Prima Secundae
Lecture 216: Antonomasia in Scripture and the Good of Human Nature

Transcript
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I'm going to give you a little treat here from Matthew here. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios, gracias. God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen. And help us to understand all that you have written. Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. I finished reading there, rereading the 12th Book of Wisdom there, you know, and it's kind of interesting, you know, where Aristotle takes up God's knowing, right? And that God's substance and his understanding are the same thing. And that his understanding is a life, and God's not only a life, but he's life itself, right? That's pretty good, I think, you know, for this old pagan guy, right? And then, you know, that's where Thomas' commentary ends with the 12th book, right? So I was kind of looking at the 13th and the 14th books, you know, and it's interesting in there, you know, but one thing's very interesting where he's talking about how you should treat your predecessors, right? You know, we should try to improve some things they said, right? Other things we should try to say as well as they said it. That's a marvelous thing, right, huh? You know? If you can say things as well as Thomas says it, right, you know, that is sufficient, right? Like I said, everything's going to go beyond him, you know, or see it as well as, you know, Gus near, you know. Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. We're not going to say any better than that. It's just like, you know, they say about Mozart's Don Giovanni, you know, well, there's not going to be any opera better than that. The only way you could equal it was to write Don Giovanni over again, you know. But it's in a sense, right, you know, just saying it as well as they said it, right? And that's interesting. When I was reading, you know, Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew a bit, and, you know, I could start off with that idea, you know, that the last petition of the Our Father is what? In the Greek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in the Greek, it's the whole, you know, the article. It's actually in the genitive, but it's whole poneros. Right? The bad one, right? Or the evil one, you see, the one. And so I was looking at the catechism of the Catholic Church, like I mentioned, I think, last time. And they point out that that's really the meaning of that last one, right? So in a way, we haven't translated it quite correctly, right? And this may be because in Latin, you know, you have malum, maybe, or something like that, but you don't have an article, and you kind of mistranslate a bit, right? I suppose they won't change it, you know, because everybody's memorized this as a child. They kind of, you know, they shouldn't change these things necessarily. But it struck me that it's an example of something that I said is very strong in Scripture, and that is this figure of speech called antonomasia. I was looking at the word antonomasia there, but in the Greek, you know, it means to give a thing another name, you know. So it doesn't really tell you exactly what antonomasia is, because there's more than one way of doing that, right? Yeah, apparently it's related to the, what we have in Latin, pronoun, you know. And a pronoun, you know, instead of saying, you know, you know, Father Michael, behave yourself, right? Say, you behave yourself, right? And I call you you instead of calling you Michael, right? And that's kind of what? Calling you by another name, so to speak, right? So it doesn't really help you to see exactly what antonomasia is, right? But what is antonomasia, right? Well, it's where you have a general name, right? That is said of many things, right? And sometimes used for one of them in particular, because it, what, stands out, right? And I guess the reverse can also be said too, right? If someone is especially noteworthy, right, for something, like Romeo is a lover, right? Then they call somebody who's a lover, instead of a lover, which would be the proper thing to say he is, we'd call him a Romeo, right? Or if someone is, you know, slow to act, we'd call him a hamlet, huh? Even Paul VI would say he's a don't want to have a hamlet himself, right? Okay. Now, I've emphasized the fact that the Bible seems to be very fond of antonomasia. And the word, what, Bible, is by antonomasia. It just means the book, right? And the word gospel, which means apparently good news or something like that, huh? That's by antonomasia, right? It's not the only good news. But it is what stands out, right? Well, then I was seeing it with this 10th, I mean, 7th thing, where it says in the genitive, two-pointer-ru, right? But you say, the bad one, right? The evil one, right, huh? Well, there are many bad and evil people around. But among all of them, he is, what, by antonomasia, the evil one. So he's being named there from being the, what? Yeah, yeah. And as I went on, you know, reading on in these chapters of, I was looking at the chapters 13 through 16, you know, and then ones after that. And you find, you know, often someone else who's being bad being called Pony Ross, right? So it's a common word, right? And then you realize very much that this is by antonomasia that he's called, oh, Pony Ross, right? Then in chapter, what, 19 here, it's the one where, let's read it in English first and then I'll give it a go in the Greek, huh? And behold, one approaching to him said, Teacher, what good thing may I do that I may have life eternal? And he said to him, Why question me, thou concerning the good, right? Okay, someone tries to say, why callest thou me good? And then he says, what? I was kind of struck by this because I was looking at Thomas' commentary on this passage with Christ Answers, and there's a different text, you know, that Thomas has. But in the Greek text they have here, and I have more authority to read texts at home, you know, the Greek and all that, and it doesn't have Thomas' text, but in one of the footnotes they give that little part that he has, right? Okay? And I notice here, in this text here, which is kind of a little Latin English text alongside the Greek text, right? They kind of miss the one that the more authoritative texts seem to have, right? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God, right? God alone is good, he seems to be saying, right? What kind of loses the frequency that I like with Antonia Messiah, which you have in the Greek text, right? And I'll read you what the Greek says here, huh? Ti me erotas, huh? Peri tu agathu. Why do you ask me about the good, right? And then heis, one, esten ho agathas. One is the good. There's nothing about saying that's God, but you're speaking about God there by what? Antonia Messiah, right? That's very striking, right? So in the Our Father there, you have ho what? Pune rasam, the bad one. Pune rasam means bad, or sometimes they use the word evil, a stronger word, right? But the bad one, or the evil one, right? And here you have God being called by Antonia Messiah, ho agathas. It's kind of a striking example of that, right? Now we've spoken before how Christ, with the name anointed Christ, Christus, that's by Antonia Messiah, right? Because he's not the only one anointed. Kings and priests and prophets, huh? But then why is he called Christ, right? Why is that a name of him, right? Well, you wouldn't say it maybe quite clear in English, as you would if you knew the Latin or the other Greek, you know, which means anointed, right? But in a sense you're saying, the anointed one, right? So it's by Antonia Messiah that he's being named, right? I don't know if the word Jesus is by Antonia Messiah. I mean, some might say, you know, somebody else saves his country, you know, in a battle or something, right? But he is the Savior, right? The explanation is given there, you know, that he will save his people from their sins, right? Isn't that what the angel says? That's who's going to be called Jesus, right? Does Mary save us from our sins? Yeah, yeah. But she's not called Jesus, is she? See? So maybe he was a little bit of Antiochus there. He was just very struck by that, huh? I'm just struck by the use of that name. Now, in the beginning of the Gospel of John, which is kind of the greatest of the Gospels, perhaps, he says, in the beginning was the word, right? It's kind of interesting the way they translate that, right? Because what have they done there? Yeah. Now, see, if you go to Greek, huh? The first meaning of the word logos, which is the Greek word, right? Is what? Word, right? And then a second meaning would be thought, right? And a third meaning might be, what, reason itself, right? Okay, those may be the three main reasons, right? And sometimes when the English word, it begins the same way as the Greek word, huh? But sometimes in English it's never been, what? It's never been carried over, right? So in English, the word, word, means word. It doesn't mean thought, does it? Except for my English professor there in college, where he says, in his little book, which he has us use, words written or spoken are thoughts. I don't think he was really doing it in such a way as the word or, right? Because they express thoughts, right? But in Greek, it's actually carried over to mean thought, right? So it's kind of curious if they translate that, right? Now contrast that with the way we have the word nature saying, fousis in Greek, or the word natura in Latin, right? When they translate into English, what do they translate that as? Yeah. Yeah. Which is really kind of bad. But if they translate it into English, they'll say, what, nature, right? But is that meaning of nature in English, the first meaning of the word nature, natura in Latin, or fousis in Greek, huh? The first meaning of fousis in Greek, or natusa in Latin, is birth, right? So if they're going to translate natura, like they translate logos in the Gospel of St. John, they'd say, what? Birth. Birth, you see? And, but you could say, why do they translate it by nature? Well, we've taken over the word in a state of sense, right? And rather than moving our own word over, right? I mentioned how Shakespeare in Fire Lawrence there, right? In Romeo and Juliet, he moves the word nature, it seems to me, I mean the word birth, rather, to what? A sense of what a thing is, right? For not so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give, right? Not so good, but strained from that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse, right? Well, it means revolting from your true nature in the sense of what a thing is, right? Okay? But nevertheless, we did commonly translate it as, by what? Nature. We call it the philosophy of nature, right? Now, we define nature in one of its later senses there in the second book of physics, right? Beginning and cause of motion and rest. And that which it is, first as section, not by happening. But it's interesting in the Gospel of St. John, right, huh? What sense of logos in Greek is really meant there? Which sense? Is it word or thought or reason? Which is a thought, yeah, yeah. Well, we translated word, you know, as if we're supposed to know enough to move it to the sense of thought, right? But if you want to explain what it's really saying in English, since the word has not been moved, right, you might say, in the beginning was the thought, and the thought was toward God, and the thought was God, right? Quite a thought, huh? But then you see very clearly, when you say, ho logos, huh? It's like ho agathos, right? You're speaking by what? Antoin of Messiah, right? So I went back and I checked the catechism, you know, but the saying there at the seventh petition is referring to, they said, not the abstract, you know, evil, but a person, right? And it's referring to the devil, right, huh? And, uh, uh, but they don't mention that, um, that this is a way of speaking, which is called, what, Antoin of Messiah, right? No, nobody does, nobody does, you know, but it seems to me that it's important to see how, how often it's used in what? Scripture, right, huh? So I was kind of struck, you know, I was going on from the, from looking at that text in, in, uh, the Sermon on the Mount, there, where it gives you our Father, right, and then seeing how I use the word poniros here, you know, for, in general, for anybody bad, right, huh? So I said, that's not the, that's a common name, right? So, who are you referring to there? Oh, 40 rocks, huh? The bad one, right, huh? By Antoin of Messiah, the evil one, right, huh? Um, that's kind of striking, huh? Now, I was also thinking when I was reading here, from this young man, right, huh? What happens to him? Why does he refuse the invitation? Yeah, yeah. That's when the capital of white. Crisis, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, earlier he's talking about the, um, about the marriage and so on, right? And, uh, crisis saying, we can't really get out of marriage, right? Uh, my wife and I, we have a joke on it, that marriage is a dead end, right? She said, oh, what's going on with our marriage, you know? No way. Yeah, yeah, no way out, you know? And, uh, um, but then they say, well, then it's not so good for us. For a man to get married, right? You know, because he can't get out of this. And he says, well, Christ says, then he could take it, let him take it, right, huh? You know? But again, that's a difficulty, you know, I suppose, of celibacy and so on, right? And, uh, that touches upon another, what, capital vice, right, huh? You know? I was looking at the, uh, text in the, uh, de Malo there, you know, where he talks about the seven capital vices, right, huh? And he has that same distinction, you know, we have the four and the three, right? But he gives only one of the two ways that he gives here in the, uh, summa, so, so even despite being very thorough consideration of evil, right, in that sense, you've got a richness in this little text here. He does one for the three goods of manna, the goods of, you know, the soul and the body in the exterior of London. So let's go now to the 85th question, the second article where we left off. And now we're going to see whether the whole good of human nature can be taken away by sin. The second one goes for it thus. It seems that the whole good of human nature can be taken away through sin. For the good of human nature is finite. I agree, since human nature is finite. But something finite is totally consumed if one keeps on taking away something from it. Since therefore the good of nature is continually able to be diminished through sin, it seems that eventually it could be wholly consumed. Well, you know, it's kind of funny because there's another context, you know, where this thing comes up, you know, and somebody says, well, you can keep on diminishing something forever because the continuous is divisible forever, right? Take a half of the line and a half of the half and a half and so on. And Thomas says, well, if you could do that, always take the same ratio, right, rather than the same amount, because you take the same amount, even no matter how small, but eventually exhaust it. He says, but the more you take away, the weaker becomes the, what, subject is something you're being taken away from, the more unapted it is to resist, right? So you actually get weaker, and therefore it should take away even more, and not, you know, considerably, what, lesser and lesser, right? You see? That's interesting, right? If you take away, you know, half the line, then you take away, you know, the line is getting weaker and weaker, right? So you could take away, you know, not always a lesser amount, but maybe even a greater amount, right? That makes sense, right? I mean, you know, when somebody's led astray, maybe he's led astray with, oh, taking candy from the grocery store or something, without the grocery store, you know? And then he goes on to taking bigger amounts and finding some, you know, murdering to get things and so on, right? So he's, larger amounts are being taken away from him, right? Not lesser amounts, right, you know? So he takes, he doesn't, if he took away half your goodness, he's going to take just half of the remaining, you know, maybe even more, right? Then you end up a pretty bad person. It's somebody like Stalin or, you know, Chairman Mao or even Hitler, you know, and they're responsible for killing even millions of their fellow citizens among other people, right? See, these guys are, you know, a little bit like the devil, right? Not quite as bad, though, as the devil, right? Yeah. They're kind of icons or images of the evil one, right? The evil one, you know? Yeah. And my old teacher, because he said, you know, if you want to really be bad, you're not going to succeed in getting the top title there. You can't possibly be as bad as Satan is to the devil, right, huh? Moreover, of those things which are of one nature, similar is the ratio about the whole and the parts, as is clear in air and in water and flesh, and in all bodies of similar parts, huh? But the good of nature is wholly uniform, since therefore a part can be taken away through sin, the whole, it seems, can be taken away by, what? Sin, right, huh? Moreover, the good of nature, which is diminished through sin, is a, what? For virtue, yeah. But in some, on account of sin, the foresaid disposition is totally taken away, as is clear in the, what? Damned, huh? Who are not able to be repaired to virtue, just as neither the blind man to sight. Therefore, sin is able to wholly take away the good of nature, right, huh? But against all, this is what Augustine says in the Enchiridion, that evil is not able to be except in the good. But the good of, what? Guilt? Cannot be except in the good of virtue or grace, because it is, what? Contrary to it. Therefore, it must be in the good of, what? Nature. Therefore, it does not totally take it away, huh? He's confused the issue sufficiently, Thomas. Now can we get some clarity from you? The answer should be said, that it has been said, the good of nature that is diminished through sin is the natural inclination to virtue, which belongs to man from this that he is reasonable. It's always a question of how you translate rationalities, right? Because reasonable sometimes seems to be that you not only have reason, but that you live in accordance with it. Maybe you could have reasonable, just in the sense that you have reason. Yeah. From this that he has, that he acts according to what? Or by reason, right, huh? Which is to act according to what? Virtue, huh? So for a man to be good means for him to be reasonable, right? You're not being reasonable. How many times have you heard that said to you? But to sin, there cannot be taken away only from man that he is, what? Yeah, that he has reason. Because already he would not be capable of, what? Sin. Whence is not possible that the foresaid good of nature can wholly be taken away, right? Now, when they found that this good, what? Could be continually, right? Diminished through sin, right? Some, to the manifestation of this, use a certain example in which he has found something, what? Finite to be diminished in infinitum. But nevertheless, it's never totally, what? Consumed, huh? For the philosopher says in the third book of the physics that if from some magnitude finite is continually taking away something according to the same quantity, wholly, finally, it will be, what? Consumed. As, for example, from some quantity that's finite, one always subtracts the measure of, what? That's in the hand, I guess, huh? It always takes a handful. It always takes a handful. Let's put it that way. Make it English. If, however, the subtraction happens according to the same proportion and not according to the same quantity, you always take half of what's left or a third or whatever, it can be subtracted in infinitum, huh? As an example, if quantities divide into two parts and from the half is taken a half. Likewise, in infinitum, one can, what? Proceed, huh? Okay. That's shown in the sixth book, actually, of physics, right? That the continuous is divisible, what? Forever, right? You know, there's two definitions of the continuous, huh? And one is given in the book called The Categories in Logic. The continuous is a quantity whose parts meet at a common, what? Boundary. Like the parts of a line meet at a point or the parts of a surface at a line, right? Or the bodies at a surface, right? And that definition is recalled when you get to the sixth book, which is the philosophy of the continuous there in the sixth book of natural hearing, the physics. But then Aristotle brings out this other definition of it. The continuous is that which is divisible, what? Forever. And this is contrast to what they call discrete quantity, like number, right? Because a number, the parts of a number don't meet anywhere. And a number is not divisible, what? Then you get down to one, right? So we have these two definitions. And one is more proper to logic, because it's in terms of the wholeness, and form is like the whole, right? And the other is more proper to natural philosophy, which deals with matter, right? Because parts are like matter. And when I take the first act of reason, which is understanding what something is, and I take kind of the perfect example of understanding what something is, like understanding that a square is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. When you understand in the form of a definition distinctly what a thing is, right? Well, is the definition of square divisible forever? No. This is something shown on logic, huh? That's where you show that the categories exist, right? The highest genus, right? And do they meet at a common boundary? And then I argue, well, this is a rather strange situation, right? Because you're understanding something continuous, like a square, in an uncontinuous way. Now, is that because of what you're understanding, or because of your understanding? Well, it can't be because of what you're understanding, because that's continuous. So it must be because of your understanding, that you understand continuous things in an uncontinuous way. Now, is that what your mind is a brain? A continuous thing? No. That the reason is a what? An uncontinuous thing, right? It's not what? Material. That's one way, huh? The other way they argue sometimes is in the fact that you know things in a universal way. Of course, if you say, why are there, why can't you have many tables of the same kind here in this room, right? The simplest answer is, because you have enough wood. Why can't everybody have a piece of the pie, huh? Because you have enough pie, right? To give everybody a piece. So, wood or some other kind of matter, subject to quantity, right? Is a source of what? Individuation, huh? How can you have many men here in the same room? There's enough flesh and bones and them around, right? So you need some kind of matter, right? That is divisible, right? And so, then why does reason understand these things, what? Universally, right? Like I understand, what is a square, right? Or what is a sphere? What is a cube, right, huh? What's being separated from this matter that is subject to quality, huh? So something is singular when sensed, as Bwethe says, but universal when understood, huh? It's a sign that our mind is not what? Material, yeah. Interesting. But this, in the thing proposed, does not have place like I was saying earlier. For it does not, what? The subsequent sin does not less diminish the good of nature, right? Than the preceding one, but perhaps more, because it is more, what? Grave, right, huh? So I start off by stealing candy from the other kid in grade school, and then I go on to steal money from somebody else, you know? In case of getting more and more grave, what I'm doing, right, huh? And so, if anything, it diminishes even more, right? And therefore, in another way, it ought to be said that the force and inclination is understood as a middle between two things, huh? For it is founded as in a root in the rational nature, right, huh? And it tends to the good of virtue as to its, what, term or limit and end, huh? In two ways, therefore, can be understood its diminution. In one way, on the side of the root, on the other way, on the side of the, what, end, huh? In that the sin does not diminish the nature itself, huh? This has been said. But it diminishes it, oh, excuse me. In the first way, it does not diminish through sin, right? In that sin does not diminish the nature itself, huh? But it diminishes in the second way, insofar as it lays down an impediment to attaining to the limit or the end. If it were diminished in the first way, it would be necessary that sometime it was totally, what, consumed. The rational nature totally consumed, right? But because it is diminished on the side of the impediment, which is placed before it, right, lest it attain or arrive at the limit, it is manifest that it, what, can be diminished in infinitum. Because in infinitum, impediments can be, what, yeah. So if the snow kept on coming down, it seemed like it was never going to stop, right? The impediment to getting out of my driveway was becoming greater and greater, right? You know, they are running out of places to put the snow, right? But the more snow that falls, the more impediment to getting, like, coming up here today. I didn't know I would come up here today, right? I didn't know there would be too many impediments to that, huh? Not that my car was getting worse and worse, but impediments are getting to some goal, right? You were still reading, huh? But because it is diminished on the side of the impediment, which is what? Placed before it, lest it arrive at the term or limit. It is manifest that it can be diminished in infinitum, right? It's how evil the devil is by now, huh? Because in infinitum, without end, right, impediments are able to be what? Before it, yeah, but before it, huh? In so far as a man can in infinitum add sin to what? Sin. But nevertheless, one cannot be totally consumed because there always remains the root of such a, what? Inclination, huh? Just as in a, what, transparent body, which has an inclination to receiving light from this that it is transparent, huh? What does it mean? Diophantum to shine through, I guess, huh? Yeah. But this inclination, or ability, disposition, is diminished on the part of the, what, clouds? Oh. Yeah. But nevertheless, it remains always in the root of what? Nature. So, you know, it's like, it is like a blizzard, right? I mean, if you looked out, I mean, if you looked out, it was just, you know, you could hardly see, I can't see down into the block, you know, and so on. And it got worse and worse, right? You know? So, not that your high cyclist was intrinsically being diminished, but the impediments seen to the end of the block were, you know, snow piled up, even more impediments. So, the first objection, then, is the answer in this way. And that, that first objection proceeds according to the dimination per subtraction, right? But this comes more, a diminution to addition, you might say, right? Through the positioning before of an impediment, huh? Which neither, what, takes away nor diminishes the root of the inclination, right? To the second, it should be said that the natural inclination is wholly, what? Uniform, but nevertheless, it has respect both to a beginning and to a, what? End. According to which diversity in one way is diminished and another way is not, what? Diminished, huh? To the third, it should be said that even in the damned, there remains a natural inclination to virtue. That's. That's. That's. very striking isn't it otherwise there would not be in them the remorse of conscience but that it is not reduced in act happens because they lack grace according to divine what justice just as in the blind man there remains an aptitude to seeing in the very what root of nature insofar as the animal naturally has what sight but it's not reduced in act because there's lacking the cause which would reduce it right by forming the organ which is required to see so what is that thing there that there's no worm is it that you know kind of said metaphorically right that's supposed to be the remorse of conscience isn't it you know still doing that thing he's still sinning he's still and he's still um yeah he must be you know you know they're not sure why he was in the hierarchy you know some say he's highest you know some he was just highest in one group or something but his mind really could have turned himself crazy you know don't you find people you know even this life you know they do something kind of stupid you know how could I be so stupid you know I've seen that many times in life have you seen that right okay you know stupid you know I do better than that you know I mean it's a sinful thing but it's some stupid thing this and it's so easy yeah it's very smoke very much you know you have a freighting