Prima Secundae
Lecture 18: Beatitude: Whether It Consists in the Act of Will or Intellect

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios, gracias. God, our might to meet, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I was reading in Thomas there, where you can tell how much grace and glory a saint has by the clarity of his body, right, huh? Otherwise, it's going to be... So I imagine when Christ or Mary appears, it's going to be blinding, right? But it'll be proportional, right, to your wonder of grace and glory, how brilliant your body will be. Don't blind anybody. Your ripped article, was it three here? In question three. To third, one goes forward thus. It seems that beatitude consists also in the operation of the senses, huh? For no operation is found in man more noble than the operation of the senses, except the intellectual, huh? But the intellectual operation depends in us on the sensitive operation, because we cannot be able to understand without the, what, phantasm, without the image, huh? As is said in the third book about the soul. And therefore, beatitude consists also in the operation of the senses. Moreover, Boethius says in the third book, the Consolation of Philosophy, that beatitude is a state made perfect by the bringing together, I guess you could say, of all goods, right? Grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex, grex. And therefore, it seems that the operation of the senses is required for, what, beatitude, right? Especially with all that singing that's going to be done there, too, huh? Some freezing gut and, yeah. Moreover, beatitude is a perfect gut, as is proven in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? Which would not be, unless man were perfected through himself, right? According to all of his parts, right? Maybe, maybe, through it, meaning through the end, too? Maybe so, yeah, through it. But, the sensitive powers, or sensitive operations, are certain parts, I mean, some parts of the soul are perfected by sensitive operations. Therefore, the sensitive operation, the action of the senses, is required for, what, beatitude, huh? But, in the sensitive operation, we come together with the food animals. Not, however, to come together with them in beatitude. Therefore, beatitude does not consist in the operation of senses, huh? So, you have a glass eye or something there, huh? Maybe. Thomas answers, It should be said that, for beatitude, something can pertain to beatitude in one of three ways, huh? In one way, what? Essentially, right? In another way, proceeding, right? Coming before. In a third way, following upon, right? Now, essentially, the operation of the senses cannot pertain to beatitude, huh? Why? Because beatitude of man consists, essentially, in the union of it, of him, to the uncreated, what? Good. Which is the last end, as has been shown, huh? To which man is joined, cannot be joined, through the operation of senses, huh? So, I don't know about the man in the pew there, but they may be thinking, you know, they've got to say, God with your physical eyes, right? But the word see, instead of the beatitude of vision, is a word equivocal by reason, right? It's a corridor from the eye. Likewise, also, because, as has been shown, it does not consist, as the attitude does not consist, in bodily goods, right? Which is all that we can, what? Attain to the operation of the, what? Senses, huh? What the operations of the senses can pertain to beatitude, antecedently, right? And, what? Consequente, huh? Before and, what? After. Thomas is obviously looking before and after here, right? Shakespeare would approve of that. Antecedently, according to a imperfect, what? Yeah. Beatitude, huh? Such as is able to be had in the present, what? Life, huh? For the operation of the understanding presupposes the operation of the senses in this life. What about that bumper sticker? Music is my life. Kind of beatitude there, huh? Listening to music. I think Aristotle in the politics area mentions, you know, one philosopher that listening to music is the end of man, right? That's the, that's the attitude. But here, here the reason given is that it's, what, presupposed to, what, understanding, huh? And therefore the understanding that we, that in this life, that is to say. So the understanding we have in this life, the senses in some way pertain to it, right? So it's harder to do solid geometry than, what, plain geometry, huh? There was a time when plain geometry existed, but solid geometry did not exist. I have a better imagination for doing that, right? I remember when I was just doing those last books of Euclid, which I forgot now, probably. But, you know, imagine the very solid figures, you know, and I make, I finally make about little cardboard things and hang them from the light when you're over what you hate. You might get to imagine these things better, right? You can't imagine these things, you're kind of lost, right? Solid geometry, yeah. Like, 12-sided figures and things of this sort, right? Yes. Now, how about consequently, right, huh? Consequently, however, in that perfect beatitude, which is expected in, what? Heaven. Heaven. Because after resurrection, from the very beatitude of the soul, as Augustine says, in the Epistle to Dios Corum, there comes about a certain flow back, you might say, right? Or flow into the body and into the, what? But bodily senses, that they are made perfect in their, what, operations, huh? As will be clear more below when one tweets of, what, resurrection, huh? So Thomas says, you know, that there will be the pleasure of the senses that is compatible to be added to life, huh? Or the places he talks about this, huh? So to see something, you know, beautiful with your eyes or something, hear something beautiful with your ears, right? That's not incompatible with the state of beatitude, right? There won't be any pleasure of eating steak or French fries or even sipping wine. You know, our Lord speaks metaphorically, right? If you'll eat at my table and share what's... He ain't after the resurrection. Fish. Yeah, well, he was Middle East. But not then does the operation by which the human mind is joined to God, it doesn't depend upon the senses. You see God because God is joined to your own mind, right? It's that by which you see him, right? So he's both what you see and that by which you see him. And you couldn't see him as he is unless he himself became the form of your what? Mind, huh? Now, the first objection, he says, that objection proves that the operation of the sense is required antecedently to imperfect beatitude, right? Such as we have in this life, right? Such as in this life is able to be had, huh? Now, to the second, it should be said that perfect beatitude, such as the angels have, right? has a congregation of all goods through union to the universal fountain of all good, right? Not that it needs what? Individual particular goods, right? But in this beatitude, in perfect beatitude, there's required a congregation of what? Sufficient goods. Sufficient goods, enough goods, for the perfect operation of this life. So it's better to say that God is something or everything, which would be better to say. Yeah. It's everything in a simple way, right? Because something sometimes has a sense of something kind of particular, right? So it might make sense to say that everything is something except for God. And he's everything, right? But in this simple way, right? This superior way. I suppose in some way you could say God is something. Something is opposed to nothing, right? He's not nothing, right? So if you're not nothing, you must be something, right? But sometimes, as I say, sometimes, something implies, not all the time, right? So likewise, to say God is something might imply that there's something, but some particular way in which he's a thing, right? He's actually more a thing in the way of being everything, huh? Strange, huh? I've been reading the treatise on the angels now, you know, and I was just thinking of my guardian angel, you know, he's probably calling the other angels over, you know, hey, come on, what a, something funny? This guy in charge of, he's trying to understand us, and he doesn't even know what an angel is. If the angels have a sense of humor, you know, I think they must enjoy, enjoy our, trying to understand them, right? Our buffoonery. Yeah. Now to the third, it should be said, huh? That in primitive beatitude, the whole man is, what, perfected. Even your body, right? I mean, your toenails, if you wish, huh? But in the lower part, to a, what? Overflowing, or flowing down from the, what, higher part, huh? In the beatitude, however, that's imperfect to the present life, it's the reverse, huh? That from the perfection of the lower part, one proceeds to the perfection of the, what? Yeah. So kids in grade school should be memorizing, right? Not trying to understand too much. Disgusting, yeah. Disgusting the world, or. Flannery O'Connor said about the eighth graders being consulted on what kind of literature they'd like to read. She said, that's irrelevant. She said, they should be, they're there to be born. They need to be told what's going to be. That's interesting, huh? So Mozart and the Palestinian and the rest of them might have something to show us, right? You know, Mozart died, what, he's in his 36th year, so. He said, if you'd lived as long as, say, Haydn lived or somebody, you know, what would you have done, you know? He's had all these years up, but there, you know, so who knows what he's, what he's preparing for us. A grand concert as we, as we arrive. A special concert. Oh, yes, oh, yes. He's a Mozart lover, yes. I don't think he's going to canonize Mozart. I don't think Mozart's going to quite make that, but I hope he's up there. Up to Article 4, right? Up to Article 4, right? Up to Article 5, right? Up to Article 5, right? Up to Article 5, right? Well, the beatitude consists in the act of the will, right? Or is it an act of the understanding? To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that beatitude consists in the act of the what? Will. Well, this is kind of a controversial thing in a way. There's five objections, right? For Augustine says in the 19th book about the city of God that the beatitude of man consists in peace. Beautiful. Of course, he has a piece there. Have you seen that one? But really, peace is, huh? It's really marvelous. Whence it is said in Psalm 147, Qui posvit fines tuos pacem, who mixes in sweat? Peace, huh? But peace pertains to the what? The will, huh? And therefore the baditude of man consists in the will, right? I often think about these things we see about the dead, you know. Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord. Is that referring to the will? Let perpetual light shine upon him. That's referring to the reason, right? But when you say eternal rest, you're going to have to get peace, right? His will. Moreover, beatitude is the highest good, huh? The sumum bonum. But the good is the object of the will. Therefore, beatitude consists in the operation of the will. Nice argument, huh? Moreover, to the first mover corresponds the last end. Just as the last end of the whole army is victory, huh? That's what Gregory said. There's no substitute for victory. So I say there's no substitute for sin, God. Which is the end of the leader, right? Who moves all, right? But the first mover to operating or doing is the will. Because it moves the other, what? Powers, huh? This is, you know, what Thomas was saying in this thing I was reading about the angels. Why the angel doesn't know the cogitationes? Of course, because the use of our, what? Knowledge and so on depends upon our will. So he can't know it by his natural powers, huh? And then he has another article there on whether he knows all the mysteries of grace, right? Well, this depends upon the will of God, right? And so he can't really know it from his natural powers. But only insofar as God reveals his will for the incarnation, our salvation, and so on. And so then he says there, too, that the, the, uh, from the moment of their beatitude, the angels knew about the incarnation, but not all the mysteries about the incarnation. And, uh, so I don't know if Thomas would agree with those who said, you know, that the angels were tempted to pry it by the fact that, what are you going to do with these human beings who are below us? Why are you going to take on human nature and so on? But as if they were not, you know, uh, informed about the, uh, incarnation before they were made, what? Blessed, right? So the other ones didn't fall because of foreknowledge, huh? The rejection of the incarnation. But some people say that, I think I've heard that, haven't you, maybe? Um, therefore, beatitude pertains to the will, right? Because that's what moves everything, right? And the first mover corresponds to the other things. Moreover, if beatitude is some operation, it is necessary that it be the most noble operation of man. But the more noble operation, but more noble is the operation of what? Loving God, which is an act of the will, then of knowledge, which is an operation of the, what? Understanding. As is clear to the apostle, why not Corinthians 3. That's where he speaks of faith over charity, right? The greatest of these is charity. Therefore, it seems that beatitude consists in the act of the, what? Will. Whoever Augustine says in the 13th book about the Trinity, that blessed is the one who has everything that he wants, and wants nothing bad, you know? Nothing bad. And after a few things he adds, there, what? There comes to the blessed one, who wishes well whatever he wishes, right? For the good make him, what? Blessed. Of which good things he already has something, right? Namely, the good, what? Will. Therefore, beatitude consists in the act of the will. Now, against all this, he says, is what the Lord says. In John chapter, what? 17. There's that number 17. Yeah. This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God. But eternal life is the last end, as has been said. And therefore, the beatitude of man consists in the knowledge of God, which is an act of the will. I'm understanding. Just testing. That's Psalm 62, right? Where you speak about seeing God, right? Power and his glory. Now, there's time to say goodbye to this. I answer, it should be said, that for beatitude, as has been said above, two things are required, huh? One, which is the essence of beatitude, huh? The other, which is, as it were, a per se, but accident, like a property. This is something that falls upon it as such, right? You can translate per se as through itself, huh? Through being blessed, you are pleased. It falls upon beatitude as such, to be pleased. Otherwise, you dare, well, don't have beatitude if you're not pleased. But if it is that being pleased, is that your beatitude? Or is it something that follows upon it as such, huh? I say, therefore, that as regards that which is essentially beatitude, beatitude itself, it is impossible, I'll never get back to impossible, it is impossible that it consists in an act of the will, huh? For it is manifest from the foregoing things that beatitude is the achievement of the last sweat, end, huh? But the achievement of the end does not consist in the act itself of the will. For the will is carried towards the end, both when it is absent, when it is, what? Desired. And when it is present, when it, what? Delights in resting. Resting in, huh? What? When in resting in it, it is delighted, right? It is manifest that the desire for the end is not the achievement of the end, right? But it is a motion to the end, huh? But pleasure comes to the will from this, that the end is what? Yeah. Not, however, the reverse, from this that something is present, not from this that something is present because the will delights in it, huh? Therefore, it is necessary necessary, therefore, that something other than the act of the will, therefore, it is necessary for something other to be, right? Then the act of the will through which the end itself is present to what? The will, huh? What do you think of that argument? Hmm? I'll take his word for it. Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm Notice if you say that, I suppose you say that love is the end, right? That's when you said that, right? Well, you can love the end when you have it, but all of a sudden you don't have it, right? So how can love itself be the end? Now sometimes Thomas will argue, you know, too, I don't think this is so here so much, but you'll argue from the fact that the desire or love of the end comes first for the will, right? But just as the first thing we understand is not our understanding, you have to understand something else and then you can understand that you understand. Well, so likewise can the first act of the will have as its object the act of the will itself. So if the first thing you will is the end, the last end, and the first thing you will cannot be the act of the will itself, then how can our attitude be in the, what, act of the will? It would be a very empty act of the will, the first thing you will have as an adult. Yeah. It can be very empty. Yeah. If you had my little simple argument, I was trying to show the students a little bit, that the first act of the reason cannot be, have as its object, the act of the reason, right? I used to take a simple example and, you know, my mother writing, you know, to one of my brothers was in a letter from one of us. I say, is the first letter you write about something in a letter? You can write about, you know, sort of write you and say, well, you know, you report what someone said in this letter to you, to someone else, right? You want to pass the news on, right? We do that a lot of times, right? But can the first letter that is written be about something in a letter? Someone's got to send a letter before you can talk about what somebody said in a letter. And so, the first letter is not about something in a letter. The first letter is about something that's not in a letter. And then there can be a second letter, which is about something in a letter. That can't be the first letter, right? Well, that's the same way with the act of the reason, right? I have to understand something before I have an understanding to understand. I've got to will something before I can, what? Have an act of will to will, right? But notice, obviously, you know, we distinguish maybe three basic acts of the appetite. And one is love or liking, right? And then one is desire. And then one is pleasure or delight, huh? And the most basic act there is love, right? And so, from love arises desire and pleasure, right? But desire arises from love in the absence of what you, what? Love, right? While pleasure or delight arises in the presence of the possession or attainment of what you, what? Love, right? Now, desire or wanting would be the most obviously not the end, right? Because then you, what? Lack the thing you want when you want or desire, right? That's why when Thomas talks about God's will, he'll speak of there being love in God's will, right? And there being delight or pleasure, right? Joy, huh? But there's no desire or wanting in God's will, because he doesn't lack any good. He's very good. And nothing is added to his goodness by us, you know? So desire is obviously not the last end, right? Now, what about love? Is love essentially the end? Yeah, but then love as such doesn't require that the, yeah, yeah. So you can be cut off from what you love and still love it, right? So how can love itself be the end, huh? Now, the best candidate would seem to be pleasure, right? And that's why even Aristotle talks about human happiness. His final consideration of it is in the 10th book, the last book of the Nicomachian Ethics. And that's why he takes up, what? Pleasure, right, huh? But he concludes that pleasure is something fouling upon the good, right? Rather than the good itself. But the fact that he takes it up there is a sign that that's the best candidate, right, huh? But what is it that you want? Is it pleasure or something that pleasure fouls upon getting? Something fouling upon it, huh? Aristotle has a comparison there. He says, pleasure perfects the ultimate act as beauty perfects youth. Which is not the very essence of it, right? It's something that kind of fouls upon being young, right, huh? And you lose your good looks as you get older, right? At least Oman does. So. Let's look at the argument again. I think that's a little bit, huh? For it is manifest from the foregoing that beatitude is the consecutio, right? The attaining, right? Of the last end, huh? But the consecutio, right? The reaching or the attaining or the getting to the end. Not getting to the end. The achievement of the end, I should say. It does not consist in the, what? Act itself of the will. For the will is, what? Born, you might say. Carried towards the end. Both when the end is absent, right? When it desires it, huh? And when it's present, when resting in it, it is, what? Delighted, right? Now it is manifest, huh? That the very desire for the end, the wanting of the end, is not the achievement of the end. That's pretty obvious, right? But it is a motusa, huh? A movement towards the end, huh? And that incidentally is why desire, in some sense, is the act of the will, or the emotions, for that matter. Most, what? Known to us, right? Because it's like a motion. What did Shakespeare say? What does that say? Yeah. So even when they talk about the faculty for the emotions, or for the acts of the will, they call it the appetitive powers, right? Or sometimes you see the word just appetitous, right? But appetite, as you know from, I used to know that word, names what? Desire, right? So the desiring powers, it's the way you could translate it to English, right? The appetitive powers, right? But they're named from what? Desire, right? It's more known. Just like Shakespeare, you know, defines reason as the ability for discourse, right? And discourse comes in the latter word for running around, right? Running from one thing to another. But, or we named reason, you know, what act of reason, what is the act of reason? Well, grammatically even speaking, reasoning, right? The word itself, it would seem to show the connection between reason and an act called reasoning, right? But reasoning is the act of reason that is like a, what? Emotion, yeah. In all reasoning, reason goes wrong. It goes from one thing to another, right? It should be going from the known or the more known or the probable at least, right? To something else, right? The conclusion. So the act that is like emotion seems to be most known, right? And so the petty to its desire seems to be the act that's most known, right? But it's not the most basic act, which is love or liking, and it's not the culminating act. Now, delight or pleasure comes to the will when the end is now what? Present, right? So can desire or pleasure, which is a result of achieving the end, can that be the end itself? Not looking before and after, right? It comes after you achieve the end, right? Not necessarily in time, right? But as an effect in the ways after a cause. Not, however, is it the reverse, that from this, that not, yeah, from this, get it, the grammar is a little bit hard, the word over there. But the fact that the will delights in something, not from that is something present, right? So if I like steak, right, and then when the steak is present, I'm delighted, I have pleasure. The steak isn't present because I'm taking delight in it. I'm taking delight in it because the steak is present. I put that rather than salmon upon my plate, right? I had a choice. I told you I had the, we're still in the society, I think, in California, the last one where I spoke. And the last day was on Friday, so I said, I know those guys are going to have fish, you know. Hey, salmon, do! So I was not pleased, but what can I do? Offering up. Offer up, go without it. That's a small sacrifice. Therefore it's necessary for something other than the act of the will, through which the end itself is present to the, what? Will. And this manifestly appears concerning sensible ends, right? Like the steak. For if to, what? Get some money. Was through the act of the will. At once, from the beginning, right? The one who's desiring for money, right? Would have gotten money, right? It's just a dream, right? When he wishes to have it, right? But from the beginning, when it is absent, huh? But from the beginning, it is absent from us. And he gets, he achieves it, huh? This, that he grabs it with his hand, right? What a crude man this Thomas was. Because he's always, you know, talk about this, you know, these flowery, you know, examples of the modern philosophers, you know, don't help you to see something too well, though. The kind of disliked in this marvelous flowery example. Existential beauty. And then he delights in the money, what? Had, right? Got in his hands, huh? Thus, therefore, thus it also happens about the, what? Understandable end, right? For from the beginning, we wish to, what? Achieve the understandable end, huh? But we arrive at it, right? To the fact that it is present to us by an act of the, what? Understanding. And then the will delights, will delighting, rests in the end, now, what? Attained, huh? So you first, you might say, attain God as he is in himself by the act of, what? The reason, right? When you see God as he is, right? And now you arrive at the good, there's every good, right? And then you have a complete rest in your will. Thus, therefore, the essence of beatitude consists in the act of the understanding. But to the will pertains the delight followed upon beatitude. According to, as Augustine says in the 10th book of Confessions, that beatitude is, what? Gaudium de veritate. They're kind of defining it by something that follows upon it, right? There's another quote I've seen from Augustine, you know, he says, division is the whole reward, right? Because this gaudium is the consummation of beatitude, right? It's like pleasure is the consummation of understanding of the Egbert theorem, right? Okay, I'd like when you see this beautiful theorem. Let's see about it all. Now, what about this objection here from peace, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that peace pertains to the last end of man. Not that it is essentially beatitude, right? But because antecedently and consequently, it has itself to it, huh? Antecedently, insofar as are removed all, what, disturbances, right? And things that impede us from the last end, huh? In some sense, you might say the end of government is, what, peace, right? Then you can pursue your thinking, your geometry and so on, without disturbances, right? Consequently, insofar as man, the ultimate end having been achieved, he remains, what, pacified, right? His desire being, what, quiet, right? It doesn't really go that much into the idea of peace there in terms of, what, the tranquility of order that he defines in some way. But, you know how Thomas speaks of the, he defines the kingdom of heaven as the ordered society, right? Of those who see God, huh? Well, I mean, there's an order among the blessed, right? And, as I say, your body will be shedding more bright than some, and maybe other people's body will be shedding more bright than yours, right? You know exactly where you belong. In the scale of things, right? But, you know, the angels, you know, the first hierarchy, and the middle and the lower, beginning, middle, and end, as Danisha says, and then in each hierarchy, there's three orders, right? Beginning, middle, and end, and each order is a beginning, middle, and end, all the way down to the last individual, right? You always have somebody that's, unless you're the highest angel, you always have somebody above you and somebody below you, right? You know, you know, the cartoon, the joke there, you know, where the boss chews out the guy below him, and he chews out the guy below him. All the way down to the last guy, he got no way below him. He goes out and he kicks the dog, you know. He won't be, you'll be enlightened by those above you rather than, is treated by them. But in the Psalms here, it talks about, you know, the house of God or something like that, delighting in that, right? As well as in God himself, right? So you'll delight in the order of heaven right now, however low your face may be. Augustus says it's a great joy to see God in the green, right? And your heart will be at rest. But so one saint will outshine another, right? A different meaning of outshine, but I speak of that in this life too sometimes. I have a second argument here about the good being the object of the will. But even though the good is the object of the will can't be the first act of the will, or the first object of the will, cannot be the act of the will itself, right? So that good that it's aiming at is something other than an act of itself. The second should be said that the first object of the will is not its act, right? Just as neither is the first object of the sight, vision, but the what? The visible, right? Whence from the fact that the attitude pertains to the will as its first object, right? It follows that it does not pertain to it as its own what? Act, on the third objection, bhakti, uva. To the first it should be said that the end is first grasped by the understanding than the will. So the good as known is the object of the will, and the good as known by reason, right? So what is reason knowing first? It's not the act of the will. Nevertheless, motion towards the end begins in the what? Will. That's interesting. When Thomas talks about faith over charity, and he says, By faith we know what the end is. By hope we, what? Tend towards the end. By charity we already join to the end. But hope is in the what? Will, right? So where you're tending towards the good, right? So sometimes that's one of the arguments they give for the will being more in beatitude than the reason, right? The charity is more, what? Is higher than what? Faith. Faith, yeah. So you might say, well, faith is to reason as love is to the will. Charity is the will. Then Elton, the portion that Euclid does, you say, well, then as what? Charity is to faith, so the will is to what? Reason. But charity is better than faith, and the will is better than the reason, right? Okay, but you've got to remember that faith is not, what, a knowledge of God in himself, right? While charity, even in this life, is a love of God in himself, right? You've got to be careful, right? You can see how people, you know, could think that the will is better in that sense. Okay, sometimes you'll see an argument which is higher, the reason of the will, right? They'll take the fact that charity, the theological virtue, is better than faith, as St. Paul teaches us, right? Incidentally, hope is also better than what? Faith, yeah. Thomas talked about that in the disputed questions on hope, right? Okay, but anyway, clearly charity is clearly said by St. Paul, right? To be greater than faith or even hope, right? So you say, well, faith is in reason as a subject, and charity is in the will, right? So faith, in a sense, is to reason what charity is to the what? Will. Will. Then you alternate the proportion, you say, then, as charity is to faith, so is the will to reason. Charity is better than what? Faith, therefore, the will is better than what? Reason, right? That's some probability, right? But then again, you can come back and say, yeah, but is that proportion exact, right? That charity is to the will, just like faith is to reason. But charity is loving God as he is in himself, right? Faith is not seeing God as he is in himself, right? So now it seems to be a more exact proportion to say, seeing God as he is face to face is to what? Reason, as loving God for his own sake, and so on, is to the what? Will, yeah. That's not as clear, you know? Because St. Paul is not saying in that text that love is better than seeing God as he is face to face. He said he's better than what? Faith, yeah, yeah, so. How could charity love God as he is in himself? Charity is an act of the will which follows upon knowledge. If you can't know God as he is in himself, then how can you love God as he is in himself? You know, that's the interesting thing because, you know, if we go back to our course on love and friendship, right? When Thomas talked about the causes of love, right? And basically there are three causes of love. The good, and then knowledge, right? And then what? Likeness, right? Those are the three main causes of it. And remember that one of the objections against saying that knowledge is the cause of love is that, what, the one who knows more doesn't necessarily, what, yeah, yeah. So, well, personality is not the fundamental cause of love, it's the good, right? So the love is going out to its object, which is the good, right? And so the person who knows God less, you know, let's say he doesn't know as much theology or something like that, might love God more, right, than the person who knows more, right? People think, I must love God an awful lot. I know as much about him, you know, I know more about him than other people. But that's kind of a common place of observation in the Christian life. If the man who knows more in this life does not necessarily love God more, right, then? And even you could say, you know, the devil knows God better than you and I know. And he doesn't love God, you know, he's got kind of hatred of God now. So there's got to be some kind of knowledge there, right, huh? But love can go further, right? Now this goes back to a different, another difference between reason and the, what, will. And that is that the object of reason has got to be kind of in the mind in order for you to know it, right? Okay. Why the will goes out to, what, the thing, right, huh? In itself, right? So it's kind of a contrariety, you know, of will and reason. And therefore, the fundamental act of reason is sometimes called apprehension, right? Simple apprehension. Grasping, right, huh? As to know something, you've got to be grasping, right? Now that doesn't seem to name the perfection of the will, to be grasping, right? But kind of the fundamental thing in love there is giving, right, huh? So they're going out to the thing, right, huh? Okay. So, as the song says, I left my heart in San Francisco, right, huh? Okay. So there's all kinds of signs that love goes out to the object, right, huh? Why, the reason is to reverse, right, huh? So in that sense, the will is, um... more proportioned to God in this life, right, because you're going out to it, right? I use kind of a little likeness there, and I say, I can more easily jump into the ocean to go swimming or something than I can put the ocean into me, right? That's a little bit like the example there with the little boy appearing to Augustine, right? You can't put the ocean in this little hole you've got on the beach there, right? So how can you get the Trinity into your mind, right? Right, huh? And Augustine's trying to put the Trinity into his mind, right, and understand it so far as he can, right? So, but, you know, the little boy can jump into the ocean, right, and he can do that more easily than put the ocean into him, right? So in some sense, the will is more proportioned to God, huh? And therefore, God deeds us to himself through faith, but in faith, the reason is moved not by the evidence, but by the, what, will, right? The will is moving the reason to, what, assent, huh? And therefore, you know, Christ talks to Thomas there, right, huh? Plus of those who are not seen and believe, right, huh? But the reason why it's meritorious, right, to believe is because the reason is not, what, forced to assent to these things, huh? I was reading, like, CO10 there in a book, one of the physics this morning, and Aristotle was talking about how all the Greek philosophers before him, they're thinking the change is between contraries and so on, but they say so without giving any reason for it, right? And Aristotle has a famous phrase there, as if coerced or forced by the truth itself, right? And that's not true about faith, right? Your mind is not coerced by the evidence itself, right? And that's why I'm kind of annoyed, you know, at these translations, you know, of, because of the Hebrews, right, where they say, you know, the evidence of what is not seen, right? Well, the Greek word is not evidence there. It's actually the word Aristotle uses in the system of refutations, right? But it's kind of like the mind is what? It doesn't have evidence, right? It's something not seen, but the mind is convinced, right? But it involves the will, right? And then that's why in the definition it says not only the conviction of what is not seen, you might say, but the, what? Yeah, the substance of things hoped for, right? Yeah, I think it's epistasis, yeah, I think it's the same word, epistasis, but it depends in the Latin, substance of things hoped for, right? But you've got to bring in the will there, you know? So, when Augustine defines the act of the will, he says it's, to send to something while thinking about it, or thinking about something while sending to it. And I know myself, when I, you know, I'm thinking about logic, right? And the acts of reason, right? Well, there's one distinction that Thomas gives in the Pyramia to logic, to the whole of logic, where he speaks of the order of three acts of reason, understanding what something is, then understanding the true or the false, imposing or dividing, and then what? Reason, right, huh? So I have to understand what a whole is, and what a part is, before I know that a whole is more than, what, a part. And I have to understand that a whole is more than a part before I can use that to prove that, in a triangle, if two angles are equal, the opposite sides will be equal, huh? Okay? So there's an order among those three acts, right? But then there's another order in our acts, right? And Thomas doesn't talk about there, but English, you know, in its superiority, really speaks very well about these things. And you can state it in two ways there, kind of. Reason thinks about something before it understands it, huh? And so, before it is sensed, you might say something, right, huh? Okay? And it understands how it must be so. What about Augustine's definition, right? Well, it's showing that the act of faith is something different from what pure reason is doing, right, huh? Where it thinks about something before it understands, right, huh? So the mind, in a sense, is not satisfied, right? That's why it continues to think about it, huh? And that definition of belief kind of gives rise to what, you know, Augustine says elsewhere, but which is kind of popularized by St. Anselm, right? That theology is faith-seeking, what? Understanding, right, huh? So you've ascended to something that you haven't fully understood. You don't have the evidence for, right, huh? So it's that sentire cum cogitazione, huh? To ascend while thinking about it, right? And therefore, it's kind of natural to want to think about it more, right? And say, well, okay, God became man. You know, if you don't understand what you're saying, right? It's kind of a strange thing going on here, right? So why did God, what, become man, right? In the famous work of Anselm, Quere Deus Homo, right? Why God a man, huh? Why did God become a man, huh? That's faith-seeking understanding, right, huh? So you're thinking about something without yet, what, understanding it, right? And you'll be doing that for the rest of your life. But as you go on, you start to understand a little bit more, right, huh? I sense that a little bit, huh? What this thing is, but never to the point that you don't require, what, faith, right? So theology is the science, as Augustine said, about which faith is strengthened and nourished and defended and so on, right? But faith is a fundamental thing there. So now how did I get into this discussion here about the Acts of the Will? Well, you know, I was talking about what you were saying, right, huh? Okay. This argument that's given there, right, when you talk sometimes in the context of an article, which is the greater power of reason or the will, right? And sometimes they argue, well, faith, charity is greater than faith, but charity perfects the will. Faith is the perfection of the reason, right? So if the perfection of the will is greater than the perfection of the reason, well then, it must be that, what, the will is better. Yeah. That's a good argument, right? But is it altogether necessary, right? It's interesting how that, you know, I always puzzle that line of Christ where he talks about the excellence of, say, John the Baptist, right? And then he adds, you know, but he's the least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than John the Baptist. So how can that be? Just got through saying there's no greater man for him, you know? How can the person who's least in the kingdom of heaven be better than John the Baptist, right? Well, the person who's least in the kingdom of heaven sees God as he is, right? And since knowledge is a cause of love, right, he might love God more than John the Baptist could do on this life, right? And so if you go to heaven and you come to see God face to face, you will love him much more than you did in this life. And you can't help the love of him, right? In this life you can sin and lose the love of God, right? But in heaven you can't, right? It's just too obviously good. It's too obviously every good, right? Nothing's really, what, comparable, right? You know, it's really a beautiful, beautiful thing in Thomas. He's talking about the knowledge of the angels, right? And does the angel know God, right? Okay? And you're talking here about now the angel's natural knowledge, you know? You know? You know?