Prima Secundae
Lecture 184: Sin, Acts, and Omission: The Definition of Sin

Transcript
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To the fifth one goes forward thus, it seems that in every sin there is some act. How can you sin without doing anything, right? We're reading Shakespeare's play there, the, is she okay? Yeah, I hope. Timon of Athens, right, huh? Misanthrope, right, huh? You know, but some of the denunciations, you know, of humankind there, you know, we're really messed up, you know, you know what I mean, huh? Yeah. But can we sin without doing anything? I just sit there, do nothing. Yeah, because I have to sin if I do anything. For just as merit is compared to what? Virtue, so sin is compared to what? Vice, huh? But merit cannot be without some, what? Act, huh? Serestal says you don't crown the man, there's nothing but the man who's competed, right? Therefore, neither can sin be without some, what? Act, right, huh? What tool of dialectic is being used there, huh? What? Likeness. Yeah, yeah, tool of likeness, huh? Likeness of what? Ratios, right? Moreover, Augustine says in the book on free judgment, we say free will, but we say free judgment, right? That every sin is, must be, what? Voluntary, right? So much that if it is not voluntary, it's not a, what? A sin, huh? But there cannot be anything voluntary unless it be an act of the will. I didn't consent. Therefore, every sin has some act, huh? This is very convincing, right? As Serestal says, that first use of dialectic is to exercise your mind, huh? Get it in good condition, right, huh? Moreover, if sin is, what? Without some act, it would follow that if someone seizes from some act that is owed, huh? He sins. But continually, someone, what? Seizes from an act that is owed. The one who never, what? Does this act that is owed, right, huh? Therefore, it follows that he continually sins, right, huh? Which is false. It's therefore not some, what? Sin without, what? An act, huh? But against this is what is said in the, like, Epistle of James, huh? Chapter 4, verse 17. The man knowing to do the good and not doing it, it's a sin for him, right? No wonder Martin Luther. Talk about being scrupulous, huh? But to not do something does not imply, what? A sin can act. Therefore, sin can be without act, huh? So, I mean, if you have the fourth commandment, let's say, which is kind of different from the, most of the commandments after, which are, the ones that come after are negative, I mean, you know, don't murder, don't commit adultery, and so on. So, you're commanded not to do some act, right? But to honor your father and mother, you're commanded to, what? Do something, right? So, I don't honor my father and mother, have I, what? Sinned, right? I mean, I'm not kicking them, or killing them, or anything like that. But if I'm not honoring my father and mother, sinning? And people, you know, think I'm going to have to go to Mass on Sunday, you know? They're not honoring God, right? When they should, yeah? Aren't they sinning? It's a beautiful poem, and John Paul II, on it, visiting his mother's grave. He, at least he translated, I don't know what all of it might imply, but at the end of it, basically, he makes a petition for her repose, for her eternal rest, because that's the end of it. But he calls it a filial adoration. But he has that sense that he's honoring his mother, by asking his mercy for her. I answer, it should be said, that this question is chiefly moved on account of the sin of what? Omission. About which some people think differently, right? In diverse ways, huh? For some say that in every sin of omission, there is some act, right? Either an interior one, right? Or an exterior one, right, huh? Interior, just as when someone wills not to go to church, right? When he is held to go, huh? Exterior, as when someone in that hour in which he is held or bound to go to church, right? Or even before, occupies himself with such things that he's impeded by them going to church, right? It's kind of funny, because in Quebec, they had this kind of a silly rule, you know. I go to Mass, I mean, on a Sunday, for example. And then I go out to get breakfast afterwards, right? And if I buy myself one, I get a magazine or a newspaper link to look at when meeting it. And they say, well, you can't sell it until noontime, right? You're talking to Sunday Masses, right? Why he said, anybody who's going to be stopped and went to church because he bought a newspaper, you know. You know, it was kind of a rule about it, that you couldn't, they wouldn't sell you the newspaper until, I don't know, 12 years ago. Actual Masses were over or something, you know. Even though you didn't do early Masses, you didn't need to skip Mass because you desired to read the damn newspaper. And this, in some way, seems to what? Come back to what is it first, right? For the person who wishes something with which another thing cannot be together, right? As a consequence, wishes to what? Lack that. Lack that, right? Unless perhaps he does not, what? Notice, right, I suppose, that through this that he wishes to do something, he is impeded by that for what he is held to, what? To do, right, huh? In which case he is, what? Able to be judged through the, what? To be culpable, right, huh? Now, in the bottom, I think, they refer you to Peter Lombard for his first opinion. That doesn't mean if he decided that I'm solving, it's a reference to Albert in his second opinion. Others, however, say that in the sin of omission there is not required some, what? Act, right, huh? For for one not to do what he is, what? Held to do. Obligated to do is a, what? Sin, right, huh? Does Thomas come down here and one is being the truth, the own truth, and nothing but the truth? Well, he says both opinions, right, have, you see, kundum adekuid, huh? Truth, right, huh? For one understands in the sin of omission that only, that pertains per se to the notion of sin, thus sometimes, huh, the sin of omission is with a, what? Interior act, huh? As when someone wishes not to go to, what? Church. Church, huh? Sometimes, however, without, what? Any act, either interior or exterior. Demonstrating saying that both can take place, right? Just as when someone in the hour at which he is held to go to church thinks nothing about going or not going to. Yeah, yeah. My wife tells me of one of her Irish girlfriends there. She was on a Friday, I guess, this is years ago now, you know, and she got on the airplane, right, and was flying, and they shared her a meet, something like that, right, and then she didn't realize it. And I was like, oh! One of my relatives, she said it was a Friday, and she wasn't thinking about it. She got herself this really nice big burger, and she just put a bite in her friend and said, Isn't it Friday? She was really hungry, too. She just stopped, and she said, I don't know. That's a problem, you know, this thing about, you know, if you're traveling, right, you know, you're obligated to go to Mass, right? You know? Because there's a range of time, you know, you don't, you know. I mean, you really obligated, you know? I don't think so. If, however, in the sin of omission are understood also the causes or the what? Now, the word ocasi, all right, is kind of accidental causes, right, of omitting, right? Thus is necessary in the sin of, what? Omission for there to be some, what? Act, huh? For there is never a sin of omission except when someone omits, right, what is able to do and not do, right, huh? That, however, someone declines to not doing that which he is able to do and not do, does not take place except from some, what? Cause or occasion, joined or what? Preceding, right, huh? And if the cause is not in the power of man, the omission does not have the, yeah. Just as when someone on account of infirmingty omits to go to, what? Church, right, huh? If, however, the cause or occasional omitting lies under the will, the omission has the notion of a, what? Sin. If I drink too much and I fall asleep and the past has already gone by. Right? And thus always it is necessary that this cause, insofar as it is voluntary, has some act, huh? At least a, what? Interior act of the will. But this does not mean, what? Simultaneous, right? Like in the other distinction he's making, huh? Which act sometimes is directly borne on the omission itself? As when someone does not wish to go to church avoiding the, what? Labor, right? Right, yeah. And then such an act per se pertains to the, what? Homission, right, huh? For the will of any sin, the will to do it, I guess, huh? Per se pertains to that, what? Sin. In that the voluntary is of the, what? Yeah. But sometimes the act of the, what? Will is directly borne upon that thing to which man is impeded from the, what? Required act, right? Whether the will is borne in that thing, whether that to which the will is borne is joined to the mission, right? As in someone wishes to play, not to go to, what? Church, right? Yeah. Or even the proceeding, as in someone wishes to, what? Stay up, right? Stay up, right? Yeah. From which he does not go in the hour of matins, right? To church, huh? And then this act, interior, or exterior, may it be, per archidens as itself to the, what? Homission. Homission, right, huh? Because the omission follows, apart from the intention, right, huh? For we call that, per archidens, that is, apart from the, what? Intention, as is clear in, hey, the second book of the physics, right? Once is manifested, then, the sinful omission has a certain act, joined, or preceding, which nevertheless, per archidens as itself to the sin of, what? Right. But judgment about things ought to be given according to that which is, what? Per se. And not according to that which is, what? Prochidens, right? Whence it can more truly be said that some sin can be without, what? Right. Yeah. But another way, I guess. Otherwise. Yeah. To the essence of other actual sins, retain the acts and the occasions standing around, huh? So, if you fail to read the Companion of Theology, right, would you be guilty of the sin of omission? Well, if people don't, you know, be informed, though, what the knowledge they need for their status in life, right, huh? That can be, what? The sin of omission, right, huh? You know, these pre-Cana conferences a lot of times, you know, they don't really teach, you know, in the full way the Church is teaching on these things, huh? Because there's many different levels of responsibility for these things, but... Okay. Now, how does Thomas reply to the first objection, which is based upon... It's in likeness there, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that more things are required for the good than for the, what? Bad, huh? Thomas always quotes this authority, Danisius, right? The rest of us says the same thing, too. That good happens from a whole integral cause, but bad from what? Yeah. So how many ways can a man be ugly, huh? And Cyrano de Bergerac has a big nose, right? You know, and people don't dare call attention to it, you know, for fear he may draw his sword, right? But all kinds of things, right? If your ears are too big, right? Or your nose is too big, or, you know? All these things have to be right, huh? For you to be, what? Beautiful, right? To be handsome, right? She has beautiful hair, the woman there. And she turns around and says, oh. Well, the hair was beautiful, right? But, you know, the type of perfection of, say, Homer, you know? Aristotle says, you know, Homer taught all the Greek poets how to make a good plot. So he has the excellence of plot, right? And when Hegel is commenting on the characters of Homer, you know? It's a beautiful comparison between the characters of Homer and the characters in the French tragedies. The characters in the French tragedies are kind of what? A voice personified, right? Just kind of a walking voice. Why Homer's character is like a diamond, you know? It's well-shaped, you know? Multi-layer, you know? You see? His excellence of character, right? And then Aristotle and Hegel praise the, what? The words of Homer. He has these beautiful similes and so on. Absolutely beautiful. Just in the right way, you know, these horrible scenes, men die in battle, you know. There's a sudden relief, you know, to the scene. So Homer has excellence of plot, character, and words, right? He's got everything, right? What did Chopin say about Mozart? He's got everything in his head, right? I just got the piano in my forehead. You know, it looks like you're right for all these different instruments, right? You know, not just the piano, but the human voice, you know. Right for the violin, right, concertos, and the bassoon concertos, and the clarinet concertos. You get everything, right? Is it hard to be good if one of the premises is bad? No, everything's got to be good, right? It's integral causa, right? It's integral cause. And therefore, a sin can happen whether someone does what he ought not to do, right, huh? Or in not doing what he ought to do, right? But merit cannot be accepted when someone does voluntarily what he ought to do, huh? So more is required, right? For merit and for demerit, huh? So when they inspect you, when I was in the military academy, right, and they inspect you, right, huh? Shoes have got to be shined, but your brass has got to be polished, your gun has got to be cleaned and so on, right? Anything you're going to, what? Fail, right, huh? See these guys, you know, carrying a second pair of shoes, you know, all polished to perfection, you know? And then taking out the last one. The other shoes in case they got a little dust on them or something. So they have got little shiny shoes, so they'll be... But everything's got to be perfect, right, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many ways can you find something wrong? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm talking about the guys in the German Army in the Second World War either, you know, and they would go right down into the, you know, the drain and so on, you know, and see what's... So, the next time, they were expecting them to be inspecting, they went down, they cleaned the drain out, shined it up, you know? So one of the guys' whole responsibility is shined the little drain, the... Yeah, and they didn't pass inspection, you know, I mean, they make the whole company, you know, be responsible for it, right? Yeah. So one time they had them scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes, you know, so they were real disciplined. Okay. And therefore, merit cannot be without an act, but sin can be without an act, right? That's beautiful. You've got to see that, huh? Doesn't there have to say something about that ignorance, right, huh? Ignorance can come just by not studying, right? But also, ignorance from false arguments, right? To the second, it should be said that something can be called voluntary, not only because it comes under some act of the will, but because it is in our power, right, huh? That it come to be, or not come to be, as is said in the third book of the Ethics by Aristotle. Whence also, for it not to will, can be said to be what? Involuntary, right, huh? Insofar as it is in the power of man to will or not to will, right? When they distinguish these two causes, nature and what? And will. That's, and you see, nature is determined to one, right, huh? Why the will is what? To be able to do this or to do that, or to do this or not to do this, right? So you can, what? There's two kinds of, what, indetermination there, right, huh? Why the nature is kind of determined to one, right? Can't do it or not do it, or do this rather than that, right, huh? You know, they are talking to those farming grandchildren there, you know, about when the cows are going to drop their young, you know, and so on. It's going to be another little cow, right? It's not going to be a, you know, pig or something, you know? Nature's determined to one, right, huh? But the cook, I mean, you can make a steak tonight or chicken or something else, right? Yeah, bees aren't going to stop making honey and start making lemonade or something. Yeah. To the third, it should be said that the sin of omission is contrary to the affirmative, what, precept, right? Which always obligates, but not always, right? What does that mean? Well, I mean, you're obligated to honor your father and mother, but you don't have to be honoring them all the time. And therefore, only for that time does one sin by, what, seizing from the act by which he is obligated to, what? When it comes in, you stand up, right? He's saying that Theodore Roosevelt didn't approve of Churchill because he didn't stand up when the woman came into the room. Oh. I suppose it's his mother, I mean. It's the woman. Okay. Mm-hmm. To the sixth one proceeds thus. It seems that unsuitably is defined sin when it is said that sin is something said or done or desired against the eternal what? Law. For it is said either done or desired implies some what? Act. But not every sin implies some act. Therefore this definition does not imply every sin. Moreover, Augustine says in the book on the two what? Souls is that? That sin is the will of retaining or what? Pursuing what justice what? For goods. But will is what? Comprehended under concubiscence. According to concubiscence, it's taken in a large way, right? For every what? Desire. Right, huh? Therefore, it suffices to say that sin is something wanted or desired against the eternal law. It was necessary to add said or done. Incidentally, you probably have a note there in your book. The definition that you're discussing here is apparently taken from Augustine's Contra-Fauster, right? Okay? Okay. You reference to Tom in this edition, in the Mariette edition, and if you have an edition or not. So, he celebrated the definition, right? Okay. You know, assuming you find Tom takes up the definition, say, of eternity, right? And it's beautiful what he does, because each objection is against one part of the definition, right? So, it focuses the mind of the student upon that one part of the definition, and you think about that one part just by itself, you know, and then you have to answer that eventually, right? So, it gets a real distinct knowledge of that, right? If I was smart enough like that, I'd have, you know, well, this is a good definition of reason, you know, the ability for a large, and then say, well, no, no. And you say, you know, the ability for a large discourse, well, that leaves out small discourse, right? You know? That would be an objection you give to that, right? And then the supplier would say, you know, well, when you say that you're able to, you know, lift to 200 pounds, it includes your ability to lift 100 pounds, right? And therefore, when you say, look if you're a large discourse, that includes the ability, right? Okay? And you say, well, it leaves out, you know, distinction, right? Yeah, but when you say that you look before and after, that includes distinction, because there's only a before and after if things are distinct, right? So, that's included, right? Or you make the objection and say, well, the mind, the reason is not capable very much of large discourse, only of what small discourse is really capable of fully, and therefore, it should be defined in terms of small discourse, right? And you say, well, we don't define an ability by what it can do most easily, right? Or most adequately, but by the utmost that it can do, right? That California chrome, you know, not by the slowest race that he can comfortably come in last, you know, but the speed, you know, the utmost that he can do, right, the time, you know? He said, it's a record, I mean, he said, no, he said, it's a record for time, but I mean, it's marvelous. So, it's kind of beautiful the way Thomas will knock this in that part of the definition, right? It's very appropriate for a beginner, right? This is what the summa was for a beginner, right? Not a beginner in the life of the mind, but a beginner in theology, right? But it makes you really appreciate the effort you have to make to understand a definition, right? But not just any jerk's definition, right? But somebody like Boavius, you know, or somebody like Augustine, you know? Or Stahler has a definition, well, twice, twice? There's more about that. Moreover, sin properly seems to consist in a turning away from the, what? End. For good and bad are chiefly considered according to the end, as is clear from the things that are love, huh? When Augustine says in the first book about free judgment there, how do they translate that in English then? Did they give it three other English texts there? They didn't do it with free will or what did they do? They gave the Latin word. Yeah, yeah. The next thing, free judgment, right? And that's significant, you know? Once Augustine says in the first book of free judgment that by comparison to the end, sin is defiant, right? Augustine's not even consistent, right? Saying that to sin is nothing other than neglecting eternal things to follow what? Temporal. Temporal things. In the book of the 83 questions, huh? He says that all human diversity is in using things that should be enjoyed and enjoying things that should be used. You remember it makes a lot of that text, right? But in the foresight definition, there's no mention about the aversion from the, what, suitable end. Therefore, insufficiently is sin defined, right? Average person, especially an average woman, would say, isn't this confusing the issue? My old teacher used to say, you know, it's the business of the teaching to confuse the issue. He's kind of, you know, he gets the mind, you know. A priest during Holy Week was reading the Gospel of John and the continuation of the Gospel of John for several days in Holy Week at Mass. And he would say, we have more of these confusing Gospels from St. John. What's confusing about them? We're confused. The Gospel is the confusing. Well, in the compendium of theology, it's beautiful when he takes up the three graces of Christ, right? The grace of union, right? I mean, the apostatic union. And then the grace of what? Him as an individual man, right? And then the grace of him as the head of the church, right? But he ties it up beautifully, you know, with the text of John that began the Gospel there, right? And it's just, it's admiring the order of him, right? Because he says, first of all, you know, the Word was made flesh. And that's the union of the second. And then we saw him but full of glory and grace and truth, right? And then of his fullness we have all received, you know. He's priming the order, you know, huh? He's just absolutely amazing, you know. Amazing. It's beautiful the way he explains that, too, you know, that Christ didn't, merit the hypostatic union, right? But he's full of grace and truth because of the hypostatic union. He says, because the closer you are to God, you're the, you're, what? There's a cause of what comes afterwards, right? And there's no way of being closer to God than this hypostatic union. So being close to God, then, in its human nature, right? He was, what, full of wisdom and full of grace, yeah. Yeah. There's a beautiful, beautiful chapter in there on the infinity of Christ's grace, right? Because simply speaking, he can't be, created thing can't be, but, yeah. So, of course, the grace of union is infinite, right? Because you're being joined to the divine person, right? But then, in the grace of Christ as a man, right? Thomas, there are such three ways that it's infinite, right? Can't I ever get off that text there? That was my, that was my reading when I was with my grandchildren, you know. Have a little, just with a little piece. So I asked Lady Wisdom, right, and I said, what is theology? She said, the knowledge of God. And I said, is God simple or put together? She said, he's simple, right? And I said, is God perfect in some particular way? Or universally perfect? She said, it's universally perfect, right? Did you ask her how you double the square? Yeah, she figured that one. They throw out there in the yard there with a part of a tree there, you know, but like a stash, you know, and she's taking care of the sheep there, you know. So look at the little shepherds out there, you know. Bend them around. The sheep, they come out there and they need the grass and then they see when the plants they're on there, they don't want to eat, you know, and then they go over and get away from the plant. I guess he keeps them out of trouble, all this farm. Yeah, keep them busy. Tires them out. I know. Sleep well and so on. The exercise in the mind, you know. Moreover, this is the fourth objection, all right? From this, something is said to be prohibited because it is contrary to the law. But not all sins are bad because they're prohibited, but some are prohibited because they're bad, right? Ah, I know. Okay. So that shows you the importance of the Socratic question there, right? Because, you know, if I go out here on the highway and I start driving the left side of the highway there, that's bad because it's against the law, right? It's not a law because it's bad to do like the English do, you know, driving the left side, right? And, you know, Thomas talks about the tree that they ate off, you know? It was bad for them to eat off that tree because it was prohibited. It was prohibited because the tree was itself a bad tree. It wasn't a poison tree like that, you know? Therefore, in the common definition of sin, we're not not to lay down, it's against the law of God, right? I mean, Brother Mark and I were going to straighten out some of the professors there, you know? You know, we had to work in the mind, you had to confine the man in a prison cell, more or less, and you drop in one day, the objection's right, and let's do it though, right? And then, another day, you know, that's the way it should go, right, you know? Zoom around objections for a while, you know, and really, of course, in the disputed questions you have, you know, sometimes 15, 20 objections, huh? This is just cut down. Small lines. Yeah, yeah. Moreover, sin signifies a bad act of man, but the bad of man is to be against reason, as the great Dionysius, huh? It says in the fourth chapter of the divine names, and I teach ethics, I'd say that, right? You know? A good human act is a reasonable act, right? And a bad human act is an unreasonable act, right? Therefore, more ought one to say that sin is against reason than that sin is against, what? Eternal law, right? Can we check the definition of Augustine, right? Yeah. Yeah. Something new. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. As you can see, if one is not inclined to follow Augustine, right, this would be sufficient to, you know, I could reason now to not follow that guy, right? My answer should be said, on the contrary, the authority of Augustine suffices. A little wide guy in the way. Yeah. Who is this Augustine that Thomas says? This new saint there, huh? The John Paul II, he's got a nice and sick of going Augustine, right? I don't know if you know that one at all. But it's kind of a nice, nice, you know, traditional teaching of the Church about the great and Augustine. To realize how central he is, right? Or if you go to the, what they're always talking about now, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right? And see just how many quotes there are from Augustine, right? You know? You realize that he's the authority of Augustine's spices, you know? I mean, he's somebody. You see how dependent the mind is upon belief, though, unless you, you know, believe a man has such great authority, you're not going to make the effort to really understand it, huh? My answer should be said, it is clear from what has been said, that sin is nothing other than a bad human act, right? Now that some act be a human act, it has from this that it is, what? Voluntary, right? Whether it be voluntary, as it were, elicited, right? By the will, right? As willing itself and choosing, right? So that's an act of the power itself, intrinsically. Or a act, what? Commanded by the will, right? As are exterior acts, right? Either of speaking or of what? Yeah. It's a distinction a lot, right, huh? What do they say in the Mass today? I don't know if you have any of your Mass or not, but you know, yeah. You know, they talk about words and so on. Now, a human act has, what? They'd be bad from its, what? Lacking something, right? And what does he say here? A suitable measure, right? Notice the word measure there, men. It comes to the mind, right? Commensura. Now, every commensuration of anything, of anything, is to be noted by its comparison to some rule, from which if it diverts, it is what? Yeah. What's the measure in food, right? What's the measure in drinking? Who squared Hillary Clinton? That's what Thomas says, yeah. Yeah. That was quite a stupidity, right? Okay. But now the rule of the human will is what? Two-fold, huh? One which is, what, near, proximal, right? And homogeneous, right? The same kind, right? To wit, human, what, reason. So that's since reason is what, the ruler, right? Our act should be reasonable. Another is the first rule, which is the, what? Turn of the law. Turn of the law. Which is, as it were, the reason of God, right? Yeah. And therefore, Augustine, he says, in the definition of sin, lays down two things, right? One that pertains to the substance of human act, which is, as it were, the matter in sin, right? When he says something said, or done, or what? Desired, huh? Another that pertains to the notion of what? Bad. Of bad, which is a word formal, the definition of what? Sin, huh? When he says against the eternal law. That's what he means, right? When we come to this question of law, we'll see this again, you know? Now, to the first objection, right? Which is based upon the previous letter. Article where we took it up, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that affirmation and negation are reduced to the same, what? Genius, right? Just as in divine things, generated and ungenerated are, what? Reduced relation, right? As Augustine says in the fifth book of the, what? Trinity, right? So we say the Father is, what? Not God. Yeah, yeah. So he's used to that, right? This is a common thing when you talk about logic, when you talk about the categories, right? So if knowledge is in the category of quality, to what category do we do is ignorance? Qualify some people's minds, so to speak, right? And therefore, for the same, it should be taken, what? Said and not said, right? Done and not done, right? And what about the second objection here, which is talking about the will, right? Which Augustine seems to say in this book, the book. The second should be said that the first cause of sin is in the will, which commands all voluntary acts, and which only is found by sin. And therefore, Augustine sometimes, through will alone, defines what? Sin, right? That's the root of it, right? Prima causa, right? But because also the exterior acts pertain to the substance of the sin, since they are, what? In themselves, bad, right? Like murdering you or something, right? Is necessary that the definition of sin be laid down to something pertaining also to the, what? Exterior acts, right? So to want to kill somebody is as bad as killing somebody? Got the same root there, right? Inspiring. Inspiring. I remember one time I learned about colleagues in the English department came out. University of Minnesota to take some more course and so on. And he went to see this, he went to go see this one play there, you know, some modern play, you know, and so on. And it was kind of a depressing play, right? And it's about a husband and wife who are in some kind of conflict, right? And a friend of them comes to visit and stay with them for a while, and he's hearing the husband complain about the wife. And the wife who failed the husband, so on. And he's trying to kind of reconcile them a bit, right? And it's kind of depressing anyway. And one of the complaints about the wife is the time that she was staying in the dock, and he pushed her off the dock and she almost drowned, right? And I said, that's kind of a serious thing, right? So, so, the next conversation with the man, I asked her about, you know, and, uh, why did you do that? He said, well, there she was standing at the end of the dock and she seemed a thing to do. Everybody fucked up laughing, you know? Just seemed a thing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody in the audience started laughing, you know? My friends, it wasn't supposed to be a joke, you know? You ought to get some kind of coming beneath from this terribly depressing, depressing story, you know? That's not what I'm saying, you know? We'd pick up the place, you know? People get related to that. Yeah, yeah. So, he's seeing something good in that definition of Augustine, right? That's the first cause, right? Prima causa, right? I suppose if I go so far and want to kill you, they actually don't kill you. Well, my will has become even more inclined to it, right? Even more intensely to it, yeah? To the third, it should be said, huh? That the eternal law first and chiefly orders man to the end, right? I suppose the first commandment is, you know, love God above all things, right? And then, as a consequence of this, it makes man have himself well about those things which are towards the end, right? And therefore, in this that he says, against the eternal law, he touches upon the aversion from the end, and consequently all others. You didn't see that, you dummy, huh? Okay? You know? I mean, the objection made you, what? Clarify that, right, huh? The objection concentrates you upon what seems to be a defect, right? And you'll see that the defect is not in the definition, but in your understanding of that part of the definition. Now you understand part of the definition better, right? Okay? As we can understand this, maybe better, when we study law here later on in that premise, it wouldn't be, right? To the fourth, it should be said. Now, this is the objection from some things are not bad because they're against the law, right? To the fourth, it should be said. The witness said that not every sin is bad because it is prohibited. It is understood about the prohibition made through what? The positive law, right? Like you drive on the right side of the street. That's the positive law. Which means what? The law laid down, right? It's not the nature of things that you drive on the right side of the street. If our word refers to the natural right, which is contained first in the eternal law, secondly, in the natural judgment of human what? Reason. Then every sin is bad because it is what? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because from this, right, that it is disordered as you pugnant to be what? Natural law. Natural law. Poor there, right? Like God because you're good? Mm-hmm. Or are you good because you've been made like God? Now, what about the fifth objection here, right? To the fifth, it should be said that by theologians, sin is considered especially pre-kipui, right? According as an offense against God, right? But by the moral philosopher, according as it is contrary to what? Reason. Reason, right? And therefore, Augustine more certainly defines sin from this that is against the eternal law than from this that is against what? Reason. Reason, huh? And especially because through the eternal law, we are ruled in many things which exceed, what? Human reason, huh? And the theologian defines things a little bit differently than, what, philosopher, right? That goes back to a more general thing that the way of defining in different sciences is not the same, right? I don't know if you remember when Aristotle in the second book of physics, huh? The second book of natural hearing, when he distinguishes natural philosophy and what? Mathematics, right? And they differ in their way of what? Defining. Didn't we talk about that earlier? Years ago? Maybe. Because in actual philosophy, you define with what? Sensible matter, they say, right, huh? Okay. But is the geometrical cube, you know, hard or soft? Is the geometrical sphere, you know? I used to say to the student, you took a geometrical sphere and you threw it against the wall. Would it bounce off like a rubber balloon or would it shatter like a glass thing, you know? Or what would be the melting point of the... I used to say to the student, I used to say to the student, on the geometrical sphere, right? So you define in a different way, right? And then sometimes Aristotle will say that in natural philosophy you define with matter and motion, right? By mathematics you abstract from matter and motion, right? Kind of funny in the modern mathematical description of the atom, right? We have kind of a mixed science, you know, or what they call middle science, you know, a mathematical science of nature, right? But as one of the great physicists said, the modern atom consists of no stuff at all. It's just, you know, mathematics, right? And that's because you're, what, applying mathematics back to the natural world, right? But when you get to, sometimes Aristotle will speak of there being a kind of matter in mathematics, which is its continuous extension and so on. And then in wisdom, you're dealing with things that are altogether immaterial, right? And in no way involve any kind of matter, right? It's hard to the mind to rise to that, right? But in theology, we tend to define things in reference to what? God, right, right? So that's kind of a good point. He's touching upon it here, right? The way the philosopher would define it. But it becomes kind of critical when you talk about what they call the natural law. The kind of, later on, when Thomas talks about the natural law in theology, he'll speak of the natural law as being a partaking of the eternal law in man, right? So he's defining it, in a way, by the eternal law, right? Aristotle would talk about what's natural, right? Because of the nature of things, right? And not that he's not aware, in some way, of God, right? But it's not as appropriate, right, for the philosopher to define things in reference to God, because God is not really the subject of wisdom, right? God is the cause of the subject of wisdom, right? Which is being in one, right? But he's not the very, what? Subject of the science, right? So Thomas would say, you know, that in revealed theology, that's to say, right? Because Aristotle calls wisdom a theology, too, right? But it's because it ends up by talking about God, right? But the subject of wisdom is determined, of first philosophy, as Aristotle calls it, in the fourth book of metaphysics. And there he speaks of his being in the one, right? But the revealed theology, the subject is God, right? And nothing else is talked about in there, except in relation to God is its beginning, or its end, right? So it's kind of appropriate to define them in reference to God, right? And so that's the way the natural law is defined there in theology. So different sciences have kind of a different way of defining them. So chew on that definition, right? You have to chew on these things, huh? Otherwise you'll get, Father Bo, they would say mental indigestion, right? Maybe more of a mental constipation, you call it that word. Yeah. Yeah. Take a little break right now? Yeah. Yeah.