Prima Secundae
Lecture 192: The Will and Other Powers as Subjects of Sin

Transcript
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And again, I guess, huh? Over the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Praise God. Help us to understand what you've written. Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Well, Thomas, I guess Augustine too, huh? They say that more angels were saved than lost, huh? Because of the natural, what, inclination is to the good, right? So more of them were saved than lost. But evil in the human race, for the most part, Dustin and Thomas say, what's the reason for that, huh? Why the human race is evil for the most part, and why the angels is good for the most part, huh? That's why we're wasting all these sins, and that's why we have to study these things, huh? But why is that so, huh? Yeah, yeah. Because our senses and our emotions, right, kind of dominate us as a child, right? And they're often, you know, leads to something unreasonable, right? So that's the reason Thomas gives, why we have evil in us for the most part, huh? So watch out for those senses and those emotions, right? But that's why we've got to study all these things about sin, you know? You know, teaching the circuit, always quote Thomas, malum in specie humana ut in pluribus! One guy in the seminary said, he used to tell me, you know, the floor of hell is paved, the heads of priests, you know? Bishop, all the bishops. Yeah. Put the fear of God in you, yeah? I was thinking of these, you know, beautiful words of Fire Lawrence there, right? There's two things he says about stumbling, right? And one is that wisely and slow, he says, they stumble that run fast, huh? And then later on he says, he speaks of those who revolt from true birth, huh? Stumbling on abuse. I was thinking, you know, of how those two cover something, right? If you go back to the first one, wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast, huh? The first meaning of run, of course, is with the legs, right? And so your mother running up the stairs with the laundry or something, she stumbles, right, huh? Okay. Then the second meaning is in action, right? Like it says in the Constitution or in the Declaration, when in the course of human events, right? The course comes from running, right? That's applied to, what, poor little Romeo, right, in particular, right? Okay. And then the third meaning, of course, is the discourse of reason, right? So when you jump to a conclusion, right, your mind obviously, what, often stumbles, right? But then he says later on, huh? For not so what? Oh, for not so what? You don't know this? For not so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give, right? That the rhyme in these lines. For not so what? Good, but strained from that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse, huh? Revolts from what's natural, right, huh? Well, when we talk about the third kind of discourse there, the third kind of running, the mind, right, huh? What are the two ways that the mind is deceived? Yeah? Yeah. But sometimes it runs from something that is, what, true, but it runs too fast, and something doesn't follow, right? Like when you jump to the conclusion, right? You might have seen something, right, but you're too quick to draw your, what, conclusion. So it doesn't really follow from what you had, right? Not that what you began with was bad, right? But then, when you revolt from true birth, stumbling on abuse, what's the cause of error in that case? Well, it's the fact that you have what? No. The fact that you have, what? Something natural has been corrupted, right? And since nature is what is first in a thing, it's the beginning that is corrupt, right? That's much more serious, right? So nothing's more serious than a mistake about the beginning. And if it's a real beginning, it's something natural, and therefore there's a corruption in nature. So you revolt from true, what, birth, stumbling on abuse, huh? If you go to a play like, say, Hamlet, right, huh? And you think of Hamlet's uncle, right? Now he's poured poison in the ear of his, what, brother, right? You're supposed to love your brother. And he's, what, got the throne, and the wife of his brother, right, huh? So which difficulty is he particularly suffering from? The second, yeah. He revolts from true birth, right? On the brotherly love that is natural, right? But if you take, what was it, Laertes, huh, later on, he comes back and his father has been stabbed to death, right? His sister has been driven mad and drowned, right? And so he's moved to what? As a noble young man to avenge the death of his, what, father and his sister, right, huh? And of course, the uncle, you know, quickie-talks him into this plan to get Hamlet, right? Hamlet's responsible for it, right? Well, he's more rushing to, what, conclusions about Hamlet, right? And why Hamlet is guilty of killing his father and driving his sister mad, right? That's opposed to wisely and slow. They stumble and run fast, huh? But that's the two things we say in reasoning when you teach logic, right, huh? How does the mind make a mistake, right? Well, sometimes it's because it proceeds from the beginning that is, what, false, huh? Other times it begins from something that is good, but the conclusion doesn't, what, follow, huh? The form of the argument is bad, right? In the other case, the matter is bad, right, huh? It's kind of amazing the way Shakespeare uses those two, uses the word stumbling, right? Goes back to the legs originally, right, in this meeting, but then it's applied even the running of the mind, right, huh? It's an amazing, amazing thing. But it's part of the problem there, you know, with man is he's got this kind of a double nature, right, huh? And the sense nature of man, right, his senses and his emotions, huh, are more strong to begin with, right? And he tends to follow them, right? And that's the mystery, so you have evil for the most part, huh? Back and study our sins here now. On the subject of sins, we're up to question 74, right? Then we're not to consider, it should be considered about the subject of vices or of what? Sins, huh? And about this, 10 things are asked. First, whether the will is able to be the subject of sin, huh? It's a good place to start. Second, whether the will alone is the subject of sin. Third, whether sensuality, that's now the, what, referring to the passions, emotions, can be the subject of what? Sin, huh? And four, whether it's able to be the subject not only of venial sin, but of what? Mortal sin, huh? Then he goes to reason, right, in the fifth article. Notice the order there. Whether reason is able to be the subject of sin, huh? And six, whether delictatio morosa, morosa I guess is what, kind of a dwelling, or non-morosa, is in what, as in a subject. And seven, whether the sin of consent and act is in superior reason, as in a subject. Well, as Augustine introduced this distinction of lower and higher reason, and eight, whether inferior or lower reason, is able to be the subject of mortal sin. And then, whether superior reason is able to be the subject of venial sin. And ten, whether in superior reason there can be a venial sin about its own, what, object. What are all these articles in there? Of course it would be more difficult. So we're carrying out the advice of the seven wise men of Greece. Know thyself. Yeah, part of knowing thyself is the study of the soul, to know what you are, right? Then, what you are in particular, the study of the virtues of the vices. And then you know yourself, right? Yeah. Doesn't it seem, what about looking in the mirror? You see how an awful person you are, then you walk away, you forget how awful you are. There's a woman who comes to Mass, they're dating Mass sometimes, and she's got about eight children, you know. And they're really innocent here. I say, my God, it's so nice to see that innocence in the little ones, you know. And then one of the little girls, she was kind of, you know, genuflecting, but she wasn't, you know, facing the tabernacle, and her little older sister, you know, turn around. And she genuflected again, right towards the tabernacle. And he's like, what's this wonderful, wonderful little ones. To the first, one goes forward thus. It seems that the will is not able to be the subject of sin. How the hell is going to argue against that, right? For Dionysius, and that's our great man, right? In the fourth chapter about the divine names, he says that malum, evil, the bad, is what? Apart from the will and intention. Well, I mean, Dionysius is a good beginning, isn't it? But sin has the ratio of what? Pan. Therefore, sin cannot be in the will. That sounds a lot wrong. Now that I, assuming that this is going to be stumbling in this article, did I stumble by running too fast? Did I stumble by going against nature? I wouldn't suspect so, right, huh? Because Dionysius is a pretty solid character, right, huh? So it's not like he had a bad beginning, right? Moreover, the will is of the good or of the apparent good. But from this, that the will wills the good, one does not sin. And that it wills the apparent good, which is not truly good, more seems to pertain to the defect of the grasping power, which is the way Thomas calls the knowing power, right? Because that's the first act. Then to the defect of the will. Therefore, sin in no way can be in the will. Now again, was the beginning there the good, the wills of the good or the apparent good? Is that the bad beginning? So if somebody stumbled here, did he stumble from going against nature? Or did he stumble by running too fast from what seems like a very good beginning to me, right? And exhausting the possibilities, right? Just like every number is odd or even, or every number is prime or composite, the will is always of the good or the apparent good, right? In one case, it's not a sin, obviously. In the other case, it seems to be more in that knowing power, right? Now the third argument is taken from the philosopher, right? Moreover, there cannot be the same subject of sin and what? The efficient cause. These are two different causes, right? Because the efficient cause and the material cause do not, what? Come together, right? As is said in the second book of actual hearing. This is a core, right? But the will is the efficient cause of what? Sin. For the first cause of sinning is a will. As Augustine says in the book about the two souls, right? Therefore, it can't be the subject of sin. That's what the article is about. It can be the subject, right? Now you remember there's four kinds of causes, right? And you can't obviously understand the distinction of four, right? So how do you divide those four? Sometimes into two and two, right? So you say the inside causes are what? Matter and form. The outside causes are the mover or maker and the end, huh? But it's interesting, another division there. If you take what's a very universal distinction, right? When Aristotle takes a being, which is about as large as you can get, right? Because it covers everything that is in any way whatsoever. And the most universal distinction of being seems to be and to act in what? Yeah. And then when you divide the causes according to act and ability, taking ability down in the passive sense, as opposed to act, what do you divide the four causes into? What? Yeah. Because matter is the ability to be formed and so on, to be moved. And the other three causes, form, mover, and end, are based upon what? Actuality. And therefore, you talk about God, right? And you say, God is the first cause, but what sense is he a cause? Which of these two divisions would you use? The one of two and two or the one of one and three? Yeah. Because God is a cause, has an exemplar, right? Which is an extrinsic form, but it's in the genus of form, as Aristotle says. And then he's the first mover and maker, that's the third kind of cause. And then he's the end, right? But God is pure act, right? When I was first studying the substance of God, you know, and I could say, hey, you can use pure act as almost a middle term for showing all five elements of the substance of God, right? That's simplicity, and there's a, yeah, brevity is a soul, wit, and so on, but it's a beautiful middle term, right? So you really get the idea that pure act, right, is something that, it's not a definition of God, but it's really fundamental to understanding him. But to understanding the kind of cause that God can be, right? And the kind of cause he cannot be. But here's a very interesting thing, right, that Aristotle's pointing out, that the efficient cause and the material cause do not, what? Come together, right? But the will is the efficient cause, therefore it can't be the, what, material cause or subject of sin. It's got to be somewhere else, right? Again, is the beginning here bad, from the great philosopher? How do we get into this mistake, right? Wisely and slow, based on the run fast. I always say that at conventions, you know. You're probably tired of me saying that, I'm sure. But again, this is what Augustine says in the Book of Attractions, huh? You know. The will is that by which one sins and by which one lives rightly. Well, Thomas says, I answer you, it should be said that sin is a certain, what, act, as has been said above. Now he sees a, what, distinction of acts, the one that Aristotle, of course, has in the ninth book of wisdom, right, where he talks about act and ability. Of acts, some go over into a outside, what, or exterior matter, as to what, burn and to cut, huh, okay. Now you're doing that sign there for the thing, and that's the kind of act you were engaged in, right, in case you didn't know that. It should have passed over from you to the wood, right. And acts of this sort have, for their matter and subject, that in which the action, what, passes over, right. As a philosopher says in the third book of physics, where he takes up motion, right, that motion is the act of the movable, right, from the, what, mover. But it's the act of the movable, right, okay. So if I kick you, my kicking is where? It's in you, yeah. It's in you, yeah. But some acts are not, what, going out into exterior matter, right, but remaining in the agent, huh, just as to desire and, what, to know, right, huh. And such acts are all, what, moral acts, huh, whether they be acts of virtues or of, what, sins, huh. Whence is necessary that the proper subject of the act of sin be a power, which is a beginning of some would act. Now, since it's proper to moral acts that they be, what, voluntary, huh. It follows that the will, which is the beginning of voluntary acts, whether they be good or bad, right, which are sins, be the beginning of, what, sins. And therefore, it follows that sin is in the will is in a subject, right. So a distinction between those two kinds of acts, right. I think we point out the other distinction Thomas is often pointing out between the two acts. And you can see him looking before and after because in an act that goes out to something outside of me, the act is between the, what, actor and the object, right. So my kicking is between me and you, right, okay. But in the case of, what, knowing and loving, what is the order? Well, the object is in some way joined to the, what, power, and then the act proceeds from that, right. Because the woman made an impression upon my heart, right, or because that piece of Mozart, an impression upon my heart, right, then I start to like that piece. I start to like that woman, right, do you see? And it's because color or sound is acted upon my ear that I see the painting or I hear the music, right. So the object is, what, joined to the power and then the act proceeds from that, right. But in the case of kicking or pounding or something, right, then the pounding or the kicking is between the kicker and the kicked. So the order is, what, different, huh. And Thomas, what, following Aristotle, sees the before and after of those three, right, huh. Okay. I tried to avoid this three stuff, you know, but I was studying a little bit of the creation there, right, huh. And Thomas, of course, is contrasting Augustine with what he says, right. He turns it a little bit differently, right, than the other church fathers. But the other church fathers, they have these three again and again, right, huh. You have the heavens and the water and the, what, earth. And then you have the, what, distinction of the three, the first, second, third day. And then the, the adorning of them on the fourth, fifth, and sixth one. So it's three, right. And Thomas quotes, you know, Therigris, right, says, you know, beginning, middle, and end, right. That's, that's all, right. And he quotes it from, I think, the, the, the, the chair, I think it was, of Aristotle, right, where Aristotle refers to it. He's talking about there's only three dimensions. Can't be any more. And three is all there is, right, you know. Okay. Now the, um, in a moral act, like, you know, if I'm going to kill you with a man, um, I think the moral act also involves stuff. Yeah, so he's going to take it up in this next article, right. Oh. But you're anticipating the master. Oh. Thomas. Yeah. But all he's asking, this one here is whether the will is a subject of sin, right. He's not asking me if anything else is a subject of sin, right. They'll get their, their, their, uh, their opportunity to be sinful, too. But it seems like he's distinguishing these two kinds of acts, the one that passes into the exterior matter. Yeah. But it seems that moral acts often have a dimension in which they're passing into the exterior. Yeah. I mean, in other words, my, my telling you isn't simply a matter of the interior. I mean, obviously, it has to come from the intellect and the will, but it also passes into matter exterior. I mean, if it didn't, you know, then you still said it. You still said it. There's a difference there between the emotions, though, let's say, and the hand, right, because the hand is kind of like a slave of the mind, right. And so if I, you know, use my hand to kill you, because that's a bad act, right, but the hand itself is kind of a slave and, you see, but if it's my emotions, right, then they have a kind of a life of their own, right. And they can, you know, share more in sinfulness, right, huh? So the emotion I have when I, when I strike at this crazy guy chopping up somebody's head, funny way of speaking, I say, you know, terrorists and abortionists, I said, they both have no respect for human life, huh? And, you know, one cuts heads off and the other pulls babies apart in the womb, so they're both horrible people, you know? So even in some way, the abortionist does more destruction than the guy who just cuts his head off, he tears every limb, and he's hurt it. Yeah, yeah, I said, make a good use of these aces here, you know, to step in a little bit of the truth about abortion, yeah. Now, how does Thomas reply, though, to the objections, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that bad is said to be praetervontatum, right, apart from the will, because the will does not tend in it under the ratio of something bad, right, huh? But because something bad is an apparent good, therefore, the will, what, sometimes, right, many times, desires something, what, bad, huh, and according to this sin is in the, what, will, right? Someone might say, that's how briefly ordered the objections are, but someone might say, yeah, but isn't that, then, in the reason that is telling the will this is good, when it's only an apparent good, right, huh, see? Well, ad secundum, though, right? You know, Thomas, he talks about dialectic, huh? He says dialectic comes in a thinker before he knows the truth and after he knows the truth, right? But he says after he knows the truth, he can order the dialectic better, more succinctly and so on, to the, what, truth, right, huh? And if you compare the dialectic, say, of Plato and of Aristotle, right, huh, that of Plato and the Dialogues, you know, at least, where we have Socrates preceding dialectically at times, he's kind of like a man searching for the truth, right, huh? And it's not as orderly as the dialectic is in Aristotle, where he's come to the truth and now he's coming back and using the dialectic to help the East. going into long, right, but he sees, you know, that was a dead end, won't even bother, you know, absorbing your mind with that, and wait, wait, Thomas says this thing's ordered, right, huh, it's just kind of natural, the first objection leads into the second one, you know, because Thomas has found the truth, and he's now coming back and ordering the dialectic, right, huh, to the second it should be said that if the defect of the grasping power, and notice the word grasping there is taken from what, the hand, right, but it's taken as a way of speaking of the knowing power, right, because the thing known must be in the knower, right, you have to get a hold of it, huh, and so the first act of reason is called simple grasping, right, simple apprehension, that the defect of the grasping power, the knowing power, if in no way that defect was what, subject to the will, there would not be a sin, either in the will, or in the what, just as is clear in those who have invincible ignorance, huh, I guess there's a lot of that around today too, huh, yeah, and therefore it remains that also the defect, huh, of the grasping power insofar as it's what, subject to the will is what, regarded as a what, as a sin, right, huh, okay, so we have to study that a little bit, you know, later on, you know, how the, what, the will, but I mean, in a sense, to apply your mind, right, and to look at all the circumstances and so on, that depends upon your will, right, and, you know, a lot of times we like to make a judgment without taking the whole picture, right, and therefore something can seem good that it's not, but it's kind of a willful ignorance, right, willful inadvertence, yeah, I don't want to see what's over here, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and the third objection taken from our style in the physics, right, that argument goes forward in efficient causes whose actions, what, transit, huh, they pass over to an exterior matter, and which do not, what, move themselves, but other things, but the contrary of this is in the, what, will, whence the argument does not follow. Tell the story, you know, of some young student, you know, objecting to what Thomas was saying, you know, Thomas, you know, very pleased, sat down, he led the guy through, you know, number of steps, and finally saw it, you know, but he was so scandalized at this young student. It's like, I remember reading the time, the first time Heisenberg met Niels Bohr, you know, and Niels Bohr came through Germany, you know, giving lectures on the atom, and this was called the Bohr Festival, you know, later on by the German scientists, because this is the man who knows more about the atom than anybody else, right, and so on, and so in the question period there, Heisenberg was just kind of a young student, you know, he posed an objection, right, and Bohr gave some kind of an answer to it, you know, but he kept on looking over at him, you know. Yeah, who's this guy, you know, and then after lecture he went over to, you know, over to Heisenberg, he said, let's go for a walk, he said, and they walked, you know, up in the mountains in a couple of hours, you know, and Heisenberg said it influenced all the time he was thinking about the atom, you know, but Bohr kind of realized he had to read the answer quite fully Heisenberg's objections, so. That's the way Thomas was, you know, this young student who was apparently getting out of line, you know, but, shocking to object to what the master says. Thomas is an opportunity, right, to, you know, to know, a student. Okay, so that's beautiful, those three objections, so. Now to the second. one goes forward thus it seems that the will alone is the subject of sin for Augustine says in the book about the two souls that it is not except by the will that one sins non nisi volontate peccator but sin is as in a subject in the power by which one what? sins therefore the will alone is the subject of what? well again it's the beginning good here it seems to me it is if I'm not running too fast I mean this would be a good argument this is passed by me however sin is a certain evil against what? reason and Dionysius said that right Aristotle said that and so on but good and bad pertaining to what? reason is the object of the will alone therefore the will alone is the subject of sin that convinces me moreover every sin is a voluntary act because as Augustine says in the book on free will on free judgment sin is so much a voluntary thing right? that if it is not voluntary it's not a sin Augustine expresses himself so well doesn't he? but the acts of the other powers are not voluntary except insofar as those powers are moved by the what? will but this does not suffice for this that they be the subject of sin because according to this even the exterior members which are moved by the will would be the subject of sin which is clearly what? so did my hand sin? hitting you? stabbing you? cutting your head off? did my hand sin? something before that but against this is that sin is contrary to what? virtue they're opposites but contraries are about the same thing but the other what? powers of the soul besides the will are the subject of virtues this has been said above therefore not only is the will he's subject to what? sin that's a beautiful he said contrary tomorrow we'll pass the next page part of the article down Thomas says the answer should be said is clear from the things forth said that everything that is a what? beginning of a voluntary act is a subject of what? sin but acts are voluntary it's said to be voluntary not only those which are elicited by the will itself that are acts the will itself right? but even those which are what? commanded by the will right? as has been said above when one tweeted of the what? voluntary right? once not only is a will able to be a subject of sin but also those powers which are able to be moved what? to their own acts right? or to be what? repressed handed from them through the will the same powers are the subject of what? moral goods and evils right? because of the same thing as the act and the what? you've got to understand the riches right? and how they're in what? not just in the will but they're in the reason right? and they're in the what? emotions right? when you study the Nicomachean Ethics huh? Shakespeare describes very good what the Nicomachean Ethics is about huh? he says in one of the plays there he's going to study that part of philosophy that treats of happiness by virtue especially to be achieved and that's really a nice concise statement of what the Nicomachean Ethics is right? because in the first book and in the last book the tenth book he talks about what happiness is right? and then in the middle books he talks about what? and Thomas Aquinas with the brevity of wisdom somebody says wisdom is his brief he says virtue is the road to happiness and vice is the road to what? the yeah I think that's beautiful said right? everybody wants to be happy don't they? everybody wants to avoid misery what's the road to happiness? what's the road to misery right? if you ask the average guy what would he say? wine, woman, and song? I don't know what he'd say that's the way to happiness but you could probably you know for a brief answer that is still extremely profound and can be unfolded this is it right? virtue is the road to happiness vice is the road to misery right? and I don't read the newspaper too much but there's always you know a number of miserable people to be in town yeah yeah and sitting within and how do they end up with such a miserable person right? well they took that road of what? vice right? that's well said now Nicomarckian Ethics in the second through the fifth book he talks about what? the moral virtues right? and then in book six the virtues of reason itself why does he take up the moral virtues before the virtues of reason yeah the two reasons Thomas gives is that the moral virtues are more known to us than the virtues of reason itself and then the second reason he gives is that by the moral virtues we are disposed for the good ones right I saw a text from Gregory the Great there that Thomas was quoting you know and he says before you what want into the fortress of contemplation you've got to have what these moral virtues right I talked to you before about the 99th Psalm right in the correct numbering I think it's called the 100th but it begins you know the reason why I got to know it kind of I wasn't going to teach the children their little you know psalm I said it's got to be a cheerful song so and so this one says sing joyfully to the Lord all you lands serve the Lord with yeah and then it says rejoice again right and then it says come before them a joyful song know that the Lord is God he made us as we are his people the flock he tends and now in retrospect they say hey that's you know how I got tied up with the summa conscientios right that's exactly what you do right you know if you enter the presence of God right thinking about him right as he is in himself as he's the maker and as he's the end right okay he's providence but notice the order there right let's see sing joyfully to the Lord all your lands serve the Lord with that's right but that's the moral right and then he goes on come before them a joyful song know that the Lord is God it's the first book of the Summa conscientios he made us as we are second book and then the third book right guides us and so on so and then then you enter his gates with thanksgiving his courts with praise right now I think in prayer you know you could kind of I think I think I think I think I think I think I think