Prima Secundae
Lecture 179: The Trinity, Person, and Exemplar Causality in God

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gracias. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, ordn and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. That would be the most powerful book ever written, you know? The question is disputate di potencia, right? But you know this scripture where it says, God, you know, would I be, you know, infertile or not be able to generate? I would give generation to others, right? And Thomas has a good explanation of that, right? Because someone might say, you know, how does that follow? That if I give generation to others, that I would have generation myself, huh? Because he says, you know, God gives, what, motion to the work? Because he's the unmoved mover, right? But God is completely unchangeable, right? So, I mean, how can you argue that because he gives generation to, what, animals and us, right? That therefore, what? He must have generation itself. That's necessarily the following. Yeah. Well, but that's what scripture is saying though, right? That because he's the cause, right? Of there being generation in us, and therefore there must be generation in him, which is the Father and the Son, right? And, you know, how does that follow, right? It doesn't seem to follow necessarily, right? Well, you've got to defend scripture, right? Oh! That's why God's arguing, right? You know? Okay, so, how do you do it, right? Of course, Thomas goes back to what he learned from his master there, Aristotle, right? That there are four kinds of causes, right? Okay. Matter, form, mover and end, right? And under form, there's two kinds, right? One where you are, what? The form of the thing itself, right? And the other where you are the, what? Exemplar, right? Exactly. So, he's a cause of the big generation in other things, both as an efficient cause, right? Mm-hmm. But also as a, what? Exemplar, right? Mm-hmm. Therefore. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I said, you know. I've always been a little bit, you know, with that, huh? You know, it's kind of, it seems a little bit weak, the reasoning there in God's part, right? Mm-hmm. But it's kind of a beautiful, beautiful, what? Explanation, right? Mm-hmm. Interesting, too, you know. You know, because he's talking about the three persons in God, of course, he has to go to the definition of person, right? And the definition of person, of course, is the one that comes from Boethius, huh? Which is individua substantia, right? Rationalis naturae, right? And the objection, one of the objections to the definition is that it says rationalis, right? And ratio is what man has, not what the angels have or what God has, right? Okay. So, the definition didn't seem to fit, right? Okay. Well, Thomas, of course, says, well, you're using the word rationalis not in the strict sense, right, of the faculty of reason that man has, that this one animal man has, but in the, what, broad sense of the understanding, right, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. But apropos of that, huh, then he says, what does ratsu mean when it's taken as the specific difference of what? Man. And, you know, separates them from other animals, right? Well, then, of course, he says discourse, right? So, that's exactly the way Shakespeare begins his definition of reason, right? Oh. It's the ability for a large discourse, but the first thing he's saying is it's the ability for what? Discourse. And that's the way Thomas says that's what it means. Mm-hmm. It means you've built your discourse, right? And, of course, Shakespeare goes, you know, it's more abundant there, but he had that basic, what, same beginning, right, huh? Mm-hmm. So, I said, my goodness, huh? Thomas must have read Shakespeare, too, you know, as well as me, right? Mm-hmm. And it's kind of amazing, right, huh? Mm-hmm. And then, of course, when he gets into the discussion, you know, whether, you know, God, the Son could have a son, right, you know? He said, well, God, the Son, is what? The thought of the Father, right? The verbum, right? Mm-hmm. Well, if the thought had a thought, then you would have, what? Discourse in God, right? Mm-hmm. Which, of course, is contrary to what we know about God's understanding, where he understands everything by one act, right? Understanding his own substance, he understands everything, right? Mm-hmm. So, I mean, if the Son had a thought, then you have a thought that arises from another thought, and that's what we call discourse, and that's what defines reason in the strict sense, right, huh? Mm-hmm. So, we're up to Article 3, I guess, huh? Question 70. Question 70. Question 70. Question is whether the fruits are suitably enumerated by the Apostle, which is St. Paul by Antonio Messiah, right? To the third, then, one goes forward thus. It seems that the Apostle unsuitably enumerates them in the Episcence of the Galatians, Chapter 5, huh? Where enumerates these 12, what? Fruits, huh? For elsewhere, he says that there's only one fruit of the present life, according to that of Romans, Chapter 6. Yes. You have your fruit in your, what? Sanctification, huh? It's the first thing we asked for in the Our Father, right? That would be thy name, right? Sanctified. And, in Isaiah, Chapter 27, Verse 9, it says, this is every fruit, right? Let sin be taken away, huh? So, what's this talk about, 12 fruits? I don't know. Therefore, there should not be laid down 12 fruits, huh? Contradicts Romans 6, and contradicts Isaiah 27, right? Stumps me, huh? Moreover, fruit is that which arises from a spiritual seed, right, huh? So, we get the word seminar, right, huh? This professor's supposed to plant a seed in your mind, huh? It will grow, huh? I remember my teacher, Kassarit, an undergraduate. He says, when he was at Laval, right, he thought he'd learn more from Deconic than from, what? Deon, huh? He learned a lot, of course, from both of them, right? But after he was out teaching a number of years, he realized he'd learn more from Deon than from Deconic. Why? Seeds in both houses. Yeah, Deon had given him the seeds, right, huh? And, so, I mean, Deconic is giving you a little more of the finished product, right? But if you're given the seed, right, then you can, what, get all kinds of consequences of this, right? Not that Deconic is giving you seeds, too, you know, but Deon even more so, right, huh? I go around with one sentence of Deon, you know, all day long, and the next day, thinking about it, you know, just one sentence of Deon. And, you know, like he's giving you a seed, right? But I think it's interesting what Kassarit did, right? That when he was there, he thought he was learning more from this guy than this guy, though he learned, you know, much from both of them, right? Great respect for both of them, right? But after he'd been out teaching for a number of years, he realized he'd learn more. I think that's interesting, right? Most people, you know, they kind of don't care, they don't cultivate the seed, right? But if they do, right, then they realize he'd been given more by the, maybe one man. But the time didn't seem that way, right? That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. where Stahl describes the early teachers of rhetoric, right, that give you sample speeches, you know. Well, you seem like you're getting a lot, you know. I'm really impressed with those speeches of Churchill's, as I'll say, right? But if I'm really getting the seeds, they would develop into making me a full rhetorician, right? But the Lord, in Matthew chapter 13, lays down a threefold fruit of good earth coming about from spiritual seed, right? To it, a hundred and sixty and thirty, right? I always wonder what those three mean, huh? Therefore, they're not to be laid down twelve fruits, huh? Moreover, fruit has in its definition that it'd be something both last and delightful. But this definition is not found in all the fruits enumerated by the apostle. For patience, huh? And what? Long-suffering seem to be in things that are, what? Sadness-causing, right? And faith doesn't have the definition of something last, but more the definition of a first, what? Foundation, right? Therefore, a superfluous way, huh? The superfluous way are these fruits, what? Enumerated, right, huh? But now he's got a subcontour, right, huh? That's going to be replied to a subcontour. Look at this, huh? It's not just taking up his position, right? In this apotensia, you know, exactly, you know, like there's three Christians and that's the Trinity, right? There's a whole series of arguments, maybe 20, you know, that there's more than three, you know, and then there's a whole series of arguments that there's less than three. And then finally, there is three, right? You know, they're very short. And then you get the text when you says that there are three, right? He's got to answer all the objections on both sides. But against this, it seems that, what, insufficiently, to these first three arguments are kind of saying that, what, they're too much, right? Now it's saying it's just the reverse, right? That insufficiently, and in a diminished, or what, falling short, the enumerated, right? For it has been said that all the Beatitudes are able to be called, what, fruits, right? But not all of these are here enumerated, huh? For nothing is laid down pertaining to the act of wisdom and that of many other virtues. Therefore, it seems that insufficiently are enumerated the, what, fruits, huh? That's what my old teacher, Kisarek, said. The business of the teacher is to confuse the issue, right? And that's, of course, a half-truth, but that's where he begins, right, huh? Now, where does this number 12 come up, right? Well, right in the beginning of the Respondio, he says where it comes up, huh? Hence, it should be said, huh? That the number of the 12 fruits enumerated by the apostle is suitable. And they can be signified through the 12 fruits about which it is said in the last book of the Bible there, right? The apocalypse from, what? Both part of the, what, river is the, what, tree, the wood of life bringing forth, what, 12 fruits, right? You can't leave out that word duodation, right? Cut short the scripture, right? Now, since a fruit is said to be something that goes forward from some beginning, as from a seed or from a, what, root, huh? We're not to observe a distinction of these fruits according to the diverse going forward of the Holy Spirit in, what, us. The last question there, the potencia there, and it's about procession, right? Procession within the Trinity, right? Right. And so I was thinking again about the word there, huh? And Aristarchus speaks of the tropos, huh? And he used the Greek word proage, right? Which means to go forward, right? And then, Latin, they say the modus procedendi, right? English, you say the way of what? Going forward. The way of going forward, yeah. Probably the best way of translating it, huh? So then Thomas distinguishes between the going forward, say, within God, right? The going forward of the Son from the Father and of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. And that's all within God, right? And then the going forward of what? The creatures from God, which is outside of God, right, huh? Beautiful. But it's there that he says that we use the word going forward because all our naming goes back to the continuous, right? All our knowledge starts with the senses, huh? And the senses do not get beyond the continuous. And so he says, we name things first that are, what? In place, in the continuous, and then we carry them forward to other things, right? And he gives the example of Aristotle who says that we use the word distance there, right? When we talk about contraries, contraries are species furthest apart, the most distant from each other. That's borrowed from what originally it named something with continuous distance and place. He gives the nine meanings of, or eight meanings of in and out, right? First meaning of in is in place, right, huh? You gradually go forward. First meaning of before is what? Yeah, in time is something continuous, right? And it's the number of the before and after in motion. And things in motion is going to catch the eye and what not stirs, right? So these words, they begin, right? Well, the first thing of beginning is the point is the beginning of the line, huh? The line is the beginning of the surface, right? It's taken from continuous or what is in the continuous, huh? And this is seen here with the word going forward, right? Beautiful. I think it's especially those words that are equivocal by likeness or ratios that you see this. Like the word beginning, the word end, the word end, the word before, the word going forward in. Last first half of all, that Dianne was lecturing on the way of going forward in natural philosophy, the way of going forward in mathematics, the way of going forward in wisdom, right? And then he was talking later on about the way of going forward. It's common to the forms of reasoned out knowledge, right? And then finding the natural way of going forward. They're all different, huh? So he's saying the fruits, right, are said what goes forward from some beginning as from a seed or from a root. We're not to therefore, what, observe the distinction of these fruits according to the verse going forward of the word of the Holy Spirit in us, right? Which going forward is observed according as first the mind of man is ordered in itself, right? And when they say a Latin, mens hominis, it doesn't mean mind in just a narrow sense of just the reason itself, right? But the immaterial part of man which involves the will, too, right? Secondly, he's ordered to those things which are, what, alongside of him, I guess, yuksta. And third, to those things which are below him, right? Okay. Let's see, distinction in, what, three, huh? Thomas is not going to make a distinction of 12, is he? He wouldn't really understand. He was terrible. Something as understandable as that. The distinction of three is understandable, right? For then, and I'm just going to go over each one of these in particular. Then well is the mind of man disposed in itself, when the mind of man has itself well, both in good things and in what? Bad things, right? Now the first disposition of the human mind to the good is through what? Love, which is the first affection, right? And the root of all the affections. We saw that when we studied the emotions, right? So I like candy, right? I love candy, and therefore I want candy and I don't have any. I have great joy when I get it, right? I get angry if you take my candy away and so on. So my liking candy gets the source, it's the root of all these other emotions, right? And therefore among the fruits of the Spirit first is laid down what? Caritas, right? In which specially the Holy Spirit is what? Given to us, huh? As in his own what? Likeness, right? Because he himself is what? Love, huh? That's kind of interesting, huh? Because we talked about, you know, the charity is diffused in our heart by the Holy Spirit, right? You say, well, is this a work just of the Holy Spirit or is it a work of God and therefore common to the three members, right? Yeah, and especially thinking of it as an efficient cause, right? But if you're thinking about it as an exemplar cause, right? Then there's a special reason which it is attributed to the Holy Spirit because it's he being love itself, right? It's the exemplar of our own good love, right? Okay? Just as, you know, we speak of the word that enlightens every man that comes into this world, right? Well, does it work of the whole trinity or is it just a work of the sun? Well, if you say efficient cause it's kind of ex equal there, right, huh? If you say exemplar, right, huh? Well, then he's got a special connection with understanding, right? He's the word, huh? You know, the whole verbo veritatis verius says in the prayer, right? Nothing is more true, huh? Than this word of truth itself. Nothing is more enlightening. To the love of charity of necessity there follows what? Joy, huh? Okay. Now, it's interesting when Thomas was talking about the trinity there and, of course, it's basically by faith we know the three prisons of God, right? Mm-hmm. But there's a number of quotes there from Richard of St. Victor there who wrote on the trinity before Thomas, right? And the famous, I guess they have been of St. Victor, right? There's Hugo of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor. Oh, he's very attached to these guys. My brother's named Richard. I was Chris and Hugo, you know? Hugo. And the, but he has all these arguments, you know, there has to be joy in God, right? And joy is tied up with friendship and friendship in regard to ritual love. So you've got to, you've got to get these problem arguments at least, right? For there being this multiplicity of persons in God, huh? And, but Richard St. Victor, especially singles out the Gaudium, right? That comes from charity, right? Nothing is more joyful than that. For everyone loving rejoices from the union of the, what? One loved, right, huh? So there's got to be some kind of union there, right? Charity always has present, what? God, huh? That's beautiful. Whom it loves, right? According to what is said in the first epistle of John, huh? The fourth chapter in the 16th verse. Who remains in charity remains in God and God in him. Whence the consequence of the fouling, you might say, huh? The sequela, huh? Of charity is what? Joy. Gaudium, yeah, joy. Now, the perfection of joy is what? Peace, that's beautiful. It's exhorted, no? As regards two things, right? First, as regards rest from exterior things, disturbing one, I guess, huh? For one is not able to perfectly rejoice about the good loved who is disturbed in its enjoyment by what? Others, right, huh? And again, the one who perfectly has his heart in the one, in one, right, is what? Peace. By no, no, nothing other can he be, what? Molested or annoyed, huh? Because other things he regards his work as nothing. Whence it is said in Psalm 118, Pax multa, much peace to those loving your law. And there is no, what? Scandal for them, right? Because they are not disturbed by, what? Exterior things, huh? But that they enjoy, what? God, huh? Secondly, as regards the, what? Sedation. In resting, resting, sedation is what we call sedation. But the settling down, you might say, it is of, what? Fluctuating desire, right, huh? For he does not perfectly rejoice about something to whom does not suffice that about which he, what? Rejoices, huh? And these two things, peace implies, right? That neither are we disturbed by exterior things, right? And that our desires come to rest in one thing, right? The famous quote of Augustine, right? Once after charity and joy, third is placed, what? Peace, huh? Where is it Augustine? Isn't it in the Confessions? Or is it in the, where he talks about peace being the ultimate thing, kind of, huh? Tranquility of order. What? Tranquility of order. Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, you know, there wasn't a great discourse on that peace that God gives. So that's why we have ourselves well towards the, what? In bonis, right, huh? Okay. What about in malis? In malis, huh? In bad things, one has himself, well, the mind, as a guard two things. First, that the mind may not be disturbed by the, what? Imminence, or the approach, I guess, of evils, huh? Which pertains to, what? Patience, right? And secondly, that one may not be disturbed in the delay of good things, right? Which pertains to, what? Yeah. For to lack the good as the notion of something, what? Bad, as the philosopher says, right, Aristotle, in the fifth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, right? I remember my English professor there in freshman college. He said, you've described life as mainly waiting, he says. It's a deneration of all the things we wait for, right? Waiting for dinner, waiting for this, waiting. That's interesting about those two, huh? So, he's distinguished how many fruits so far? Five. But he did so in bonies, right? And those were three. And... In Mali's, there were, what, two. So far, he's still following the rule of two or three, right? Okay. Now he goes to the second of the original three, right? Okay. The yuksta hominem, right, huh? Which is, I guess, your neighbor, huh? To that which is yuksta hominem, right? To wit, one's neighbor. One is well to dispose the mind of man first as regards the will of doing well to him, right? Treating well. And to this pertains, what? Bonitas, goodness, huh? Secondly, as regards, the will now, right? Secondly, as regards the carrying out of this, what? Bonificence, huh? And to this pertains, what? The Latin word is benignitas, huh? Can you see the way they translate that? Benignitas. Benignitas. Benignitas. Benignitas. Benignitas. More impressive to say benignity, right? Not really in translation. For those who are said to be benign, right, huh? Whom the good fire, right, of love, huh? Makes them fervent, right? To doing good for their neighbors, right? Third, that they even keel, right, tolerate the evils affected upon them, right, huh? And to this pertains, right? Yeah. Or you could say mildness, too. That's another way we translate it sometimes, huh? Which restricts or contains angers, right? Fourth, it regards this, that not only through anger do we, what, not harm our neighbors, but also neither through, what, fraud or deceit, I guess. And to this pertains faith, if it be taken, now, not for the theological virtue of faith, but for what? Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Yeah. Yeah. But if it be taken for the faith by which one believes in God, thus through this is ordered man to that which is above himself, right? That man subjects his understanding to God, and consequently, everything which is, what, of him, right? Because he has four there, but the first two could be divided against the last two, right? Because the first two are kind of good, and the last two are, you know, tolerating the evil or avoiding harm in them, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So that means four more. So we've got how many now? None. I mean, I'll get to eat three more, huh? But to that which is below, a man is well disposed, first as regards exterior actions through modesty, huh? Which observes the mode or the measure, right? In everything said and what? Done, huh? That's the exterior actions, right? And then against, as regards the interior concupiscences or desires, through what? Continence and what? Chastity, huh? Whether these two are distinguished by this, that chastity refrains a man from illicit things, right, huh? Continence even from what? By the Richard, you know, I was stuffing myself with candy as a little boy. And he said, you should be doing that. He said, and I said, what's going on with eating candy? I said. He said, well, if you can't say no to candy, he says, there'll be things that you won't be able to say no to that are really going to be bad. So, or through this, that the continent man undergoes, what? Concupiscences, but is not led away by them, right, huh? That's the way our style used to word, continents, right? It's something less than virtue, right? But costless would be more of virtue. Neither what undergoes nor is led away, right? Now we've got our 12, right, huh? Now what about the first objection that speaks about sanctification? To the first, therefore, it should be said that sanctification comes about through all the virtues, huh? Through which also sins are, what? Taken away, right, huh? Those are the two texts we had there in the previous, what? In the first objection, right? Have your fruit in sanctification. And then the one from Isaiah says, this is every fruit to take away sins, right? Whence fruit is there named singularity, right? If there's one fruit, right? On account of the unity of the, what? Genus, right, huh? Which is divided into many, what? Species, huh? According to which there is said to be many, what? Fruits, huh? So one genus and many species, that's something else, huh? Now, what about this 160, 3, 4? I've always wanted to know what that meant. I suspect that I was only 3, 3, 3, 4, right? To second should be said that 100-fold, 60-fold, and 30-fold are not diversified according to, what? Diverse species of virtuous acts, right? Which is the way these things are. Fruits are distinguished. But according to diverse grades of perfection, even of, what? One virtue, right? Okay. Just as conjugal continence is said to be signified through the 30-fold fruit, right? Widowed or widower through 60, right? And the virginal through, what? A hundred, right? What do you say about Christ there? He chose to be born of a virgin, right? And then he was the widow there, right? In the church there, right? Or in the temple, right? Praises him, right? And then he goes to the wedding feast at Canaan, right, huh? So you have the three, right? So he approves of all three of them, right? But in a certain, what? Order. Order, right, huh? Okay. And in other ways, the saints distinguish the three evangelical fruits according to three grades of virtue. Now, why do you have three? That's important there. And three grades are laid down because the perfection of each thing is to be observed according to its beginning, middle, and what? Beautiful, right? Homer taught all the Greeks how to make a good plot. It's a course of action as a beginning, middle, and end, right? But then, you know, that's kind of the way they organized the three groups of the psalms, right? So when Thomas Aquinas, in the beginning of the commentary on the psalm, I don't know if you've read that or not, but he discusses a bit the ways people divide the psalms, right? And he mentions a number of ways and rejects them as being the solution. And then he goes to his master there, St. Augustine, right? And, no, you've got to use the correct number, but not this Protestant number that we're using now. Um, but... But... gustin notes that the 50th psalm is a psalm of what penance yeah this is the one that saint twisa valley is so fond of right and the 100th psalm is a psalm of what good action and growing in the virtues right and the 150th psalm was a psalm of praising god and resting in god right well this is the beginners right who are really fighting against their vices and their that's their their preoccupation you might say right huh although in every every you know stage we have to do that but that's that's the predominant in the first stage right okay and the second stage you're trying to grow in the what virtues virtues right and then the third stage you are resting now already in god kind of so it's beginning middle and what end right so they distinguish these three states right and uh there's something very satisfying to the mind so when you see thomas he didn't come on the whole psalms he died before that but it was up to about what 54 but the first text they found was the first 51 right but the first 50 he'll subdivide them you know in that way that Augustine indicated right that's kind of beautiful right looking philosophy what's the beginning of looking philosophy no that's just a tool that's just a tool natural philosophy no yeah that's that's what is put in the liberal arts right huh the liberal arts are kind of introduction to the secrets of philosophy as thomas says so so beginning of looking philosophy is mathematical philosophy right and then the middle is what yeah and then metaphysica right wisdom or first philosophy is the what yeah right and then in practical philosophy what's the beginning yeah and the middle is what domestics yeah and then yeah that's a kind of wisdom right you know and it's beautiful you know when you see aristotle with the politics there it's a little bit like like in looking wisdom right this is kind of practical wisdom right in that he considers the cities that are especially praised for their governments right like spartum is especially praised and then the governments are proposed by the great thinkers like socrates and the republic right and aristotle thinks that there are defects right both in the government of sparta and the government that socrates proposes the city proposes in the republic right so it's not a desire to shoot his mouth off you know or desire to make a name for himself right but there really are defects right and sometimes very serious defects like you know socrates has a community of wives and so on uh really serious defects right um in the cities praised or the cities proposed right and therefore this is for him to what take the investigation further right but he begins by pointing out the defects in those cities or in the one proposed by the great uh socrates right and uh he does the same thing in metaphysics right he begins with what others said about the causes right and uh he takes what he can get that's good for them right and uh you know the detection is some way upon only these four kinds of causes that he is distinguished right but he sees the defect and how far they went and so on and it's beautiful right now um santa yana you know todd harvard they're kind of a famous guy earlier in the century he says today he says we no longer bother to refute our predecessors we just wave them goodbye well that's that's that's very uh open you know is what they're doing but that's that's the way it is right you know in aristotle you know he'll recall what you know uh heraclitus said or what plato said or you know what these other famous men said and if he disagrees with it he'll give a reason why he disagrees with what they say and if they give a reason what they said he'll show why he thinks that the reason is not sufficient and so on right now when i read the modern philosophers um they would disagree with aristotle on something very basic and very fundamental without recalling that aristotle says the opposite without giving me reason against what aristotle said and not examining the reason he gave and showing what's defective you know was that the way to to go forward there it's kind of a pride too you know it's got away with this essentially we read in biographical sketches of some of these leading lights like um machiaele hobbes law they had more dead heart as well and they're certainly not with them they have certain disagreements with aristotle they're staying uh or it's until you didn't scholasticism or whatever they call it but how is it that they got away with this well part of it part of it is what what shakespeare talks about in troyes and cressida right where he talks about the influence of what fashion right and he says you know he sums it up you know in a beautiful way he says and they give to dust that is a little guilt he says more laud which means praise right than guilt or dusted so real solid bars of gold that the dust of time have what carpet a little bit right they give to you know dust as it'll you know gold spray paint to dust it is a little guilt more laud more praise than guilt real gold or dusted right oh i see okay if they were to seriously address some of these issues uh that were pointed out by aristotle and uh saint thomas and others then they would be unable to go in certain directions i think that they would personally like to go yeah yeah that thing i'm always quoting there and uh things in motion sort of catch the eye and what not stirs right well he says one touch of nature makes the whole world kin but all with one consent praise newborn gods and so that's what people do right you know something is is fashionable right you used to always say you know people you know what's the most read thing today you know and this is you know before the computer's guidance going you know but it's a daily newspaper right the newspaper right the newspaper you know and people always say you know somebody calls up you see what's new you know what's new yeah there's something on here right what's new and the newspaper and and of course the news programs you know are talking about what's new right what's new today right so you kind of um um we kind of um have a very what um undeveloped wonder when all we wonder about how it is the new right paul johnson has a fascinating book called intellectuals where he gives these vignettes about some of the leading lights yeah essentially corrupted the culture and one whose name escapes me uh very brilliant uh super charismatic british uh gentleman uh was in oxford when paul johnson arrived there or was riding when paul johnson was riding there and this is right after world war ii and this man had incredible charisma such that you had these uh war-hardened majors and high-level officers were basically carrying these leverage and he became a major uh uh producer of plays and things like that created old calcutta it was really wacky actually but it was tremendous charisma and so the issue of fats and how they're pervaded by certain people with tremendous charisma it's a very interesting facet uh napoleon was somebody who may say uh had such charisma that men would just love him and follow him and they leave their families to work with him and where you have other people who may be much more virtuous and have much sounder philosophy but they don't have that exciting electric charisma so many people just ignore them very interesting yeah i remember once again talking about this you know you could be attached to the so we call the personality let's say the teacher right huh and that's not really the way to judge how well his understanding is and uh but you see sometimes in students right to get attached to a professor for because of some something outside of his his knowledge maybe right you know and and then they they One of the classical Chinese thinkers, his name was something like Su Ma, who was lamenting the fact that the power of personality and charisma was something that caused certain people to be accepted as leaders who were completely inappropriate for the position, whereas the more virtuous, the more qualified were left in the dust, essentially, because they didn't have that . Which is interesting, cross-cultural. But fashion is a little bit different, right? Fashion is something new. And, you know, we say, you know, Aristotle and the Greeks say that one is the beginning of philosophy, right? But this wonder can be kind of a what? Of a superficial thing, right? I'll take an example. We're doing the third book there of the physics there, you know, actual hearing last night there in our class that he attends. And, you know, Aristotle was working out the definition of motion, right? And then at the end of the third reading there, Aristotle says that motion is difficult to understand, right? It's difficult to see, to understand, right? But he says actually twice, he says it's difficult, right? But it's possible for it to be, right? It's a very strange thing. And I'll take an example, you know, when I walk across the room, right? Part of my motion is gone by already, and part of it is to come. And in the now, how far do I move? Yeah. And this same one will be found when you get to what? A time, right? Because time is made up of the past, which doesn't exist anymore, and the future doesn't exist yet. And the now that's between the past and the future, how long is that? It couldn't have any length at all. It wouldn't be any time there at all, because it wouldn't be all there, right? And so, this is a very strange kind of hole whose parts don't exist, right? It's like saying that there's a word, but none of the letters in that word exist. You know, that's kind of a strange word, right? See? Or a hole, you know? I mean, Berkowitz exists, but his head and his arms and legs and his trunk don't exist. Or, I got a book here, you know, but none of his pages exist. You know? It's very strange, you know? I mean, if this whole chair exists, all the parts in the chair got exist, right? If the word cat exists, the letters C and A and T have to exist, right? But here, you've got a hole whose parts don't exist, right? And yet, somehow this exists. So, Aristotle's filled with wonder, right? You know? And I remember when Iconic was teaching, you know, the course on place there in the fourth book of natural hearing. And he came down before class, that guy, you know, and I was standing in the hall there, right? And the guy was kind of a sharp man, so he's standing in front of me looking up at me, you know? He says, you can see, isn't this wonderful? I'm saying, you know, something like that to me, you know? You can see the man was filled with more wonder than any student in the classroom, right? Even though the material was new to the students in the class, right? And he kind of could have been teaching this since the 1930s, right? But there's more wonder, right? But a very profound wonder, right? You see? So people wonder about what? Superficial things and things that aren't kind of on the surface, right? And there's always something happening, always some weird event. Maybe every day there's some weird thing to read about, you know? But they don't wonder about the fundamental things, right? They don't even wonder what happiness is. I mean, that's kind of relevant to all of us, right? I remember when first, you know, picking up the nuclear magnetics there, I was still in high school, you know, and Aristotle trying to determine carefully what happiness is and what is really going to be our goal, you know? It is our goal, you know? And so on. I remember memorizing kind of a passage from him, you know? My father came by and he said, what are you doing anyway? I just, we said it, he said, oh, okay. We sound impressed, you know, Aristotle, you know? But you still don't wonder about those fundamental things, right? And, or like we were saying there last night, I mean, they don't wonder about what motion really is, or what time is, huh? Or what eternity is, or what eternity is, huh? You know, when they kind of would finish the course on time there, you know, he'd always spend the day there just talking about what eternity is, right? And to understand what eternity is, you have to understand what time is, huh? Because the various parts of the definition of eternity, right, involve negations of things that pertain to time. So you have to understand time first, then you can understand, so far as we can understand it, you know, eternity, right? And those things are extremely, what? Interesting, right? And, you know, people always say, you know, Christ says, you know, before Abraham was, I am. He didn't say, before Abraham was, I was. See? Because as a man, he was in time, right? But he wasn't before Abraham in time, was he? But as God, he's before Abraham, but not in time, right? But in duration, right? And so he says, before Abraham was, I am, right? If he was before him in time, he'd say, I was, right? But he wasn't before him in time. He's not in time, God, in his divine nature. He's in eternity, huh? But people don't wonder about those things, right? So they have a kind of, what? Superficial, right? Wonder about things, huh? You know, the things, you know, just have them right in front of them, you know? Some of the ocean, right? You have certain training, which helps prepare the mind, prepare the ground. You have seeds to be planted, they make the ground fertile. But then other types of education, from working to schooling, which actually do not fertilize the soil. So no matter what seeds happen to get planted, usually inadvertently, because the good seeds aren't planted, the ground isn't ready for them. And so there's a superficiality of it. Yeah, Monsignor Diano pointed out an interesting text from Albert the Great, the teacher of Thomas Aquinas. And Albert the Great says, in the beginning of his commentary, I guess, on the metaphysics, where he says that poetry, dark modem admirandi, right? You see, that great fiction gives us a, what? The way of wondering, right? And so I was saying one time to Monsignor Diano, saying, you know, would there have been any Greek philosophers without Homer? He says, no. See, because Homer gives you a certain wonder, right? That, you know, our cheap fiction, our knowledge don't give you, right? Right, huh? You know? And I know myself, you know, Shakespeare had some of that effect upon me, right? So this kind of, the wonder of the philomuthats, right? Aristotle himself compares the philomuthats, the lovers of the myth, right, with the philosopher, right? Because they both have this wonder, right? But you need something like Homer to arouse a wonder that is a real stepping stone to the wonder of the, what, philosopher, right? The kind of would say, you know, you should have read good literature before you read philosophy, right? But these kids don't even have, haven't even read good literature, right? And even if they have, they've read the deconstruction of the abridged version. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe, you know, the little kids, you begin with the fairy tales, because they're rather some wonder, right? But then you go on to Homer and so on, and then you go on to the wonder of the, what, philosopher, right? You know, I remember seeing a book there on the emotional effect of Shakespearean tragedy. The name of the book was Woe or Wonder. Woe or Wonder? Woe or Wonder. And this is taken from the end of Hamlet, right? You know, where we have a dead king, a dead queen, a dead prince, and a dead courtier and so on. If you would see out of war, wonder, you've come to the right place, you know? Some of that effect. But it's taken from Shakespeare, right? But it has that effect of arousing wonder, right? And if you look at even the late plays of Shakespeare, you know, which are not tragedies, but they arouse a certain wonder. And the description, you know, the wonder there in Winter's Tale, you know, incredible, incredible. No description, you know, of these people in the... As a former Episcopalian, I can attest to the fact that there was a war on wonder within Protestantism, and also you can see it in culture at large. Maybe it's Pardes' modern project with a materialistic view, which takes root and develops in this poisonous way, where the wonder in conjunction with God is lost.