be. You know, and that's amazing that you know. I think it's pretty humbling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, you realize that you had nothing to God's goodness. So, Thomas says that our goodness is to God like a point is to a line. If you had a point to a line, the line is no longer than it was to begin with.

[1:00:10] So we have nothing to God's goodness. Or he says, our goodness is to God like a part is to a whole, right? But just as Duane Berquist and the arm of Duane Berquist is no more than Duane Berquist so God in us is no more than God alone. And that's kind of you realize how kind of superfluous you are, and and how gratuitous is is your existence, huh?

[1:00:40] You have to be there are all kinds of reasons to be thankful, but you know, going down to it, it's so reasonable to be thankful, and so unreasonable not to be. You know that Dionysius says, you know, for man to be good is to be reasonable, right? You realize how unreasonable it is not to be thankful to, you know, your God, maybe your parents too, obviously, and your teachers, you know, and everybody's had a good influence on you, especially to God, whose providence is responsible for all these things that are up to you.

[1:01:16] So you had a question there about the okay. It's