De Anima (On the Soul)
129. Summa I, Q. 82, Art. 3: Is the Will Higher Than the Understanding? Simply vs. In Some Respect, Sight vs. Hearing, and Loving God
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/4-de-anima/129-summa-i-q-82-art-3-is-the-will-higher-than-the-understanding/

[0:00] A little break before we go into the second article. Yeah. Okay. Good. Whether the will is a higher power than the understanding? First objection: Thomas is going to say the reverse. The good and the end is the object of the will, but the end is the first and the highest of all the causes. It's called the causa causa, causarum, the cause of causes. Therefore, the will is the first and the highest of the powers.

[0:38] Okay. Moreover, natural things are found to proceed from the imperfect to the perfect, and this also appears in the powers of the soul, for it proceeds from the sense to the understanding, which is more noble than the senses. But the natural process is from the act of the understanding to the act of the will. Therefore, the will is more perfect and more noble power than the what?

[1:08] Understanding. Moreover, and this is probably the strongest one, you know, because it always occurs to Christian. Habits are proportioned to the powers, right? As perfections to the perfectible. But the habit by which the will is perfected, to wit, charity, is more noble than the habits by which the understanding is perfected. So charity is the greatest of the three theological virtues. Of course, the objection. And quotes, of course, the famous text from the Corinthians: "If I know all mysteries, and if I have all faith, but I have not charity, I am what?

[1:50] Nothing." So Thomas, or I mean St. Paul says, you know, these three remain: faith, hope, charity. But the greatest of these is charity. When I was in graduate school, you know, I said, which is which is second?

[2:09] Charity is the greatest of the three. Everybody knows that text. Shouldn't know it anyway. But which is greater, faith or hope? Hope. Yeah. And Thomas seems to say that the question is disputata in despair. But he gives a striking explanation. You see, of the three theological virtues, he sometimes says, by faith we, in a sense, know our end. Our end is. By hope, we tend towards that end, right?

[2:36] And by charity, we are joined to the end. Yeah. So obviously, charity is the is the best of the three, right? Yeah. But hope, in a sense, is what you're tending towards the end. Yeah. So that's better than just kind of being aware of the end. Okay. But hope, like charity, of course, is in the will, right? But here, just we see from charity, even more manifest. But against this is what the philosopher says now, huh?

[3:11] Pagan philosopher, he's quoting here, right? In the tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics, that the highest power of the soul is the understanding. Okay. So, what do you think?

[3:26] Disputed question, isn't it? Yeah. Was it one one guy from the Dominicans told me that? Dominican teacher used to say, you know, seldom affirm. No, no, no. Excuse me. He said, never affirm. Yeah. Seldom deny. Always distinguish. Once more. He said, never affirm. Never affirm. Seldom deny. Always distinguish. It's on truth of this. Kind of interesting with this Dominican said, huh? You know where that comes from?

[4:10] That's funny because there was a priest who was here at our community for a few months, and he used to say, "Don't say yes. Don't say no. Say distinguo. Yeah. And that's the first time I ever heard that since that time. Yeah. Yeah. Have you had a Dominican background? Or his classic background.

[4:34] Now Thomas begins with a distinction here, right? I answer it should be said that the eminence of something towards another can be noted in two ways, right? In one way, what? Simply, right. Another way, what? Secundum quid, right? Okay. Now, we've talked about that kind of distinction before. Can we or not? The secundum quid. Distinction between some some and secundum quid, right? I think it's been a while, but yeah, like a year.

[5:09] But I think we remember something about that. You know, between simply and what? In a way, yeah. And not simply, but in some way, right? But using kind of a qualified way, right? Yeah. Could you, Doctor, just give an example or two? Yeah, talk about Lewis. Yeah. Remind me. And it's very important when you get into logic into the the Aristotle's book about sophistical refutations, right? Yeah.

[5:33] Where he talks about thirteen kinds of mistakes, right? But the first two mistakes outside of language are the mistake from mixing up the accidental with the as such. And we're just talking about the importance of that distinction when you talk about the good, right? Because the good, as such, right, is desired, huh? The bad, as such, is not desired, right? But the bad can be what desired in some accidental way or by happening, huh?

[6:11] So if I desire to drink a delicious poison, you could say I'm desiring to drink something bad to drink, right? Yeah. But I'm not desiring it as bad as poisonous, right? Right. I'm desiring it because it tastes good, smells good, right? And it happens to what tastes good to be poisonous. It doesn't belong to tasting good as such to be poisonous. Otherwise, you have a hell of a time eating and drinking anything, right?

[6:41] Ah, you see the idea? See? Yes. Yes. So we say some might say, you know, how can you define the good as we define the good? And Aristotle does, and Plato does, and Thomas does, and Dionysius does, right? The good is what all want, huh? See? And that would not be a definition of good. The first definition of good, anyway. If the bad was also desired, because a definition has to be what convertible with the thing it defines, huh?

[7:14] So if sometimes the bad was desired, then the definition wouldn't fit just the good, would it? So I don't understand the convertible with the thing it defines. Well, in logic, we say A and B are convertible, right? If every A is a B, and every B is A, I'm sure. Okay. Let's put that on the board there for a second. Thank you.

[7:40] We say A and B are convertible if every A is B and every B is A. Okay. Now, if you have a property in the strict sense, right?

[8:10] Or a definition, huh? They should be convertible with the thing defined, or that which is a property. So every two is half of four, and everything half of four is what two. Now, if you have a definition, every square is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, and vice versa, every equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral is a square.

[8:46] That's why when Socrates. Is asking somebody what something is, right? Like if Socrates asks what is a dog, and Berkeley says, "Well, dogs are four-footed animals," Socrates would stop and say, "Well, it is true that every dog is a four-footed animal, but now is it true that every four-footed animal is a dog?" No. So since you can't turn it around, that speech "four-footed animal" is not yet a definition of dog.

[9:18] You have to add something more, right? You see that? Or if I said a square is a four-sided figure, Socrates would say, "Well, it's true that every square is a four-sided figure, but is the reverse true? Is every four-sided figure a square?" No. So the definition should fit only the thing being defined. Okay. In other words, okay, yeah. See. And that's kind of even the etymology of the word "definition," which comes from "limit," right?

[9:49] So I say the limits, the city limits of Worcester, should contain the whole of Worcester, but no city outside or no town outside of Worcester, right? Okay. And you're really having given the city limits of Worcester, if part of Worcester is outside those limits. Sure. Or some other town is within those limits, huh? The same way, if I defined, let's say, the square as a what green?

[10:22] If you're not writing a quadrilateral, then I'd leave some squares out of the definitional name. Mm-hmm. See. But if I define the square as a right-angle quadrilateral, I'd include the oblongs as well as squares. See. So it's got to fit. It's got to be a tight fit, as we say, huh? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[10:54] How to get into that discussion anyway? Well, I deflected you at the point of simpliciter versus secundum quid, which we ran into. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I was talking about how

[11:10] Aristotle divides the fallacies in the book on Sophistical Refutations into the fallacies that come from speech, huh, from language, like the fallacy of equivocation, right?

[11:24] Or mixing up the different senses of a word or something that sort, right? Then the fallacies outside the language, huh? And the first two ones he talks about, right, correspond to two very common and important kinds of distinction. And the first one is sometimes called the fallacy of the accident, right? It's a mistake there from mixing up the as such with what is by happening. Okay. Good.

[11:52] Like if I was to say, you know, who builds a house? And I say, well, sometimes it's a pianist. You know, sometimes it's a beer drinker. Sometimes it's a, you know. But I'm speaking accidentally, aren't I? Right. Okay. It's not the pianist as pianist who builds a house. It's not the beer drinker as beer drinker building a house, right? It's the house builder as such, right? Yeah.

[12:21] Okay. So to be a pianist or to be a beer drinker is something that happens, right? It's not. Doesn't belong to the house builder as such, right? Okay. Ah. Now, as I mentioned here, because we had seen in the previous article that when we talked about the will as being always the good, right? And how we define the good at first as uh. What all desire, right? What all want?

[12:53] And someone might say, "But don't some people want bad things, right?" Say, they might say, "Well, then, what everybody wants is not always good. Therefore, this is not convertible, right? Okay. But as I mentioned before, Plato and Aristotle, the chief philosophers, Thomas and Albert the Great, the great philosophers, or even Dionysius, right, the great theologians, and Augustine, and, so on, they will see that the good is defined at first by desire, right?

[13:25] Well, how can you see that definition, right, in the light of the fact that people sometimes want something bad, even bad for them, right? Well, it's because you're defining, as you do a definition, what belongs to something as such, right? Okay. And you don't desire something as bad, right? But as good in some way, okay.

[13:55] So just like if someone said, you know, well, I've known some squares that are green. I've known some circles that are green. So why don't you, you know, put green in the definition of square? Well, you say, well, that could happen that a square is green, but it doesn't belong to square as such to be green. So it's accidental that, right? A Heidegger says, "Philosophy speaks Greek," you know.

[14:19] Well, it might be that the greatest philosophers were Greek-speaking, right? And the chief philosophers are Greek, like Plato and Aristotle. But does that belong to philosophy as such? Does a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, as such, speak Greek? No. It belongs to lover of wisdom as such to to love wisdom, right? The philosopher, but not to be Greek, and that's. So this might be an important accident, but right?

[14:51] Okay. Okay. Now the second fallacy outside of speech is a fallacy of simply and not simply, simply in some respect. And now you take a very simple example in class. But Aristotle is even simple example in some ways. He says, "Are you a white man or a black man?"

[15:28] And you say, "You're a white man, right?" Now I look into your eye. What color do I see? Black and brown. There, right? So the white man is black in his eye, right? See. Now, vice versa, we had a black man here. He's white in his eyes, and he got a part of his eyes, huh? But you call a man. A white man or a black man, simply without qualification, by reason of the color of his what, skin, which kind of his most of the outer part of his body, right?

[16:01] Okay. And you wouldn't call him red if his skin wasn't red, right? You see, he's red in his tongue, or brown in my eyes, or maybe black in the center of my eyes, or something like that. Do you see?

[16:17] I always take the example. You know, I ask a a girl in class, and I say, "Do you know my brother Mark?" And she'll say, "No." I said, "Now hear what she said. She doesn't know my brother Mark. Yeah." I said, "You know what a man is? You know what a brother is? Yeah." So my brother Mark is. So you do know my brother Mark. Now has she really been refuted or contradicted herself?

[16:42] No. No. Because she's saying really, simply, she doesn't know my brother Mark. Right. But in some very qualified and perfect way, in knowing what a man is or knowing what a brother is, she in some way knows my brother Mark and every other man that's a brother in the world. Do you see? Okay. I take another simple example of that. Suppose we got a knock on the door over there, right?

[17:15] I said, "Do you know who's knocking at the door?" And you'd say, "No," right? We open the door, and maybe it's your mother, or maybe it's the abbot or somebody, right? I say, "You don't even know your own mother, huh?" You said you didn't know who's knocking at the door. Is your mother knocking at the door? See. Well, are you proving now you don't know your mother?

[17:39] Not simply. Yeah. But in some way, your mother's unknown to you, right? Right. You say some way. You say your mother, as the person knocking at the door, is not known to you, right? Okay. The abbot or somebody that's knocking on the door is not known to you, right? You see the way it goes. So, so is that this? No, I say. Why do people rob the bank?

[18:06] Say. Is it bad to rob the bank, right? It must be good in some way. You see. I say, is it good or bad to to murder somebody who annoys you?

[18:21] Usually, students will answer, "No, it's not. It's bad to." No. Somebody removes annoyance from your life, right? So I said, you are making this mistake all day long because you are often doing something bad because in some limited way it's good. Or you are not doing what is good because, in some way, it's bad, right? As I mentioned before, there is nothing so good that doing it doesn't prevent you from doing something else, right?

[18:52] Yeah. Which might even be good, something else. So it prevents you from doing something good. Therefore, it's in some way bad. This is a very common what mistake, right? And you find this in the Meno of Plato there, right? And people say, you know, can you know what you don't know?

[19:21] And you apply it to a question, right? Student asks a question. Did you know he doesn't know? A certain way. See, see, if he doesn't know what he's asking for, then how can I help him, right? Yeah.

[19:37] See, we pay guys to look for the cause of cancer or something else, right? Do they know what they're looking for? A certain way. If they didn't know in some way, what would we pay them, right? Yeah. But if they knew, simply, right, the cause, then you wouldn't have to do any research, investigation, right? Right. See the distinction a little bit, huh? Sure, I think so. Yeah, yeah.

[20:04] Now Thomas is going to what apply that here, right? Sure. Okay, but let's take one a little closer to this, son. In the, you might remember at the beginning of the De Anima, Aristotle said that one knowledge is better than another because it is about a better thing, right? I am. Or because it's more certain, right? Okay. But now suppose one knowledge, suppose A is about a better thing than B, but B knows its object, right?

[20:44] Better. Say, which is better knowledge? Is it better to know well a lesser thing, or to know less a better thing? The latter, right? The the latter. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle doesn't in the De Anima there solve or see which is a more important thing, right? But he does in the beginning of Parts of Animals, son. Okay. He has a beautiful little sign of the truth of it, huh?

[21:19] He says, you know, even imperfect knowledge of a better thing is is better, right? Than a perfect knowledge of lesser thing, just as a glimpse he says of those we love, right, is more than a leisurely view of those we don't care about. So I just take the example of the guy who works in the office there, and he's got this boss over there, you know. He can see all day long.

[21:45] In fact, doesn't dare look up at him too much, but he can see him all day long. And maybe he can see through the window his girlfriend across the way. It's like that. It that means more to him to see that little glimpse, right, of her, than this leisurely view of this. Ogre that is his boss, you see. You know, sometimes we, you know, we talk to a friend on the telephone, right?

[22:10] And we can't talk to them very long; it's a short thing. But it means more to us, right, than a long conversation with somebody who we have no particular interest in, right, or no particular attachment to, right. So. Yeah, that's clear. Yeah. All right. See the kind of stink she's making, right? Yeah. Okay.

[22:32] So, one considers something such simpliciter, right? Insofar as it is according to what itself such, right? So where is this now? Is this in the same text here right He? says simpliciter secundum quid, right? But something is considered, uh something such talis sempiterna, right? As it is by itself, such secundum quid, one is called such

[23:11] with respect to another. If, therefore, he says the understanding and the will are considered secundum se, right? By themselves, huh? Thus, the understanding is found to be more eminent, huh? Now, you have to know the powers through their objects, right? Mm-hmm. And this, he says, appears from a comparison of their objects to each other. For the object of the understanding is more simple, huh?

[23:43] And more absolute than the object of the will. For the object of the understanding is the very definition of the desirable good. But the what good which is desirable, whose definition is in the understanding, is the object of the will. Mm-hmm. But as something is more simple and more what abstract, in that way it is in itself more noble and what higher.

[24:20] And therefore, the object of the understanding is higher than the object of the will, huh? Mm-hmm. Since, therefore, the proper definition of a power is according to its order to its object, it follows that by itself and simply the understanding is higher and more noble than the will. Now,

[24:47] that's a little bit hard for you to understand that reason, huh? But God is the most what? Noble, higher. Yeah, he's also the simplest thing there is, right? Right. Okay. And the higher thing contains what the lower does, but in a simpler what way, huh? Right. Okay. And just if you compare, you know, the a bit the understanding there with the senses, huh? I can see a line to some extent, right?

[25:22] And I can imagine a line, huh? Right. But the understanding does what? What's the object of the understanding? The universal of a line, or the yeah, the what it is, what it is. Okay. So the understanding knows the what it is of a line, right? Right. What it is to be a line, huh? Yeah. And you see how that's more simple and more abstract than a line, isn't it?

[25:49] A lot, yeah, right. And in a sense, I ask people, you know, you can speak of two lines here, right? You can say which one is longer, which one is shorter, are they equal, and so on, right? Yeah. But you talk about what a line is. How long is what a line is? See, it's something more abstract than a line, right? See, but yet you what? You are understanding.

[26:11] You are knowing more of this thing when you know what a line is than when you, you know, sense or picture it, huh? Sure. And certainly more simple what a line is than a line, right? Okay.

[26:24] Now you see this also in the fine arts. Now, in Aristotle, in the book called the Poetic, the Poetics, when he compares tragedy and the epic, right? And he asks, which is a higher form of fiction, tragedy or epic? Huh? Because they both represent men who are greater than us in some way. Yeah. And they both arouse what pity and fear, right? And purge these to some extent, and so on.

[27:01] But the tragedy does it in a simpler way, right? In a more condensed way, huh? The epic is spread out, right? Huh? See, true enough. So when I read a tragedy of Sophocles, who is the greatest of the Greek tragedians, I can sit down and read a tragedy of Sophocles in an hour or so, you know. Right to read through the Iliad would take me, you know, quite a lot much longer time, huh?

[27:29] So the one in a simpler and more abstract way, you almost say, gets what? Says more, right? Huh? It accomplishes the same thing, but with fewer means, huh? You see something of the perfection of the simple there.

[27:48] We're talking before of how of how the the you know square you know contains more area for the same perimeter, right? And it's like the wise man saying more with what fewer words, huh? Okay.

[28:08] In the Marietti edition here, it has a little footnote there on abstraction, huh? He's talking about formal abstraction, right? Where what is abstracted is more like the form, huh? And of course, the what it is and form are almost the same thing. When Aristotle defines that kind of cause, he defines in terms of the what it is. The definition of what was to be. Okay. So this is why he's saying that the, in a sense, the object of the understanding and of the will—they're both transcendentals, right?

[28:42] But the understanding is more simple and more abstract in a formal sense because the what it is of these things. And therefore, he says the object of the understanding is higher than the object of the will. And since, therefore, the proper definition of a power or ability, as we've seen before, is according to the order that it has to its object, it follows that, by itself and simply, the understanding is a higher and more noble than the will.

[29:11] But now, as you say, always distinguish, right? Secundum quid alterum, and in comparison to another, the will is sometimes found to be higher than the understanding. Okay. From this, that the object of the will is found in a higher thing than the object of the understanding. Yeah. Just as if we said that hearing is, in some way, secundum quid more noble than sight, in so far as something of which it is there is a sound is more noble than something which there is color, although color is more noble and simpler than sound, huh?

[29:56] Okay. Now, notice, I think it's very interesting because I remember a conversation one time in their wisdom their wisdom with one of my lady students, you know. And Aristotle was talking about you know how we delight in our senses for their own sake, huh? And then he says, and especially the sense of sight, because that most of all makes us know. Yeah. And

[30:24] so I was saying, you know, if you ask most men, you know, would you rather be blind or deaf? Obviously, we don't want to be the one. But would it be worse to be blind or to be deaf? Most men would say it's worse to be what? Blind. Blind, yeah. So you kind of sense they put the eyes above the ears, right? Yeah. Well, this young lady objected.

[30:46] Yeah. She'd rather be blind than deaf, right? Well, she played the organ. She was very much into musical Bach and other good music. And for her, it seemed worse, right? Yeah. Okay. But more interesting than that, say, I always maintain that music is a higher thing than painting. Right. Saying. And I've had some arguments with some of my colleagues and so on, but I think I'm right that music is higher than what painting, right?

[31:22] So she was using that against by maintaining that the eye is what superior to the ear, right? Well, if you consider the eye and the ear, the eye is a much more what spiritual sense, isn't it? Than the ear, huh? Much finer, you might say, color and light, huh? And it's not well by the ears. You know, the sounds are much more gross thing than color or light, huh?

[31:51] And of course, which is more like the understanding, which we admit is higher. Yeah, that's why we borrow the words from the sense of sight. We borrow the word to see. I see that. Yeah, see for understanding, and we lighten. And and what did you know? I was quoting those beautiful words there. I stuck them in our prayer one time. You remember, Father of Lights, you know, lighten us.

[32:14] You know, we said every perfect gift. You know, Saint James was it? Comes down, Saint James, you know, coming down from the Father of Lights. See, and it doesn't say the Father sounds or it's all kinds. You know, obviously talking about light here and higher things than the light of the eye, but it shows you that the the eye is more like these higher things. Yeah. Okay.

[32:36] And when the great Saint Paul there describes the beatific vision, right? Or Saint John does. Saint John says, "We will be like him because we will see him as he is." Right? doesn't say we'll and we'll hear him as. he is. You see? You see? He he he borrows the word from the sea. Saint Paul says, you know, describes the beatific vision as seeing God face to face.

[33:01] See? Not hearing God. Yeah, yeah. And we call it the beatific vision. Yeah, not the beatific hearing, right? You see. So I would argue from these, you know, that the sense of sight is higher than the sense of hearing, right? See. And yet, I would say it's better to hear Mozart than to see Da Vinci or some other painting, right? That's curious, isn't it? That music is really a higher

[33:34] art, right? You see. But then I would say, you know, secundum quid, right? In some way, right? Huh? Is the basic reason because music affects the soul more than the people? Yeah, and and and because the excellence of music, right? And

[33:54] it's really, I mean, I would say in some ways even music is more beautiful than Shakespeare, right? Mozart's music, you know, I think extremely. When Aristotle's talking about the beautiful there in the the last book, I think it's the thirteenth, well, maybe the thirteenth book of wisdom. There, I use that passage in my article on comedy, but he's saying that you know the the main kinds of the beautiful are the order, symmetry, right?

[34:20] Okay. Moderation, which the mathematical sciences, he says, especially show. He says, of course, music is more mathematical than fiction, huh? Sure. But they had that beautiful beauty of it,

[34:33] and you know, in heaven, right? See, as Thomas says, there will be vocal praise be vocal praise of God in heaven. There will be music, right? Because we're going to have our bodies, right? And you know, but not going to be you know putting on plays and fiction. That would say. That's true. You know, it's kind of striking, you know, you know, of how you know the two main forms of fiction are what tragedy and comedy, and they both really fit the fallen state of man.

[35:08] You know, comedy is always making fun of man because we're kind of ridiculous, you know, in the way we act now because of the fall, but also something tragic, you know, and you know, and death and so on. Death is the main, you know, punishment, you might say, of the. Maybe at least outward punishment of these things, right? And so, you know, this tragic aspect of our life is is is something that wouldn't have been there if we hadn't fallen.

[35:35] Yeah. And so, tragedy and comedy kind of witnesses these main forms of fiction, the witnesses to the to the fact that man has fallen. See, and. I was reading last night. I just kind of been reading, reading Sophocles' tragedies. That's really marvelous. Have you ever read Ajax?

[36:00] But you know, you know what the fall is. The sin, it's mainly a sin of pride. You know, you'll be like the gods, knowing good and evil, and so on. Well, the downfall of Ajax, of course, is because Athena has turned against him. Oh yeah. And what's he done to offend the goddess, huh? To spurn her love or something? Well, it's very interesting. Calchas, you know, the prophet, you know, reveals what happened.

[36:27] And Ajax was leaving home to go fight in the Trojan War, right? Oh. Okay. And his father, you know, very proud of this great son, you know, war going off, and so on. And he says he wants him to succeed, you know. Yeah. But to succeed, he says, with God's help. So the father tells him, right? And Ajax says, "Well, even a worthless man could succeed with God's help, right?

[36:50] Oh. You know, I'm going to succeed without it. Wow. Well, that's that's hubris, right? That's really pride, see. Capital H. See. And then when he's in the battle there, Athena, you know, things could come down. The gods and goddesses to help their favorites, right? Favorite. And he says, you know, I don't need your help. Oh man. Oh no. Okay. And so it's his pride, in a sense that is his what downfall thing.

[37:19] And so even this pagan, you know, Sophocles, right, has some understanding of of the evil of pride, and you don't say, you know, I'm going to succeed without God's help. I don't need God's help. You don't want to say that. It's like one of the the experimental scientists. A lot of times, you know, they asked him about God, right? And he says, "I don't need that hypothesis.

[37:45] I can explain the universe. " That sounds like Ajax. I don't need that hypothesis. You know. No. I don't need God to explain the universe. And yeah, but anyway, coming back to our scene, you see,

[38:04] I think music is higher than painting as an art, huh? Yeah. See, and certainly you know attracts my attention much more than a painting does. Um,

[38:16] but I still maintain that haplos, simpliciter haplos is the Greek word. simpliciter, the eye is higher faculty than the what? Than than the ear, right? Huh. And you you think of you don't know Augustine is a has it somewhere Augustine I remember seeing years ago where some things you would like to have seen you know because one of them was Rome in all its glory but but to see Christ in the flesh he speaks of right okay.

[38:51] And you think of seeing Christ in the flesh, like well, next world, see him, right? Occasionally, somebody does see him in this world, but very exalted saints. Or to see the Blessed Virgin, right? Huh? You know. And you know how the some of the saints who saw the Blessed Virgin, you know, oh, she's much more beautiful than the paintings represent her to be. You know, I remember one of them saying that.

[39:13] You know, in the Lourdes or one of those places. You know. Oh yeah. That's kind of interesting, right? Huh. Mm hmm. But sure. Would you want? Would you more want to see the face of Christ or hear the hear the voice of Christ? I suppose they're both going to be very interesting. Oh. Oh, that's.

[39:39] You know. But anyway. I heard. Question. You said this before. I don't remember your explanation about um, if you have a blind man and a deaf man, the wise one is going to be the blind man. And. Why is that something about? Well, I think I think the reason why the you mean the prophets are represented as blind in in particularly because of what you said about how we understand we know most mostly by sight.

[40:09] Thus, how is it that a blind man? I guess yeah. I guess prophets. See, we're talking about our natural knowledge, right? Yeah. If If you got stranded an island like Robinson Crusoe, right? Yeah. Would you be able to explore that island and come to know that island better through your eyes or through your ears? Your eyes. Yeah. Yeah. So the eye, in that sense, would would would would would you learn more from it, right?

[40:36] Yeah. Okay. In a practical. And of course, you know, if you think of the sun, moon, the stars, all that astronomy stuff, all of that depends upon the eye, right? Sight alone. The ears don't hear nothing about the stars, and you can't smell them. You can't feel, touch them. You know, at least we couldn't until very recently. Okay. But the eye, you know, you know, really makes you know more than anything else, right?

[40:58] Sure. So if you see that the senses are are knowing powers, right? The eye seems to to to know to make us know more than the the ear does, huh? Clearly. And of course, you point out too that when something is is clear to the other senses, that we use the word see, right? Yeah. You know, if I was showing you something, right? You know, I mean, if I you tasted something, you know, and you see, and you see the difference, you know, oh yeah, we do.

[41:21] Yeah. You see, because if the eye is is more clear than the other senses, huh? Yeah. And just like when I when I when when I feel the shape of something with your eyes closed, you know, and so you kind of trying to imagine the shape of the thing. Sure. We open up and it's kind of clearer, you know, with the eye, you know, what the shape of the thing is, huh?

[41:40] More so than the thing. But nevertheless, there might be, secundum quid in some way. The ear might be what higher, and when there is doubt. In the preeminent wisdom, there you speak of the eyes. You know, we know more by the eye than the other sense, and it's a sense of discovery, as we're saying, if you're on that island. Okay. But the ear is a sense of what learning from another, right?

[42:04] Yeah. And Thomas was always confirming that you know, quoting Saint Paul, that "fides," he says, "ex auditu," right? That's right. Faith is from hearing. Yeah. Yeah. So, in some way, right?

[42:19] The ear might be what superior, right? Okay. It's more the sense of you know, as far as learning from another, right? Could you say then that music is a vehicle for learning from another? Well, no, no. I was just saying there's another way in which you might say that the ear is what more the sense of learning from another than the eye, yes. Yeah. I say, and you and I, we can sit here and close our eyes, and I could continue to instruct you, right?

[42:46] And so that you learn from another more by his. Words, than by his tape. What when you listen to the tape, yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't see. Okay, yeah, right at the edge of the film, there's no words, no sounds, right? You don't get much out of it, see? So, in some way, right, the ear is, you know, if you just consider the eye and the ear as such, right, as he's saying, right, as such, you know, which makes you know more, right?

[43:17] You see, you'd say the eye, huh? Okay, right, and that's the reason why the understanding, which knows more, right, we we borrow words from the eye and light and so on, rather than from the ear, we had like that,

[43:45] okay. Okay, so we just got kind of interrupt there, but but developing a little more than what Thomas did there, right? Because I remember, you know, maintaining with this young lady, yeah, that I was not contradicting myself in admitting that that music is higher than painting, and yet saying that simply speaking, the eye is higher than the what ear, right? See, because secundum quid, I'm saying the ear is better than the eye, right?

[44:13] And so he's saying here about about the will. Ah, for as has been said above, the action of the understanding consists in this: that the definition, you might say, the thing understood is in the one understanding, right? But the act of the will is perfected in this: that the will is inclined towards the thing itself as it is in itself or by itself. And therefore, the philosopher says in the sixth book of the metaphysics that good and bad, which are the objects of the will, are in things, and we talked about that before, I think, right?

[44:52] Yeah. And that's why you can't love the good and the bad at the same time, because in things they are exclude one another. But true and false, which are the objects of the understanding, are primarily in the mind and in our statements. Yeah. When, therefore, the thing in which there is something good is more noble than the soul, right? In which there is the understood reason. In comparison to such a thing, the will is a higher is higher than the understanding, because it's joining us to something greater than our mind, right?

[45:26] Okay. Okay. But when the thing in which there is something good is below the soul, right? Yeah. Then also, in comparison to such a thing, the understanding is higher than the will, huh? Okay. Whence the love of God is better than the knowledge of God, but contrariwise, the knowledge of bodily things is better than the love of them. Okay. Okay.

[45:57] It's better to know what sense pleasure is than to love it. Okay. Better to know what food is than to love it. Okay. Simply, simply nevertheless, the understanding is more noble than the will for the reason we gave before. Yeah. Okay. So you got to be very careful when you talk about that, right? Yeah. So, and some people make the the mistake of mixing up the simply in some respect, right?

[46:26] And because the will in some way is better, then they say it's simply better, right? Okay. That's like saying you know that the stone. Um, there's stones in my yard. Big rocks, some of them. Yeah. Can't get out of the ground. It's gonna outlast me, you know. And you know these great trees in California. some of those go on hundreds of years, right? So in some ways they're better than me, aren't they?

[46:53] So couldn't put it. Yeah, but you wouldn't say simply that the tree is better than a man, would you? Wow. Or the stone is better than a man? We wouldn't.

[47:05] You'd be mixing up simply in some way, right? Yeah. The two, huh? Yeah. Okay. Plato makes a or Socrates makes a mistake in the Meno, right? Because he's arguing that the that the what slave boy already knew how to double a square. Yeah. Because the way to double the square comes out of his what answers, right? Yeah. See. But I think a simple example to illustrate the point: if I knew the length and the width of this table, right, would I know the area?

[47:40] In potential. Yeah, yeah. So, haplos is simply? I wouldn't know it, would I? know if i had not multiplied the length by the width. Now, if you said this to the the practical man, right, who doesn't make these fancy distinctions, yeah, um, if you know length and width, you know the area, you say. You know, I'm sure you'd say that. You see, you see, because it's so close, right?

[48:03] Yeah. See. Yeah. See. But no, strictly speaking, the man who knows the length and the width, period, is able to know the area. Yeah. But to be able to know something is that to know it. No. Then I have to say to my students, I mean, give them the benefit of the doubt. They know all these things. I'm going to teach them. Because giving them the benefit of the doubt, they're able to know it.

[48:29] Right. Is it? Right, right, right. But is anyone so to say because somebody's able to know something, he knows it, would you? He knows it in ability. You can say in the qualified sense, right? Right. You wouldn't say he knows it simply, huh? Not as such. No. No. Not simply. Okay.

[48:52] Let's go back to the objections. Now. The good is the the good and the end is the object of the will, right? Yeah. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that the definition of cause is taken in comparison of one thing to another, and in such a comparison, the definition of the good principally is found. And that's what he's saying there, right? You know, the first definition of good is the good is what all want, but later on we define the good, what is the good chiefly as what is perfective of another in the manner of an end, and end is the name of a cause that for sake of which.

[49:36] So, in some sense, having compared to the cause, in such a comparison, he says the definition of good is found more principal or chief, but true is said more absolutely, right? Absolutely, in Thomas means as opposed to what relative, right? Okay. And it signifies the very definition of the good, huh? Whence the good is a certain truth, huh? But again, the true is also a certain good, right?

[50:11] But this is something you talk about how the will and the reason can influence each other, right? Okay. Because the good is something understandable, right? And to understand is something good, right? So they have a mutual influence upon each other. Um.

[50:30] But again, the truth is something good, according as the understanding is a certain thing, and the true is its end. And among other ends, this end is more what excellent to know the truth, just as the understanding is among the other powers. Now, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he's more develops this because he points out that the first act of the understanding or the first act of the will cannot be its own act.

[51:03] Say. Now, I have to understand something before I can understand my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. And so the first thing I understand is not my understanding. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Say. Just like is the first letter you write a letter about something in a letter? Is the first letter that's written about what is in some other letter? No. No. No.

[51:32] Say the first letter that was ever written is about something that was never in a letter. Right. Right. And so the first thing understood is never your understanding, but you understand what a square is, and then you understand that you understand what a square is. Say. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I see you before I know that I see you. Yeah. I know that I see you before I know that I know that I see you.

[51:56] Certainly. And he talked about that. I'm starting to fade. Go on, you know. But when the same thing is true about the will, see, I have to will some good, right, some in, before I can will my willing.

[52:15] You see, I wouldn't, huh? See, unless I love God, I wouldn't love my loving of God. You see, see, I'm a philosopher, right? Right. Okay, that means I love wisdom, right? Okay.

[52:38] And I love wisdom because I realize what a great good wisdom is, huh? Okay. But now, if wisdom is as great a good as it is, then isn't it good also to love? wisdom? yes. Okay, so I can now love not only wisdom, but I can love my love of wisdom, right? You see, you see. But that can't be what I love first. My love of wisdom. So yeah, I have to love wisdom first, right?

[53:06] See, now the same way here. If I truly love God, right? Okay. I know how good God is, and how much I should love Him, right? Ah, then I see that not only is God good, but it's good that I love God. My love of God is something good too, right? And now I might love my love of God. You can love charity by charity, right? But that can't be the first thing to love by charity.

[53:41] Right. You see, you see the idea. Okay. Now the first thing that the will loves is the what last end. So the first thing the will loves cannot be its own act. And therefore, the last end, which is the the best thing, can't be an act of the will. It must be an act of the reason. I'm sorry. You said that last. I say, the last end, right?

[54:10] Right. Is the first thing the will wills? Although wills in a kind of confusion, right? Right. The desire to be happy, right? Doesn't know exactly what happiness consists in right? Sure. With a filled refrigerator with soda or whatever it is, right? Yeah. Okay.

[54:29] But the first thing the will wills cannot be its own act. It's got to be something other than its own act, right? Okay. Because I mean, so just like the first thing you understand cannot be your your understanding. The first thing you know is not that you know.

[54:51] See, I have to know what a triangle is before I can know what a a triangle is, right? Yeah. Then I can know that I know what a triangle is, and I can know that I know that a triangle is And I can go on, you know, but the first thing I know cannot be my knowing, can it? Anymore than the first thing I write is something that was found on a piece of paper, right?

[55:17] I can copy something on some other piece of paper, but you know, the first thing I write is not copying what's on a piece of paper. And so, likewise, the first thing I love is not my love. It's not the act of my will, right? See, I have to love God before I can love my love of God. I have to love wisdom before I can love love of wisdom.

[55:43] Okay. So the first thing the will wills is the end, the last end, because it wills everything else in order to cover that end. Yeah. So the first thing it wills. Which is the last end is not its own act, so its own act cannot be the last end.

[56:06] So it has to be the act of the reason rather than the act of the will that's the last end. So, in other words, when Scripture says that

[56:22] eternal life is to know, yeah, yeah, it's saying know, yeah, to be to vision, right? Now, you know that whole big is that whole big debate in spirituality about that, and I would say with the Franciscans, yeah. What's the then? What's the error What they call the voluntarists or whatever the Franciscans? Well, see you don't put the will above reason as a faculty, right? But you can say now that God in Himself, right, is great, is a much greater thing than my vision of God, right?

[57:01] Yeah, you see, and that when I love God in Himself, I'm going out in my will into God, right? Yeah. Okay. Beyond the intellect. Yeah, yeah, because I'm loving God in Himself, right? Huh? And God in Himself is something more than my partaking in God and my vision of God, right? Okay. Okay. In that sense, the love is something greater, right? Okay. Okay. Um. So, but like you know, you know the comparison there, you know, when what's her name?

[57:36] I guess I was going to say St Therese of Lisieux, right? You know, she describes in her, if you read her autobiography or whatever, when she saw the ocean the first time, you know, and you know, personally, that's the ocean. Be kind of like a metaphor for the divine. Yeah. You see, and so going back to Augustine's thing, you know, the little boy trying to put the ocean into the whole thing.

[57:58] Um, you can't put the ocean in there. Right. Right. you can touch the little boy right Yeah. Um, but I can jump into the ocean, right? Yeah. See, well, putting the ocean into the hole was like putting God into my mind, right? Yep. And my mind can never completely comprehend God in the vision, right? I never go. I never know God as as much as he's knowable, right?

[58:20] Yeah. See, because he's instantly knowable. And so it's like putting the ocean in into me, into the hole, and I can't do that. You see, adequately, huh? Just you know, partially, right? Mm-hmm. But I can jump into the the ocean, right? Right. And that's like the will, because the will goes into the thing, right? Mm-hmm. In that sense, the will is higher. The same way as he says right here, secundum quid, right?

[58:45] So it's with that with sort of that debate. It's just a matter of perspective or whatever that they're looking at it. Well, no, I say you say say my end. My end, my last end, is to see God as He is, face to face, huh? Okay, but I can't rest in that as if that's the end all, the be all, right? My my vision of God, right?

[59:10] Huh? That's my ultimate good, yeah, yeah. But the goodness of God is something much greater than mine. See? Right. So, therefore, I will, I will what? Praise God, right? Huh? You know, glorify and thank Him in heaven, huh? And that's very much brings in the will now. Now, as I refer this back, you know, what does it say there in the Apocalypse, the book Revelation? There, you know, they kind of made a song out of it, and it's in church sometimes where the saints what throw down their crowns, you know, that one, you know.

[59:50] Well, that's really a big division, right? And referring it back to God, huh? Okay, You see. Um. So when you see God as He is, you realize that He's more than you could ever what fully understand, right? Huh? Right. You see, you know the prayer of Thomas there that the Pope quoted twice there in the Eucharistic document. It says, "Adoro te devote latens deitas quae sub his figuris vere latitas tibi se cor meum totum subiicit quia te contemplans totum deficit right.

[1:00:31] Huh. Now there are the word heart. Sometimes we use the word heart, you know, to to include the reason as well as the will, right? But they both what? You know, you know,

[1:00:44] You know, adoro te devote latens deitas quae sub his figuris vere latitas tibi se cor meum totum subiicit right? Why? Quia te contemplans, right? Totum deficit Okay. As if my my whole what heart and my whole will, also my whole reason, right? Um.

[1:01:11] Can't exhaust his what? Yeah. His goodness, his. It's like it says in the in the Psalms there, you know, praise God as much as you can because you're always going to be what? You can't praise Him enough, right? Or put another way, you can't praise Him too much, right? Yeah. Or it's like the saints say, you know. Um. Uh. Can you love God too much? Can you know God too much?

[1:01:39] Say. Or you can never know God too much. And if I'm sorry, you can never love God too well or too much, huh? Sure. You love God too much, you know. Can't see that. Can't see that, right? You see, so that um. They say the measure of love. Is to love God without measure, right? You see that. You

[1:02:06] see that that Psalm sixty two. To me, I've been thinking Psalm sixty two a lot in terms of the definition of hope that we had in the catechism, in Vatican, in the yeah, in the new catechism, right? You remember how the new catechism it spoke of the beatific vision both as what eternal life, right, and the kingdom, right? Okay. You see, and of course, in other words, this is the fullness of life, but it's also what being part of the kingdom, right?

[1:02:35] Yeah. Of course, both of those in the song, right? you are my God, whom I seek. For you, my flesh pines and my soul thirsts."Like the earth parched, lifeless and without water. That's if I gaze towards you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory, right? Those are the two things that double there, right? Like the parched earth, lifeless, huh? So you are looking upon God there that you are seeking as the fullness of life, the fountain of life, right?

[1:03:09] But then at the same time it says to see your power and glory. That's the kingdom, right? You see. Now Thomas defines the kingdom of God as the ordered society of those who see God, right? You see. So it's kind of interesting the way in that psalm the the two ways of speaking that you have in the catechism, right? That this is eternal life and this is the kingdom, right?

[1:03:31] Say, are both there, right? Eternal life and the kingdom. Yeah. Now in the Our Father we use just one of those. We say that kingdom come, right? You see. But the reason why we say that kingdom come in some ways is because this is not the private good of Duane Berquist or you, right? But this is the what common good of the whole church, huh? Okay.

[1:03:58] And that's why they say the kingdom of God is the ordered society of those who see God, right? You are not just praying praying for yourself; you are praying for the whole church. don't you say that kingdom come? That's why we say Our Father rather than My Father, and so on, huh? Okay. But then it goes on, you see, and says with riches of a banquet shall my soul be filled, and with exalted lips my mouth shall praise you.

[1:04:21] In other words, you won't stop with the banquet, which is the what vision of God, right? Say what you call the banquet there, right? With the abundance of life there and so on. But also it says, with a banquet you don't just have one person. That would make sense. to have a banquet of one person, right? So it's the whole church that is at this banquet, huh?

[1:04:42] Uh huh. This wedding feast, as it's called, and the parables, huh? Uh huh. But you don't stop there, right? But you refer back, right? Um, your own blessedness to the glory of God.

[1:05:01] In other words, your your beatitude will glorify God. Yeah. And therefore, you don't stop with your own beatitude, right? And that makes sense anyhow, because the will follows the intellect. Yeah. Anyhow, understanding. And. You glorify God, and you will thank God, right? Huh? You see. Yeah. And and you realize how perfectly gratuitous this was in his part, huh? You had no claim on his what his creation, his providence, or his your salvation, right?

[1:05:40] It was completely uncalled for, so to speak, right? You know, but most fitting that he would do this to him, right? Mm hmm. But entirely. he had no claim upon him, justice or anything like that. Right. Let's look at the reply here to the objection. Let's probably got a few minutes here. Yeah. yep. Okay. The second objection was saying that more were natural things are found to proceed from the imperfect to the perfect, and this also appears in the powers of the soul.

[1:06:36] So you seem to go from the sense to the understanding, which is higher, right? And you go from the understanding to the will, so aren't the will higher then, right. Okay. Notice what Thomas answers. To the second, it should be said that that which is before in generation and time is imperfect, as potency or ability is imperfect, right? Because in one and the same thing, ability or potency in time precedes act, right?

[1:07:04] In imperfection, perfection. But that which is before, simply and according to the order of nature, is more perfect. And in this sense, act is before what? Potency. And in this way, the understanding is before the will as the mover to the what moved. And the active to the passive, because it's the good as known by reason that moves the will, right? So the mover is always higher than the what moved.

[1:07:33] For the good understood, he says, moves the will. When the case, when you go from the senses, you see to reason. If you remember our study, the senses and even the imagination, the images, don't move reason until there've been what enlightened by the act of understanding, right? And so it's not that the lower the the lower is the principal agent, right? It's the act of understanding, The age intellect, as it's called, right?

[1:08:03] You remember, how, Aristotle reasoned in the third book. Now he argued that if the undergoing understanding is immaterial, right, and incorruptible, and so on, then even more so is the act of understanding, because the mover is always higher than the moved.

[1:08:20] And so the the understanding then moves the will, and moves it as an end moves, right? The will moves the reason as an efficient cause, huh? But the end is the highest of all causes. You

[1:08:39] know, the third objection was the way was solved in the second part of the body of the article there, because that's the one arguing that the will, in comparison to that which is above the soul.

[1:08:54] So in that respect, in some way, then the will is higher. For the virtue of charity is that for which we love God, who is above us, huh? Okay.

[1:09:13] So we have two more articles to do on this question, huh? Yeah. I mentioned some of you. I mentioned me. Yeah. Oh, yours. Okay. Yeah. Next week I can't be here because I'm going down for the baptism of Lucy Marie. It's wonderful. Lucy Marie. Lucy Marie. That's my my son Paul and his wife Elizabeth's fourth law. Very good. One say. Where then? They're down in Bourbon country there.

[1:09:37] Kentucky's at Fort Knox there, right? Huh? So we down. That's the most Bourbon is made in the country, right? Oh, I've realized that. We visit a Bourbon place, we're down there, you know. Kind of fun to see the way they make these things. Yeah. Uh, of course, it's kind of funny how the county is dry, but they make Bourbon there. Oh. I think the place they make Jack Daniels too is dry.

[1:09:57] Oh yeah. Okay. It's funny. You'd think you'd think it'd be rip roaring place, you know? Yeah. It's not that at all. It's kind of