Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
26. Act Before Ability in Perfection: Metaphysics IX, Readings 8-9
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7b-wisdom-2006-colorado/026-act-before-ability-in-perfection-metaphysics-ix-readings/

[0:00] Okay What time we have dinner here? Five fifty, they think, or what? Five forty. This is good, isn't it? Let's hear a little prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. God your enlightenment, Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, Order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written.

[0:36] Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Okay, now in the eighth and the ninth reading, you have the third part of the first part of the third part, where he's dealing with how act is before ability and substance, meaning in perfection,

[1:01] and he's going to show this in two ways, and you might in your mind compare this a bit with what he says in the chapter on perfection there on the word perfect in the fifth book of wisdom. In the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle gives three meanings of the word perfect,

[1:35] and in creatures as it is found. Then later on, he talks about God a bit, but three meanings of perfect, and the first one is to be complete, to have all your parts, and the second meaning is to have all the ability of your kind. Like Homer was a perfect poet because he could write a good plot. In fact, as Aristotle said, he taught all the other Greeks how to write a good plot.

[2:06] His characters have been praised, and his what diction has been praised, and he wrote apparently a tragic epic and a comic epic, although we've lost the comic epic. So he had the complete art. He was a perfect in his kind, a perfect poet.

[2:23] That's a little different sense than the first one. Now you have all your regular parts, but like Dryden said about Fletcher, huh? After hearing his plays a lot and saw them a lot, and Shakespeare's plays, Fletcher was just a limb of Shakespeare, an arm or a leg of Shakespeare. So Shakespeare was was the complete poet, the perfect poet, because he had all the ability, you might say, of his kind.

[2:51] That is, of the poet, or Mozart is the perfect musician. So that's the second sense, but there's a likeness in those first two senses. In both cases, the whole, in some sense. Is said to be perfect. Then the third sense of perfect is what has reached its end or purpose.

[3:15] So you could, oversimplifying a bit, say that the word perfect has two senses here: that of the whole as opposed to the part, right? Without distinguishing the two senses of whole there, and then the end. Okay.

[3:37] And what's that got to do with the text in front of us? Well, Thomas explains a little bit differently, and he ties it up with two of the four kinds of causes. Now we saw a connection between the two first senses of ability and two of the causes that are especially spoken of as being a beginning, namely matter, that from which something comes to be, existing within it, and the mover or maker, whence first there is a beginning of motion or of rest.

[4:15] But Thomas ties up now the idea of perfect with the form and the what end. Now that's not exactly the same as whole and end, but it's almost the same because, as you know from your study of the four kinds of causes, that after Aristotle gives the three corollaries that come after the four kinds of causes, then he returns to the four kinds of causes and shows how you can understand these four kinds more generally.

[4:46] And then he says that all parts are like matter, and the whole is like every kind of wholeness is like the form. So there's a likeness then between saying that the two kinds of senses of perfect are the whole and and the end or what has the end and form and end are the two ways that Aristotle shows this.

[5:14] Now there's another comparison you could make there too, and that is when you talk about the true and the good. They both are perfections, or perfecting things. But you may have seen in the De Veritati, for example, the definition of the good as perfectivum alterius per modum finis, perfective another in the manner of a what end. While truth is perfective per modum formae, in the manner of a form.

[5:54] So that ties in nicely, and Thomas sometimes takes up the fact that or makes a connection between true perfecting per modum formae. If you speak of an informed, right, student or formed mind, right, and and the good is tied up with the end, with the thing pointed out in the end of the sixth book of wisdom, that truth is primarily in the mind, and the good is primarily in things, and so that fits that connection with form, which is an intrinsic cause, and end, which is extrinsic to that of which it is the end.

[6:41] So there's a lot of nice connections you can make. So Thomas says that when Aristotle wants to show, first that act is more perfect than ability, the first argument he gives here is taken from it as as the word as form, and the second ones from act as the end.

[7:10] What's the first argument there? But also in usia in substance, that is to say in perfection, first because what are after generation are before in form and in substance, like the man and the boy, and the man and the seed. For these have already the form, and the other does not. Now Thomas kind of states the argument a little more clearly for us, saying that in generation or coming to be, you're developing from the imperfect to the what perfect, but you're moving towards what form, which is act from the matter.

[8:00] So if what is later in generation or in the development of the thing is more perfect, and what is later is act as compared to what goes before, then act is more perfect than what ability. That's a beautiful way.

[8:18] Now the second way he's going to show it is the other way we think of perfection. What is tied up with the end? The end is more perfect, as I was saying the other day. What is for the sake of the end? So if you can see that act is the end of ability, then you have another reason for saying that act is more perfect than ability.

[8:43] And so he first states this reason basically, and he's going to manifest that act is in fact the end of ability. And there's an interesting way of speaking here, because my strike is strange, and because everything goes to a beginning, and he's now using beginning. If you know the beginning of the fifth book, in the last sense of beginning, or even the end is a beginning because it's first in intention.

[9:17] You're going to beginning, the thing coming to be, and a telos, huh? And the hou heneka which is a definition of end, is a beginning, and an account of the end, generation comes to be.

[9:38] And the end, he says, is an act, and an account of this, the ability is taken. Okay, now he starts to manifest that the act is in fact the end of the ability, and the first kind of examples he takes is from natural abilities.

[10:04] Do animals see? In order they might have the ability to see. No, they have the ability to see in order that they might see. So the act, which is to see, is the end of the ability to see. The same for the ability to hear and so on.

[10:24] Then he takes the second kind of way of showing that the act is the end of ability. He takes the human arts or sciences, huh?

[10:40] So do we build houses? Do we might have the ability to build houses? Or do we have the ability to build houses that we might build houses? Well, it's clearly the latter. Now, do you think about things you might acquire geometry and other sciences?

[11:01] Well, maybe when you're learning, right? But you want to acquire geometry, so you can think well about these. So again, the act is the end of the rational ability here.

[11:21] Now the next one is about how matter is for the sake of form, and how nature is trying to what form matter. This, of course, is developed in the

[11:39] first book of the what? Natural hearing, right? First book of the physics, huh? So if matter, if nature is trying to form matter, then form is the end of matter, and form is the act. Again,

[12:01] excuse me. Now the fourth sign is not so clearly in the text here. But Thomas is saying, if you got two guys and they're both pianists, who's more perfect? Well, you wouldn't know who's more perfect unless he sits down and plays the piano and does it well, right?

[12:26] And of course, the the teacher is going to what? Show the student is actually playing it, huh? And then when they can actually sit and play the piano at the recital or something, then you've reached your what? End, right? So the act is there.

[12:45] What's the sign? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way Thomas understands it, I don't know if that's clear from the Greek, but that Hermes is is the expert and Poisson is not as good, right? But if you don't see them acting, you don't see that, right? Okay. It's only when they act that you see that one is superior. Adelas, huh? In there, the science that's unclear, right? Who exceeds until you see them performing?

[13:19] And the deed is the end, huh? Now, Thomas says he has a little third thing here in showing that. The act is the more perfect than ability from the end, because he's been talking about

[13:50] the activity being the end of the ability. But then he says, "What about these activities that have a product? Okay. And so he says, "Well, there's some activities, and this must be the passage in the ninth book that Thomas was referring to when he says Aristotle in the ninth book of wisdom, he distinguishes between the operation that remains within the doer and the operation that goes out to something outside the doer and acts upon something outside the doer.

[14:27] Okay, what they sometimes call immanent action, right? And transitive, okay. And he says, "Well, even though you might say the end of house building or the ability to build a house is not the activity of building a house, but it's a house, right? Okay. But still, in a way, it is building a house, which he says is in the material.

[15:02] If I'm kicking you and you're being kicked by me, my kicking you is really in you, isn't it? And so I'm My activity acting upon you is really in you. So the fact that there's a product there doesn't mean that the end isn't also somewhat in activity, because that activity is in the thing being made. Okay.

[15:33] So he gives examples there, building the house or weaving and so on. And he's contrasting that, right, in which the activity remains within the doer, like seeing in the one seeing, and theoria, looking at things in the one theorizing, and life in the soul, whence also what, happiness. Okay. That's interesting, huh? We in talking about the distinction of activities or motions or operations, we're going to do into three.

[16:10] You recall, right? Okay. There was what motion in the strict sense, and then there was this acting upon another, right? And then there's activity that remains within the what doer, right? When the text we have there in the fifth reading, Aristotle's text a little more complete than than the one Thomas has, but he does distinguish between motion, which is an imperfect act, and understanding, which is a perfect act.

[16:41] And he's very clear about that. When I'm walking home, I haven't walked home yet. But when I see something, I have seen it. And therefore, he argues that happiness, the perfection of man, can't consist in motion, because that's by its very nature incomplete. It must consist in activity like seeing or understanding and loving, right? Now some of those might be better than other ones, but it's got to be in that genus.

[17:09] It's got to be an immanent action, because motion is essentially an imperfect act, and happiness has to be a what perfect act. Well, now in this particular passage here, he's distinguishing between the activity that remains within the doer, the immanent activity, and the one that is transitive and goes out and is perfecting another. And now he makes the same point again that the immanent activity that can be the perfection of the one doing it, while the transitive operation is a perfecting of the thing being made, and therefore not a perfection of the doer.

[17:51] So how can the the doer have his perfection in activity that is perfecting of another, and not a perfecting of him? And so. We Christians say, you know, that our last perfection is in understanding and loving God, but both understanding and loving are this immanent operation. So it's interesting in both places where he distinguishes the immanent operation against each of the others. He makes the point that this is relevant to ethics and to a knowledge of what is going to be the activity that is human happiness.

[18:36] You're feeling the man in the street who wants to know where the action is, as if there he's going to find his happiness. And you're feeling Karl Marx, who sees man's end in the activity of making, which, as we said before, involved a a

[18:55] mistake for mixing up the as such with the accidental, because it's accidental that the maker is being perfected in his making. But that's the way Karl Marx tries to say. You know that man, in acting upon the things around him, not only changes them, but he changes himself. And that might be true very often, but still, it's accidental to making that it perfects the maker at all.

[19:24] And so, if I make McDonald's hamburgers, you know, for 30 years, I'm probably not learning anything. Probably making the hamburgers pretty good. I know how to leave them on the grill and so on. And so it's accidental to, you know, or if you're you're teaching something very easy, you know, over and over again, 30, 40 years, six times a day, you're probably not learning anything, but you got down pretty cold.

[19:55] Okay. Now. It's interesting that Aristotle, after he's shown here in the eighth reading that act is more perfect than ability, that he kind of ties up the fact that the first cause is going to be most in act by reason of the fact that act is before ability, simply speaking in time, right? That was the previous second part of the previous reading, and now, hitting that the first what mover will also be the most perfect.

[20:38] And we're talking about how our mind naturally seeks to know ultimately the first cause and ultimately the best thing, and both of those things are natural, and you have a real problem if they're not the same thing. But they tie together here because in the second before there we learned that act is before ability simply in time and causality, you could say perhaps too. So the first cause must be pure act, and now you're seeing that act is more perfect than ability, and therefore the first cause must be the most perfect.

[21:22] Aristotle seems to be pointing that out. According to this line about 1050 B there, line two or something. According to this argument, it is clear that act is before in substance, meaning in perfection, is before ability. And as we said, and then he's going back to the other one in time, always taking act before all the way back to the what the one that is moving things first, okay?

[22:01] Why is he had a little thing there, right? Well, I like to think that he's anticipating purposes, you know, that it's so natural in Aristotle's in the true understanding which I think Aristotle has of act and ability to see that the first cause is both what pure act and the most what perfect. Naturally go together. By those who say matter is the beginning of all things,

[22:34] knowledge of the first cause would not be knowledge of the best thing. If it's not knowledge of the best thing, it can't be the end of our knowledge. But if it's knowledge of the first cause, it must be the end of our knowledge. So you're in a real contradiction there. And you've got a split personality. You've got two ends, that two last ends that are not what the same.

[22:56] Yeah, that's why they're two. So you're being torn apart. I think it's interesting observation, right? It's interesting that Aristotle ties the two together here.

[23:10] Okay. Now. Just come back to one little thing here, which I think is kind of subtle, but I've mentioned it before. But some of you might say,

[23:32] is an accident an act, an act of substance, right? Well, then isn't that more better than the substance? And I think myself, I kind of been hazy in my earlier years about this, and one is apt to make the mistake of simply and not simply. Just a few little texts where Thomas talks about this. In the Summa Contra Gentiles Book Three, Chapter 75, he says, "In the comparison of things to the end, such an order appears that accidents are for the sake of substances, so that they might be perfected through them.

[24:35] Okay. In substances, however, matter is for the sake of form, because through this it partakes in divine goodness, on account of which all things are what made. Okay. Now, obviously, form, meaning substantial form, is to matter as act is to form, right? And so the substantial form is more perfect than the matter. No problem, right? Okay. But now, when you compare the substance to an accident, isn't it in some way an ability toward that accident?

[25:16] And therefore, that accident being an act, isn't that the perfection of the substance? And therefore, isn't it kind of like the the end or the goal? And then it's better. We didn't say that, right? Accidents are propter substantias

[25:39] they might be perfected through that. Of course, this becomes kind of clear when you're talking about how God, in His substance, has all perfection. When Aristotle gets through with those three senses of perfection that he distinguishes in the reading on perfection there in the or perfect in the fifth book of wisdom, then he he brings in another distinction between that which is perfect in its kind, like Mozart is perfect in his kind, he's a musician, and that which is perfect, lacking nothing whatsoever.

[26:17] And that's alluding to the sense in which God is going to be perfect, okay? So God, through His substance, through what He is, has all perfection, you could say, and that's why Thomas, you know, take the words of God to Abraham or Moses, you know, I will show you every good. Thomas says, "Ipsemet himself." Um, but our substance doesn't give us even all the perfection we need as a human being, so we have to bring in these accidents.

[26:53] I got to acquire geometry. I got to acquire justice. I got to acquire courage and so on. And all of these things are kind of to remedy the what incompleteness of the perfection I have for my own substance. So looking at that way, you can say the accidents are really for the sake of what making up right for the lack of perfection that my substance has. Okay.

[27:23] Now, sometimes the questions come up about the accidents of Christ, and just give a couple of texts here. This first one is from the earlier scriptum super libro three of the Sentences, distinction fourteen, article one, solution three.

[27:47] He says nothing prevents something from being dignius alio, more worthy, better in a sense, secundum quid, which is indignius simpliciter You see, that's a very subtle to see that distinction. We've mentioned here before many examples of where this this kind of distinction between simply and in some way is misunderstood by somebody, and there, there's a kind of second kind of mistake there outside of language that's being made over and over again, right?

[28:26] We mentioned the Meno and many other examples. Anyway, Thomas begins with that. That's kind of a subtle thing. Just secundum quid, just as the color of the body of Christ, that's something added, right? You see, it's an act, just as the color of the body of Christ secundum quid is dignior than his body

[28:59] in so far as it has itself to it as act to ability. So, in some way, right? The color of our Lord's body is dignior, right? Than his body in so far as it's a certain act, huh? Okay.

[29:24] In quantum, se habet ad ipsum secundum actus ad potentiam. Cum sit forma accidentalis ipsius Thomas he says, nevertheless, corpus Christi est dignius simpliciter You see and they say if you don't see that, you are going to make the mistake of simply simpliciter and secundum quid, simply and not simply in some way. And if you just see that in some way, the color of our Lord's body is more worthy than his body, insofar as it's as an act to an ability, right?

[30:10] You might think, make the mistake of thinking simply it's better, right? We should have more respect for his color of his body than for his body, huh?

[30:25] Now, second text of the same point is being made. De veritate, question twenty, article one, in the first objection, and he applied the first objection. This is the objection. Scientia science is a perfection of the scientis, the one knowing, right? Knowledge is a perfection of the one knowing. But every perfection is more noble than the thing being perfected. Omnis omnis perfectio nobilior est perfectibili. If therefore Christ is knowing, according to some created science, this is the article, and Christ has created science, son.

[31:08] If therefore Christ is knowing according to some created science, something created will be more noble than the soul of Christ, because perfection is more noble. Quod videtur inconveniens You guys like to call it that inconvenient, you know? It's much stronger than the English word inconvenient, you know? It doesn't doesn't fit.

[31:35] Now Thomas, as you know, maintains that Christ has more than one kind of science, and apart from the beauty vision, he also has created science. Now what does Thomas say in reply to the first? Therefore, should be said that created science is secundum quid, okay, not simply, but secundum quid. That's Latin for not simply. More noble than the soul of Christ, insofar as it is his act.

[32:13] In which way also? And he gives the example that we saw in the other article. Color is more noble than his body. Okay, so secundum quid, he's saying again, the color of Christ's body is more noble than his body, and the created science in his soul is secundum quid more noble than his soul, because it's the act of it, okay?

[32:41] And then he says in general, et quod ubi accidens, any accident, right? Suo suo subjecto, any accident, then it's what, subject, in so far as it is compared to it,

[32:56] as actus ad potentiam you see? simpliciter autem subjectum est nobilius accidente et sic anima Christi propria scientia, simpliciter it is. I think it's important because once you see that act is what more perfect than ability, right? Then when you kind of overlooking the distinction between substance and accident, how they're related, but you see that accident is a what, an act, right? In comparison to substance, in some way, you might think that what

[33:49] the accident is more perfect than the substance, huh? And now you made the mistake of what simply, yeah, mixing up the two, okay? What he said, that's true of anybody's soul and anybody's body. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[34:16] So what? Now, yeah, can you make more clear what is the simply here? Why is it simply more perfect? Well, it's partly for what we said in the first text there, that the accidents are for the sake of the substance.

[34:38] I give you some example of that. Do you understand what a square is? What a composite number is? What a perfect number is? Yeah. And does the science of geometry in you understand what a

[35:04] composite number is? What a perfect number is? Okay. So the science of geometry is in your head, right? So that you, father, right, might understand what a perfect number is, huh? Okay, so in that sense, it's for the sake of what you, which you may understand, but in some way, you could say it's a perfection of you, isn't it, that geometry? Because it's an act.

[35:43] But given the relation of substance and accident, the accident is there to enable the substance to, in this case, do something it couldn't do otherwise. Okay. Through my being a man, do I understand what a perfect number is?

[36:04] God, through being God, understands what a perfect number is, right? But through being a man, I don't understand that. Do you? So what I don't have through being a man, I can get.

[36:25] This man can now understand what perfect number is, right? Through that accident that he has what received, huh? So it's obviously for the sake of my understanding what a perfect number is that geometry exists in my mind, huh? Arithmetic, I should say, this case, huh? Okay. But so you have to see, in some way, that science of geometry is actualizing something in me, right? And in that respect, it's more what perfect, number.

[37:01] But simply speaking, you can say it's for the sake of my substance, huh? And to supply what I don't have. See, if my substance was as good as God, through my very substance, I would understand what a perfect number is, huh? But because my substance doesn't contain all perfection, right? My substance, me, as to say, won't understand this without that accident, huh?

[37:34] Just another little passage here, which is not explicit, but. He says, "No accident. This is from De Caritate, Article One, Twenty Two. No accident is more dignius, is more worthy than its subject, quantum ad modum essendi, as far as the way of being. Because substance is being per se, accident is being in another. Right? That's part of the reason why accident is always less perfect than substance. So, do you say of it, it is in some respect, but not simply?

[38:11] Yeah. Then he goes on in the second paragraph. Sed in quantum accidens est actus et forma substantiae, nihil prohibet accidens esse dignius substantia. Insofar as accident is the act and the form of substance, nothing prevents the accident from being more worthy than substance. He doesn't say secundum quid but the passage does that. For thus it is compared to it as act to ability and perfection to the perfectible, and thus charity is more dignior than the soul.

[38:51] And simply speaking, the soul is what dignior caritate. anima bring this in just to warn you, right, that if you don't understand substance and accident and how they are to each other and so on, but you have some understanding of this, you might conclude, right,

[39:22] that accident being the act of substance in some way, a perfection of it, differs simply in what. Yeah. But you realize the accident is there for the sake of the substance,

[39:42] and the substance is more what the end. Right. I don't exist for the sake of my geometry, but the geometry is there so that I could understand these things. I could understand how to make a square. equal to a given oblong. Right.

[40:10] That's strange, right? Because then the the what we call the supernatural. Yeah. Is less simply than the thing that it sanctifies. Yeah. Yeah. The most sort of most dramatic, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[40:29] That's a very subtle thing, but that kind of distinction that we talked about there. Sometimes I am teaching logic, and I want to know if I should.

[40:42] Talk about those kinds of distinctions, huh? In the logic of the first act, or should I wait to the logic of the third act when you talk about the kinds of mistakes we can make, right? Because sometimes you don't appreciate that kind of distinction until you see the kind of mistakes are being made for overlooking it. Right. But on the one hand, understanding the kind of distinction that this is helps you to understand that kind of mistake, right?

[41:15] But vice versa, understanding that kind of mistake or seeing that kind of mistake being made makes you realize how important it is to see this distinction.

[41:27] And sometimes we will make a mistake uh a sophistical argument just to make people focus our mind on the distinction. I say to my students, for example. Happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death, right? Well, it kind of forces you because you know there's nothing wrong with this argument to recognize that the word "end" has two different meanings here.

[41:55] So you see the necessity of distinguishing the senses of the word "end." If you don't, this is a perfectly good argument, right? In the same way, here you see the importance of this distinction, this kind of distinction.

[42:10] It runs through the whole book, right? Because when we say being of substance and accident, we say that substance is being simply, and accident is being in some way, right? When we divide being into act and ability, to be actual is to be simply without qualification. To be an ability is to be what only in some way, right? Say, I am in this room, right? I am in Massachusetts.

[42:46] What do you mean? I am in Massachusetts inability, right? Yeah, that's that's the very diminished sense of being being there, right? I'm really here, right? But in some sense, I'm in Massachusetts now in ability, right? I'm able to be. I am in Massachusetts in ability, but that's obviously a diminished sense of being, right? So this kind distinction is used in talking about the distinction between substance and accident, and in talking about the distinction between act and ability, and it comes up again now in this part here.

[43:29] You need to be on the border of Massachusetts to be an ability ability. Very good, very good, very good. Of course, we saw in the previous reading how. Those who think that matter is the beginning of all things are deceived by the kind of mistake we call mixing up simply and in some way, because in some way ability is before act in time, but simply speaking, act is before ability in time.

[44:08] So if you think that what is before in some way is before simply, you conclude that matter is the beginning of all things. You see that? So, seeing the importance of that kind of distinction all the way through philosophy, you know, I wonder sometimes they say on logic whether I should talk about in the beginning, but it seems so difficult, and that you kind of have to almost get into the physical refutations to begin to appreciate that these distinctions are significant.

[44:44] And and or when I tell the students, you know, that you're you're doing what you shouldn't do all day long, or not doing what you should do because of of mixing up these two, you know, you can't do what is bad without your reason in some way thinking it's good, and if it wasn't good in some way, you wouldn't do it. You couldn't do it. So reason is taking what is good in some way, some very limited or diminished way, right?

[45:17] Is being good simply, or vice versa, when you don't do the good you should do, because in some way it's bad, and no matter how good something is, it can be praying or studying, it prevents you from doing something else that is good. So in some way it's always bad. That's all. That's all you need. In some way it's bad to not do it, right? Prevents me from going to the party, or it prevents me from going to the movies, or prevents me from sleeping, or something.

[45:51] It's not that distinction is is some high-fluted thing. I mean, people's lives are dominated by that. I just got through teaching the De Anima there at TAC, and Aristotle's talking about that in the third book of the De Anima that men would do something here and now which seems desirable here and now, but if they look before and after in time, they see this is not the way to go.

[46:15] You see, and so in some way it seems good, just like you know, drinking a delicious poison here and now is good, but if you look before and after, you see it's not. That's not the thing to drink. You see, and so Aristotle speaks of man as the animal that has a sense of time, but sometimes he forgets that, and he he lives in the here and now, and doesn't have any awareness of the larger picture, which would would make him say that this is not the thing to.

[46:51] Okay, now let's look at the ninth reading. Aristotle says we're going to show the same thing, but kreitton hē. And Thomas says, well, what he means by this is that we're going to show that again that act is before ability in perfection, not by looking at one the same thing, like we did in in the arguments in the previous reading. There, we're talking about one the same thing in its generation, or one the same thing in its end.

[47:29] But he's going to compare different things, namely the eternal things, incorruptible things, to these corruptible things, and he's going to argue that the incorruptible things, the eternal things, are to the corruptible things something like act is to what ability. And of course, you know the incorruptible things are better than the corruptible things, and therefore act must be better than what ability.

[48:05] And sometimes, you know, like I mentioned before, in ethics, there when you're when you're trying to defend Socrates against the Athenians, and you say that which are are better, the goods of the soul or the goods of the body. You say, well, the goods of the soul, the goods that involve reason, so these are like the human goods. The goods of the body, the ones we share with the beast.

[48:30] So you can say the goods of the soul are to the goods of the body something like man is to the what beast, right? Well, if you can see clearly that man is better than the beast, then the goods which man has and the beast doesn't have must be better than the goods that he shares with the beast. Okay, or you look the other way around and say, well, look, the goods of the soul, like wisdom and justice and so on, these are goods that God has.

[48:59] We kind of share the goods that God has, but the goods of the body we share with the beast. Well, God is better than the beast, right? You know they're so far apart. I mean they're different things. So obviously the goods that we share with God must be better than the goods we share with the beast, and so it's more clear in that way. And we we mentioned before how Plato there, in the Republic, right?

[49:27] In talking about the order among the parts of the soul, he compares him to the parts of the city, but it's easier to see the parts of the city

[49:40] than it is to see within one person the order of these parts. Or sometimes you take something simpler than the Republic. We say that a reason is to the emotions like a man is to his horse. Now, when the man first gets on the horse, what's the horse trying to do? Throw him off, right? Well, if the man keeps on coming back on top of the horse, he can eventually what tame the horse, and the horse will more or less obey him.

[50:09] Now you know if the horse goes where it wants to go, that's chaotic, right? Huh? I always use the example, you know, the man who got his feet on the stirrups, and the horse takes off, and he's fallen off, but his foot is still the thing, and he's like over the thing, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Uh,

[50:32] that's not the way it should be, right? See, the man should be commanding in the sense, huh, the horse, okay. Um, so it makes it more clear when you have these two different things, huh? And that's Aristotle saying, right? You can see even more clearly that act is better than ability, because we all know the incorruptible things are better than corruptible things, but the incorruptible things are the corruptible things as act are to what ability, huh?

[51:09] Uh, I used to take the example in ethics. You ever, you ever been in a watch the guys in say McDonald's or some place like that at a busy time, huh? You know, people are in there demanding their their food, the satisfaction, of their concupiscible appetite, right? And you feel kind of sorry for the guy, you know, who's behind the counter trying to to to meet all the demands of these people.

[51:35] You know, there's people around, you know, want their food, you know, and so on. And that's a little bit like what it is when your concupiscible appetite is not what ruled by your reason, huh? It's making all kinds of demands upon your reason. Right, the reason's running around trying to satisfy them, running around to get drugs and liquor and and what God knows what else, right? You see, and that's not a desirable thing.

[51:59] I often thought I'd hate to be behind the counter, you know, and trying to satisfy you know 20 people at the same time, wouldn't you? See, I can see more clearly the disorder in that.

[52:14] What Aristotle does here is to first kind of state briefly the argument, and then he backs up the argument, huh? But he said kreitton. The eternal things are before in tēs ousias in perfection, right? Than the corruptible things,

[52:40] but nothing what eternal is in what ability, huh? And then he gives the logos for this, the reason for this, huh? He's talking now, as Thomas explains. Of the passive ability, like the ability of matter, and such an ability passive dunamis of that sort, is at the same time of what, contradictories, huh?

[53:13] And we wouldn't be that kind of ability if you are not able to be and not be, huh? So he says, what is truly able or dunaton can be and not be. So you might say, look at at the matter in me, huh? The matter in me is able to be a man. In fact, it actually is a man now, right? But if one of the mountain lions gets me around there and eats me up, right?

[53:45] Then this matter is what able to be a lion, right? So there is something in me whereby I am able to be through my own form and able not to be if my form is displaced, right? So the corruptible is able to be and not be, huh? And because it's able to be not to not be, that's why we say it's corruptible, right? Well, is the incorruptible able not to be?

[54:15] No, no. So it's like simply like act, huh? In comparison to the corruptible. So if the corruptible, if the incorruptible or eternal is better than the corruptible, then act must be better than what ability, huh? Again, there is a proportion there, huh? Okay.

[54:45] That's pretty clear then. So around line sixteen, seventeen, there he's saying nothing. Therefore, of the incorruptibles is simply an ability, right? As far as its substance is concerned, it might be in some other way, like Aristotle thought that the what sun and the moon and the stars are incorruptible, but they can change their place, right? As far as their substance is concerned, they're incorruptible.

[55:21] Okay, now some consequences of this. Now it's interesting that he's very brief here. because he applies it to... The question of the necessary, nor any of those things that are from necessity,

[55:38] and these are the first. And if these were not, nothing else would be. Notice this is kind of hinting or giving you a little bit of the argument that we see developed in Thomas from what what is able to be and not be depends upon what must be, right? Yeah, in the Summa Theologiae, and it's given in the Summa Contra Gentiles, but in the what 16th chapter, the one of pure act, that God is pure act.

[56:12] There's no passive potency. What's interesting, huh? You can see how Thomas was undoubtedly influenced by Aristotle here, huh? To think of the argument that, oh yeah, we can reason out that God is a necessary being. In fact, necessary through himself, right? And what is necessary to be cannot have this ability not to be. So you can't eliminate this passive ability from the one who is necessary to be to himself, huh?

[56:45] but in general from the necessary. So it's interesting that that's one of the arguments, huh? I think it's the third argument, and there's six arguments in that chapter on 16 of the first book of the Contra Gentiles, but the third argument, is one from necessity and contingency, and it really gives the same argument for the existence of God that is a third one in the Summa. Was not one in the earlier chapter in the Summa Contra Gentiles, but Thomas brings it in there so he can reason that God has no what passive ability, right?

[57:21] That's right from this thing right here. Just a copycat, that Thomas, right? I think I mentioned I ran across one of De Koninck's introductions

[57:33] to. I was about to throw a book out, didn't think that much to do with it, you know. DeConick's a kind man who'd often write introduction to, you know, some second-rate book that somebody had who'd asked him to write introduction, but but beautifully at the end, you know, Thomas was the most faithful and humble disciple of Aristotle. How contrary it is, you know, some of these modern guys who think there's some big, you know, chasm between Aristotle and Thomas, but no, Thomas was.

[57:59] He's always referring back to Aristotle in some way or other, and he has a tremendous respect for him. It's not a blind faith he has, I mean, but but true respect for Aristotle, and in that sense, you can say Thomas is the most humble and faithful disciple of Aristotle, but undoubtedly the one who could understand him the best, huh?

[58:25] The trouble with Aristotle's works is that they come down in a very what, contracted form, very concise, and maybe certain things missing that we don't have, and so on. And so you need somebody like Thomas to what, uh fill that out unfold it, unravel a bit. But you can see that Thomas here is

[58:49] influenced by what Aristotle says here, because Aristotle's saying another way of arguing here is that the necessary is what, the first things, the necessary things, which are the incorruptible things, don't have any what, ability not to be, so they're just an act, it seems.

[59:11] Incidentally, I think I mentioned the order of the Summa Theologiae or the Summa Contra Gentiles, because the arguments for the unmoved mover are greatly expanded, much greater than the Summa Theologica. The first two arguments are from motion, as you probably know. Only the first one, the Summa, is. Even that first one, the Summa, has like one middle term for one of the major premet, one of the main premises, right?

[59:41] And in these, the Summa Contra Gentiles you've got three different reasons for it, three different reasons for this other premise, and so on. So it's much more developed. So when he begins to talk about then the substance of God in the fourteenth chapter, he kind of just takes it for granted that God is what, unchanging, right, unchangeable. And then in the fifteenth chapter, he says that God is what, eternal, right?

[1:00:07] Okay. He had that same order in the Summa when you show that God is unchangeable, then that he's what eternal from that. And I mentioned that because again, comparing this to St. Thomas, the first argument in the sixteenth chapter that God has no passive what, potency, huh? Is that he's eternal, right? Okay. Well, in this context here, huh? He says the idea that at the very beginning of the reading, right, the eternal, right.

[1:00:43] He says the eternal things have no what, passive ability. No ability, no ability that is to say to be and not to be. Otherwise, they'd be corruptible, right? By the corruptible or material things have in them an ability to be and not be. That's why they're corruptible. So Thomas's first argument for God having no ability no passive ability, is that he's eternal, right? The second argument, as I mentioned before, is taken from the fact that he's shown that God is the first cause, the first mover, the first efficient cause, and then that act is simply speaking before ability, right?

[1:01:25] Then the third argument is the one from necessity. So you have both of these things in here, the eternal and the necessary. And you know from the Posterior Analytics the connection between the necessary and the eternal. Aristotle will talk about that in terms of the premises. The premises, you know, being necessary are eternally true. It's necessary that two say be half of four, and it's eternally always will be so.

[1:01:51] It doesn't, at some point in time, begin to be half of four, and then later on in time cease to be half of four. and today it is half of four, and yesterday it isn't, and tomorrow it will be something else, and so on. No, it's eternal, right? So, but there's separate arguments in Thomas. though. The eternal one from his unchangeability, and then a separate argument showing that God is the one who is necessary to be to himself, and such a thing cannot have any ability not to be.

[1:02:20] So there's no passibility in God. But it's striking the way Aristotle or Thomas has this here. Now Thomas. I mean, Aristotle also, as you know, has a certain position there about the heavenly bodies and so on. And so he applies this to those things too. So he's saying you don't have to worry about the heavens stopping to revolve, you know, breaking down, because they don't have this kind of potency to move at some times and at other times, huh?

[1:02:56] They just have a potency to be here or there, right? But they're not in potency to being in motion or not in motion, huh? But we don't have to worry too much about that for our purposes here.

[1:03:11] Um, in the he makes some comparison to the the lesser things that because of their some of them resemble the heavenly bodies a bit because they seem to be always active, right? But others are not. And then he fills in at the end here a criticism of Plato, huh? Because Plato has up there, you know, science itself as one of the first of things, but science is what you know in potency to the act of science.

[1:03:40] So why do you put science among the first things when act is simply speaking before what ability, huh? And this is a misunderstanding of what the eternal things really are, okay? So it would have to be knowing instead of knowledge. Yeah, and of course we talk about about God, um, science in the sense of a habit or a disposition there is not in God or an accident, huh?

[1:04:08] But science is there in God in the sense of knowing the causes, huh? Knowing them perfectly and so on, more as act, huh? Okay.

[1:04:24] So in the in our way of speaking, we might speak of God's, you know, science, right? But actually, it's perfectly an act. Okay. Now.