De Anima (On the Soul)
138. Summa Theologiae I, Q.84, Articles 5-6: Knowing in the Eternal Reasons, and Heraclitus on Common Reason
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[0:00] God to begin with, right? This is the light that enlightens every man that comes into this world, and everybody is not enlightened by the light of faith, maybe, but only by the light of actual light of reason, but. And maybe the angelic understanding can, to some extent, strengthen the light of our mind. Okay.

[0:21] But still, as Aristotle said, the agent, intellect there, that power of our soul is is something actual, right? Yeah. Yeah. And compares it to the agent, right, or the maker. And compares the understanding that understands to matter, right? Is acted upon by the by the other. You want to take a break or read on to article five? Take a break. Break. Yeah. Break. Break. Go.

[0:53] To the fifth, thus one proceeds. It seems that the soul does not know material things in the eternal reasons. Now, interesting that he's taking the side apparently. What? Absolutely, what you think he'd take, huh? Because he's dealing with the great what, Augustine, right? If you go through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, you know, and just look at the references in there, how Augustine is what. Thomas says an awful lot too, but Augustine has even more, and the preponderance of Augustine, right?

[1:31] So he's kind of amazing. He's kind of a you know the greatest mind really among the Church Fathers. Certainly, his work on the Trinity is the greatest work that there is on the Trinity among the Church Fathers, huh? Thomas, you know, means follows Augustine mainly, and Boethius follows Augustine, huh? You know, he's working in the Trinity.

[1:56] Hillary's good, but Augustine is way, top man. What does Augustine say there? You know that nowhere is it more fruitful to find some truth than about the Trinity, but nowhere is it you know easier to make an error.

[2:15] Yeah. Very very strong. He says that in which something is known, is itself what more known, right? And known before, right? So if we knew eternal things in the what I mean material things rather in the eternal reasons, we would be what knowing God, right? Before and more so than these things, huh? But the understanding soul of man in the state of the present life does not know the eternal reasons because it does not know God himself, huh?

[3:00] We know God as He is not, right? Not as He is, in which the eternal reasons exist, but. Our mind is joined to God as to something what unknown, as Dionysius says in the first chapter of the book on mystical theology. That's the highest state of the soul, right? The soul realizes that whatever it understands about God is something less than God, right? Something infinitely less than God.

[3:30] Therefore, the soul does not know all things, meaning all material things, in the eternal reasons, right? If it did, it would know those eternal reasons more so, right? Before.

[3:44] Moreover, this is the famous text now. This is the one that Vatican I uses to say that what it's a matter of faith now that we can know God by natural reason. This is a famous text from Romans one twenty, that the invisible things of God are looked upon through those things which have been what made.

[4:07] So that's saying that the invisible things of God are known through the what creatures that God has made. But among the invisible things of God are numbered the eternal reasons. Therefore, the eternal reasons are known through material creatures and not the what. Reverse, yeah.

[4:32] Moreover, the eternal reasons are nothing other than the idea, huh? Okay. For Augustine says in the famous book on the thirty eighty three questions, right, that the ideas, idea, are the what stable reasons of things existing in the divine mind.

[4:57] If therefore it be said that the understanding soul knows all things in the eternal reasons, is going to return the opinion of Plato, who laid down all knowledge to be derived from the what ideas, huh?

[5:18] But against this is what Augustine says in the twelfth book of the Confessions. If both you and I, right, if we both see that it's true what you say, and we both see that it's true what I say. Where I ask, do we see that? Not surely, I and you, nor you and me, but both in that which is above our minds, in that truth, that unchangeable truth, which is above our what minds, huh?

[5:56] But unchangeable truth is contained in the eternal reasons. Therefore, the understanding soul knows all things in the eternal reasons. You think about this sometimes when you run to the great fragments of Heraclitus. Heraclitus said we have to follow what is common and so on. And he has a fragment where he says, "It is wise," he says, "listening not to me, but to reason, to agree that all things are what one."

[6:35] Okay, but just take the center part of that exhortation. Listen not to me, but to reason. Okay. Now, we sometimes in daily life use that same same knowing. He won't listen to reason, right? Or more likely, she won't listen to reason.

[7:07] But what is this reason that he's asking us? to? Listen to right. It's not him, apparently, right, or his reason, right? Does he ask for me to listen to my reason? He's not saying Don't listen to my reason, listen to your reason. He's not saying that, is he? No. He's saying listen not to me, but to reason, as if there is some common reason in which you and I can both what.

[7:40] Yeah. Tap into. See, yeah, and then we can judge whatever is private to me, right, or private to you. And of course, this is in accordance with the other fragments, right? That we ought to follow what is common, he'll say, right? Okay.

[8:08] Now, there's a little puzzle there, because somebody might say, you know, the nasty modern would say, "Well, what's he talking to us for if he doesn't want us to listen to him? " Right. That's the nasty modern would say, and then he'd say, you know, and there's only your reason, my reason, and the next man's reason. There's no reason apart from your reason, my reason, next man's reason, right?

[8:37] But when we use that phrase, what do we mean then? Because you don't mean listen to my reason or your reason or the next man's reason. Okay. What we're thinking of is to listen to what is common to your reason, my reason, and the next man's reason, right? To listen to what you and I and every man who has reason naturally understands, like a whole is more than one of its parts, right?

[9:10] Okay. But now, what's common to your reason and my reason? What what reason naturally understands? What reason naturally understands It's what reason naturally understands that is common to your reason, my reason, next reason? That's really a reflection of the what? Eternal reasons, huh? It's a partaking of the eternal reasons in every man's reason, huh? Okay. We'll see how Thomas does. I'm often reminded, you know, of the great Heraclitus, who was a teacher of Plato, the Cratylus, right, along with Socrates.

[9:51] huh. I answer. It should be said that, as Augustine says in the second book about Christian teaching, the philosopher is so called, right? If they say something true, and in accord with our faith. From them, as it were, from unjust possessors, right?

[10:21] In our use, they ought to be what, claimed or vindicated, right? For the teachings of the Gentiles have some likenesses and superstitious figments, right? That imagination, figmenta huh? Which each one of us going out from society of the Gentiles, the Gentiles now those who are not believers, right? In the Summa contra Gentiles, right? Which each of us going out from them ought to avoid, huh? And therefore Augustine, he says, who was imbued with the teachings of the Platonists, he didn't have much of Aristotle, the Categories, is all we think we he had.

[11:10] If he found something accommodated or appropriate to the faith in their sayings, he took it over, right? It belongs to us. If he found something adverse to our faith, he would try to change it into something what, better, right, huh? Okay.

[11:32] Now Plato laid down, as has been said above, that the forms or the natures of things subsisted by themselves, separated from matter, huh? The world of forms, huh? Which he called in Greek, idea, ideas, huh? But that's what I call transliteration. You're taking the Greek letters and making a Latin word out of them, but that doesn't give you the what necessary translation, right? Through the partaking of which he said that our understanding knows all things, just as, and we saw this in the previous reading, as bodily matter through partaking of the form of stone becomes a stone, so our understanding by partaking of the same idea or form knows stone, huh?

[12:31] But because it seems to be alien from the faith that the forms of things outside of things subsist by themselves without matter, as the Platonists laid down, saying life itself or by itself and wisdom by itself to be some created substances,

[12:56] as Dionysius says in the eleventh chapter of the Divine Names. Therefore Augustine, in the Book of the Eighty Three Questions, laid down in place of these forms which Plato laid down. In place of them, he did the reasons of all creatures, right? Existing in the mental, in the divine mind, according to which they are all things are formed, and according to which also the human soul knows all things.

[13:27] So he's kind of taking over Plato and modifying him, right? Now, when therefore it is asked whether the human soul knows all things in eternal reasons, it should be said that something is able to be known in another in two ways. In one way, as in an object known, just as one sees in a mirror those things whose images result in the mirror, and in this way the soul in the state of the present life is not able to see all things in eternal reasons.

[14:12] But thus, in the eternal reasons, the blessed know all things. The blessed who what see God, right, In all things in Him. In another way, one is said to know something in another, as in a what source or cause of knowledge. Just as if we say that in the sun are seen those things which are seen through the sun,

[14:43] and in this way it is necessary to say that the human soul knows all things in the eternal reasons, by the partaking of which

[14:55] we know all things. Why? Because the understandable light, which Aristotle compared the what power of the soul called the agent light, to a light,

[15:08] because just as light makes the colors which are potentially visible actually visible in some way, right? So the agent intellect makes the what what it is of sensible things and imaginable things actually understandable, right? So you compare it to light. For the understandable light, which is in us, is nothing other than a certain what partaken likeness of the uncreated light. Okay.

[15:47] In which are contained the what eternal reasons, right? Like Thomas's prayer there before communion, addressed to God the Father, you know, where he's going to approach eternal light. He wants God to give a little more light. Approach eternal light here in the in the Eucharist.

[16:07] So going back to what was saying up here, listen not to me but to reason. We're listening to something. That is common in the immediate sense, right? But is common to your reason, my reason, and next man's reason, okay? And that is also what is naturally known by every reason, huh? Because what is naturally known

[16:35] is going to be common, huh, to all. But what is naturally known is known in the light of the agent intellect, huh? The agent intellect assures that we all know something, huh? Okay, it's common to us, huh? Who misses the door, as Aristotle says in the great proverb? He talks about this in the Metaphysics.

[17:00] Um, but that light is a partaking of the divine light, huh? Okay, and therefore, what is naturally understood by the human mind is a partaking. Of what the eternal reasons? It's not the eternal reasons, right? But it's a partaking of them, a likeness of them, huh?

[17:23] Now Thomas continuing talking about the light. Whence in the fourth Psalm, verses six through seven, many say, "Who shows us the good? How we know what is good? You know, you know, maybe he's got his own idea about what's good, you know. My idea, what's good, and your idea, of this man's good. No, there's something that's common to all of us, huh? To which question the psalmist responds, saying, "There is sealed upon us the light of your what?

[17:53] Face, huh? Lord, huh? As if to say, through a certain sealing of the divine light in us, all things are what Demonstrated to us, huh? So you have to respect, you know, the natural light of reason because that is a partaking of the divine light. It's not only the light of faith that is a partaking of the divine light, but even the natural light of reason is, huh?

[18:20] This is what this is referring to here? You know, when that other passage I was quoting from scripture there, and if he quotes you, doesn't it?

[18:29] In the beginning of Saint John's Gospel, right, talking about the word, he says, "This was a light that enlightens every man who comes into this world." Yes. He said, "Every man who comes into this world is enlightened by this light. What light is that referring to? Light of reason, that of reason. Because as Saint Paul says, faith is not of everybody, huh? Yeah. Not everybody has the light of faith, huh?

[18:58] Okay. But everybody has the natural light of reason, huh? So what Saint John says, huh? This is the light, meaning Christ, right? Which enlightens, right? Every man who comes into this world, huh? If you take a candle, you light all these ones, right? But you're partaking of the original light, huh? You're partaking of it, huh? And you, what you naturally understand in that natural light of reason is the what beginning, huh?

[19:27] Of our knowledge. It's a seed of our knowledge, as Saint Albert always says, and Thomas and Plato and Aristotle. In that sense, you're seeing everything in the divine light, right? That is, say, in a likeness of the divine light, in a partaking of the divine light. In that sense, you're seeing everything in the divine reasons, right? Because what you naturally understand with that light partaken of the divine light is a likeness of the eternal reasons.

[20:00] Okay. It's interesting, huh? That Thomas in the Summa here, when he talks, or in the Secunda Secundae, or Prima Secundae, he talks about the virtues of reason. He puts intellectus, this natural understanding, right? Nous Aristotle calls it above scientia, above episteme, and episteme depends upon this natural understanding.

[20:28] Understanding is common to all of us. The great Boethius speaks of these statements in that common understanding. you know, the statements that are known to themselves by all men—and what everyone approves of when he hears it. Now,

[20:55] because nevertheless, besides the understandable light in us, there is required, right, understandable forms taken from things, to a knowledge of to having a knowledge about material things.

[21:13] Therefore, not only through a partaking of the eternal reasons do we have knowledge of material things, just as a patronist laid down that only right the partaking of the ideas sufficed for acquiring science. Whence Augustine says in the fourth book about the Trinity,

[21:42] Augustine is saying that Num quid quia philosophi documentis certissimis persuadent eternis rationibus omnia temporalia fieri, not because they knew right by the most certain documents and eternal reasons, all temporal things came about. On account of this, were they able in those reasons to look upon it right, or from that to collect how many genera of animals there are right? What are the seeds of all? Did these have to be going through what investigation through places and times?

[22:17] Well, he's talking about that going back to the senses, right? Know things in places and time. That Augustine does not thus understand all things to be known in the eternal reasons that you know other things by knowing the eternal reasons themselves in themselves, or in the unchangeable truth, as if what the eternal reasons themselves were seen right is clear through this that he himself says in the book of the eighty-three questions that the rational soul right, not all and every, but the one which is holy and pure right, is open to that village to that vision of the eternal reasons, or or suitable I say to that vision right, and who is it that's sancta and pura?

[23:11] Well, That's the souls of the blessed right huh? As long as you're in this life where you're not completely sancta. and so you're not pura, right?

[23:27] Now, going back to the great Heraclitus. right Now, this is the idea of the common, where he says we should not act and speak like those asleep. Okay.

[23:57] Now, the first meaning you might think of, of course, is that those who are asleep are cut off from their senses, right? Okay. But, and that's part of part of his meaning too. But he goes on to say,

[24:20] for the sleeping, there are many worlds, right, and they're all private. But for those who wake up, there's one world, and it's common. Common, yeah. Say, he's hinting at the fact that the true world, right,

[24:40] is one, and it's common. And the false worlds are many, and what Private, right? Okay. Now, if you take a simple example here, what's two plus two?

[25:05] That's two plus two. Four. Four. Yeah. Now, all those of you who got the right answer, you have one common answer, and it's common to all of you, right? But now, if we all fell asleep, I say it's three. You say it's five. You say it's six, right? We could all have our own private answer to the question what two plus two is, and they could all be what false, right?

[25:35] Now that we're all awake, I'll give you all the benefit of the doubt here. We sit around this table here, right? Okay. But now, if we all fell asleep, right? I might dream I'm with the grandchildren, dream you in chapel, or you dream whatever. And you might all be dreaming falsely, right? These are

[25:58] whole series of fragments like this, but there's one that I want to come to because it's going to go into this too. He says,

[26:09] therefore, we have to follow what is common, right? Okay. And he goes on and says another fragment: those who speak with understanding. Must be strong in what is common to all. Okay.

[26:29] But then he goes on to make a comparison. Those who speak with understanding, he says, must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city is strong in its law. Okay.

[26:46] Now, would you want to live in a city there where I follow the law that you drive on the left side of the street, and you follow the law that you drive on the right side of the street? Do I live in that kind of city?

[27:06] In other words, we'd have chaos, right? So we need a common law to follow in the city, right? The same thing is true about the life of the mind. The life of the mind can be conducted between different human beings in two ways, right? One way is with a teacher and a student,

[27:37] and the other is one more of equals and conversation, right? Now, if having a conversation among equals, more or less, and I think one thing and you think something else, we go nowhere if I say you're wrong because I'm right. You return the compliment, say I'm wrong because you're right. What we have to do is find something that we have in common. We can both agree upon, and use that to judge us where we disagree.

[28:17] Just like two experimental scientists, so they have two hypotheses, right? They get nowhere if one guy says my you're wrong because doesn't agree with my hypothesis, and the other guy does the reverse. They might try to think of an experiment where the two theories would predict something different, right? They can both conduct the experiment and see what happens, right? So

[28:47] the only way to go forward, in other words, is to find something we have in common, whereby we can what judge our differences, huh? But now, if you think about the teacher and the student, presumably the teacher is trying to lead the student to something that he, the teacher, knows that the student doesn't know. But he's going to lead the student from things that the student already knows.

[29:13] Just like in geometry, right? You come to a new theorem in geometry, you don't know this theorem yet, right? But Euclid is going to draw upon things that you you know already, right? In order to show you the new theorem. And if the teacher is going to call upon things that the student knows already to help him come to see something he doesn't know, right? Then those things the student knows already, the professor has to know too, right?

[29:42] So there's no way to go forward in conversation among more or less equals, right? Or even go forward in teacher and student without going back to something common, common to the teacher and the student, right? Or common to the two men who are conversing about something, huh?

[30:06] So. It's beautiful comparison he makes, right? He says those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city is strong in its law, right? He's making comparison to what is more known to us, the necessity of a common law in the city, right? That you know, We don't all have to drive on the right side of the street, but in one country we should, right?

[30:35] In one city, and that's not the end of the framework, right? He says those who speak with understanding, he says, must be strong in what is common to all, as much as a city in its law, and even more so, he said. And then he goes on to say, for all the laws the city are fed by one divine law,

[31:06] which he says is more than sufficient for all. Okay. Now, when I go out on the highway here, you know, there's a intersection there. You got to kind of slow down, right? Very, at 25 miles, right? Okay, sometimes there's a cop waiting there for me there. Yeah. Okay.

[31:29] I see them parked there sometimes, right? Yeah, the the next door and the little restaurant kind of thing there and so on. Now, why is there a law about how fast you can drive your car?

[31:46] Well, this is a way of preserving what, both property and life, right? Okay. So that law, which wasn't necessary before they had a car, right?

[32:03] That law is fed by the law to preserve human life, huh? Human property, right? Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal, right? Okay. But then if I stop at the restaurant and you know the town comes, in and inspects the kitchens once in a while, right? Or I go to the doctor and there's a you know sign up there and so on. You know, he's got a license to practice, huh?

[32:32] On me. Um. But all these laws are trying to what? Protect human life, right? There's a law against shooting off my gun in the city, I guess. Is there?

[32:50] Illegal discharge of firearm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When at my home back home in St. Paul, Minnesota, the next door neighbor there was a hunter, huh? Oh. And on New Year's Eve, oh no, yeah, midnight, he'd shoot his gun off, yeah. And of course, we a lot of times we go to bed before midnight, you know, and being in bed, the wifey couldn't go off, and wondering whether he's sober now and goes off.

[33:19] And know people, you know, irresponsible people, you know, I think guns got off, and they both got into the neighbor's house, you know, like they did not hit somebody, but see. But notice,

[33:32] every time there arises a danger, right, to human life or property, right, new laws can be what made, right, to protect us from those things, right. But all these laws are being fed by one what divine law, right? Okay, because of the divine law, there, right? That's interesting, right? See, but you might say he's really talking about what we, you know, in in Thomason called the natural law, right?

[34:04] But the natural law is defined by Thomas in theology as a partaking of the divine law, right, in man. So you see how close he is to what Thomas is saying here, right?

[34:20] He's going back to something divine, ultimately, right? Yeah, that's that's the the truth that Thomas sees and what Augustine is saying here. What was the last part of that quote after divine law, which suffices for all? He says those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, and then he makes a comparison: as much as the city is strong in its law, right, and even more so, right, for all the laws of the city are fed by one divine law.

[34:55] He uses the word very concrete word "fed" one divine law, which is more than enough for all of it, right? Okay. So he's contrasting the law of the city with with the divine law, right? Okay, he had something like this in the great dramatist, you know, the greatest dramatist among the Greeks, Sophocles, right? In Antigone, right? When Antigone is appealing to the unwritten law, right, against the what injustice of the written law.

[35:29] That's good. He sees that, right? Because he's seeing he's seeing that the law of the city is is not the ultimate law, and it's measured by something even more common, right? The natural law or the divine law. That's the truth that Augustine's getting at there too. See, what's interesting that Augustine here is Thomas very clearly in that first part is saying that Augustine is trying to take what there is of truth in what Plato says, right, and then to what take it from the unjust possessor and give it to us, right?

[36:06] But Plato, they say, you know, he had two teachers, Cratylus, who was a student of Heraclitus, and then Socrates, right? So there's a dialogue, you know, Plato called the Cratylus, where Socrates and Cratylus had a conversation, huh? Okay. But Cratylus was a student of Heraclitus, and Plato's preserved some of the great fragments of Heraclitus. It's kind of remarkable the the humility of Heraclitus, huh? No, there's two ones I think.

[36:37] people might have preserved them for us. But he says, as a child is to a man, so is man to God. I mean, compared to the child, the man seems to know everything, right? But the man, in reference to God, seems like a child, huh? That's kind of marvelous, huh? And then he has another one where he says, as an ape is to a man, so is a man to God, huh?

[37:07] He says, as an ape in comparison to man, you know, is ugly. right And so on. Man's more intelligent, so on. So man, in comparison to God, seems to be an ape, huh? Kind of beautiful that that Heraclitus should have seen that, huh? You see, a certain humility in the great Greek philosophers, huh? I mean, the first guy who coined the word philosopher, they say, was was was Pythagoras, right?

[37:38] And Pythagoras had made some wonderful discoveries, so they started to call him wise, right? He said, "Don't call me wise." And why not? God alone is wise. Well, what shall we call you then? Well, call me a lover of wisdom, right? So in that origin, the word "lover of wisdom" is not only the love of wisdom in philosopher, but a certain what humility, right? You see that same humility in in Plato, right?

[38:08] In Socrates, you know, at the beginning of the Laws, there, which is Plato's last work, I think. But he rejects what Pythagoras said that man is a measure of all things. No, he said instead, "Oh, God is a measure of all things." That's kind of interesting, huh? And Aristotle says in the Metaphysics that either God alone should be said to be wise, or God only God in the full sense, right?

[38:37] So there's there's humility in the great Greek philosophers. In Socrates, you see it in the in the Apology, and so on, right? You know, the Oracle of Delphi said he's no one's wiser than Socrates, but how can I be wise? I mean, I don't know anything, you know. And there's that humility.

[38:56] But when you read the modern philosophers, you you lose that humility, huh? If you look at at the Karl Marx's preface to his doctoral thesis, there, you know, he's saying human mind is the highest divinity, huh? You know, it's just it's kind of funny. I remember in college one time when when some class at professor was talking about the opinion of the some of the French thinkers there before Marx.

[39:29] And they want to start the old religion, you know, and so on. And but the this is going to worship man, right, huh? And the one of the things that they had, they're going to set aside