Wisdom (Metaphysics 2016)
8. Metaphysics I, Reading 1: The Natural Road from Sense to Reason, and Why God's Love Causes Goodness (Part 1 of 3)
Class of 2016-09-22
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/7c-wisdom-2016/008-metaphysics-i-reading-1-the-natural-road-from-sense-to-reason/

[0:02] Now, Aristotle had what we often call each kind of philosophy, each part of philosophy, a methodos, as I mentioned. And methodos comes from two words in Greek: meta, which means after or over, and hodos with the hodos, which means road, right? So methodos means over a road, right? That's why I translated it in the text, you know. He's calling philosophy over a road. Philosophy is knowledge over a road.

[0:44] Knowledge that what follows a road, right? Now the word road is not the first meaning of it, right here. The first meaning of it is the way I got here. But there's a before and after on that road, right? And so when you carry the word road over to knowledge, right? You drop out the cement or the tar, whatever it is, but you keep the idea of a before and after, right?

[1:17] So if someone asks me what is a road in our knowledge, right? It's a before and after in our knowledge, right? So to understand a road, you have to understand the before and after that is in that road.

[1:36] Now, when you talk about the first road in our knowledge, this is the natural road because nature is what's first in the thing. And the nature of man is to be an animal that has reason, right? So because we are animals, we have what the senses, right?

[2:01] And what's generic in a thing develops before what is what specific. So our road, the natural road, begins with the senses and it goes into eventually what reason. So my first description of the natural road is to say it's the road from the senses into reason, right?

[2:29] Now, what does Aristotle teach us here about the order in the road from the senses into reason? Well, he teaches us the order in which different kinds of knowing come along this road, right?

[2:55] Now, obviously, what comes first along the road is sensing, hearing. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and so on, right? And then what comes second along the road is memory of your senses, right? I remember how licorice tastes, right?

[3:19] Ah, I remember how green apple tastes, right? Nice green apple there in Minnesota. Nice crisp apple. And I remember what you know the moon looks like, and so on, right? Holy senses. Well, then after memory, what comes along the road? huh? Experience. Experience, yeah. And experience is the result of bringing together many memories of the same kind of thing, and they form in a way one experience, which is a collection.

[3:56] The doggy. Of many memories. What's coming out? Yes. Oh, Joshua. Joshua. You're back. Yes. So good. I just finally had that close to my car now, so. Oh, good. Yeah. Did you get the reading Oh here's another They're ten dollars. They're ten dollars a piece. So we're talking here about the

[4:45] order in the first road in our knowledge, right? The road from the senses into reason. And in the first reading here, Aristotle says that the road is from sensing to memory, and then to experience, and then from experience to what? Yeah, but using art in kind of a broad sense, right? For a knowledge of the what? Universal. Okay.

[5:20] So this man has two ears, and that man has two ears, and this man has two ears, and this man, everybody I guess, seems to have two ears, right? So man is a two-eared animal, okay? Aristotle usually says a two-legged animal, right? Biped, huh? Okay. Well, then this is the end, you might say, of the road, right? Okay. Okay. Now there are other before and afters along this road you can point out, right?

[5:54] Um. Just touch upon these a bit. There's an order in which different things are known along this road. And the most obvious before and after is that sensible things are known before things that are what not sensible. If they can be known at all, right? Okay.

[6:29] And things that are more sensible before things are less sensible, right? And therefore, you could say that material things are known before what immaterial things, huh?

[6:47] And that's why natural philosophy comes before wisdom, right? Because natural philosophy is about material things, huh? Things that are subject to motion, right? And immaterial things are known much later, okay?

[7:09] And then you could say that for the most part, effects are known before what causes, huh? And if there is a cause of the cause, as there often is, that's going to be even less known, right?

[7:34] So this is another aspect of the before and after, right? Effects are for the most part known before causes, and causes before the causes of the cause, right? And therefore, the last thing to be known would be what the first cause, yeah.

[7:54] So you can see why wisdom, if it's about causes and not just any cause, but about the first cause, is going to come where in the order of our knowledge

[8:09] last, right? Now you know where the Jesuits are wrong in teaching metaphysics before natural philosophy. When I, you know, interview somebody for a position in philosophy at the Assumption College, right? I'd ask them about natural philosophy, and they didn't even know what that means, you know, let alone if they studied it, right?

[8:33] The two best teachers at Laval, of course, the two greatest teachers were Charles de Koninck and Monsignor Dionne And Charles de Koninck always taught what courses in natural philosophy. He never taught a course in metaphysics. While Monsignor Dionne is teaching the logic and and things of that sort, right? But they realized these are the things that are fundamental, right? And they had to lay a foundation.

[9:02] Okay. Now, there's another order to be seen besides this, and that is the order in which even the same thing is known. Right. Now, Aristotle talks about this in various places, but two things you could say about it, two or three things.

[9:31] One is, of course, what Boethius says that a thing is singular when sensed and universal when understood. Right. So the singular comes before the universal. Right. So

[9:49] then you could say we know things in a what outward way before we know them what inwardly. Right. Now, learning the definition of sacrament in grade school. It was defined as an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. But when you said outward sign, what kind of sign did you mean? Sensible. Yeah, yeah. Outward was like a synonym for what? Sensible. Yeah, yeah. So we know things in an outward way before we know them what?

[10:38] Inwardly, right? And that's one likeness, one one magnificence of the Italian word there, not Italian word, the Latin words there, for understanding, right? What is the Latin word for understanding there? Our Greek scholar, Latin scholar. Understand. Yeah, for what's the Latin word? Yeah, intelligere, right? Okay. But what is the etymology of intelligere? Yeah, intus legere to read within, right? What kind of sign, right? You go from the senses into reason, right?

[11:26] You go from an outward knowledge to a what? Inward knowledge, right? Okay. That's one excellence that the Latin word has that the word understand doesn't have. But when understanding though indicates it to something what? Hidden underneath, right? In the beginning of our knowledge, and then we gradually come to understand. That's what St. Thomas said. Why we say if someone has a sharp mind because he can penetrate.

[11:54] Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Penetrating mind, right? Yeah. Sharp mind. Yeah. Okay. And then in the proemium there to the eight books of natural hearing, right, the so-called physics, huh? Aristotle points out that we know things in a what? Confused way before distinctly. And this is both in our senses and in our what? Reason, right? Even the senses are knowing things in a confused way before distinctly, right?

[12:30] So when you taste somebody's salad dressing, this is good. What do you use for salad dressing, right? What might be a secret of the house, so they won't tell you sometimes.

[12:44] And you know, if you have a painting on the wall there, and you look at it from time to time, you start to notice things you didn't notice what before, and sometimes somebody else points out something you didn't see, right? Oh yeah, yeah. I look down that painting on the right side, looking down the canal, right. I go over to the left side of the room, looking down the canal again.

[13:10] You know, Talking about this painting I had in my my my room as a bachelor, and I discover that, you know, so things you didn't see right away, right? Okay.

[13:32] I hear Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and heard it many times, and my friend Warren Murray says, "You know what he does at the end of the last movement? " There, I says, "Well, kinda. "

[13:46] Well, he combines five melodies together. I said, "He does, " and I've been listening to this now. Go back and listen more carefully, right? You know, see if I can see the way he puts these together, right? Okay. Well, what does that show about my hearing? It's indistinct, right? Confused, huh? And after a while, maybe, you know, sometimes I listen to pieces and what instruments are playing, right, huh?

[14:19] Okay. I'm not too good at that thing, but. And then the reason what has to define things to know distinctly what they are. Aristotle says a

[14:43] child calls all men father and all women mother and then distinguishes, right? I suppose in a big Greek household you see this, right? Because there'd be many women around the house, right? And they're all mamas, right?

[14:57] I remember my children there. They're very little. They're looking out the window, and there's a woman going into the house across the street, right? See, look at the mama. Look at the mama. Well, she might be, she may not be a mama, but what do they mean by mama? Yeah, something, yeah, yeah. But the fact that they use the word, you might say, incorrectly, right? Using mother to mean woman, right, is a sign that they know things in an indistinct way.

[15:26] And sometimes you see little child call a cat a dog or vice versa, right? Because what they understand is little four-footed animal, furry animal, right? And they don't really see the distinction between dog and and cat, huh? Okay.

[15:50] So that's the order in which even the same thing is known, right? Okay. So there's the order in which different kinds of knowing come along this road, right? The order in which different things are known, right? And the order in which even the same thing is known, right? So there's a lot to be seen. But Aristotle here, he's talking about the order in which different kinds of knowing comes, right?

[16:18] Because he's looking for what comes last in our knowing, right? And he points out that the what man of art or science, right? Not only knows the universal, but he's trying to know why things are so. He's trying to know the cause, right? And so you get insight into the fact that maybe what comes at the end of our knowledge will be a knowledge of the what?

[16:45] Not just the cause, but the very first cause, right? Okay. Now do we get to the end of the first reading? Did we get that far? Yeah, we don't want to rush that. But look at the last paragraph now on page two, right? And then look before and after at, the first and the last lines, right?

[17:12] But that, for the sake of which, we have now made a discourse is this: that all hold what is called wisdom to be about the first causes and beginnings.

[17:28] Now he's using cause and beginning there as kind of interchangeable, right? But in the fifth book of wisdom, right, he points out that beginning is more general than cause. Every cause is a beginning in some way, but not every beginning is a what? Cause, okay.

[17:48] So that as has been said before, the experienced man seems to be wiser than any of those having just sensation, you might add, right? But the artist, then, the man is experienced because he knows why, right? And the chief artist is wiser than the handicraftsman because he knows, in a sense, the cause of the cause. And the looking sciences more than the making, right? Now of course he developed it later on to point out that wisdom is looking knowledge.

[18:23] If you want to speak Greek, it would be theoretical. If you want to speak Latin, speculative. If you want to speak English, which I do, I call it the looking sciences, right?

[18:34] But now the last sentence. Now, thus it is clear that wisdom is about beginnings and causes. He's almost backtracking, right? Because at the beginning of the paragraph he says it's about the first causes, And now he's just saying it's about beginnings and causes. Like he wants to come back, go more slowly over the fact that wisdom is about what the first causes. So in the second reading, he's going to, as he says in the very first paragraph, the second reading, he's going to say now we know that wisdom is about beginnings and causes, right?

[19:14] Now about what beginnings and causes is it about? And he's going to develop that more slowly. Huh? Wonderful thing he does. No wonder they called Thomas the Democritus Now, yeah.

[19:43] So notice the first paragraph. Now the second reading. Since we seek such knowledge, we seek this knowledge that comes at the end of our knowledge. This ought to be considered

[19:58] about what sort of causes. And about what sort of beginnings is wisdom the knowledge? Perhaps this is known as philosophical modesty. Perhaps it would become clearer if one took the thoughts that we have about the wise man. As I used to say to students, that's not the editorial we that we Aristotle alone have, right? But the men in general kind of have about the wise man, huh? Okay.

[20:34] Yeah, give it a little side, huh? You know, just try to question these people, huh? Okay. They say LBJ when he was, you know, leader of the Senate, and he's got a vote, you know, and he's got to make sure he's going to have votes to get what he wants passed and so on. He'd say to Senator so and so, Senator so and so, and come, let us reason together, he'd say.

[21:02] Meaning, of course, I'm going to persuade you or twist your arm, you know, to vote this way or that way, right? So I say, come, let us reason together, right? Come, let us look before and after, okay?

[21:20] Now, don't be too precise, huh? You know, kind of be simple-minded here when you answer this question. Does God love the saints because they are good? What would you say, probably to that? What are the?

[21:38] Right? Yeah, I think most you would say, yeah, God loves the saints because they are good, right? I'd say no. You'd all say yes, probably, huh? The average person I think would say yes, huh? Seems reasonable.

[22:02] But if God is the first cause, does He have any cause before Himself? Does He have anything before Him as a cause before an effect?

[22:17] Now, when you say that God loves the saints because they are good, what you're saying is shocking. Now, is that the goodness of the saints is the cause, right, of God loving them?

[22:42] It seems like that. Can the first cause have a cause? Now, if it's the first cause, you guys are not looking before and after, right, huh?

[22:59] Now, let me show you how evil really your answer was, how terrible it was. Okay, make a little discourse here about the famous word "have." Right?

[23:22] Now, is the haver and what he has are they the same thing? Doesn't seem so, right? Now, the easiest examples of haver and had are things like your possessions, right? For example, I have a car out there in the lot. Is that car me? No, I don't think I could even eat it myself. Not that I want to eat it, but. But sometimes you buy a car and somebody sees it and says, "That's you."

[24:05] Yeah. It's you. That's a a figurative way of speaking, huh? Okay. I have a house. Is that house me? Okay. I have a lot of books. Those books me?

[24:27] No. Um. We have an expression in in English: the has and the have-nots. They're talking about your possessions, right? No, I have some money in my pocket, some dollar bills. Not you. But it's not me, right? Okay. So clearly, in the case of these kinds of havers and and what they have are not the same thing, because one is outside the other, right? Okay.

[25:04] Now, it's a little more difficult when you get inside, huh? Like, I have some knowledge of triangles and squares and circles, which I got from my teacher Euclid of Alexandria.

[25:33] But am I that knowledge that I have of triangles and squares and circles? And I have some little bit of virtue here and there, you know. I have a reluctance to steal from people for some reason. I don't know why.

[26:09] Remember that in, you know, if a kid took a, well, your kids take a piece of candy there, you know, from the store, and make them bring it back, you know, and and you said, I think, am I that little bit of justice that I have? Am I that?

[26:31] I have some knowledge of logic, knowledge of syllogism, predication, so on. Is that me? Now it's a little harder to see, right, that I'm not that knowledge that I have.

[27:03] If I had some health in my body, if I had some strength in my body, could lift the glass at least. Am I health? Am I strength?

[27:25] If I was health itself, could ever be sick? If I was strength itself, could ever be weak? Fell pretty weak after mowing the lawn the other last week. What's the matter with me?

[27:44] So again, in these cases, the haver and the had are not the same thing, right? Now a more difficult case is, I have a body,

[28:02] and I have a soul. Am I a body? Am I a soul? Or are these parts of me and put together? I'm a put together thing, by the way. Put together from a body and a soul.

[28:32] But if my body and my soul are parts of me, you know, Thomas points out, Saint Peter is not in heaven, right? The soul of Saint Peter is in heaven, right? Saint Peter will be in heaven after the resurrection.

[28:56] So in Pius XII, I guess, was getting ready to was define the mystery of the Assumption, right? Make it official teaching. He had many theologians come and talk to him, right?

[29:12] And so my teacher De Koninck went to Pius XII, right? And he said, "Well, if Mary's body was not assumed into heaven, right, Mary would not be in heaven."

[29:27] He's very impressed with that. Darn good reason, you know, in defense of the mystery of the what Assumption, right? So that's interesting, right? Strictly speaking, my soul was not me, but a part of me, right? It's not the whole Duane Berquist Duane Berquist will be dead, even though his immortal soul will survive his death, right? Duane Berquist will not survive his. death eh Okay, Unless you want to call part of me, me, right?

[30:10] Okay, but even here, the distinction between the haver and the had is found, right? Because the distinction, I'm sorry, the distinction between the haver and the had, right? Is the part and the whole the same thing?

[30:29] No. So when you say that the whole has a part, right? There's still a distinction, right? You wouldn't say that the whole is the part, would you? No, but you're getting closer, right? Okay.

[30:43] Now in God, can we speak of God as having something? Say. Well, the first thing in the Summa Theologiae you learn about the substance of God is that He's not put together in any way, right? There's no composition, right? No putting together in God, huh?

[31:19] So if God had something, right? There'd be some kind of it seems what composition, right? Or else you'd have to use the word have in a what? Very different sense, right? You'd have to say, you know, to safeguard yourself from heresy and making God composed, right, huh? You'd have to say that what God is whatever He has. Okay. Now,

[32:03] our Lord there at the Last Supper, right? He says, "I am the what? Road. " He translates usually the what the word way, right? I am the way, the truth, and the what? Life, huh? Now as my teacher Thomas Aquinas taught me, when he says, "I am the road, " the the hodos is the Greek word, right? Same word that Aristotle has, hodos, he's saying this insofar as he's man.

[32:43] If you look at the third part of the Summa Theologiae, which begins with the, incarnate word, and, goes to the sacraments and so on. Um, he says this is about Christ, who as man is the via. tendendi ad Deum, right? The way of getting to God, right? So I am the road as man, and the road to myself is what God, right? So as man, he's the road to follow, right, to get to God.

[33:22] But as God, he's life itself and truth. He doesn't say I am living or I have life, but I am life and I am what truth, which is because of his simplicity, right? He doesn't say I have the truth. I have to be very careful. if he said that right, because that might imply that he and the truth are two different things, right? You know, I got the truth about the the right angle triangle.

[33:57] You know, I got the Pythagorean theorem, right? You do too, I bet. I don't know about these guys, but but I'm not the truth about that. But Christ says I am the truth itself, life itself, right? So sometimes you see, for example, that they'll say that God is love, right? They don't say that God has love, although they could say that. Very careful what you're saying there, right?

[34:31] It's contrary to all the earlier meanings of has, but God is love itself. There's no distinction, right? Okay. Is God wise in the sense of he has wisdom that is something other than himself? See, now they tell me like me, whatever wisdom I have is not me. That sounds very incriminating, right? But that's true about all my knowledge. Whatever knowledge Duane Berquist has is not Duane Berquist.

[35:12] A fortiori Duane Berquist is not knowledge itself, because then he'd know everything, right? Right. Because knowledge is that of which everything that is known is known. So if I was knowledge itself, I would have all knowledge, right? And if I was wisdom itself, right? My goodness, huh? If I was truth itself, right? I have some truths in my mind. I think again, the whole is larger than the part.

[35:45] I think that's true. Okay, but Christ says I am what life itself, truth itself, right? Now coming back to the thing I was saying before, if you say that God is what love, not just has love, right? If you say God loves the saints because they are good, right? You'd say the goodness of the creatures of the saints, that, is to say, is the cause of God's love.

[36:19] But God's love is God Himself. Therefore, you're now saying this is the horrible sin or falsehood you've fallen into, gentlemen. You're saying that what the goodness of the saints is the cause of God's existence because He's love itself, right?

[36:41] We've got to rescue you from this terrible error or mistake into which you've fallen, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, one mistake leads on to another mistake, right? It's a fundamental mistake. So, if you continue to think that

[37:10] God loves the saints because they are good, right? Then you'd probably say He hates the sinners because they are what bad, right? Although my friend Saint Paul,

[37:29] my oldest son is named Paul, my name is St. Paul. he says that God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth. But you might think you know that God hates the sinners because they're bad, right?

[37:54] You've got to be kind of careful about that, right? So, since God is the first cause, Thomas points out the difference between God's love and our love, right?

[38:14] We start to love another person, you know, usually because we what see something good in them, right? Okay. The woman is beautiful, so we begin to what love her, right? Beauty is something good, right?

[38:34] I was in sophomore year high school there. I was in biology class. Professor Gatto. He was a tough guy. Gatto. Numskulls he'd say, "He'd slap the desk! Don't you know anything?" But there's one guy seemed to know the answer. Always, Murray. Oh God. And so he slams it and says, "Okay, Murray, tell me the answer." He said, "Well." This attracted my love of Mister Murray, right? So he knows something, right?

[39:11] We're on ways to our houses ways to our houses are halfway on the same way, you know. So we talk, you know, going down there, right? Found out we politically were compatible too, and so on. So I saw much good in this man, right? So I began to like him, love him, right? Okay.

[39:34] So we're used to having our what love be aroused, right, by the good we see in somebody, right? But that's not true about God's love.

[39:50] God's love is the cause of whatever good is in other things. It's not an effect. Of the good that's in other things, but it's the cause, right? So we talked about looking before and after. In this whole discourse, we're looking before and after in the sense of the what fifth sense that Aristotle gives, right? Which is laid alongside the second sense, the sense which is the cause before the effect, right?

[40:24] Okay. Well, the goodness in somebody that I begin to like in this world is a cause of my liking them, right? It arouses a liking in me for them, right? Okay. But this is not true about God's love of anything else than Himself, right? Rather, His love is the cause of whatever is good in them. Okay. Too much for Joshua. Do you see that? That's involved in the idea His being the very first cause, right?

[41:08] There's no cause before You. Now, why you got saints and sinners then, right? If God's love is the cause, right? You'd be apt to say, well, then His hate must be the cause of the badness of sinners, but that's obviously not true, right? You know.

[41:35] Why are some men good, the saints, and some men bad, the sinners, right? If God's love is what the cause of the good in creatures, and why are some men bad then, right? If God's love, it's not because He hates them that they're bad.

[41:56] What would you say? Well, take my little prayer. You know that I say. Do you see it at the beginning of class? Okay, we'll see it then. God, our enlightenment, help us, God, to know and love You. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, pour and illumine our images and arouse us to consider them correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand what You've written, and He's written that the what God's love is the cause, right, of the goodness in creatures, as opposed to our love, right?

[42:39] So it's just the reverse, you might say, right? So. My little prayer that I give there, help us, God, to know and love You. Sometimes I change the word a little, and I say, move us, God, to know and love You. But does God move us by necessity to love Him?

[43:08] No, He respects the what nature of our will. He's given us free will, right? So we can refuse His movement in that sense, right? We can

[43:25] not cooperate with His grace, right? Okay. Now, thinking of the saints there and Mother Teresa and so on, recently canonized, I said, I think the saints must know, right, that the good in them, whatever good is in them, is from God.

[43:48] God is always God's love is always before the good that is in them, as a cause is before an effect. But they freely, right, cooperated with the movement that God began in them, right? They freely cooperated with what His grace that He gave them, right?

[44:12] And that's why they turned out so well. Okay, why the sinners did not what cooperate, right, with the grace that He gave them, with the inspirations He gave them, and so on, right? They're always quoting out this, I mean, the Old Testament there, you know, gives you life and death. What you gonna choose, so on? Okay.

[44:45] Kind of mystery, right? Huh? Okay. Now I'll give you a second one here. Okay, give me a second thing here to think about. When I was a little boy there at the Nativity Grade School there, St. Paul, Minnesota, Sisters of St. Joseph. Anyway, I learned the act of contrition, right? Huh? And still you said, my God, I'm hardly sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because to offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.

[45:27] Okay, just stop there. He's all good. He's deserving of all my love. In other words, I should give Him all my love, right? Now suppose I succeed in giving God all my love, right? Which that seems to be required, right? Huh? This would be perfection of my confession, right? Huh? Okay, not just my fear of hell and so on. Okay.

[45:57] If I give all my love to God, I have no love left for my neighbor. For yourself. Yeah, so you know, got both commands, right? We're supposed to love our neighbor. You know, it's one of the commandments of love. And I give all my love. All means all, right? I mean, doesn't mean some, or part, or something, right? Even the greater part, it means all. So if I give all my love to God as I should, I got no love left for my neighbor.

[46:25] I got a problem, right? If I don't give all my love to God, I am not a saint. And if I give all my love to God, I can't love my neighbor, and then I can't be a saint either. I got one hell of a thing, man. What? You're between a rock and a hard place? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, now, if you read these little articles on Mother Teresa, right, it gives you a hint there as to the solution to this terrible problem, right?

[46:57] Huh? You know, how can you give all your love to God and have the other have none left to love your neighbor? That's a terrible dilemma, right? You know, and how did how does Mother Teresa's example there? or some other saint She loves God in her neighbor. Yeah, she sees Christ in this miserable creature on the street there or something, right? You know, But you did to the little ones, You did unto me, right?

[47:33] That's a hard thing to understand, though, right? Um, I've seen the saints say sometimes like this. You have to love your neighbor in God, right? You've heard that, huh? That's a hard thing to understand, right?

[47:54] But that's the way in which God loves us. He loves himself so much that he wants to what? Multiply. Yeah, yeah. Thomas says he loves something very much. You want to multiply it, right? This to be new made when thou art old, and see thy blood warm when thou feelest it cold, right? huh? Did you ever read the play of the poet? The play of poet called Two Gentlemen of Verona.

[48:40] Okay. As you may know about Sylvia, there you know, a very attractive young lady. There is some competition about Sylvia, you know. But anyway, they sing the hymn, you know, outside the window, right? Who is Sylvia that our swains do commend her? Heaven lent her such graces. That you might admire'd be. Now I always said I was always struck by the word lent, right? Heaven lent her such graces that she might be.

[49:13] But yeah, why does he say heaven lent her such graces that she might admire'd be? Why didn't he say nature gave her such graces that she might admire'd be? Why does he say lent? You know, you know, when my father-in-law would lend me a tool that I needed around the house with him like that, he wanted back. He said, "Do you see what it says there?" And I say,

[49:40] "What? What was his name? Right? Wasn't there?" But that was he's kind of way reminded me he wanted the tool back, right? He didn't want me to keep the tool, right? So is he giving me the tool? No. Strictly speaking, you know, he was lending the tool, right? I mean, lending is in a way giving, but it's giving with what? It's gonna come back, right? So why does the poet say, "Heaven lent her such graces that you might admire it be"?

[50:09] Right? She's got, in a sense, borrowed beauty, you might say, right? You know, why does he say that? He is the poet. He is the master of the English language. There is nobody equal to Shakespeare, right?

[50:28] God expects a return. Beauty can cause us to thank and glorify God and love Him all the more when we see these manifestations of beauty. He is beauty. He is love. But yeah, there is a more simple explanation, I think, of this, huh? You know, does a woman's beauty stay? No, it starts to disappear as you get older, right? Huh? So God, in a sense, is taking away what he gave, right?

[51:02] So he's lending her beauty, right? Huh? She'll have for some time, right? She catches the husband's eye? But eventually, she's going to lose it, huh? Give it to her children. Well, Great, but not notice, huh? What's the famous words, huh? More like the beauty of the woman, the daughter, Thou art thy mother's glass, right? Now glass there means what a mirror. Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee calls back the lovely April of her prime.

[51:39] But she's calling back the lovely April of her prime because that's over. That's over, you know. I have a volume at home there of essays by scientists who worked with Niels Bohr. You know, it was a great, you know, in some ways he was. He and Einstein were kind of dominating the scene, right? Huh. And of course, there was a showdown, you know, at the Solvay Congresses between Bohr and Einstein because Einstein didn't like the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, so named from where Bohr worked.

[52:17] And Einstein would give a thought experiment to know against it, you know, and so on. And Bohr would stay up the night and come back and refute the thing. And they tell that the last time Einstein tried to do this to destroy, to give a rather, you know, seems very devastating, you know, thought experiment. And Bohr was extremely worried, right? And I see the picture of them coming out of the thing.

[52:45] You know, Einstein is looking kind of, you know, smile almost like, you know, I've got it this time, you know, and he's kind of, you know, and Bohr is kind of looking kind of, you know, worried. Come, come, come, come, come. just coming up to him. Well, Bohr is up at night, and he found that Einstein had failed to apply his own theory. Now he had Einstein.

[53:03] He came back and. And the fact, that Einstein had ignored one of the consequences of zone theory, and that was the last time Einstein ever tried to, to publicly attack the Copenhagen interpretation, you know. But they had in anyway this book, you know, with different essays. but people who worked with Bohr right, they had a picture of Bohr's bride, you know, too. Beautiful woman, beautiful woman. And then a picture later on the book, you know, in an old age, you know, but she still kept something of her beauty, you know.

[53:31] It couldn't, it wasn't quite the same, you know, but it's amazing you to see how much she had kept of it, you know. Kind of amazing thing, you know, dignity to the beautiful thing. but generally speaking, there aren't these, their mother's glass, and she indeed calls back the lovely April of her prime. That's in her memory, right? He sees herself again. So I always quote that and the other phrase: "This would be new made when thou art old, and see thy blood warm when thou feelest it cold."

[53:59] One of my daughter Maria's, one of her little girls is called sometimes, you know, they call little Maria because she has some resemblance to her her mother in particular. I mean, they all do it some way, but I mean this one of them in particular. But you can see how excellent Shakespeare is with his choice of words there, right? Who is Sylvia that our swains do commend her, right?

[54:22] Heaven lent her such graces that she might admired be, didn't say give, but lent. This incredible Shakespeare. Okay. So, but all the good that is in creatures, right? Beauty of being one form of good, right? Is from God, right?

[54:52] Do you know? I haven't looked at it for a long time now, but Augustine's Confessions, right? At one point there in the beginning of it, the early part of the Confessions, do you remember this, where he says he's kind of regretting his his slow conversion, you might say, right? He says about God, too late have I come to know Thee, Thou ancient beauty. Doesn't he call God beauty, right?

[55:18] Say, it's like calling Him truth itself or life itself, right? Love itself, huh? Okay. So the beauty of creatures is an effect of God, right? God's love of Mary is not an effect of her beauty, but her beauty is an effect of what is love, yeah. And to some extent, she says that in the magnificat, right? My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.

[55:49] Okay, he says regard the lowliness of his handmaid. See, well, there you might think he's being influenced by that, which you know, kind of human way of looking at it. But then he says she has done great things for me, right? Huh? You know, so she seems to be like a saint should be aware, right? Of that, you know, the good is in her, is from God, right?

[56:17] And we make good use of it, huh? Wise. That's that's the the Habiba. Trying to get that name down, but it's it's like Rex. I get you know it. Yeah. Okay, so let's go back now to the second reading here. Now.