Prima Secundae
Lecture 220: Humility, Charity, and the Love of Wisdom

Transcript
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To the second one proceeds thus, it seems that the stain does not remain in the soul after the act of sin. For nothing remains in the soul after the act except the habit or disposition, right? So I'm not thinking of the Theogman Theorem right now, but I've got this habitual knowledge of it, I think. I used to do it during exams, and I was waiting for the kids to finish their exams. I'd do it on the board, they'd say 20 years, so I'd remember the damn thing, you know? How to do it. But stain is not a habit or disposition, as you say above, it's a privation or lack, right? Therefore, the stain does not remain in the soul after the act of sin, right? Well, that convinces me. Moreover, in this way, right, the stain has itself to sin, has a shadow to the body, as has been said above in that example. But the body going away does not remain in the shadow. Therefore, the act of sin going away does not remain in the stain, right? Oh, boy. This is good. Moreover, every effect depends on its cause. This is getting even more. This is really... I don't see any way... He's really tied himself up. He's not going to get out of this one. There's no way he's going to get out of this one. The cause of the stain is the act of sin, right? Therefore, removing the act of sin, there's not to remain the stain in the soul, right? I'm no longer murdering you or whatever it is. So no stain of my soul now because the act, the so-called cause is not there anymore, right? But against this is what is said in Joshua 22. Is it little to you that you have sinned in what? And up to the present day, the stain of this what? Well, this bad act remains in you, right? Okay. That's very interesting, huh? Quote from Joshua. So Thomas could have been deceived by the arguments, right? But he had the authority of Joshua here, right? So now he's got to get out of this knot. I answer, it should be said that the stain of sin remains in the soul, even when the act of sin, what, passes away, right? And the reason for this is because the stain, as has been said, implies a certain defect of brightness or sparkle on account of the, what, recess, from the light of reason or of the divine law. And therefore, as long as man remains outside this, what, light, there remains in him the stain of, what, sin. But after, right, he returns to the divine light and to the light of reason, which comes about, what, grace, and then the stain, what, ceases, huh? I'm trying to think of that passage there. Where is it in the mechanical, not mechanical, but the, what, what, about shadow there? Shadow of, I can't think of the text. Although, yeah, or the one, you know, who blessed Christ there. What's the temple there? Simeon. Yeah, or the father of John the Baptist, one of them. Is that correct? Yeah, did the one use the word shadow? Something like that, yeah. For, although the act of sin ceases by which a man has, what, departed from the light of reason or the divine law, not overt does man at once return to that in which he, what, was, right? But there's required some motion of the will contrary to the, what, first motion, huh? Just as if someone is, what, going to a distance to someone, to some motion, he does not at once, right, the motion ceasing come, what? Yeah. But necessary that he approach returning to the contrary motion. Sin is not just going to be a matter of running right now. So if the stop of sin isn't enough to draw near, you have to run all the way back. Yeah. So to the first, therefore, it should be said that after the act of sin, nothing positively remains in the soul except, what, a disposition or habit. There remains, nevertheless, nothing positively remains in the soul except a disposition or habit. There remains, nevertheless, something, what, lacking to it, the lack of a union to the divine light. To the second should be said that passing away the obstacle of the body, right, there remains the body, what, transparent in equal propaneity, nearness, and relation to the illuminating body, right? That's when you say to somebody, what, this expression I always hear from my mother, make a better door than a window, you know, when you're blocking the light. Did you hear that expression by your mother or something? I admit it. But all you do is remove the body, right, and then the light and the thing are at the same distance, right, that they were before. But this case, it isn't, you've got to come back. That's what you're saying. But removing, but the act of sin being removed, the soul does not remain in the same, what, relation to God, when there is not a simonial, what, rutsal. That's pretty good, Don Thomas, huh? And he says you can't argue for metaphors, but he's, he can argue about metaphors, right? But metaphorical theology is not argumentative, huh? You can't slam the metaphorical theology, because it's very important, right? Father Boulay has to talk about how, in some ways, metaphorical theology is better, because, you know, these things are not being said properly of God, right? And therefore, you're not really understanding them, as they are, right? When you have, you know, the speaking properly of God, and not using metaphors or figures of speech, you might think you understand more than you do, right? I am, who am, how I know who he is. You might think I really understand what he is now, right? To the third, it should be said that the act of sin causes a, what? Or makes for a distance from God, right? Which distance, right? Follows the defect of, what? Yeah. Just as, what, local motion causes a, what? Local distance, right? When's the motion, what? Seizing, the local distance is not taken away, right? So neither seizing the act of sin is a stain taken away, right, huh? Okay. So, I was close to you, and then I went for a walk away from you. Now I'm no longer walking away from you, so now I'm close to you again. Wait, that's that. No, I got to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Smartest guy, this is Thomas, huh? Dig a little break right now. 87, right? Then we'll have to consider about the, what? How do you translate reatus? Guilt? And first, about the guilt itself. Secondly, about mortal and venial sin, which are distinguished according to your, what? Guilt, or what you're subject to? It's kind of that punishment. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, culpa is more punished. It means more guilt, right? Yeah, reatus is more the punishment, right? Well, it's reatus pain. You look at the articles here, you know, whether some sin makes one, what? Subject to eternal punishment, right? It's more the idea, you know, that you're really a punishment, so to speak, right? Let's see. So this is, yes, the second thing here is going to be the next question, right here. Question 88. The distinction of mortal and venial sin. Okay. About the first, eight things are, what? Asked, right? First, whether the, what? Reality of punishment is an effect of sin, right? Secondly, whether sin can be the punishment of another sin. Third, whether some sin makes one subject, or, or subject to eternal punishment, huh? Whether some, what? Some punishment, whether it makes one subject to some, an infinite punishment, right? According to quantity, right? Punishment is infinite, according to quantity. Five, whether every sin makes one, what? Yeah, this sounds pretty bad here. I'm getting depressed. The guilt, I don't know, the, what? Yeah. Whether the death of punishment, maybe, who calls it that way, is able to remain after sin, huh? Seven, whether every punishment is inferred for some, what? Sin. And eight, whether one is, what? For the sin of another, right? Well, the bishop better watch out, huh? People complain, though, sometimes, you know, they don't explain too much from the pulpit, right? You know, about the moral order. Okay. So how do we agree to translate riatus? Hmm? Okay. Okay. To the first one proceeds thus, it seems that the debt of punishment is not a, what? Yeah. I suppose it's a debt, but a good debt. It doesn't mean you're all right. Okay. For what? Parajidens has itself to something. It does not seem to be, what? A proper effect of it. But the debt of punishment has itself parajidens to sin, since it is outside the intention of the one sinning. Ah, I can relax now. I can relax. Therefore, the debt of punishment is not an effect to sin, huh? Parajidens to sin, right? That fits people, doesn't it? Don Giovanni there in the great opera of Mozart. One guy in the conning house, he's always quoting that thing from Padre Pio, you know. And I told him one time, you better pick that from me, but I didn't know. The guy said, I don't believe in hell, you know. And the guy says, you will when you get there. You don't find much preaching about the hell. As a kid there, they had these retreats in the parish, the missions or whatever they call them, and the guy was talking about those things, you know. Of course, somebody walking off the church afterwards in the front he just fell down dead, right? So that would be an opportunity for the preacher, you know, next time to come back, to the first one proceeds thus, it seems that the debt of punishment is not an effective sin, right? Because of prejudice. Second, moreover, the bad is not a cause of the good. But the punishment is good because it is just and ideal and from God, right? Two middle terms there. Punishment is just, what is just is good. Punishment is from God, what is from God is good. Here we go. Therefore, it is not an effective sin which is evil. Ah, that relieves me now. More of Augustine says in the first book of the Confessions that every disordered soul is to itself punishment. But punishment is not, what, causing the debt of another punishment because that's going to go on forever. Therefore, sin does not cause the debt of punishment. But against this is what is said in Romans chapter 2, verse 9. Tribulation and what? Yeah? In every soul of someone doing evil, right? But to do evil is to sin. Therefore, sin induces punishment which is designated by the name of tribulation. and then could have word anguish I guess in there. Answered should be said that from natural things to human things is derived this that what is against something, right? What rises up against something suffers somewhat from it, huh? For we see in natural things that one contrary vehemently acts, right, huh? when another contrary comes, huh? Like the water boils, huh? An account of which water is what? More congeal, huh? As is said in the first book of meteorology when Aristotle's more particular works. Whence in men this is found from natural inclination that each one is what? Depresses or pushes down the one rises up against him, huh? Now it is manifest over that whatever things are contained under some order are in some way one in order to the source of the order, right? Beginning of it. Whence whatever rises up against some order it follows that from that order itself or from the source of the order he's going to be what? Pushed down, huh? Since however sin is a disordered act is manifest that whoever sins acts against some order and therefore from it follows that he be depressed, right? Which pressing down yeah Whence according to three orders to which human will is what subject a man is able to be punished by a threefold punishment first Human nature is subject to the order of his own what? Yeah. See how important it is when my friend Shakespeare defines it by order, reason, right? Looking before and after, right? Pretty smart guy, that Shakespeare, you know? Don't know how you got to be so smart, but I don't know how you got to be so smart. But these people, I don't know, are they naturally wise? Secondly, to the order of a, what, outside man, right? Governing them, either governing them spiritually or in a temporal way, right? Or in a, what, civil way or in the household, right? To punish our children, I guess, I should sometimes. And third, is subject to the universal order of the divine rule, right? So I can act against my own reason, huh? Now, any one of these orders is perverted through, what, sin. In that the one who sins acts both, what, against reason and against human law and against the, what, divine law, right? Human law includes the eternal law. Once he incurs a threefold, what, punishment. One, to it, from himself, which is the remorse of, what, conscience. Yeah. Because, you know, I hate myself, they say, don't they? You know? It's not a very good position to be in. Bad order. Yeah. Another from, what, the man, right? And the third from, what, God, huh? It's interesting, huh? Distinction of three, of course. But it's kind of interesting, huh? Ooh, but Thomas would have pushed it that way, huh? Of course, that's involved in Shakespeare's definition, right? Because then he says, it's the ability to look before and after. It's the ability to look for, what, distinctions. Just as in the term ability for large discourses included the ability for, what, small discourse, right? It takes a while to understand that definition of Shakespeare. You have to understand each part separately, and then you just put it together to understand the whole. Something, okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the punishment follows sin insofar as it is, what, bad, huh? By reason of its, what, disorder. Whence, just as the bad is by accident in the act of the one sinning, because it is apart from his, what, intention, right? So also the, what, death of the punishment, huh? It's kind of interesting in the way he seems to admit there, right? They tell him about this great bank robber, you know, and he was constantly before this judge, you know. And finally the judge said, well, why do you do that? He says, that's where the money is. Well, you can see there's kind of prejudice to him, right? There's something bad about this, right? He's taking what was not his own, right? Well, it's kind of interesting to him as he applied to that, isn't it, right? Yeah. So it's the good he intends where the money is, right? No. And therefore, the death of punishment is something not intended either, right? Yeah, so it's no surprise. He doesn't want to be punished for something he loves. I think the key thing is the first sentence there, huh? That punishment follows sin insofar as it is, what? Bad, right, huh? That's not accidental, right? But that it follows it insofar as it is bad, then it's unintended by the man who does it, right? He intends the good he sees in it, right, huh? The rapist sees pleasure, let's say, right, huh? The second, it should be said that punishment, just punishment, huh? Can be both from God and from man, inflicted, right, from anyone, huh? Whence the punishment itself is not an effect of sin, what? Directly, but only it, what? Disposes one, huh? But sin makes a man, what? Yeah. Which is bad, huh? For Dionysia says in the fourth chapter about the divine names, that to be punished is not bad. Worthy of punishment. Yeah. Whence the debt of punishment is directly laid down to be the, what? Sin. To the third, it should be said that that punishment of a, what, disordered soul is owed to sin, right? And the fact that it, what, perverts the order of reason, it becomes obligated to a further punishment from this, that it perverts the order of divine law or human law, right? So if I drive home on the left side of the street, should I do that tonight? Will I be punished for doing that? You'll find out real fast. Yeah, yeah. That would be here in Britain. It's arbitrary. It's arbitrary. It's all arbitrary. It's all arbitrary. Yeah, yeah. People are, you know, having that, you know, if you leave it on your roof, it comes down over the, over your window. Yeah, it does, yeah. It's caused some accidents, right? So, so I said, I could be punished for it. Were these signs put up by the government? The government, you know, they have these spaces where they're, they're, they can put a, you know, timely message up. So, yeah, yeah. We should stop now, 521. Did everybody see the Lady Wisdom? and Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas, deo gratias. God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand what you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I was looking at your little thing over there and saying that John Chrysostom was a friend of Father Marin. It was Chrysostom that Thomas said, you know, he'd give the whole city of Paris. John, yeah. Well, I've been reading the one on Matthew, you know, but I guess it was John. It's kind of interesting. There's a couple of things here for both theology and for philosophy for the study of virtues, right? In the beginning of the 18th chapter, right, huh? Just to recall the text here where Thomas is commenting on it. In that hour, the disciples approached Jesus saying, who do you think is greater in the kingdom of heaven? Because Thomas sees this as being a little bit of, you know, rivalry there between them, you know. So that's what they asked our Lord, huh? Who is greater in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus, calling a little one, right? Parvulum, placed him in the middle of them, right? And said, Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted and become like this little one, you will not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. Whoever humbles himself as this little one, right? He is greater in the kingdom of the heavens. Now, Thomas gives some other texts, you know, with the same idea. Like, for example, in Luke 18, verse 14, who humbles himself should be, what? Exalted, right, huh? But then Thomas raises a question. And said, potus esse question. That could be a question, he says. For this does not seem to be true, because perfection is in charity. Perfectio est in caritate. Therefore, where there is greater charity than more perfection. That's a good objection, isn't it? Now, in his reply to this, you see the connection between humility and what? Charity, right? That's a good objection. It should be seen if one considers who is humble. For in pride, there are two things. A disordered affection, effectus in ordinatis, and a disordered estimate of oneself. Okay? So also, a contrario, there is an humility, and that one does not care for his own, what? Excellence. Quia propium excelentiam non curata. Again, does not regard himself as dignum, as worthy, right? He says, this of necessity follows upon charity. Isto de necesitate sequitura caritatem. For every man loves the excellence which he loves. Or excuse me, every man desires, right? The excellence which he loves. And therefore, the more a man has of humility, the more he loves what? God. And the more he condemns, or as in contempt, his own excellence. And the less he attributes to himself. Thus, that the more a man has of charity, the more he has of what? Humility. So he's saying not only are they connected, but the more you have of charity, the more you have of humility, and vice versa, right? So only because they go hand in hand, right? Would our Lord say what he says, right? That he who humbles himself shall be, what? Exalted, right? I think it's very profound, right? This explanation, and the objection is very good, huh? Doesn't Augustine say something like that, you know? He says, the love of God, the love of oneself, usquad contemptum sui, right? Makes the city of man in the, what? Reverse, right? Love of God, usquad contemptum sui. But, you know, Augustine says things so well, as Aristotle says, we should say some things as well as our predecessors say, and try to prove some things, but, you know, some things just try to say as good as they said them, right? But isn't in those words of Augustine, don't you see the connection between charity and humility, right? The two goes together, I think that's very profound, right? Now, it applies to something else, right? Okay. Years ago, when I was studying the Magnificat, I was kind of bothered with that same objection, right? Because she seems to attribute her, what? Being raised so high because of her, what? Yeah. And I say, well, gee whiz, you make the same objection to the Blessed Virgin in the Magnificat that he gives here, right? But it's because the two go, what? Hand in hand, right? But why does he emphasize the one that goes with charity rather than charity when it's really, you know? Well, because, you know, in the context there, right? Where they're got a little bit of pride in them, a little bit of rivalry, right? Then you want to emphasize, right? The humility, right? of wisdom, right? Which must come in it. And especially you're going to be exalted, right? I mean, I think the highest title of Mary is Mother of God, right? And, you know, you could be raised higher than that, right? And you're a creature. And she emphasized humility, right? You've heard the holiness, right? Now, let's descend to a humbler sphere, right? I got thinking again. I'm a philosopher, which means a lover of what? Of wisdom, right? Now, the love of wisdom is a little bit like the love of God, because God is wise, but God is not only wise, but he's wisdom itself. So, in a way, to love wisdom is to, in a way, love God, right? But now what's very interesting is that the origin, the legend, at least, about the origin of the word philosopher was that this great guy, Pythagoras discovered things like the so-called Pythagorean theorem, right? And they called him, what? Wise. And he says, don't call me wise. God alone is wise, right? But what shall we call you then? Well, if you've got to call me something, call me a lover of wisdom, right? So, in the origin of the word philosopher, as the Greeks understood it, was not only, right, the love of wisdom, as the name etymologically has, but also what? Humility, right? Now, are those two necessarily joined, right? Can one truly be a lover of wisdom without humility? I don't think you can be, right? The two go together, right? You see that. It's beautiful, I think, huh? But you see this already in Pythagoras, right? Either man shouldn't be called wise at all, as the great Pythagoras says, or it's in some very imperfect way that he's wise, right? And at the end of the so-called golden age of Greek philosophy, which comes to the end more or less with Aristotle, Aristotle says the same thing, right? Either God alone should be called wise, right? Or God alone is really fully wise, right? The other way of saying it is, either man, only God should be called wise, or man should not be called wise at all, or else in some imperfect way, right? But I think that's really beautiful to see that, huh? You know? That's why I like those words of Aristotle, you know, where he speaks about how you should be thankful to those who came before you, not only those you learned something from, right? But also those that you thought were mistaken, you know, because they exercise your mind, you know, and arguing against them, right? You see Aristotle thinks humility there, right? Or like I was quoting earlier, where he says, we should try to say some things better than our predecessors, but other things just as well as they said it, right? Like there's some humility there, right? And of course, the so-called sophists, you know, that Socrates and Plato are always attacking, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right They call themselves wise, so fast, right? And Pythagoras, the true philosopher, right? Kind of rejects that because God alone is wise. So there's that humility. And you can kind of see that. I mean, wisdom is a knowledge of truth, right? And pride, of course, is the great cause of what? Being mistaken, right? Now I got thinking a little bit again of Mozart, right? And I've quoted that famous excerpt we have from Mozart's letter to his father, right? And he's talking about his writing deductions from the Srauli, which is an early opera of Mozart. And in the letter he's talking about representing Oswald, right, who's the kind of head of the troops there, you might say, and who's very indignant at the Christian trying to get some Christian out of the ceremony and so on. And so the music is going to present the anger of Oswald, right? And Mozart says to his father, he's going to present, you know, Oswald losing his control, self-control. But he goes on to say, but not in such a way as to become displeasing to the ears, or in other words, ceasing the music, he says. So it's kind of per se note to Mozart that music, as opposed to noise, right? Music must be pleasing to the ears, right? But what is pleasing to the ears, or what is pleasing to the eye, is the beautiful, right? So Mozart is a lover of the what? Beautiful. I always say, no one knew how beautiful a woman's voice could be until Mozart wrote for it. And we have, you know, even when he's doing those early operas down in Italy and so on, and the soprano where it was, you know, just carried away, you know, that she's going to be able to sing this aria that Mozart wrote for her, you know, because everybody's going to be, you know, struck by how beautiful it is, you know, and it is, you know, huh? You know, it's just an ecstasy, you know, with the beautiful piece of, beautiful art he's looking for, right? See? But notice, going back to what Thomas is saying here, right? Is there a connection between the love of God and the love of beauty? Doesn't Augustine say, I think in the Confessions, you know, too late have I come to know thee, that ancient beauty? You see that in the Confessions? He kind of, you know, regretting, you know, they didn't turn earlier, right? You know, it took them a while to get on the straight road. So, in a way, the love of beauty is something like the love of God, huh? And so there has to be, what? Humility there, right? And if you look at Mozart, huh? Mozart said, you know, he said, gee whiz, everything came from easy to him. He said, it's the man. There's not a master in the art of music, he says, before me, whose works I have not studied diligently, right? So he could learn from them, right, huh? Down in Italy, there he was studying in Padre Martini, huh? You know? And there was a group of Mozart, six chamber quartets, huh? Stream quartets, which he dedicated to, what, Heiden, right? So they're always referred to now as the Heiden quartets, right? And this is the ones that, when Heiden himself heard them, said, you know, to Mozart's father, he said, as an honest man, he says, your son is the greatest composer known to be, even, you know, live or, you know, his works around. And, but Mozart, when he dedicated the six quartets to Heiden, he says, I had to dedicate them to Heiden, because he taught me how to write the student quartet. And, and, uh, Einstein talks about the, not the Albert, but the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the famous, uh, Mozart critic, that the, the Russian quartets there, of, of, uh, Heiden had a tremendous influence about Mozart, right? Because Heiden gave each instrument its own voice in the quartet, you know, and so on. And so, that's humility, right? He dedicates to Heiden, so I had to do so, he says, because he taught me how to do that, right? You know? And, uh, of course, the, of course, the, of course, the early works, when, when Mozart, uh, sat on, uh, J.C. Bach, John Christian Bach's plaque there in London, right? You know? Bach, I don't know if I think Mozart could do it. But the early pieces of Mozart, they're imitations of, what, Bach, right? And he kind of transforms him, you know? He takes a Bach sonata and makes a little symphony out of it or something, you know? And those sort of things. And, you know, at that time, in Mozart's life, you know, the great Johann Sebastian Bach was, not too well-known, right? But, but the, the head librarian there, you know, would have these Sunday concerts, you know, where all that was performed was Handel and Bach, you know? Those are the two, the two greatest, you know, perhaps, names in, uh, in the Baroque. Well, I have to add corelli to him. I can tell if I don't add corelli to him. But, but, uh, uh, Mozart was some place where some Bach was being played. It was not familiar to him at all, because it was not well-known, you know? And I said, he says, what is that, he says, you know? And he gets so excited. And then he says, this is something one can learn from, he says, you know? You know? But I think those are examples of what? Certainly you know Tim Mozart, right? And, uh, and could there really be a love of the beautiful without that, what? You know Tim? I don't think so, huh? So that's kind of a, a beautiful what? There, yeah. Okay. Oh, this comes out of this now, you see? Now, another little passage here, huh? Where Thomas says, uh, he gives his, what? His objection, right, huh? Okay. And then he says, this is Dominic. And he really thinks it's, you go to my house and they see this, you know? You gotta, I know, yeah. And they always think it's Thomas, you know. But it's actually Dominic there in the thing, huh? Hmm. Let me see the text for these words here now. And when he came into Capernaum, right? There approached him a centurion, right? That's a man in charge of, what, a hundred soldiers, was it, was it? Asking him and saying, Lord, my boy, huh? Lies in the house paralytic, right? And badly, what, tortured, right, huh? And Jesus said to him, I will come and I will cure him. And the centurion responded and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my house. But say but the word, and my boy will be healed, huh? That's one we still use in the Mass, at least. Did you tell? Yeah. But we still use that in the Mass, you know, huh? We see that every day in the Mass. You say, this is the centurion. Who's this? This pagan, right? He's not even a Jew, right? Let me see. Okay. For I am a man also, constituted under power, having under me soldiers, right? And I say to this one, come and he comes, and the other one, go and he goes, right? And to my servant, do this, and he does it, right? And Jesus, hearing this, marveled. He wondered, right? And he said to those following him, How men, I say to you, have not found such faith in Israel. And I say to you, that many will come from the east and the west and sit down, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and the king of heaven, and so on. And he says, you know, he's going to heal his boy, huh? Okay. Now, where's Thomas' objection here, huh? He says, but what is this that he says that he, Admiratus est, huh? He wondered, huh? Because admiration does not fall in God, huh? Because it does not come about except from the ignorance of the cause, which cannot be in God, huh? Okay. So Aristotle, in the beginning of the metaphysics, huh? In the 14 books of wisdom, he says that philosophy began from, what? Wonder, right, huh? And wondering about the unknown cause, right? Of a known effect, right, huh? Okay. The cuts of the sun, you know, what is going on, you know? Why is the sun being cut off, you know? God's angry with us, or what's the reason, right? So how does he solve that, right? I know, but is he ignorant of the cause? Well, Thomas seems to be saying here that the word wonder has two meanings, right? And one is that arising from ignorance, right? Of the cause, right? Of a known effect, right? And the other is from what? The excellence of something, right? So it goes right on in the same words, huh? Right after the ones I quoted there. Also, the apprehension of the magnitude of an effect, right? Okay. Okay. Okay. which comes from the imagination and the image of some great effect, right? And thus it could fall also in Christ. That is, he admired it. He regarded it as something great, right? That this man had that much faith, right? Unde admiratus est, idis magnum reputavit, right? Now, how is that applicable to the metaphysics of Aristotle, right? Well, in the beginning, when he says that philosophy began in wonder, right? He says it will end in the opposite of wonder, right? Because once you know the cause, why it is so, you will no longer wonder, right? You see? But, when Aristotle gets to the 12th book of wisdom, right? The second half of the 12th book of wisdom, when he comes, he finally arrives in God, right? Now he knows the first cause of the whole universe, right? But he is talking at one point there about God's knowledge, right? And how God's knowledge, how he's in his contemplative stage, right? State, which we can only sometimes be here, Aristotle says, right? All these practical things that are taken, get the snow off the roof and so on. And we can't, but always be in the state. If God is always in the state, he's always thinking about something wonderful, right? He compels our wonder, he says, okay? And if he not only is always in the state, which we can only rarely be, but in a much better one than we are, right? He compels us to even more wonder, right? Well, is Aristotle contradicting himself when he said that philosophy would end in the opposite of wonder? Because you don't wonder about the cause once you know it, right? Now you know why it is so, right? Well, it's this other sense of wonder that Thomas is talking about there, right? Notice he sees the excellence, right? The magnificence of God's intellectual life, shall we say, right? Aristotle talks in the Ethics, you've probably seen in the Ethics there, he talks about, you know, the pleasure of understanding and thinking about these great things, you know, is a remarkable pleasure, right? It's not like the pleasure of candy or whatever it is, right? And so he kind of really admires that in God, right? That God would always be in his state, right? He's always in his, but then even more so because he's in a better way than we are. Even that one, we are rarely in it, right? You know? And it's a different kind of wonder, right? So it's kind of beautiful, right? Objection there, and you can, you know, like what he said there. Now, another thing going back, it's a little different thing now, but going back to the magnificence, right? And he says, and his mercy is in generation to generation to those who what? Yeah. Now, if you talk about the mercy of God, right, and the justice of God, right, the mercy of God is more connected with our hope in him, right? But the justice of God arouses a, what, solitary fear, right? Okay. So you say, well, why does Mary, right, say that, yeah, rather than those who hope in him, right, eh, okay, makes it a mistake in Mary's part, you know, see? Because there are many texts in scripture that connect hope with what? But, yeah, the one prayer I like a lot, you know, to the prayer of the te deum, right, eh? It ties up the risk of hope, right, eh? You say, well, why does Mary say the, see? It's a little bit like here, because she seems to be missing the point, like Christ, right? In the earlier text I was talking about, Christ seems to be saying, you know, your exaltation depends upon how much humility you have, and he should have been saying, I want to live with that, right? But he couldn't be saying that unless the two were connected, right? And there's reason to emphasize humility because of their pride that they had looked at there, right, you know? So what's the solution to this, right? Well, does the true hope in God's mercy, right, and this fear of the divine justice, right, do they go together just like, what, humility and the love of God go together, right? And remember that text we talked to you before, I think, years ago, in the commentary on the Psalms, right, where Thomas brings this out, where he says that hope, if you have hope but no fear of the divine justice, your hope will become, what, presumption, which is not truly hope anymore, right? And if you have the fear of God without any hope in his mercy, then you will despair, and that despair is not the fear of God, right, huh, something bad. So maybe the divine, maybe hope and fear have to go, what, together, right, huh? And that's what Murray's hitting at, right? And it says, you know, it's kind of unexpected you say fear, right, rather than hope, because hope seems to be more tied up with the mercy, right? But maybe the hope is not there without the fear, and so you say the fear, you also bring in the hope, but you bring out this balanced picture of how the two require each other, right? Makes sense, you know? But it's got a sense solving that second problem in the Magnificat, and the way he solved the first one, you know, the way Thomas solves it here in the text there in the 18th chapter, right, where he says those who, you know, more humble will have a higher place in heaven, right? First shall be last, and I shall be first. Those kind of marvelous, marvelous things, huh? And, of course, you can apply that to philosophy, too, you know. Philosopher is a lover of truth. He wants truth, right? But wanting truth is not enough, because truth is not only a good, but it's a good difficult to, what, achieve, as you can see with these things, right? So hope is the movement of the appetite, right, towards a good that is difficult to obtain. And without that hope that you can overcome the difficulties, right, then you would, what? You give up, right, huh? You see? You would despair of knowing the truth, right? And I think the American universities are filled with people who are really despair, right, huh? I always like those things from Whitaker Chambers there, you know, when he became a communist, right, but he went back to Columbia there, and he looked at his fellow students there, you know, and he found them to be, what? He said they were kind of ideas as ping-pong balls, right, huh? You know? It's a thing you knock back and forth, you know? You don't take the ping-pong ball very seriously, and it's no big deal, you know, it's knocking back and forth, right? So ideas, you just knock them back and forth in conversation and play around with them, you know, but you don't take them seriously, right, huh? You know? He was serious now about things, you know? He was mistaken, of course, but he finally saw his way out, right, huh? And he tells later on, and the witness there, you know, he's looking at his little daughter's ear, you know, and he's got a very nice little ear, this little girl, and that sort of happened by chance, you know, that this ear turned out to be so well-shaped and so on, you know? But just, it could have been anything, you know, like that, where he saw something about the divine, you know, wisdom, huh? Yeah, that every work of nature is a work of mind, yeah, yeah, directing nature. You see, is his hope of coming to know the truth, is that enough for a philosopher, right? Or must he have this fear of being mistaken, right, huh? When you read the great Socrates there, or about him there in Plato's account of Socrates, Socrates is always afraid of thinking he knows what he doesn't know, right? And there's plenty of evidence, right, in talking to others who claim to know something, right, huh? That often they don't know what they think they know, right, huh? And so Socrates is in mortal fear, you might say, of being himself in that state, of thinking He knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? And so he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh?