Wisdom (Metaphysics 2006, Colorado)
36. Roads of Reasoned-Out Knowledge, the Unmoved Mover as Good Itself, and Q&A on God's Operations
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[0:00] So let's go now on. What he's going to say about matter, but the unexpected when he takes it in the downward direction. but I, following Thomas there, you, mentioned how the Greeks speak of what the cause more is above the effect, and therefore Aristotle will speak of the first causes sometimes as the highest causes, right? Okay. Not so much thinking of highest in the sense of best, although that may be true also, right?

[0:29] Because they kind of imagine the effect is hanging from the cause, right? Or we speak of the cause as supporting the the effect. But other languages will sometimes speak of the underlying cause too, even though they're, you know, they'll sometimes speak of the causes underneath. We may at some point speak the other way too, but does this go downward, you know, forever, right? To the above the above, right, having a beginning, right?

[1:05] So he's assuming now there is a first matter, right? And he says, let's say A is the first matter. Now, in a downward direction, as you go from A to B to C, from A comes to be B, and from B comes to be C, and from C comes to be D. Does this go on forever, right? And Aristotle says no. So there is a first. form.

[1:26] There must be a first formed matter. Well, he's not asking now whether the first matter is a formed matter or not, you know. But he's just assuming at this point that what is above, meaning the first, you know, the first, and he's asking whether in this downward direction you go on forever. But but if there wasn't a first formed matter, then it would have to be an infinite number.

[1:55] If there was no first, then between the prime matter and the the the any particular formed matter, there'd be an infinite. number. No. I mean, if you think of the first matter as not formed, but this pure ability that Aristotle talks about, well, that would be the beginning, right? And from that would come to be the first formed matters, right? Earth, air, fire, and water. It is thinking, right?

[2:22] And from them would come the you know composed bodies and so on. But does this go on forever? He's saying, right? Okay. He's going to give a reason for saying it doesn't go on forever in that downward direction. But if there wasn't if there wasn't something like earth, air, and fire which came first after prime matter, you would have it would follow logically that there would be an infinite series between any particular formed matter and prime matter, right?

[2:49] Well, you're saying if if there wasn't a next thing that came to be, right? But it's kind of clear that. You know, from from the letters come to be the words, right? And from the words come to be the sentences, and from the sentences come to be the paragraphs and so on, right? Aristotle is saying, does that go on forever, right? Well, that's always been argued that they don't go on forever, huh?

[3:15] In the downward direction, right? And so, taking the position of the master Heraclitus, Let's say fire was the first matter. So, from fire, let's say comes what water, right? And from this, earth, and thus always something what?

[3:41] Some other kind of thing always comes to be, right? Okay. Now, in order to reason, he's going to first of all uncover a distinction, right?

[3:54] And he says, in two ways, this comes to be from that, huh? And not simply that bracket is a little different in the Greek there. He's not talking simply about one event coming after another, yeah, yeah. Now, what are the two ways, huh? As from the boy changing, there comes to be the man, right? Since something's being developed, right? Or as, like from the bricks comes to be the what the house, right?

[4:31] The brick wall, or as from water comes to be air. And he's taking that in the ancient science there, where the in the four elements have a common matter, and one element can come to be from the other element, huh? Just like if I had a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere, that you could get a cube or vice versa, okay? Now he's going to point out a couple of differences in these two ways of coming to be, right?

[5:06] That from the what boy the man comes to be, as from the thing coming to be the thing that has come to be, right? So the boy is essentially on the way to the becoming of the what man, right? Okay. Or from the what thing that is imperfect, the thing that is perfect or complete, huh? Okay. And what's the difference there? The difference between the way in which

[5:40] the man comes to be from the boy, and the way, let's say, a sphere comes to be from a cube or a cube from a sphere. The the sphere is not what an imperfect. The becoming of the cube, right, is a stage of that. No, it's different kind of thing, right?

[6:05] Okay. So always between as between being and unbeing, there's genesis. So the thing coming to be, he says, is between being and what? None being, right? As the one learning is becoming a what? Scientist, right? And this is what is said when one says that the one knowing comes to the one learning, right? Okay. I know it's an example of that, right? But as we're from air comes to be water, the other one being what?

[6:48] Corrupted, right? Okay. So he says there's a difference between saying that the knower comes to be from the learner, right? The learner means what? Something becoming a knower, right? Okay. That's like the man coming to be from the boy, right? Or the cat from the kitten, or the right? Okay.

[7:11] But in the other case, if I say from no, take the butter in and out of the refrigerator. The hard comes to be from the soft, and the soft from the hard, right? As hard to soft or soft to hard, like kitten to cat. No, kitten is developing into a cat. Hard is not develop. Is not what it means. Hard doesn't mean developing into soft, and soft means that, no.

[7:40] But one is the corruption of the what other, right? Okay. And then the other difference, I guess, you're going to talk about here, is that the hard comes to be from the soft, but vice versa.

[7:58] The soft comes to be from the hard, right? See, but you know the man comes to be from the boy, and then the boy comes to be from the man. We speak to the second child, but it's not exactly the same thing, right? Okay. And and the knower comes from the learner, but the learner doesn't come from the knower, right? Okay. So there's a there's a cycle there with the hard and soft, right?

[8:26] In both directions, but not with the what learner and the knower, or the boy and the man, or the kitten or the cat or the puppy and the dog, right? Do you see that? Okay.

[8:42] Now he's going to argue that in in in neither of these ways of becoming do you go on forever, right? Okay. But first of all, the second difference here around line thirty-one, on account of which these are not what on account they don't come back, you know. At the butter, you take the butter out of the refrigerator and it becomes soft. You put it back in, it becomes hard.

[9:13] Turns around, huh? That's not, you know, boy becomes a man, and the man becomes a boy. No, no, it's not, okay. Um. So does not come to be from the man and the boy, he says, right? Okay.

[9:36] So that's that's that's the second difference, right? Uh. Now he says, finding down line three, there. Amphoteros, in both ways, is impossible to go on forever, right? For, in the case of the boy becoming the man, you're going from what none being to being, right?

[10:02] And the other ones, it can't be going on forever because one turns around becomes the other, right? You don't go on forever from the hard, but you end up with the what soft, and you turn back again, right? So it can't be the infinite things coming to be from it, yeah, because it turns around. I was never turn around, come back, right? Okay. But likewise, in in in the from the the boy coming to the man, because you have generation and you have a limit there between none being and what being, you have definite limits, huh?

[10:36] So in either case, it doesn't go on, he says, forever, huh? Um. Now, at the at the end of this thing, at the end of the third reading, there he says, likewise, is impossible. For the first matter to be what corrupted, right, huh? But then there have to be another what matter before that, huh? That's kind of a secondary conclusion as far as what he's trying to show here, huh?

[11:14] So when you have. yeah. protons becoming atoms, atoms becoming hydrogen, oxygen becoming water. Yeah. Which phases that? Was it something different? Well, it seems to be. It's developing into that, right? It's going into that, right? But maybe, maybe, maybe it's it's.

[11:54] It's a little hard to say. Depends upon. You gave me a difficult example here because, um, uh, when you get water from hydrogen oxygen, does hydrogen oxygen remain in the water,

[12:11] or is it something really different? Huh. I mean, you know, it's not as clear as you might think it is, huh? So the corruption of one is is corruption of the other, or the generation of one is a corruption of the other. It resembles hot and hard and soft, right? You're saying that you get water from hydrogen oxygen, and you get hydrogen oxygen from water. If if if one involves corruption of the other, right?

[12:49] Right. Has some likeness to hard and soft, right? There's a generation of hard, is corruption of soft, right? And the generation of soft is the reverse, right? But you can then take water and get something else, or is that not really right?

[13:12] Well, you see, in that kind of change, you're talking about the coming to be of something, right? And this is the coming to be of another. Aristotle seems to be saying that between being and non-being, there's no limits, right? You wouldn't have limits; it goes on forever. Okay.

[13:39] So if you begin from non-being and you end up with being, there are limits, and therefore, what's in between is not infinite. That's the case where the one is imperfectly the other, right? What? That's the case where the one is imperfectly the other, like the boy is is becoming the man, but he is in some way with the man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but uh, what would prevent water becoming not in that way, some you know, grown-up water?

[14:06] But yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't really have an example because you have to add something else, right? Yeah. But if you're talking about the the becoming of a plant, right?

[14:26] Wherever you start, you know, the process of the becoming of a plant. There are limits, right? When it's not a plant, then when it is a plant, so can you go through an infinity of steps, huh? To get to being a plant. Yeah, if there was, then there wouldn't be really limits, huh? Of being and and non-being, huh?

[15:05] In the other case, you go from hard to soft. From hard to then becoming things forever, you'd never turn around and come back to where you started from. Okay.

[15:23] Is like a race course and you run around a circle, you come back to where you started. As the race course must be what limited, right? You come back to where you started from.

[15:42] So Aristotle seems to what um bring in something other than the main thing he's trying to show in the. Third and the fourth readings, that there is a first cause, and for the reasons I gave, you know. But why he feels necessary to do this, right? It doesn't seem to be altogether necessary. Just kind of the goodness of the teaching, right? He talks about downward direction. It's not going on forever, huh?

[16:20] So maybe we should stop there, and tomorrow we'll do the fourth reading, right? Where he's going to take up the end and the form, give some particular reasons or difficulties you're in. You don't have a limit there, right? And we'll see those when we get there, okay? And then, you know, maybe tomorrow afternoon we can look at the fifth reading, right?

[16:56] Maybe we get to some of that in the first part there, you know. But when I get into the fifth reading, there I like to talk a little bit about that distinction too of the the three ways of proceeding, you know, that Dion's distinguished or the three roads in my way of speaking, huh? So, and seems to me that that belongs to the wise man to to say something about that.

[17:19] Aristotle in the *Premium* had talked about the first road, road from sensing, memory, experience towards a knowledge of the universal. And in the last reading, you'll be talking about the private road of each science. But in between them is a common road of reasoned-out knowledge, or the the the road of reason as reason, if you want to call that.

[17:45] I see that middle road is is kind of tied up with the before and after and the acts of reason that we've been talking about, huh? And when Thomas begins the *Premium* to logic, he begins it by talking about three acts of reason and the order of them, right? And then, by reason of that, he explains what the parts of logic and so on.

[18:11] But because the acts of reason are common to all the sciences, then there's something in common about the way they proceed. But because their subject or matter is different in each case, then there's something going to be unique about there, huh? And I compare it sometimes, you know, you make a simple comparison, you know, we say walking and running are what acts of the legs, right, huh?

[18:38] Right. And any time you go somewhere without your car, as you say, you walk or you run or something, right? But then somebody might say, "No, but do you walk and run on on level ground and on rock rocky? You know, pieces of rock, you know, or do you walk or run the same way on dry ground and icy ground?

[19:08] In a way, though, it is the same act, isn't it? Right. But what you are walking on is going to there is going to be something particular about that. You know the way you, but basically you walk the same way, anywhere. Common act. So we we define and we reason and so on, but in some cases more quickly and some cases more hesitantly, right? And and that's something to do with with the matter you are reasoning over, right?

[19:41] Reasoning about. So there is some, you know, similarity there, right? There is something. thinking over road walking over road Yeah, yeah. I mean, there is some similarity there, right? But as far as the distinction between, um,

[20:07] like the distinction between walking and running, and say walking and jumping, right? I say. That's a distinction acts of our legs, right? I say, but then there is something to be considered on the side of what we're whether we're walking or jumping.

[20:30] And that's something in addition now to what the acts of the legs are, right? So we have essentially the same acts of reason, but they're being exercised in different matters. So it's going to be something private, huh? This is somewhat the distinction between these, huh? In other words, there is something common to all reason out knowledge, which is the use of reason, and logic, in a sense, is concentrating on the use of reason and what the act, and that's the act of reason, the use of reason, right?

[21:08] But but we're going to be talking about the third and third part, but the fifth reading is going to be about the differences that you have to observe because you are dealing with a different matter, a different subject. You have to proceed in a different way, somewhat. So the posterior intellect deals with matter. Somewhat is that a sort of common matter? Yeah, it's not really matter in the sense of what the matter of the science in particular.

[21:39] No, no. But Thomas will say that you know, in in his commentary in the fifth reading here, the logic teaches the common way of. Proceeding in in all reason, knowledge, or all sciences, right? You'll be distinguishing that from the private road of each science, which is determined by its what matter,

[22:07] its subject. But we'll we'll see that better when you get in there. But you want to distinguish a little bit the different roads, huh? Aristotle doesn't do explicitly here, but but Thomas following Avicenna makes a distinction between logic, right, and the private roads, and then Dion,

[22:31] you know, putting together what Thomas and Aristotle said other places about the natural way of going forward, and put the whole picture together, right? You're three modes today. What the logicians said, you're two modes today, and Dion. was it two or three? Well,

[22:55] that's three. Then now then I was going back then to the to the beginning of the physics. You look at it, Aristotle will use will talk about the road there, right? So you see, the natural way of going forward is from what is more known to us to what is more over nature, and you talk about you know the road is being the inborn road and so on.

[23:19] So so we can talk about three roads as well as three ways of proceeding, but it's substantially the same distinction, right? So you can speak of the natural road, and then the common road of reasoned out, knowledge, or perhaps more generally, the road of reason as reason, and then the private road of each reasoned out, knowledge, and three is the first number about which we say all.

[23:56] There doesn't seem to be any other road possible, right? But you get something of a reason for that too. We'll see. Don't forget the bread now. Oh, and if you need anything else, you have my both my numbers there. So if you have any great ideas, but thank you. Thank you.

[24:27] So is it right to say that there's there's no problem with an infinite A sequence or a series of moved movers, provided that you have a first of a different kind. uh uh an unmoved mover. Aristotle says it makes no difference as far as his argument is concerned, right? But is that I mean is is that the point, Thomas? What's the point Thomas is making in the in the first and second way when he says the series can't proceed to infinity?

[24:53] Does he mean there can't be an infinity of these moved movers, or that you could have an infinity of those, but you also need something else, other in kind, some first? Yeah, maybe you could say that. You know, you have to have an unmoved mover, right? This is not the number itself; that's the problem. No, no, no. But Aristotle is addressing more the there might be some other reason why there isn't an infinity, right?

[25:15] Besides this, but as far as this is concerned, what is essentially a middle must have something before it, right? And makes no difference whether what is essentially a middle is one in number or or many, and even whether the many are are limited or unlimited, right? Because it still is one grand middle. In the summa, doesn't he say it can't be infinite? Because then there would be no first.

[25:44] Yeah. No, but but you know you got to be kind of careful what he's saying there, right? Um, if every mover had a mover before it, then every mover would be a moved mover, and therefore all movers would be one grand moved mover with nothing before them, right? That's the meaning of it. Could you give the argument why there couldn't be an actually infinite number of move movers?

[26:13] Simply from what he says elsewhere that you can't have an actually infinite number. I say there might be some other objection to it, right? But he's saying you don't get out of the need for something before the middle by making the middle infinite. There might be some other objection to making infinite, right? But but you don't get out of the idea, you know, that you need something before it, as long as the series is still essentially a grand middle.

[26:41] Like having the train with the engine in the middle, it could actually be infinite both directions. What we're saying is that that the the engine is essentially the beginning, and the caboose, the end, and the wagon in the middle is essentially a middle, a pulled puller. And if you take away the engine, it doesn't.

[27:09] We keep attaching, you know, wagons. It's not going to get anywhere. But you could take away the caboose. Well, that's not the point, though. The point the point is that the that the the pulled puller, right? We have one pulled puller, meaning one wagon there, right? Or you have two or three, or even infinity. It's one grand pulled puller, right? And it can't be a pulled puller pulling anything without something before it.

[27:36] See for the the the um the first and second way. I mean, what if the move movers are immaterial? What's the what's the absurdity in there being an infinite number of them? Isn't the problem that there's no? You gotta be careful there because um sometimes they they say that the argument for the unmoved mover right in the physics is just going to an immaterial mover I can say right who's not being moved by the kind of motion that it is the beginning of the source of but then if you take the word mover and generalize it you know for even where the good is said to move right um then you have to extend your argument to go all the way to God huh in

[28:31] strict sense huh and Aristotle does that in the in the metaphysics but he might say he goes beyond that right um what what he does in the in the where he stops in the physics right the physics he goes to the extent that the unmoved mover ah is not being moved by the motion we studied in the physics huh and therefore it's not a body because a body doesn't move something without it you know and then that's the end there right

[29:08] but it's not clear you arrive at God at that point huh and when Thomas develops the argument for the unmoved mover in the Summa Contra Gentiles he goes into that right he doesn't do that so much in in the beginners Summa Theologia right but

[29:33] Vincent Smith years ago you remember your article on on this distinction you know just a bit under a day he's probably dead now but

[29:46] the distinction between yeah yeah between you know the unmoved mover that you arrive at in the physics right and then the the the unmoved mover you arrive at in the twelfth book right what do you mean may extend the meaning of motion there right

[30:08] it's really to get to the the unmoved mover um in the fullest sense must be the end of the whole universe because the end um

[30:26] the mover in the strict sense the third kind of cause Moves for the sake of something, right? So it could be said to be moved by the end. Romeo's beauty, you know, moved him, or was it Romeo's Juliet's beauty moved Romeo to climb the wall of the garden, right? Okay, that's moved now, in an extended sense. Now you're talking about her beauty moved him, not as the third kind of cause, but as the end that for the sake of which he he climbed over the wall, right?

[31:08] So to arrive at a completely unmoved mover, you have to arrive at something that is is the end, right? Aristotle will be arguing that way in the twelfth book of wisdom. But he already something like that in the Dianima, right? You know, I was just teaching. When you get down to the the

[31:30] moving the body, right? So what moves the body, right? Well, there's some part of the body moving another part of the body, but originally it seems to be either imagination or or thought and desire, right? See, so what makes me what moves moves my body to go out there in the kitchen, right? Well, I imagine some food and I what I picture some food and I it's out there and and have a desire for it, right?

[32:02] So these two move me move something more physical in my body, right? To get up and go out there, right? Okay, but then Aristotle says, yeah, but I'm imagining or thinking about something good and desiring it. So really, the good there is the first mover. The good is the unmoved mover, right? Okay.

[32:34] So the stake imagined and desired is moving me. So the it really the two are reduced to one, named to the stake. And then he calls that the unmoved mover in this series, and in a way, my desire is a moved mover, right? It's moved by the good through the the knowing power, and then it moves something more physical in the body, which

[33:05] muscles and so on. And so that's kind of anticipates, you know, the kind of thinking that's go on there in the twelfth book of metaphysics, right? That for God to be without you know altogether the first unmoved mover, he has to be the the what the good of the whole universe, the end, the ultimate end.

[33:33] And so, so when Thomas talks about God, or even Scripture does about the God as the Alpha and Omega, right, beginning the end. But if he wasn't, if he was the beginning and not the end, then he'd be moved, right? He'd be moved by the by the good itself.

[33:56] So for Plato, you know, the ultimate thing is the good itself, right? But the Demiurgos is not then the first cause; it's the good itself. But for Aristotle, for Thomas, the Demiurgos, or the first mover in the third sense of cause is also the what the good itself.

[34:19] And therefore, it's all together first, right? In no way moved by another. That's kind of an extension, right, of the idea of moved. You say Romeo was moved by the beauty of Juliet to climb over the wall. We're talking about the end is moving us. But in order to completely make the first cause the unmoved mover, it has to be the good itself. Otherwise, you know, he would be moved by the good, right?

[34:53] So this is a little clarification, right? And the Demiurgos helps us to, to prepare the way for that clarification that will come up at the end. How would you respond to somebody who said that the first mover isn't the first mover in the line of agent causality, but only in final causality? It doesn't move as a. Yeah, but it's kind of a reason for extending the word mover there, right?

[35:18] And therefore, the sense in which a wholly unmoved mover, right? Because if it was for the sake of something further, or for the sake of some good other than itself, then in some way it's not altogether first, is it? That good is altogether first.

[35:41] And that's why we say, you know, that the end is the cause of the causality of all the other causes. We just talk about the table. You see, the way they say is well, the wood is the cause of the table, but the wood would not have become the wood of a table without the carpenter. And likewise, the shape of the table is a cause of the table cause of the table, but would not have become the shape of this wood here without the carpenter.

[36:05] So he's the cause, in a sense, of the matter and the form being causes, right? But he made the table for the sake of putting our books on it or our dinner on it or something. So, or he made the chair for the sake of sitting, right? So sitting is that for the sake of which the carpenter shaped the wood, right? And therefore, the sitting is a cause of all the other causes being caused.

[36:34] It's a cause of what the carpenter did, and then he, in turn, made the wood into a chair and put the form in it or got the form into it. So ultimately, the end is a cause of the causality of all the other causes. It's kind of beautiful, right? Just as our mind tends to know the effect before the cause, right? So likewise, it tends to know the caused the cause before the cause.

[37:00] Excuse me. Yeah. It tends to know the cause before the cause of the cause, right? So if the end is a cause of all the other causes being caused, you might. See a harmony between that and the end being the least known cause, because that's going as far as you can go in the direction of the cause, right?

[37:30] It's kind of interesting, you know, how Plato saw the good itself as what was first, right? It's almost like you know, if you if you stop the the Summa Contra Gentiles with the substance of God, right? Well, in in understanding the substance of God, you see that he's the good itself, right? But then there's no operation, and there's no understanding the good or loving the good, right?

[37:56] That's going to be left to to other things, you know. That's kind of a sign, maybe, that that in considering the first cause of God, you ought to consider his substance before his operation, right? Because Plato got so far as to the substance of God to some extent, right? When he said that God was the good itself, the beautiful itself, the one itself, right? But he didn't get to the operation of God,

[38:28] and we kind of follow that order, right? Aristotle got to the operation, right? So he went beyond Plato, right? But the fact that Plato got to the substance but not to the operation shows maybe we should think about the substance as we do and before the operation, and then you have to think about the operation before you can think about the Trinity, because the Word proceeds by way of God understanding himself and and the the Holy Spirit by God loving himself, right?

[39:06] So you have to study the operations of God, which the philosopher can get to eventually, as Aristotle did, but Aristotle didn't get to the Trinity because it's

[39:19] beyond our mind. But what we can understand about the Trinity, we suppose that we understand that God understands and knows himself. By operations, you mean? Aristotle saw that, right? You know, he argues in the twelfth, last part of the twelfth book, that that just as the what it is of the things sensed or imagined is our own object, proper object, proper object of the divine mind must be himself, right?

[39:50] Otherwise, he'd be characterized by something less than himself in his operation, yeah. Do you mean by operations, especially here, I mean in Aristotle causality, God's causality? You know, he's talking about what does God understand and love, right? And primarily, God understands Himself. And understanding Himself, He understands everything else. And primarily, God loves Himself, right? Because He loves Himself, He chooses other things. And then, would causality be an extension of operation of God's operations?

[40:38] Well, if He didn't create, there would be no causality. Well, yeah, Thomas, I was giving that. Those are still operations. I was giving that passage from the from the beginning of the Summa Contra Gentiles, where he talks about how God's understanding and loving Himself is an immanent operation, right? His creating is a transitive operation, but the immanent operation is by nature before the transitive one. He says, he said, even in men, right?

[41:05] Huh? So because I think about something and and love it or want it, then I start to do something that affects things outside of me, huh? So that the transitive operation proceeds from the what immanent one, huh? You know, and that's the way we understand God, although it's not separate operations of God in us, right? But Augustine says because God is good, we are right.

[41:40] You could also add, maybe, that because God knows and loves His own goodness, right? We are. That's involved. When Aristotle says God is, you shouldn't be in John's Gospel, right? Because because the beginning of John's Gospel, right? Because you see that the Word, you know, proceeding immanently in God, right? But then, through the Word, the Word was made.

[42:13] understanding Himself, is He knowing there about the Trinity, but in an immanent way? Well, I wouldn't say He knows the Trinity. The reason why Thomas, the reason Thomas gives, I mean, because you know, by faith, it's a matter of faith the Trinity, right? But the reason Thomas gives why reason doesn't naturally know God, right, is that God makes the universe through His what nature, right? His nature is common to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

[42:50] So you don't see the distinction there, right? Nevertheless, there seems to be many, you know, footprints of the Trinity in his creatures, you know, which might give a certain what. Probability, you know, to somebody wanting to argue that, right? You couldn't really know the Trinity from preachers, huh? If you knew that he had a word, then you couldn't Yeah, but you can't know that. yeah. Can I ask about the material cause again?

[43:32] Did was was it? I'm not sure exactly what he's saying about the impossibility or the need for a first material cause. Was he saying that you cannot infinitely divide matter? No, he wasn't arguing explicitly that about matter. He's arguing the other thing, you know, the downward direction, right? Right, right. Not the upward direction the first cause, but if you wanted to argue that there was a first matter, you might argue that any matter which has a matter before it, right, is a cause, cause, right?

[44:09] And if all matters of that sort, then all of them are like one grand cause, cause, with nothing before it. But then, in the case of the like, like in the case of the agents, you could have an infinite, but as long as you had a first. Yeah, as long as you had a first. Yeah, yeah. I said there may be other difficulties about having infinite series.

[44:32] You know, how would you get, you know, to to the thing? Um, by going through an infinite number of steps, but that's not important for the idea of showing that there's a first one. Okay. It's important is that that series for the one or many, and a many for the limited unlimited, is by definition a middle. And if everything is of that sort, then you have a middle with nothing before it, which is a contradiction.

[45:01] And so he resolved the impossibility of being and unbeing, right? He's saying it is; it is not a middle. It's a middle because it's a cause, cause, but it's not a middle because there's nothing before it, so the ball game's over.

[45:23] What about animals eating animals? It seems like if there was an infinite number of kinds of animals, you could have an infinite number of matters. Yeah, but then it wouldn't be. What?

[45:43] You're not going through what infinity steps to get your meal. Oh, you mean because they could eat each other? Yeah, it's only if every animal had only one prey. And you had an infinite number of animals. Yeah, yeah. The the orthodox theologians say that that God's goodness, his wisdom, and all the ways in which in which creatures participate in God are his energies. They use energia for that, and they distinguish that from from the essence, from the divine essence.

[46:35] Yeah, that sounds kind of false. I don't want you to just say something about how that confusion might come up. Like, why? I mean, it seems to be. I mean, there seems to be a confusion there.

[46:54] Well, you make the creature part of God. It sounds like to me from your wording. You said God's energies. Well, they have the possessive, right? Yeah. So how is saying something different than God's creatures? Because they're God, the energies are God. Well then, how are they his creatures? They're not. I didn't say that. All right, I didn't hear. Can you say it again? They say that that that God.

[47:23] They're admitting composition, guys. What they're doing? It seems like it seems. I think they want to deny it, but I think in fact it seems that they are. Yeah. What's the wording again?

[47:35] God's goodness, his wisdom, all the ways in which creatures participate in God. Those those perfections, as they exist in God, they name energies. But then they're just one thing. they're denying anything they're just in Him They're denying that he's saying. they're saying the attributes are different things in God. So then, any composition in God, and that would be false.

[47:57] I guess. Yeah. Where is it here? This seems to be something a difficulty that that thinkers fall into. The Platonists, I think, fell into the same difficulty. I mean, they went so far as to say a subsistent being and subsistent life were something outside of the first principle, the One. Look from here in in book five, if you have the text there, book delta line. It's

[48:40] towards the end of the reading. On on the necessary right, where Aristotle is making again the similar point we saw a little bit here that there can be a cause of a necessary and so on.

[48:55] What line is that? Around about eight there he's getting into it. Eight. Eight what? Ten. Yeah, ten fifteen B, around around eight line there. Aristotle is just through there six or seven. They're talking about how there can be demonstration of necessary things.

[49:19] Okay. He's talking there about necessary around line ten there, and and the things that are necessary through themselves. So that the line 11, so that to proton, right, the first and chiefly anankaion right to haploun. It's simple, right? It's not composed, right?

[49:57] And then because it's simple, he concludes at the end of the chapter that what there's nothing biaion or parafusi, because then you have to have some composition there. There's nothing violent or apart from nature there.

[50:15] This is what Thomas does in the Summa Contra Gentiles after, he shows that God is simple, right? That there's nothing biaion or parafusi. I didn't know a. Chapter in that subject, 18 or something like that. 18 is showing he's simple, you know. 19, there's nothing parafusi. The Aristotle sees that the the simplicity there of what is necessary, especially as necessary through itself. Yeah.

[50:51] I think the Platonists fall into that because they say that matter, because they claim, because of their claim that matter is not being, so they say that if the one, the first principle. The one itself, though, for the Platonists, the one itself, which is, I think, can be identified as, the good itself. But anyway, the one itself certainly can't be be

[51:16] composed, right? Otherwise, wouldn't be the one itself through itself. But they they say that the one itself can't be being itself because there's because because of they claim that that good is more universal than being. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd say you can only state it in a kind of qualified way, the way Thomas does, right? If you limit being in a sense to being an act. Then matter is not being right, but matter being ordered to the good is good, right?

[51:53] Therefore, in some sense, the good extends further than being, right? Being an act, right? But being an ability is still being, in some sense. So you can't push that too strongly. Thomas trying to save there, Saint Paul's disciple there a little bit, you know. He may be Saint Paul's disciple? He may be a... what do you call? him Not a charlatan but a guy. I don't know why he assumed the name?

[52:19] you, know nobody seems to know, right? I mean, did he assume the name under false pretenses? I mean, to give a false authority to his book because he was a disciple of Saint Paul, Or or did he just have the name, you know, in religion or something like that? the, you know.

[52:39] But they thought for centuries. that. He was what the Dionysius that that Paul converted in Athens. I don't know if it was a Dionysius, but you know, that there's a lot of biblical names in this world, right? And was this guy named? You know, how do you get his name? I don't know how he got his name. But why they... maybe it's a false equivocation, I don't know.

[53:05] You want to excuse the man, or else he's, you know, pretending to be who he's not. Do you think they? The fact that there were so many people were writing commentaries on him. Yeah. Albert and Thomas. Yeah. Did it depend that much on their thinking he's a disciple, or just because they saw that it was? I mean, there were other fathers and apostolic fathers. Yeah. but they give all that attention.

[53:38] He was considered the first, among the fathers, as the disciple of Paul was considered next in authority after Paul. Anyway, Thomas speaks it in a sort of respect for him, you know. You know, he greatly exceeds me, you know, and so on, you know. And I'm

[54:05] sure he does, but anyway. Thomas always understands what he says in a benign way, huh? Just like he usually understands Augustine in a benign way. Is there something understandable, or I mean, I'm trying to understand why this confusion happens? Is it is it a is it a likely mistake for the mind to fall into to want to distinguish in God His substance and His operation.

[54:43] I mean, I guess that's that's what that's why they do it. That's why they're claiming that there must be that distinction in God is because his transcendence and his his presence in creation. How how can you how can you harmonize those two things? That God is both beyond all things and in all things.

[55:07] God is said to be in all things because his causality extends to all things in part, right? And also his knowledge extends to all things, but

[55:19] not in all things as in if his body extended through there. I mean, it's sort of okay to say that forms of Plato exist in God, but in God they are Him, and they're not different from each other.

[55:33] Scotus actually says there's a difference in God too. I mean, he he really just the free will thing is the biggest thing for him. Yeah, but what's he saying is different in God? No, something other than his knowledge. His knowledge is different because he doesn't know what men are going to do before they do it. That's Harry. Because otherwise, this is

[55:53] the Dunce said. Dunce said this. You said. Actually, I don't know. He never let that down, you know. He didn't have anything like in the Dunce. Yeah,

[56:09] I'm not sure he was. What he wants to say exactly, but there's some kind of difference in his knowledge. I don't know if he wants to say he's not really different, but there can't be any difference in God because he because the free will thing he just can't. No, he's almost. Yeah, but that's silly.

[56:32] God's causing is the cause of free will. Doesn't take it away. I guess I guess you might say that because because perfections are held distinctly in creation, and it's only in God that they're all united that the mind would tend to think of of the perfections as being distinct. Yeah, definitely judging God according to human creaturely standards. Because they they are distinct. I mean, our understanding of them is distinct.

[57:08] We say and we don't see God, right? So we don't know what He is. So the things we know aren't Him, right? So they're