Prima Secundae
Lecture 14: False Happiness: Glory, Fame, and Power

Transcript
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Okay. To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that the attitude of man consists in glory, right? This is fairly close to honor, but a little difference in meaning. For in that, the attitude seems to consist in what is rendered to the saints for the tribulations which they underwent in the world. World, right? But about this is glory. For the apostle says in Romans 8, that the passions and sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the future glory, which will be revealed in us. Therefore, the attitude consists in glory. That's interesting. He's the same father, huh? How was Thomas at the end of his prayer there, in the communion prayer there? Oh, this one, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they use the word glory, right? Yeah, God's glory. Okay. Moreover, the good is diffusim of itself, as is clear through Dionysius in the fourth chapter about the divine names. But the, what? But through glory, the good of man, most of all, is what? Diffused, you know? To the knowledge of others. Because glory, and this is a definition that Thomas often quotes, because glory, as Ambrose says, is nothing other than clear knowledge with praise, right? Therefore, the attitude of man consists in, what? Glory. Nobel Prize or the Medal of Honor or something, right? Moreover, beatitude is the most stable of goods, huh? But this seems to be fame or glory, because through this, in a way, men are given eternity. Eternity, right. So what did, how was it, not Herodotus, but, what's his name? Yeah, yeah. Katima Isai, right? Possession forever, that's what this is. Tima Isai, procession forever. Just like Al Gore. That's like a Nobel Prize. But see, in the circle of Samuel Johnson, right, the rule was it takes a hundred years to tell a poet, right? If a poet's work is still being read a hundred years after he's dead. And that's prima facie evidence, right? There's something about his work, right, huh? Well, Homer is still being read, you know, two thousand, three thousand years almost. And Shakespeare's still being read, right, you know? And he's still more plays in Shakespeare before than anybody else, you know? Would go on for the rest of time, I don't know. But he seemed to have a kind of, what, immortality, right, huh? When he's visiting the greys and so on in Westminster Abbey, right, you know, he says that they tend to go to the poet's corner more than to the huge, the great soldiers or the great kings and so on, right? As if they have kind of a bond with them, you know? But there's kind of a, you know, for all this time, there's still being read. Yeah, yeah. He has two essays here, though it is Shakespeare, one series and one kind of tongue-in-cheek, but they're both very good. And towards the end of his life, he said, you know, to his nephew there who was helping him in his researches there in the great biography of George Washington, right? He says, it's kind of idle for us to seek any honor for what we've written, you know? Shakespeare and one or two others have said it all. That's quite good, you know? I saw that, huh? Of course, you kind of could say, you know, I'm just trying to teach you how to read Thomas, you know? Once you know how to read Thomas, then I'm superfluous, right, so to speak. He didn't say that, but he said, I'm trying to teach you how to read Thomas, you know? That's since all my great teachers are doing that. I told you how Chris Drake would say, you know, coming out of some text, asking some questions. You don't read very carefully, he says. So you're careful, I won't let that happen again. And I didn't, you know? Improved. Yeah. Because through this, in some way, men achieve eternity, right? Of course, especially if you think this life is more or less all there is, well, I mean, how can I be immortal except through my great deeds that will be sung, you know? Whence Boethius says, in the book of Consolation of Philosophy, you, what? Seem to make yourselves immortal, I guess. Yeah. When you think of what? Fame in the future time, right? Therefore, the beatitude of man consists in fame or glory, right? It's a Machiavelli thought, right? From now until the end, they'll be reading me, huh? I remember, I don't know what the, was it the Cuban invasion that got fought up? Everybody's running out to be the Machiavelli, right? They sit in the Kennedy White House there. But against this, huh? The beatitude is the true good of man, right? But fame or glory can be, what? False, right? As Boethius says in the third book of the Consolation, that many, what? A great name, right? By the false opinions of the multitude, I guess, huh? They're taken up by that, huh? What more? Ugly than this, huh? Shameful, can be thought of, huh? For those things which are falsely, Fred, but which, what? It's necessary for them to be embarrassed by these praises, huh? Yeah. Therefore, the beatitude of man consists in fame or glory, right? It does not consist in fame or glory. I was meeting with my brother Mark at a bus or something there, trying to go someplace. And so the man was there, and I said, this gentleman, I mean, can help us. I said, the guy says, I'm no gentleman. What did he do that night? He was no gentleman. I just called him that. Be polite. Was he offended by it, or? No, but he realized it's so false to call him a gentleman. No, no, no, no, no. I answered, it should be said, that it's impossible, huh? It's impossible, impossible. Every one of these, it's impossible, but it's impossible, it's there. It's impossible for the beatitude of man to consist in fame or human glory, for glory is nothing other than clear knowledge with praise, as Ambrose says. That's the definition he often gives, taking it over from Ambrose, right? Now, the thing known is in a different way compared to human knowledge, and another way to what? Divine knowledge, huh? For human knowledge is caused from the things known, but divine knowledge is the cause of the things known. That's kind of amazing, right? It's just like we were saying about the good, right, huh? That good is the cause, the good in things is the cause of our love of those things, while God's love is the cause of the good that's in things. Whence the perfection of the human good, which is called beatitude, cannot be caused by human knowledge. But more, the human knowledge of, what, the attitude of someone proceeds and in some way is caused from the human beatitude itself, right? Either it has been begun or has been, what, perfected. And therefore, in the fame or in glory, it's not possible that the beatitude of man consists, right, in fame or glory. But the good of man depends as from a cause on the knowledge of God. And therefore, from the glory which is with God depends the beatitude of man as from his, what, cause. According to that of Psalm 90, I will, what, save him and glorify him, right, huh? I will fill him with the length of days and show him my salvation. Now, it should also be considered that human knowledge is often mistaken, deceit, huh? And especially in singular contingent things, huh? Of which sort are human, what, acts, huh? And therefore, frequent there, often, huh? Human glory is fallacious, huh? This is the way Boethius especially argued. But because God cannot be, what, deceived, huh? His glory is always, what? True. True. And according to which it is said, he is proven whom God commands, huh? And St. Paul says something like that, right? It didn't match to any of what you think of me, you know. He kind of says that, right? Or what I think of myself. Well, that's what God says, huh? In another way he says that, you know. My conscience doesn't accuse him, but I'm not thereby justified. Yeah, yeah. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said, that text from St. Paul, that the passions and sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the future glory which will be revealed in us. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the apostle does not speak there of the glory which is from men, but of the glory which is from God before his, what, angels, huh? Whence it is said in Mark, chapter 8, huh? The son of man will confess him, right, in the glory of his father before his, what, angels, huh? The second should be said, huh? That the good of some man, through fame or glory, is in the knowledge of many, right, huh? If that knowledge is, what, true, huh? It is necessary that it be derived from a good existing in that man, unless it presupposes perfect beatitude or at least the beginning of that perfect beatitude in the man. If, however, the knowledge is false, it does not, what, agree with the thing, and thus the good is not found in the one whose fame is celebrated, huh? Or had celebrated. Whence it is clear that fame in no way is able to make a man, what? Blessed, huh? Now what about the stability, huh? To third, it should be said that fame does not have stability, huh? Nay, by false rumor, it is easily, what? Lost, huh? And if stable, it sometimes perseveres, remains, this is by accident. But beatitude has to itself stability and always so. Mm-hmm. Now, whether the power, whether the beatitude of man consists in power. Who wants power? To the fourth, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that beatitude consists in power. So this is more known to you, isn't it? A true beatitude. That's a little different, because Aristotle doesn't really do that clearly. I mean, it kind of, well, you know, makes sides to the multitude's view, you know, what happiness is and so on. But it doesn't have kind of a formal treatment of false happiness and then true happiness. But Thomas is kind of following the great briefs there. False happiness is more known to us than true happiness. Chesterton says about truth is necessarily stranger than fiction. I guess the reason why is it because fiction is a product of our mind, the truth is. He's right. To the fourth, one proceeds thus. It seems that beatitude consists in power. For all seek to be like God as a last end in the first, what, beginning of all things. But men who are in power, on account of the likeness of power, most of all seem to be God, to be conformed to God. So notice what we say in the creed there. I believe in God, the Father. Yeah, that's the first thing, right? Whence also in Scripture they are called gods, as is clear in Exodus 22. You will not detract from the gods. Therefore, beatitude consists in power. That convinces me. I'll be most like God Almighty when I'm powerful and commanding you guys. All power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Moreover, beatitude is a perfect good. But what is most perfect is that man can also, what, rule others, right? Which belongs to those who are constituted in power. Therefore, beatitude consists in power. Aren't the most excellent men, those who command others, right? How can you command others unless you have power over them, right? So power will put you in that status of commanding and ruling others. Commander-in-chief. Yep. Remember President Kennedy saying, the first thing that kind of amazed him was that one's orders are not carried out in the government. You've lost some of them down, that bureaucracy, you know. Don't just say, do this, and it doesn't get done at all. Ask the Pope about that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, you say an organization, you know, in a college like that, or the president, or whoever it is, and people, you know, drag their feet, and it doesn't get done. Like disobedient children. Yeah, yeah. And the Gestalt, they may be available more. That's a fair God. Moreover, beatitude, since it is most desirable, right? It is opposed to that which is most of all to be fled from. But men most of all flee certitude, to which is opposed to power. Therefore, in power, beatitude, what? Consists, huh? So what do you think about power? But against this, beatitude is a perfect good, but power is most of all imperfect, huh? For, as Bhaiti says in the third book of the Constellation, human power, huh, expels what? It doesn't know how to avoid the, what? Darts of, yeah. And, moreover, the one, what? Good, powerful, yeah. Depends upon the ones, huh? Those whom he himself, what terrifies, himself more fears, right, huh? Thank you, a man, which powerful, who is surrounded by attendants. Whom he inspires in fear, indeed, for whom he fears still long. Yeah, yeah. Like Stalin, right, always? Yeah, yeah. Don't, yeah. Keep your back against the wall. He's always knocking off those guys who've been close to him, right, huh? Yeah. You read about the ancient tyrants, you know, and of course, you know, you had to have this, you know, shave by somebody, you know. The only person that had shaved them was their daughter, you know. They couldn't trust a man to shave them with the blade. That's kind of the standard thing, you have your daughter, shave, you know. Well, I was a little bit curious about James, the firstborn of Scotland, you know, and, of course, he was eventually killed when he was king, you know. But all the dangers in those days, right? I mean, you were always pumping somebody off, which I was about to pump you off. It's, you know, terrible chaos, you know. What good is that power going at all that fear? So if you'd say. That's right, Jesse Jackson's half-brother, or is his brother, I'm not sure which one. He's in prison because he bumped. Either he did or he attempted to bump off some people, some business people. It's not. That's it. He wanted the man to die even with God. I know the story. He was shaping the habit, and the habit strikes himself on the center. He said, what more word are you? He says, answer, it should be said that it's impossible that beatitude consists in power. I have an impossibility for Thomas, huh? On account of two reasons. First, because power has the notion, the aspect of a beginning. As is clear in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle takes up the word beginning, right? It's in the fourth sense of beginning. But beatitude has the definition of a last end. That's interesting, you see. Keep giving that first reason. That was quick. Yeah. Quick reason, yeah. I mean, actually, power is what? An ability to do something, right? And so it's, you know, a source of something. That's not the end itself. It's like the ability to see is for the sake of seeing, right? It can't be the end itself. And this next argument is one that I remember being given by the great Boethius, huh? Secondly, because power has itself to the good and to the bad, right? So beatitude is the, what? Proper and perfect good of man, huh? So it's not open to good and bad, right? Whence, beatitude is more able to consist in some good use of power, right? Which would be through virtue, right? Than in the power itself, right? So most men abuse their power, right? In the book of the rhetoric there, when Aristotle was talking about the emotions and... He's talking about the emotion of fear, and the things are to be feared, right? And he says, one thing to be feared is to be in the power of another man. Because as it really says, men do evil whenever they can. I told you that story, you know, running into the student there when I was teaching at St. Mary's, and he's still kind of hazing, the freshman, you know, and the sophomore that I had in class, you know, he's standing around this freshman carrying his books for him to help. And because I kind of laughed, I saw this, and he kind of laughed, and he says, you know, power of crux, he says. What do you expect? Well, there's no power he had with this kid, you know, look, he's making do this. If he had absolute power, what would he, he would just be completely corrupt. Now, what is Thomas doing here in the next paragraph, huh? Where he's going to knock down, what, many birds with one stone, right? A number of stones. It's possible, however, to bring in four, what, general reasons to showing that in none of the foregoing, right, does what? In none of the foregoing exterior goods does beatitude consist, right, huh? Of which the first is that since beatitude is the highest or the greatest good of man, right, huh? It does not suffer with itself something, what, bad, huh? It's not compatible with itself in something bad, right, huh? But all the foresaid can be found both in the good and in the bad. This is an argument that Thomas gives against all these in the Summa Contra Gentiles, but which Bwethius, before him, was given in the third book there, The Consumation of Philosophy. So you can have the bad as well as the good being famous, right? For having glory, right, huh? And you can have them being honored, right, huh? And you can have them being wealthy, right, huh? The good and the bad can be wealthy, right? Probably more than that, but the good can be wealthy. And so the bad can be the power as much as the good and the... And they tend to be, huh? Okay? So that's one reason against all those things, huh? The second reason is because since the definition of beatitude is, as Aristotle teaches in the first book of the Ethics, that it be enough to itself, huh? It is necessary that beatitude having been attained, no good necessary to man will be what? Lacking, right, huh? But having attained each of the four going, there is possible to be many goods to a man to be lacking. As an example, wisdom, right? The health of the body and things of this sort, right? You heard that story of Euclid teaching the king geometry and, you know, I'm a king, isn't there some, you know, quick way for me to get this? And that's what Euclid is supposed to do. There's no royal road to geometry, right? Okay? But also, you know, what is profiting me, you know? And he says, because I want to slave, you know, here, pay him a drop or whatever it is, so every theorem he learns, right? He's profiting nothing. So not even geometry will be found, right? These things, huh? Third, because since beatitude is a, what, perfect good, right, huh? From beatitude is not possible that some evil, what, come to one, right? Which does not belong to the four going. For he said in Ecclesiasticus 5.12 that wealth is, riches are sometimes, what, conserved in the harm of their Lord, huh? And similarly, clear in the other three, right? Some men are killed because of their power and some because of their fame or so on. Some of the wealth. Fourth, because, the fourth reason is because man is ordered to beatitude through interior, what? Beginnings. Since, to it, he is naturally ordered, right? But the four going goods are more from exterior cause and ut plurimum, for the most part, from, what, fortune. And that goes back to the origin, then, of the, what, etymology of the word happiness, right? Now, you don't have to use happiness for this false happiness because the inda quo nomen important here, the etymology of the word, doesn't have to be its meaning, right? But, you've got to see that that etymology kind of shows the order, right? False happiness is more known than what? True happiness. Fortuna is the word for half-reluct in Latin, huh? So, the truth, all things. Whence, these are called the bona fortuna, right? Thomas often talks about the Boethius before that. I mentioned before how Aristotle in the ethics used the word eudamonia, but in the book on the poetic art, he uses the word eutuchia, good fortune, right? Good luck. So, the monk that Fr. Lawrence sends to tell Romeo what's really happened gets, what, waylaid, so to speak, right? And, uh, doesn't get the word to Romeo and all this terrible thing happened because of that, right? Bad luck, eh? Whence it is clear that in the foregoing, in no way can beatitude, what, consist. Okay? Now, it's interesting that he kind of groups those together, huh? Because bodily pleasure maybe is going to come up in the next, uh, not the next one, the one after that, right? Sixth one, you know? Um, and Aristotle himself, you know, in the ethics, in the 10th book, when he comes back to the, to say more distinctly what happiness is, or what eudamonia is, then he also takes up pleasure, right? And, if that has a great likeness to it, it's, huh? So, Thomas sees a kind of distinction there. So, that second paragraph, the second part of the response there, is in order to overthrow all the ones that are, you know, consider up to this point, right? Okay. So, he gives in the beginning, there are two reasons that are particularly addressed to power, right, huh? And then he has four general reasons, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the divine power is the same thing as his own, what? Goodness, right? Whence he cannot use his own power except well. Now, that's not true about us, I guess, huh? Our own, our powers are our goodness, and we can be, have power without having goodness. But this is not found in men, huh? Whence it does not suffice for the beatitude of man that he be like God as regards power unless he also be like him as regards goodness, huh? That's a beautiful, isn't that a beautiful reply, huh? The second should be said that just as it is optimum, huh, best, that someone uses well power in the rule of many, right, so it is most bad if he badly, what? He uses it, huh? And thus power, and human power, has itself both to the good and to the, what? Bad, huh? Now, why do bad men, that's a question people ask, why do bad men seem to be those who most of all get power, get the most power? It's probably a stop. The power that Hitler had, you know, if Hitler had gotten the A-bomb, you know, before we did, and he had bombed, you know, New York City, like we bombed some Japs, Japanese cities, I don't know what would have happened, you know, we'd all be Nazis, I guess, in London, you know? Good seeing how they've hesitated to use them on London and on New York City and the rest of it, you know? Let's imagine the power the man would have, huh? That's when they convinced, you know, Einstein, you know, to write Roosevelt, you know, we don't know what they're doing over there in Germany, so we'd better get working on this, you know? And a lot of them kind of regretted that they had invented the atom bomb, but, you know, given the circumstances, you know, it's too dangerous not to do so, huh? In addition to the bomb, they had worked on a very long-range bomber, which could fly over the North Pole in the bomb in the Midwest, I guess maybe New York too, and they would have been available pretty soon, had the war continued. And they could have carried the bomb. I don't know if it would have been a big loss. It would have prevented a lot, it would have been like corrosion in the magazine, it would have prevented more problems in the United States. You might never have heard of Barack Obama. I read sometimes about, you know, they're sending scientists over to Germany there to see what Heisenberg was doing, you know, and, you know, the structure, you know, that if he's actually working in the bomb, buff him off, and so on. So he's lucky he survived the whole thing. They were uncertain about what he was doing. What? They were uncertain about Heisenberg's work. They didn't know what he was doing, yeah, yeah. They made a play there about, you know, Copenhagen, right? You heard about that play there. It's about when Heisenberg went to see Bohr there during the war, you know, and Bohr was very suspicious of Heisenberg. They had been very good friends, right? They worked very closely in the development of quantum theory and so on. But Heisenberg was a nationalist they weren't sure of, you know. At one point he almost got eliminated by the Nazis. His mother was supposed to have called up for the Nazi mothers and said, now we're mothers, we can handle this. But Hitler didn't realize the full potentialities of the atom bomb, right? He kept on talking about these superweapons at the end there, you know, but they were less than the E-bomb. But they say if we'd gotten the E-bomb before Germany had surrendered, we probably would have used it on them too, you know, like we'd done the Japanese. Well, anyway, why did a very bad one like that seem to get the most power, though? That's what Jeremiah asks. Hopkins has a poem that starts off with that. It's because he quotes the Latin justice created. You are just, oh God, I have no complaints, but why does the way of the wicked prosper? Yeah, yeah. But Thomas talks about how Christ, in dying on the cross, wanted to overcome the devil by justice, right? And by the injustice of the devil, you know, and crucifying him. Rather than to overcome him by power, because the devil was a, what? A lover of power, right? But not a lover of, what? Justice, huh? So, what has something to do with? You know, what's his name's book there in the modern world there? The chapter on Hitler and Stalin is called the devils. Not there were other devils in the war, but those two guys in particular, you know, seem to be kind of diabolical. You know, and they're evil. So, that was the second objection. We just saw that, yeah. Third objection. Slavery or servitude is an impediment of the good use of power, right? And therefore, naturally, men, what? Flee it. Not because in the power of man is the highest good, right? So, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you know, that a liberty we can pursue this. Okay, so, these are all kind of, what? Exterior goods? Power, glory, fame, riches, right? Now we get to the good of the body, right? I'll take a break, man. I'll take a break, okay.