Wisdom (Metaphysics 2005)
51. Juliet's Beauty and God's Self-Knowledge; Reading 6 on Proximate Ability; Opening of Reading 7 on the Senses of 'Before'
Class of 2005-11-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7a-wisdom-2005/051-juliets-beauty-and-gods-self-knowledge-reading-6-on-proximate/

[0:00] You know, I was I was thinking about the beauty of Juliet, and Romeo seeing her beauty, right? In terms of the five senses of before and after, I said, "Well,

[0:24] the beauty of Juliet is before Romeo seeing it in the first sense of before in time, right? It's also before it in the sense of being the second sense of before, because her beauty could be without his seeing it, right? But his seeing could not be without her beauty, right? And in the crowning sense that we attach the second sense, right? Her beauty is a cause of his what seeing her beauty, right?

[1:02] Because her beauty acts upon his eyes, right? The result that he sees her beauty, right? Okay. Her beauty is before his seeing her beauty in the third sense, because he wanted to define his seeing her beauty as opposed to his seeing his friend Benvolio right? You'd have to bring in Benvolio and Juliet's beauty, right? You have to define it, right? What this activity is—it's seeing the beauty of Juliet, right?

[1:34] So the beauty of Juliet is the definition of what is seeing is here, right? Okay. But now, what about the fourth sense of before, which, as you know, is before and goodness or better, is the beauty of Juliet before is seeing it in the fourth sense and all the other senses, right? First three senses and in the crowning sense, her beauty is before is seeing it. But is her beauty better than is seeing it?

[2:10] I don't think so. No, it's not. He's seeing her beauty, yeah, for the sake of her beauty. Yeah. So that's or or the end is the better than yeah. Knowledge, knowledge would be higher. Well, this is the point. See, if you have a beautiful painting. on the wall, right? huh It's for the sake of the viewer Isn't that beautiful? painting there for the sake of being seen. Okay.

[2:35] You have a beautiful window in the chapel, right? Huh? It's for the sake of being seen, right? So it seems then that the end of the beautiful is to be seen, right? Okay. And the same way, if you say the music of Mozart is very beautiful, but the music of Mozart is for the sake of being heard,

[3:01] the music of Mozart would lose its purpose if no one heard it. The paintings of whatever great painting one takes, huh? Would cease to have any purpose, right? Beautiful paintings and statues and windows and so on, stained glass, huh? If no one saw them, right? Okay. So if you say then that the beauty of Juliet is for the sake of Romeo seeing it, right? Then Romeo seeing her beauty is better than what her beauty, and it's the end or purpose of her beauty, right?

[3:39] Just like my seeing the beautiful painting is the purpose of the painting being there, right? Huh? They shaking your head, right? Yeah, I think I was thinking of without being able to say it, right? Maybe is that Romeo would object to saying that she exists for the sake of his seeing her. He would say, like, my whole existence is so that I can see her. Well, I wasn't saying it, but I wasn't saying that Juliet exists for the sake of his seeing her, right?

[4:14] But I was saying the beauty of Juliet, right, would seem to be for the sake of our seeing it, right? Like Shakespeare says about Sylvia, "Heaven meant such grace that you might admire her be."

[4:32] And certainly with a painting or a piece of music, right? It seems that we make beautiful paintings and beautiful music to be seen and heard, right? So that the seeing and the hearing of these beautiful things seems to be the end or purpose of that. Doesn't it seem to be so? Yeah. Okay. And the end is always better, than what is for the sake of the end, huh?

[4:51] Okay. Now, having said that, right? Huh? I got thinking about the beauty of God, right? And what Augustine says, right? Too late have I come to know thee ancient beauty and so on. I said, well, now if you say the beautiful is for the sake of being seen, right? You have to say the beauty of God is for the sake of our seeing it, and therefore you have to say that our seeing is the end of God's beauty.

[5:25] And therefore, seeing the beauty of God is better, because the end is always better. But for the sake of the end, is better the beauty of God? But the beauty of God is God, because God is no distinction. Therefore, God is. But we're better than God. We're better than God in here. I said, well, that's obviously something wrong.

[5:47] And yet, it seems makes sense to say that the beautiful painting you have in the wall or something. There's something. there, I know it makes sense, and with you, with Juliet, I'm still doubtful. But nevertheless, yeah, I wasn't saying Julia's a hole, but it's gone. Really, Julia, right? In other words, you say you know if Julia is somebody, is moon and island with no possibility of communication would make much difference.

[6:12] You know, she didn't even have a mirror, But if she's good for either, right? Doesn't make much difference, does it? I said, you know, what are you going to say about this thing? Now, in in my study of Plato, at least from the dialogues, you know, in the Republic, he talks about the beginning as being the good itself, right?

[6:37] And in the Symposium, he talks about the beautiful itself, right? And at the end of our ascent in knowing the beautiful, you just see the beautiful itself, right? Okay, it's like that's not saying it. But now it's not clear to me from the way Socrates speaks in the Republic or in the Symposium, right? That the beautiful itself, or the good itself, right, knows and loves itself, right?

[7:14] So he didn't seem to make the beautiful itself or the good itself a person, right? Or persons who knows and loves itself, right? Okay. So when he says the good itself, he doesn't necessarily mean God. Well, you got to be careful, see, because when we go to the Summa Theologiae, which we'll do after maybe the ninth book here, in the Summa Theologiae, Thomas will first show that God exists in the second question, and then he'll take up what we call the substance of God, right?

[7:52] Okay. And you'll find out that God is simple, first of all, right? And then God is perfect, and therefore good, right? And that God is unchanging, and God is infinite, infinite, and then unchanging, and then one, right? But then comes a treatise on the operations of God, right? God's understanding and his what loving and so on, right? Okay. Then comes the treatise of Trinity, right? Okay. Now.

[8:28] You can say therefore there is a distinction in the Summa Theologiae between the consideration of the divine substance and the consideration of divine operation. Right, there is two parts there. Right, but now you say, is that because the substance of God and the operation of God are two different things in God? No, because God is altogether simple. So the substance of God and the operation of God are the same thing.

[9:02] Why do we have then these two treatises? Right. Well, it's because we're knowing God from creatures, we're not knowing God as He is. Right. Thomas always quotes this passage here, and I looked it up in my English Bible, and doesn't seem to be in there. But anyway, one of the prophets say, you know, in that day, right? I suppose the day we see Him as He is, there will be what one name, and Thomas sees that as what

[9:33] you see God as He is, you'll see Him as He is, and if you have only one name for what you're saying, right? But when we know God from creatures and we name them from creatures, right? Then the multiplicity comes from the creature, right? And I often use this kind of a kind of a likeness here to indicate this. I take a what circle, right? And the center of the circle is one point, right?

[10:08] And you can see from one point these many radii go out to the circle, right? And at the end of each of these lines in the other direction, we have a really different point.

[10:23] What is what? So what is what is God? Right. When it proceeds, right, to the creature, it's multiplied, right? Okay. But now, knowing God from creatures, we're going in the reverse direction, like the great Heraclitus said, the way up and the way down is the same. You see, we're going different directions, right? So if I'm starting from this point on the circumference and another point on the circumference, right?

[10:52] And I say, well, now this point here, which we call the center, it's the end of line X here, right? And it's also the end of line Y. So now I have two notions about that, right? Um. So I can talk about as the end of X or the end of Y, but really it's one point, not two points. So to go back to the example here, in creatures, the substance of the creature and the operation,

[11:25] or the motion of the doing, right, are really two different things. Duane Berquist and my understanding of what a triangle is are not the same thing. And my walking and Duane Berquist are not the same thing, right? Okay. So I have a separate thought on the substance of the creature and the operation of the creature, and then I come back to God and I talk about the substance of God and the operation of God.

[11:53] But I negate of God Himself any real what. Yeah. So the distinction between the substance of God and the operation of God is really in my what? My mind. Well, this is in my mind, right? Okay. So in a way, we know just the reverse of the way God knows. We know the one and simple by the composed and the many, and He, but the one and simple, knows the composed and the many.

[12:22] Just the verse right. He's a much better way of going than we do We're complicating. things right Not our fault Yeah They're not even creatures right But notice huh the treatise of the substance of God comes forth the truth of the operation of God, right? So, among the things you learn about the substance of God is that He's good. That He's goodness itself. He's the good itself, as the famous say, right?

[12:54] And you could know that to some extent, right? Before you come to understand the operations, right? So, as Plato's work stopped there, right? And Aristotle has gone what to both, right? Because if you look at the the twelfth book of Wisdom, he'll take up the substance of God, and then he'll start to talk about certain things about the operation of God. Why does God even understand, right?

[13:22] And Aristotle sees that God must understand basically himself, right? And Thomas will see this and so on. And it's better understanding himself than understanding else he understands.

[13:34] So when Plato talks about the what the good itself, the beautiful itself, he seems to be speaking the substance of God, but he doesn't seem to know about the operation of God. I don't say he doesn't. Thomas, you know, says that he does this other place, but in terms of what I see in the dialogue, they don't see that, right? Okay. Now, if you think the way he thinks in the in the public or in the symposium or the thing, if God was beautiful itself, but he didn't know or love his beauty, I think it's

[14:16] a problem there, right? See, because we could know and love his beauty, and that would seem to be, you know, why should he be beautiful, right? If no one knew his beauty, right? You see, and in this hypothesis, you know, this is the way Plato understands it. It would be only us that no one loves beauty, right? And that would give us a certain what? What up?

[14:43] Yeah. Of God, right? You see, and this this is absurd, right? But why isn't God's beauty for the sake of being seen by us? You see, I think you've got to realize that the whole truth is that God knows His own goodness and beauty and loves His own goodness and beauty as much as they are knowable and what loveable, right? And they're infinitely knowable, infinitely loveable, and He's the only one who knows and loves Himself as much as He's knowable, loveable, right?

[15:28] So our knowing and loving Him has nothing. To his being known and loved, because God knows and loves Himself infinitely, and so we're not really necessary there, too.

[15:47] But of course, God's knowing and loving His beauty is not the end or purpose of His beauty, because the end is always what really distinct from that which it is the end. And God's knowing and loving are not distinct from His substance and therefore from His goodness and beauty, right? So we're kind of superfluous, right? But it's good that He lets us into seeing and loving His beauty and His goodness, huh?

[16:19] And so, Augustine says in the first book of the Confessions there too, late have I come to know Thee I come to know Thee, right? Because it is somewhat dissipated in life. That's a point, But there's a little problem with Plato, right?

[16:40] If the good itself, the beauty itself, didn't know itself and love itself, right? We kind of, you know, open up in it, right? I see. So do you say that God's beauty is not for the sake of Himself? We we can't say that. Well, no, I'm saying God's knowing and loving Himself exhausts His nobility and His lovableness, right? And God is the only one that can know and love Himself as much as He is knowable and lovable.

[17:18] And that's because He's infinitely knowable, right? And infinitely lovable. And no creature can love Him as much as He is lovable and knowable, right? Sure, right. You know, was it in St. Francis de Sales? I think there, when he's Treatise on the Love, of God, maybe it was there. I think I saw it. But you know, you're talking about praising God, right? And then you keep on, you know, calling upon the angels to praise Him, but you can't praise Him enough, right?

[17:45] And finally, you you you're talking about like Christ does, you know, or you know, where Christ is going to manifest the glory of the Father and the Father glorify Him, you know, and show them the glory I had of You before the creation of the world and so on. You finally call upon God to glorify Himself because He's the only one, you know. You know the famous definition of glory there,

[18:10] St. Ambrose. clara notitia cum laude, right? Clear knowledge with praise, right? Well, we don't know Him as much as He's knowable, so we can't praise Him as much as He is praising, right? And in the Psalms, you know, praise Him as much as you can, but you because you can't praise Him too much, right? Um.

[18:33] In the Greek, Augustine said, "Nothing too much. You can't love God too much, and you can't know Him too much. So, if God didn't know and love Himself, then you have a problem, it seems to me, right? Because then only we would know and love God, right? And then He'd be to some extent, right, So we're late to us, right? Mm-hmm. But that's absurd. When you realize that God knows and loves Himself as much as He is knowable and lovable, then you realize, in a sense, for anybody else to know or love Him is kind of superfluous from the point of view of the way things are, You see?

[19:23] And just you know, due to His superabundance, His generosity, right? What is it? Thomas quotes Avicenna there. You know, Avicenna says God alone is is generous or liberal, right? He's the is the one who gives it. You know, gains nothing by giving. Right? It is completely, you know,

[19:46] pure generosity, right? Doesn't even get a good deed out of it, right? I mean, it's kind of a good deed, you know, a good thing if He is generous to somebody. It was kind

[19:59] of interesting. I was thinking about that thing about Romeo and and Juliet, and we're always looking before and after. You know, this is used as an example in class a lot because when I'm talking about the the good is what all want, and why it is that the good is not always wanted. I always take the example of Juliet, right? And and you see that you have to know the good before you want it, right, and so on.

[20:26] So in that context, but then when you think about the before and after, then you see, see where's it is Romeo seeing the beauty of Juliet for the sake of the beauty? You see, but the beauty in no way depends upon his seeing, does it? So it's hard to say that his seeing her beauty is for the sake of the beauty, right? The beauty is nothing added to it by its being seen, right?

[20:54] So it seems almost reversed, and that the beauty is there to be seen, right? Which is not exactly the same thing. So Juliet's for the sake of him, but but her beauty, right, is there to be seen, and it seems to make sense there. If you talk about paintings and statues and churches and so on, right, and and and the music of Mozart and so on, they seem to be for the sake of of being seen, right?

[21:19] You wouldn't say I'm for this. My eyes are for the sake of what? Am I seeing the beautiful paintings for the sake of the beautiful paintings? It seems to be just the reverse, right? But once you see that, it seems, in some sense, to make more sense to say that the beauty of Julia is for the sake of the seeing, right? And therefore, his seeing is before her beauty in the fourth sense of better, right?

[21:43] It's more the end, right? But then you turn to God and say, "Well, this creates a little problem, right?" You know. But it seems to me that the problem is is compounded, or it really is a problem, if you don't see that God knows and loves His own beauty, and that He knows and loves it as much as they know from the Lord. Would find me something that you can say?

[22:14] I'm not. I'm still not happy with Julia, but obviously, with works of art, you have the intention of the artist, and in a way, he's trying to make something beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Mozart wants something beautiful, and he wanted it to be heard. et. cetera Yeah, and likewise with all of it I think Yeah And with so, if you look at the natural beauty of the of nature or of Juliet, yeah, you you have you have the cause of the cause of nature, and in a way, nature is for the sake.

[22:46] Say, let's just take nature right now. Yeah, you have nature is for the sake of man. Yeah, the beauties of nature in some way are yeah are they created by God for the sake of yeah yeah, and so you can say that with the beauties of nature. Yeah, couldn't you? So couldn't you say it also? Say, well, with Juliet, yeah. So it would it would still it would still hold yeah with with Juliet yeah.

[23:13] Obviously, you can't bring it to the level of God, but for the reason you mentioned, but you can with Juliet. Yeah. You know, there's a passage in Thomas when he's discussing the opinion of Averroes right, Averroes has this kind of strange position about how we can know the separated substances even in this life. And one thing that Averroes apparently said was that if we didn't see them, they'd be like without purpose, right?

[23:42] And Thomas says this is kind of ridiculous because they know themselves, right? Yeah, I was kind of thinking in this context, right? You know, they'd be like saying, "You know, well, what good would God's beauty be if we didn't see it? Well, He sees it, right? And He sees it, you know, fully as much as it's seeable, right? So there's no seeing left for us, really. They say our seeing is,

[24:17] in a way, adds nothing to the seeing of God, right? I mean, it's like the thing we were saying before about the does the goodness of the creature add something to the goodness of God? No. And Thomas always says, "Well, no, no. " And I think I explained it two ways. He sometimes leads us by the hand to understand a bit. He says that the God is infinitely better than we are, right?

[24:49] So that the our goodness compared to God's goodness is not like a shorter line to a longer line, but like a point to a line, right? Now you add a point to the line, and it's no longer right. Okay. So we add nothing to the goodness of God, right?

[25:13] And of course, you know, if you said we add something to the goodness of God, well, then God plus us would be better than God alone, and then God would not be goodness itself and so on. No, it's a difficulty, right? And the other example Thomas gives is that whatever goodness there is in us. Is partaking of the divine goodness in some way. Now a whole and its part is no more than the whole alone.

[25:41] Therefore, I said that he kind of saw that. But to me, that's kind of a very interesting thing to think about, right? And you realize how gratuitous God's greatness was, huh? And how I think we have to be right that He chose us, right?

[26:02] And that whatever goodness we have comes from Him, right? Well, you could apply something like that to this, right? That our seeing, right, adds nothing to God's being seen, huh? Because His being seen by Himself, right, has a kind of infinite what character to it, huh? So our seeing adds nothing to it, just like the point adds nothing to the what line, right?

[26:34] But if you you know speak of the beautiful itself the way Plato does in the the symposium, I don't think he speaks of the beautiful itself as knowing itself, right? He doesn't deny that it knows itself, but he doesn't seem to bring that out, right? So if you think of the good itself and the beautiful itself as not knowing or loving itself, right, that the substance doesn't know the operation of the first thing, right?

[27:02] You know, Plato knows, so he thinks, I think he knows in some way. But the first thing is the good itself, the beautiful itself. I think the good itself and the beautiful itself are the same thing in Plato. But he doesn't seem to say, at least in the dialogues I've seen, the good itself and the beautiful itself knows and knows itself, and that would produce a problem, right?

[27:27] If only we knew it, right? Yes, sir. And I said, "Oh, I'm not going to ship it over to pride now, yeah." So. take a little break now. Now, reading six is not as important as reading five, but it is very good about when you are inability when you are not inability, right?

[27:59] And basically, he's going to say is that you're strictly speaking able to be something when you're one step away from being it, one operation or one doing, okay? So, if I can take my example from Euclid, right?

[28:25] If a man say doesn't know plane geometry, is he able to know solid geometry? Somewhat unlikely. In some sense, you might say, hey, you do a little bit of plane geometry and solid geometry out at TAC, right? And before you start that course on plane and solid geometry, you're able to learn plane geometry and solid geometry, right? Doesn't put you in such a course. long long. But that's kind of a loose sense to say I'm able to know solid geometry.

[29:05] When Euclid, for example, defines sphere, he says, imagine a circle and the diameter of the circle, and rotate the circle around its diameter, and you get a sphere. Well, if you don't know what a circle is, how could you what know what a sphere is, right? If you didn't know what a square was, you know what a cube is, right? So I'm not able to know solid geometry until I know plane geometry.

[29:34] Then able to know solid geometry. But even as you're going through plane geometry, you know how one theorem is used to prove another theorem, right? So

[29:48] the Pythagorean theorem says proposition 47, and most of those 46 before must be known before you can know 47, right? So when am I able to what know 47? When you know the first 46 essentially. Yeah, I have to know the other ones. Just turn the page and there it is, 47, and now you're able to learn this, right? You see, but if I got to demonstrate something before I get there, I don't yet what?

[30:16] Not yet in a strict sense able. Able. And that's a strict sense of when you're in in inability for something, huh? So that's the main point here. It should be determined when each thing is in a built and when not, for it is not expressed any time in a strict sense. For example, is Earth an ability a man? Well, that has to be go through many steps before it's able to be a man, right?

[30:54] Or not, but more when it has already become what the seed, right? And perhaps not even then, right? There has to be a number of what generations, right, before you are proximate to being a man.

[31:11] Thus, not everything can be healed by the medical art or by Lakha, but there is something which is able, and this is healthy and ability. And the determination of that which comes to be an act by reason from being an ability is having willed it to come to be, and nothing outside preventing, and there being nothing in the healed which prevents it. But if you have to do something before you can heal the guy, then he's not yet able to be healed.

[31:43] Likewise, the house is an ability if there is nothing in this matter which prevents it from becoming a house, and there is nothing which has to come before be taken away or be changed. This is a house and ability. So are the trees a house and ability yet? No, because the trees got to be cut down and cut up into boards or something like this, right? And you have a matter now that is next to being a house, right?

[32:10] You just have to screw it together and nail it together or something, and you get a house. That simplifies matters a bit. Then you have a house stability, right?

[32:22] And likewise, in others of which the beginning is outside. I suppose those are the artificial things, and those having the beginning in themselves, the natural things. Nothing outside preventing it will be to itself. For example, the seed is not yet an ability, for it must be another in change. But when, through its own beginning, it is such already, as this an ability? But that has need of another beginning, just as earth is not yet a statue and ability, but changing it will be copper, and then it will be taken to be a statue, right?

[33:02] Now, the next thing he's talking about, Thomas says, is more according to the Greek idiom in the way we speak here, but somebody's going to do in English. Would you say that a that this chair is wood, or would you say this chair is wooden? Wooden, wooden, yeah. And why do you say it's wooden rather than wood? It's foreign. It's foreign wood. It's made out of wood, but it's a little more than just what it's made of.

[33:44] Okay, and the wood is only a chair in what ability, right? Aristotle seems to be hinting here a little bit at a likeness in the way in which we speak of the chair as being wooden, and the way we might say that

[34:05] I'm not colored, but I'm what Colored color colored. It's because of the imperfection of accident, right? If I said I am color, I'd be making color something as the word substantial, right? And it's only an accident, right? And so I'm denominated, right, from color but I'm said to be colored. it can't be said to be colored. But, there's some similarity between that and the fact that the chair is not said to be wood, but is said to be what wooden, because the wood is not an accident now the chair, but the wood is a chair in ability, right?

[34:49] And not an act. It kind of falls short of being a chair. And to say that the chair is wood, we'd say the wood is already what a chair is, and it's only a chair in ability. And the same way when you say that if you say I'm colored, you'd like put him in the genus of quality or something, and you can say I'm a man, right?

[35:14] But you can't say I'm colored. You can say I'm colored. So I can say this is a chair, but I can't say it's wood. I have to say it's wooden. So I guess he's kind of showing that there's a what you know way of speaking even, especially in Greek, that we use a denominative form, right, to indicate these what the imperfection in some way. Although it's a little different case, the way we say colored, and the way we say the chair is what wooden, but there is some similarity in the two.

[35:45] But these are two different distinctions of being subject to an accident and accident ability, right? But it's interesting that in the lesser kinds of being, ability and accident, that they are said of that which they are the matter, or that which they are the accident, they are said of the things denominatively, right? Wooden instead of wood, colored instead of what color, right? Aristotle's indicating that. Not called music, but musical, and man is not whiteness, but white.

[36:39] One is not motion, but what moving? Motion is definitely accident. We're going up to the upper part there of the page eight there. So you give an example there. If Earth is made out of air, then we say what?

[37:06] The Earth is airy, huh? And not air. And if air is made out of fire, then it's what? Not fire, but fire, right? And the fire is the first matter, huh? That's just the sake of argument, right? Then we wouldn't say that about it, huh? It's not the beginning of matter.

[37:29] But no, again, we, in general, we don't say that things are matter. We say they are what? Material They're material, yeah. What like let's say wood, or wood is not? And then he goes into the examples here of musical, and musical is taking not ability, but taking accidents. Whiteness we're not said to be, but we're said to be white. And again, I'm not said to be motion, right?

[37:59] We said to be what moving, right? So I was attentive to that way of speaking. That's why I was saying to my brother Richard, who got through with his translation there of the Posterior Analytics there. I said, kind of a thankless task trying to translate sometimes, huh? Because there isn't always an exact equivalent in the other language.

[38:32] I just read a couple of texts of Thomas in the sentences today. He's referring to Augustine. Augustine wanted to refuse the word substance in regard to God, right? Because sub means under, right? Oh, and there's nothing under anything in God, right? Okay. But I mean, you know, sometimes Thomas and Boethius and others will use the word substance in talking about God, right? And and so you call that Trinitarian the substance of God, right?

[39:05] And and always quoting Boethius on divinus substantia forma est. So you can talk about the divine substance, huh? Homoousion or consubstantial, right? The Father, right? They use the word substance, right? But etymologically, substance has the idea of under, right? And

[39:35] sometimes they explain the word substance because substance is under the accidents, on supporting the accidents. And should you really use the word substance talking about God? Well, yes and no. Right? There might be a time where you would refuse the word, right?

[40:03] Dion is to talk about a text in in Dionysius the Areopagita, where he wanted to use the word eros rather than the word the word agape or something like that, right? You say, well, this name is more sensual law, right? Eros. But since Scripture uses the word, right, and trying to indicate the what intensity of the law, right? Okay. So like the problem we have in English there, you know, the word karitas, which would be translated by the word charity, right?

[40:41] The charity, in the course of time, has come to represent more, you know, the good deeds being done. Charity, huh? And we speak of of love as charity seems kind of weak, word, yeah, charity. A charity for God.

[41:01] Seems kind of the point, right? And and so very often now they use the word love, right, instead of charity in talking about the three theological virtues, right? But but does the word love in in English uh, today uh

[41:24] called to mind more, sensual love, or romantic love, at least, right? Then the kind of love of God. I remember as a child sitting in church there and hearing the priest talk about the love of God, you know, kind of thinking of love in a sense as an emotion, right? And I know when I talk about love and friendship of course, you know, sometimes in first day of class, you say, "What is love?"

[41:47] Right? And and but the only answer you get is it's an emotion, right? And you say, "Well, so is anger, so is anger. It's a very special emotion." I'm sorry. But, but, But I mean, obviously they they have a vague notion of love, and maybe there is some love that is an emotion, right? But when you ask, "What is love?" that's the first answer: it's an emotion, I bet you would get that, you know, in the street.

[42:17] So when you take the word love, then talk about the love of God, or you talk about God's love Himself for us, right? Um, so I say, well, that's misleading because you know the love of God is not an emotion. You might have an emotional concomitance or something, but it's not strictly speaking; it's an act of the will, right? But if you don't use the word love and talk about God, you don't see maybe the what the intensity of that love, right?

[43:00] Okay, that's a famous thing there, where it's saying, uh, not saying, uh, uh, C. S. Lewis is talking about the love of the angels, right? And he describes their love as being ferocious.

[43:19] He's trying to bring out the intensity of the love of the angels, right? And that their love is more unified than our love because we have the emotions and we have the the will, and sometimes they go in different directions and so on. So we're kind of we're kind of divided in our love, huh? And they're a lot of completely concentrated, huh? When you read about the fall of the angels, let's say, they're the ones who were lost.

[43:53] You know, it's all at once. You know, quite for us, we're up and down, throughout life and hopefully, we will end up on the way up, but we kind of sway back and forth. You know, we're. But they, wherever way they go, they go the whole go they go all the way, right? You know, you have no idea how ferocious. To use C. S. Lewis' word, that love must be right, huh?

[44:22] And and and in the fall of the angels, you know, this love of self, right, huh? You know. I suppose we get into the problem of loving ourselves, but we're kind of divided. thing We hate ourselves sometimes, you know. But you know the intensity. It's hard to imagine that, huh? You know the the strength of that, huh? Maybe see a little bit in the great saints, maybe in their love for that intensity of it, huh?

[44:57] So there's there's a problem about about about translating these things sometimes naming them right. You know how in scripture they talk about charity? Guess the word is usually, what agape, the Greek word, huh? You know. So, you know, you'll see, as Lewis had a little book called "The Four Loves, you know, but he's talking about eros and agape and philia and storge, right? We have different words in Greek, right?

[45:24] But we tend to translate them all by by by love, huh? You see, somebody's a lover. You think right away, of romantic love, right? Mm-hmm. Even though philosopher means a lover, of wisdom you wouldn't call philosopher, a lover. unless you want to be. Misunderstood, right? You know, but he's a lover, right? So there's a problem.

[45:55] So sometimes you want to kind of talk around a little bit. I know when you translate the Greek fragments, sometimes you use the English word, and sometimes the English word is better than the Greek word, and you see all kinds of meaning because you use an English word and say, "Well, are you reading into the other author, right?" It doesn't lend itself as much as much to that.

[46:25] Okay. So ends up in the last paragraph there in the sixth reading that it happens rightly to be said derivatively, or sometimes we use the word denominatively, right? What is made of material and the undergoing, right? He's explaining what matter and accident, right? They're both said denominatively or derivatively, right? So you don't say the chair is wood, but wooden. You don't say I'm colored, but I'm colored.

[47:00] Okay, it's a derivative form because they're both something, but indeterminate by themselves, rather than something complete by themselves. So that's a good place to stop. That's the end of the second part. huh? It isn't that much in the sixth reading that there was in the

[47:23] fifth reading. Now the remaining readings will be the third part, meaning seven to the end here. And here he's going to now talk about the what? Most of all, the order of act and ability

[47:42] So, up to this point. You might say he's more concerned with the distinction of act and ability, and the different senses of ability, the different senses of act, and so on, right? But distinction between act and ability itself, right? And then he's going to talk about the order, right? So distinction is before what order, right? And the order here, of course, is in the strict sense of order mainly, which means what before and after, right?

[48:13] Okay. And there can be distinction without before and after, like the Trinity, right? Or Athanasian, the Athanasian Creed. There, there's no before and after in God. Thomas is always very clear to show that. But there's a real distinction between the Father and the Son, right? Holy Spirit. But you can't have a before and after without having the distinction, because it's only from the action of the before and after that nothing is before or after it, but nothing is itself, right?

[48:54] There's always some distinction. I talk about the before and after of Juliet's beauty and and uh Romeo's seeing it. I say first of all, there's a distinction between the two, huh? Because the beauty of Juliet is in Juliet. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. That was a great mistake there, foisted on the human mind, huh? And why the Romeo's seeing it? That's an imminent operation.

[49:26] So the seeing is in him, right? So really, two different things. You know, you've got to see the distinction, and then you can say, is there a before and after? right? Well in this case, there is, right? In at least four of the five senses, her beauty is before and seeing it, right? In time and being and definition and causality. But there's a little problem there about that.

[49:49] Which is better, right? Her beauty or you seeing it, right? And that leads to the other problems I was talking about. So. In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you've written.

[50:26] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. So, reading seven now is beginning the third and last part of the ninth book of wisdom, having distinguished act and ability as well as distinguished different kinds of ability and action. Now Aristotle is going to talk about the order of act and ability, right? And most of all, the order of passive ability in act.

[50:58] He's going to talk about mainly which is before which, and before and after or order presupposes distinction. So he begins by saying, "Since it has been determined in how many ways before is said, that's a reference back to the fifth book of wisdom in which the word before is taken up in the particular words under one. "

[51:29] Now Aristotle also distinguishes the senses of the word before in the categories, and I think it's better to begin with the senses and the categories because he takes the word before by itself there in the categories,

[51:47] and he distinguishes in the categories four central senses of before. And the first sense of before is before in time. Today is before tomorrow,

[52:03] and the second sense of before is before in being. Aristotle gives example one before two, and the before in being means that this can be without that, but that cannot be without this. So one can be without two, but two cannot be without one.

[52:29] Or let's say bricks can be without a brick wall, but a brick wall cannot be without bricks. Or the letter C can be without the word cat, but not the word cat without the letter C. That's the second sense of before. Then the third sense of before is in the discourse of reason, as can be seen Aristotle's examples, and so the proemium comes before the tractatus in philosophy, and the prologue to Romeo and Juliet comes before the play, right?

[53:07] And the premises come before the conclusion, and so on. And then the fourth sense of before is in goodness, in which the better, right, is said to be before.

[53:27] Now, is the word before here equivocal by chance or by reason? Okay, and by reason of what? Well, I think you could say by reason of a likeness of ratios, huh? Okay.

[53:59] And there are that's one way that a name becomes equivocal by reason by likeness of ratios. So the word beginning is another example of that, huh? The word in or being in, as an example, a word is equivocal by likeness of ratios. And the ratios are alike, but some are more alike or closer than others. And that enables you to order them, right? But order depends upon some beginning, something first.

[54:34] What's the first sense of what? A word, yeah, before would be the first sense. Something that follows. Something that follows from. Well, there's a beginning that Thomas points out there when he's explaining the order in which Aristotle gives the word beginning, right? And he says that we name things as we know them. We name things as we become aware of them. And therefore, the order in naming follows the order in knowing.

[55:20] So the ratio that is most known is the first one. And since the natural road in our knowledge is a road from the senses into reason, the most sensible meaning comes first, huh?

[55:37] Now, if you know a little bit about time, you know time is taken up with the before and after in motion. You number the before and after in motion. And as Shakespeare says in the *Troilus and Cressida*, "Things in motion sooner catch the eye, than what not stirs." So the first sense of before and after is out of time. To which sense you would lead back? You know, before and after in motion, even the before and after in the road that I traveled on up here to the monastery.

[56:12] That's most known to us, right? I'm kind of struck by that. Even you talk about what reason is. Now Shakespeare defines reason as ability for discourse, but discourse comes in the Latin word for running, going from one thing to another. But what act is most characteristic of reason? What's the discourse called? Reasoning, right? And discourse is like a what?

[56:41] Emotion. Yeah. Yeah. And so even our reason, things in motion sooner catch the eye, and whatnot stirs. Even our reason, huh, is recognized more by reasoning than by understanding. Reasoning, calculating, you know, this sort of thing seems to be very clearly activity of reason. Understanding doesn't even doing anything.

[57:11] I was just reading Thomas there in the in the quest chapter in this Summa Contra Gentiles knowledge of God is not discursiva, you know. But one reason why it's not is because there's no motion in God. Oh yeah. No going from one thing to another, right? Now the second sense of before and after is before and being, right?

[57:36] And that is also somewhat sensible, or can be, right? And I gave a simple example of the letter C before the word cat, or the bricks before the brick wall.

[57:52] But notice being is not as sensible as motion doesn't catch your attention so much, right? It's not somebody's being, but it's his being in motion. I used to have an parking lot outside my window there, you know, and can look out that window there and it catches your attention. What's the car coming in or going out? It's not the cars that are all parked there. They're being there doesn't grab your attention.

[58:18] If they're coming in or going out, that gets your attention, huh? Then the third sense of before in the discourse of reason, and to this third sense you'd reduce before in knowing. Well, you can see how that's like before and being, just as some things can be without other things, but not vice versa. So some things can be known without knowing other things, but not vice versa.

[58:43] There's a real likeness there. But the fourth sense is the most remote, huh? Before in goodness, huh? Better, you know. But in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle does something a little bit different. Because he's already taken up the word beginning, and at the end of the discourse on beginning, he gives a kind of common notion of beginning as what is first in being or becoming or in knowing, and then he distinguishes the senses of before and after, corresponding to the senses of beginning.

[59:22] And of course, even goodness, there was left out, is being less familiar, right? And so, it's not as you might say, immediately look at the word before as he has in the categories. It's maybe more sapiential, because you're seeing in terms of the beginning, which is the source, you might say, of order, huh? But it's not directly dealing with the word itself. It's seeing or distinguishing, or beginning to distinguish the meanings of before by the meanings of beginning, rather than just all by itself.

[1:00:00] Now I'm recalling that because he's going to be showing that.