Prima Secundae
Lecture 34: Circumstances of Human Acts and Their Theological Necessity

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the circumstances of human acts should be considered by the theologian, right? To second, one proceeds thus. It seems that the circumstances of human acts should not be considered by the theologian, right? So all of these theologians. For human acts are not considered by the theologian except according as they are, what? Of some sort. That is good or bad, right? But circumstances do not seem to be able to make acts of some sort because nothing is qualified, formally speaking, from that or by that which is outside of it, right? But from that which is in it, right? Therefore, the circumstances of acts should not be considered by the theologian. Moreover, circumstances are accidents of the acts, but to one thing, and infinitive things can happen. And as is said in the sixth book of Metaphysics, no art or science is about being prejudice, huh? Except, what? Sophistic. I want to make the theologian a sophist, don't you? So much. Therefore, theology does not have to consider the circumstances of human acts. Moreover, the consideration of circumstances pertains to the rhetorician. But rhetoric is not a part of theology, is it? Therefore, the consideration of circumstances does not pertain to theology. It's an unusual article, isn't it? And, you know, if you're a confessor, don't you have to take into account the circumstances? That's my, I don't know how to resolve the objection, but I'm thinking something's wrong with this. Moreover, what against this is that ignorance of circumstances causes the involuntary, as Dan is seen in Gregory Nyssa, of Nyssa say. But the involuntary excuses from guilt, right? Consider which pertains to the theologian, right? And therefore, the consideration of circumstances pertains to the theologian, right? The answer should be said that the circumstances do pertain to the consideration of theologian. And for three reasons. First, because the theologian considers human acts according as through them man is ordered to, what? Beatitude, huh? That's why we considered Beatitude in the beginning of the Prima Paras, right? Prima Sclindic. But everything that is ordered to an end must be, what? Proportioned to that end, huh? But acts are proportioned to an end according to some, what? Kind of measurement, right? That comes about through, what? Suitable circumstances, huh? Whence the consideration of the circumstances pertains to the theologian, right? You couldn't judge how these things were or were not proportioned to the end, yeah, yeah. Should I be more prayerful in the church than in the dinner table? You smoke while you pray, or pray while you smoke? Or in the movie theater or someplace? That's what I think of theology on tap. That's what it is. If you want to talk about theology while you're down with the bar with the guys, that's great. I don't know if going down to the bar to do theology is the right way to do it. Secondly, because the theologian considers human acts according as in them is found the good and the bad, right? And the better and the what? Worse, huh? And these are diversified according to circumstances as will be clear below, right? That's what we're thinking of. You notice how it comes out so clearly in the Greek plays there, you know, at the idea that can you kill your own mother, right? You know? But she's guilty of killing your father, right? But does it pertain to the son then to kill his mother? Maybe someone, maybe the state should, you know, punish her, but, you know? So, he kills his own mother, right? Who's killed his father, right? And then he's pursued by the, you know? Yeah, yeah. So, this is a circumstance, right? This woman is not only guilty of killing this man, but, and only guilty of killing your father, but she's also your mother, right? So, you know, you can see how the problem is, right? Is that right, you know? Can a son revenge his father's death by killing his mother? So, there's that circumstance that's, right? There was a, the story based on fact, and I remember this one scene, it was a horrible scene, it was on television years ago, where there was a family, the father was beating the children and terrorizing them, and so on, and the young boy, the teenager, was trying to protect his sister, who was being brutalized by the father, so he killed his father. And that was third, that was the, what the movie was about, was the circumstance. Yeah, yeah. Third, the theologian considers human acts, according as the they are meritorious or de-meritorious, which belongs to human acts, and to this is required that they be what? Voluntary, right? But human acts are judged voluntary or involuntary according to knowledge or ignorance of the what? Circumstances. So, was that he was guilty of marrying his own mother? He was ignorant of the circumstance that this woman was his mother, right? And therefore, and the consideration of circumstances pertains to the theologian. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the good ordered to an end is called the, what, useful, which implies he should be relish. Quence the philosopher says in the first book of the Ethics that that which is good for something, right, is useful. And those things are which are said towards something, right, something is denominated not only from that which is in it, but also from that is outside. Yeah. Adjacent. This is clear and right and left, right? Equal and unequal and similar things, right? And therefore, since the goodness of acts pertains to them insofar as they, what, are useful to the end, nothing prevents them from being good or bad according to a proportion to those things which lie outside, right? That's a dangerous reality, reality of the relative, right? Reality of the relative, yeah. Now, the second should be said that accidents which are entirely for accidents are left for, are afflicted by every art, right? An account of their incertitude and their infinity, right? So the man who manufactures butchers, butchernice, you have to consider the fact that somebody might kill a spouse with this. Well, that prohibits you from cooperating and production and butchering the house for lawyers. That's the impossibility of the lawyers, the legalese. Yeah, or the accident, an accident, I mean, an axe, right? But such accidents do not have the definition of a circumstance, right? Because by definition, circumstances are thus outside an act that they nevertheless in some way touch upon, right? Ordered to it, huh? But accidents as such, accidents which are, excuse me, per se, fall under art, right? It belongs to the chunk of the interior angles of a triangle and two right angles. Third, it should be said that the consideration and circumstances belongs to all three of these, to the moral philosopher, right? The political one, right? And to the rhetorician, right? To the moral, because according to them is found or overlooked the middle of virtue and human acts and passions, right? So on Thanksgiving day, maybe I should eat more than I eat on other days, right? I know you're correct. Right? Yeah, okay. And so on, okay? And there, okay, Maybe if I'm on a drive I shouldn't drink so much, right? I shouldn't have one for the road, huh? One for the tree. They just arrested one of the associates of $97,000 a year, associates of the governor of the state here, you know? It made me think you'd only have two beers, I don't know. So I said I managed to be able to drive better than that on two beers it seems to me, you know? But anyway, but some people can hold theirs and some can. That's the circumstances you have to take into account, I think, huh? Apparently a woman can hold less than a man, right? That's the biological fact, as they say. To the political man, in the rhetorician, according as from circumstances, acts are rendered laudable or what? Like tuperation, huh? Tuperable. Excusable. Excusable or accusable, right? These are interesting words you're getting here in Latin. But diversely, huh? For the, what? Rector persuades, right? And the politicus, he, what? Judges. But to the theologian, to which all the arts, what? Serve, right? Subservient. It pertains in all the foresaid ways, right? For he has consideration about virtuous and vicious acts with the moral, what? Philosopher, huh? And he considers acts according as they merit punishment or reward with the rhetorician. The politician. Yeah. So, when Aristotle, you know, divides rhetoric into three kinds, basically, right? And there's the political rhetoric, and then there's the courtroom rhetoric, and then there's the Fourth of July rhetoric, huh? So, of course, the Fourth of July rhetoric, you have to account to the circumstances, right? And obviously, in the courtroom, you have to, right? Even though these, you know, skirmishing now about the political candidates, right? You know, they're trying to look up any bad thing they can in their past, you know? But when Bush was running there, they found some arrest for speeding or something there, you know? So, that didn't seem to affect too much this campaign. They looked at every little thing they could, you know? Somebody, when Perry was announcing he was going to run there, you know, someone put in a war, you know, for any woman in Texas who would reveal having had an affair with him, you know? Just see if, you know, there must be some woman out there who's had some time, you know? But it wasn't the base of it all. It's just, you know, somebody's hoping to get some dirt, yeah. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, 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, help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. Now, just reading Thomas there again on the premium there to wisdom there in metaphysics, and he's talking about the argument that Aristotle gives why wisdom is more certain than the other sciences. That's a principle that Aristotle gives in the book on science there, the posterior analytics, and he's saying that the science that requires fewer things to consider is more certain. And so the example in the posterior analytics is that arithmetic is more certain than geometry. And Thomas points out, you know, the most fundamental thing in geometry is the point. And in arithmetic, it's the one, right? Well, the point adds something to the idea of one, namely, what? Position. It's here or there, right? So if you go through the theorems of Euclid, say, in geometry, sometimes you have to distinguish a number of cases because of the arrangement of the things. And you say, as you distinguish all the cases you need, right, you realize it's not as certain as arithmetic, right? It's arithmetic not to say where the one is. It's nowhere. So, and then you go to natural science, you go from the arithmetical body of geometry to your body or my body or the dog's body, many more things to be considered, right? This is, and least certain is the, what, practical sciences, huh? Because you have to consider all these circumstances. So here we're at the, what, source of the, what, in certitude relative to the other sciences, at least certitude, anyway, of the practical sciences, huh? All these circumstances you've got to take into account. So, to the third one goes forward thus. It seems that, unsuitably, the circumstances are numbered, huh? Or enumerated, we'd say, in the third book of the, what, ethics. For circumstances are the act are said to be those things that have themselves in an altered way to the act. But these outside things are, what, time and place. Therefore, there's only two circumstances, where and when. Where you did it and when you did it, right? Moreover, from circumstances is taken that something would be done well or, what, badly, right, huh? But this pertains to what is called the mode, huh, of the act. Therefore, all circumstances are included under one, which is the modus agenda, huh? Modus operandi, as we say. Modus agenda, now. So these two first objections would limit them, right, huh? Moreover, circumstances are not of the substance of an act. Circumstance is something outside the substance of the act. I don't know what it is. But to the substance of an act would seem to pertain the causes of the act itself. Therefore, no circumstance ought to be taken from a cause of the act itself. Thus, therefore, neither quiz who, I guess, huh? Nor popter quid, in account of what, which is cause and sin in, nor circa quid, about what, are circumstances. For quiz pertains to the efficient cause, proctor quid to the final, and circa quid to the material cause. Against all this is the authority of the philosopher in the three of the core. Dismissing. They quote your style almost as much as Augustine here in the Summa, right? I answer, it should be said, and now he's quoting, what, Cicero, the great Roman Rehabilitation, who's also called Tullius, right? He has many, many names. We have a first and a second name, right? That's called a middle name, a second name, yeah. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. First and second name. Family name. Yeah, yeah, and then the third name, yeah. Family name. Answer, it should be said that Tullius, or Cicero, in his, what, rhetoric, right, assigns seven circumstances, which are contained in this verse, huh? So if you're into memorizing Latin verses, you can memorize. Quis quid ubi quibus exiliis cur comodo quando, right? Quis is who, right? Quid is what? Ubi is where? Quibus exiliis by what tools or aids? Cur, I suppose, why, right? What's the name of that word? Coridiosomo. Yeah, by answer, Coridiosomo. Why God a man, huh? That's nice conciseless, the way it's said, huh? Quomodo, in what way, huh? Quando, right? When, huh? Okay. And then Thomas summarizes this in other words. Once you consider and act, whodunit. That's what people want to know, whodunit. Quis feit, huh? By what, what? Aids or instruments he did it. What he did, right? Where he did it, right? Why he did it. And what way he did it. And when he did it, right? So Thomas gives them, I guess, in the same order, huh? Cicero's giving them right to this. Summary, right? But Aristotle, in the third book of the Ethics, adds another to it. Cercocquid, right? I suppose, what I did, about whom, or about what, huh? Which, by Tullius, is comprehended under, what? Quid, huh? And of course, Cicero says that Aristotle is a, what? Golden river. You know what he's talking about, huh? And he's talking about Aristotle's rhetoric in particular, right? When he says that, huh? So maybe he got some of this, and Aristotle knows. Now, have these guys, Tullius and Aristotle, followed the rule of two or three? It doesn't seem like it. Could we possibly understand this without following the rule of two or three? Let's see what Thomas does, huh? And the reason of this enumeration can thus be taken, right, huh? Taken into your mind, thus, huh? I think I'll go to two or three. For a circumstance is said, what is outside the very substance of the act, right? What exists outside the substance of the act, but in some way touches upon it, huh? But this can happen in three ways, huh? In one way, insofar as it touches upon the act itself. In another way, insofar as it touches upon the cause of the act, huh? And in a third way, insofar as it touches upon the effect. So he looks at the act itself, and before it at the cause, and after at the effect, huh? Now, it attaches itself, or touches upon the act itself, huh? Either by way of a, what? Somebody that measures it. And these two measures are time and, what? Right. Place, huh? Of course, in natural philosophies, I've spoken of as two, what? Measures, right, huh? Time is the measure of, what? Motion, right? And locus, or place, the measure of the thing that's in place, right? And so both time and locus are given in the categories under the chapter of, what? Quantity, which species are distinguished by, what? Some kind of measurement, right? Or by way of the quality of the act, huh? And that's the modus agenda, right? Okay. So he divides, what? That's what? First into two, and one of the two into two, right? From the side of the effect, as one one considers what someone did, right? Quid, not equispicture, right? That includes that check of quid and veris dolls, too. And on the part of the cause of the act, as regards the final cause, one takes procter quid, on account of what? On the part of the material cause or object, one takes about what? That's when Aristotle brings in, right? And on the part of the agent cause, he divides into two. The principal one, whodunit, and secondly, by what? Yeah. So I robbed you with a gun, right? Okay? It's relevant to know that I did it, and what I used to rob you with, right? And if I did a gun, that's going to be more serious than if I did it with a stick, maybe. I don't know. Or just growling at you. Okay? So that's the way Thomas arises, those seven or eight circumstances, as Tully and Aristotle have enumerated them, right? It's interesting. Porphyry, as a goge, he enumerates five, right? Genus, different species, property, and accident. Aristotle in the categories distinguishes, what? Ten, right? Substance, quantity, quality, relation, and so on. And in the ancient times, the Greek commentators said, the book of the five names, that's Porphyry's a goge, and the book of the ten names, that's Aristotle's categories. But if you try to understand why there's five here and why there's ten here, you have to divide into either two or, what? Three, yeah. So like with the five in Porphyry, you divide the essential ones, genus, difference in species, against the non-essential, property, and accident, right? And then you subdivide each of those, right? But you're dividing into two, and then one, two is divided into three, and the other into what? Two, right? When Thomas divides the ten of the categories, he divides them into three, right? And he keeps on subdividing, right? A name is either said of what? He distinguishes them by the way that a name can be said of individual substances, as regards what it is, or regards not what it is, but something in it, or as regards something outside of it. He subdivides the second and the, what, third, right? They get all ten, huh? But in the text that we have of Aristotle, he hasn't given us the rule of two or three there, right? But Thomas does, right? He's supposed to. He's supposed to do it. Yeah. But, you know, so they call you a teacher in the scripture, too. He said, you know, you need someone to break the bread, huh? This is known as breaking the bread, right? Dividing it, right? I mean, Thomas seems to divide it, following the rule of two or three, right? As if our mind can only, what? Digest it, right, huh? Otherwise, Falbule would say you're going to have, you're going to be indigestion, huh? A constipated mind, right, huh? Just, yeah. So, but sometimes I say, what's the difference between an enumeration and a division? Because a division is something logical, right? Enumeration is, you know, enumerate the ten grandchildren, let's say, or the seventeen grandchildren. And, but I can't really divide this in any way, right? Obviously, six girls, four boys, and my daughters. But enumeration is different from a division, isn't it? Enumerate the ten commandments, right? One, two, three, four, five, six, you know? But when they divide the ten commandments, you've got the two tablets, right? The three and the seven, right? And you can, you know, subdivide the seven, too, right? Since that's more than three, yeah? The same way you can enumerate the seven sacraments, right? I told you about my friend there was teaching the fresher course for the confirmation kids, you know, and review of the faith, right? And I came in class the first day, and he says, what are the seven sacraments? And this is not a review, it's a first view. They couldn't collectively come up with the names of the seven sacraments, huh? And plus they had things like graduation, you know? Some kind of ceremony. And they showed you how bad off they were, right, huh? This bishop I was mentioning the other day that I heard on the EWTN there, he was saying, when he went to the catechism class, the priest was conducting the class, right? He said, no, he says, you all know the catechism, of course. But now we're going to do some St. Thomas, he says. Because in those days he did. He had to memorize the Baltimore catechism, you know, and so on. So at least you knew the names of the seven sacraments, how well you understood them is another question. But I mean, you know, the, you know, he could rattle these things off more or less, so. Let's do the five ways, he says. I don't know. So, good start for this bishop, you know, huh? Yeah. Warren Murray had a nun in grade school who did the summa with him a little bit, you know. So, at least there are these surprising things you hear about sometimes. That's what somebody told me that, for the confirmation of the students, the first day they asked, who's the Pope? One kid out of 20 or so could name him. Yeah. What is his name like? Yeah. And he said, it's Benedict. I don't remember the number after his name, but I know he's Benedict. I know when I grew up as Pius XII, you know, for such a long time, you know, I think. And then, even, you know, as an older man now, John, I mean, John Paul II was Pope for so long, right? Even now I'm going to pray for Benedict, you know. I sometimes find myself St. John Paul II. Yeah. So, oh, no, no, he's not the Pope anymore, so I guess he doesn't do my prayers anymore either. He's kind of nice. Yeah. But, uh, but it's under the names of these people right now. There was one CCD class. They had a feminist teacher with there. So when the bishop came in, he asked the class, how many sacraments are there? So one of the girls goes, seven for boys and six for girls. Who put it after that? Yeah. She got a bonus extra credit from the sister. Okay, now, the first objection in terms of only time and place should be what? To the first, therefore, it should be said that time and place do stand around the act by way of a what? Measure. But other circumstances stand around the act insofar as they what? Attain it in some other way, right? While still existing outside its very substance or what it is. Substance often has that sense of what a thing is, right? So you see Aristotle, and even Plato, I guess, too, using the term logos te sucias, right? And they translate it in Latin, ratio substantia, right? The ratio of what it is, right? The thought of what it is, for definition. Because the word logos has so many meanings, right? So many things it applies to. Okay? Now what about the second one here, about being done well or badly? This mode, which is well or badly, right, is not laid down as a circumstance. You say, well, why not, right? But something falling upon all the circumstances, right? Okay? So do I do well, they're eating my candy in church? No, that's not what you eat candy, you know? And so this pertains to all the circumstances, right? So it's not divided against the other circumstances, but it's something that falls upon all of them, right? Okay? Was it good for me to eat that ribeye steak? Maybe not on Friday, you know? Yeah. Especially not on Good Friday, right? Yeah. So I did badly eating the ribeye steak on Friday. But that's something that can fall upon any of these circumstances, right? Where, when, so on. But it's a special circumstance, right? Modus agenda, right? You have to understand a special circumstance is laid down the mode which pertains to the quality of the act as when someone walks, what, swiftly or what? Slowly, right? You have to understand a special circumstance where someone's driving, right? You have to understand a special circumstance where someone's driving, right? You have to understand a special circumstance where someone's driving, right? where someone's driving, right? like someone but 40 tear or miss it and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on yeah the question was you know he was a little excessive there you know but the question is you know somebody say my you know how hard should you come down and the kid you know see some sisters had they could uh with their glasses you know they had their glasses in those days you know they could go up to the board to write and they could you know see that kind of rearview mirror you know who's floating around while they're writing something on the board so sister carolyn the principal there i still remember coming up the steps there and my brother mark had had i've been in school for a couple days he was sick or something like that and so she asked me about my brother marcus i'm calling her but she says look at the person to whom you are speaking we didn't go to the children's mass on sunday when there's some other mass right we get called in to sister carolyn's office there you know and of course everybody's trying to the last guy in here behind everybody else you know they're afraid she's a good she's a good sister so notice now that's an objection of saying that all of these circumstances are included under one well that's not a circumstance that's something that follows upon all seven or eight of these circumstances so something can be done badly right because of any of these right you know it's always a question there uh you know my my friend uh dr sam johnson there right now well boswell was a lawyer in scottland right as the guy wrote the famous uh thing on the famous biography of uh johnson but sometimes boswell would would uh you know speak to johnson about some case you know and of course this will come out sometimes about beating the what the kid in school right the teacher and uh johnson's rule was so there's no permanent damage you're not a case right the kid's got a broken arm or leg maybe you could say that the teacher you know yeah well this this is the kind of circumstance you can take you know count right huh you know where did you hit him and how hard did you hit him and did you blind him or did you yeah yeah so any of these circumstances can lead to calling some action good or bad or worse or not so bad okay now the third one is talking about the causes into the substance of thing to the third should be said that that condition of the cause from which the very substance of the act depends right is not said to be a what circumstance huh but some condition join there too huh just as in the object that is not said to be a what circumstance of theft that'd be another's huh for this pertains to substance of theft right okay so you can't say that that's a circumstance of of theft that i took something that's not mine rather than that one right okay but a circumstance would be that it's large or what small right so if i took somebody's penny is that yeah maybe shouldn't be bothered to be uh punished right okay and likewise in the case of other circumstances which are taken on the part of other causes i know what they call this thing they call the hate crimes nowadays right okay that that's like taking like a circumstance right yeah you know it's used out of what hatred of right or something as i stole from black men because i hate blacks or i stole from a jew because i hate jews or something for it is not the what in which gives the species to the act right it is a circumstance but some in what adjunctus right now just as the man the uh the courageous man i guess strongly right or courageously acts on account of the good afforded to that's not a what circumstance right but that he strongly acts for the liberation of the city or for the salvation of the people or something of this sort right and that would be a circumstance right likewise in the part of that which is quid right for someone what pouring over someone i guess washes him is not a circumstance of ablution but that he does so with something cold or hot right and heals him or harms him this is a what circumstance and see how touching the circumstance business can be right and how it continues to the be inserted into these things huh down the street well why is he walking down the street well he's going to the drugstore why is he going to the drugstore to get medicine for his mother-in-law she's she's got an infection he's going to get penicillin oh why does he want to get penicillin well because they know she's allergic to it we're guys telling me there that the neighbor boy comes over you know and he he sees the potted plants on the uh you know going into the house right looking at my friend he takes one of the things and knocks them over and smashes it so the guy picks up yeah i'm always complaining you know he beat her a kid you know what do you do in those circumstances huh yeah