Prima Secundae
Lecture 237: Divine Ideas, Eternal Law, and Knowledge of God's Governance

Transcript
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about the imitative arts, right? So he talks about imitation, and he says that man is the most imitative of all the animals. And at first he says we learn by imitation, right? We all naturally delight in imitation, that's why, you know, fiction and so on, right? And plays and so on, right? But that's kind of a marvelous thing. So he says, Augustine speaks there, in that text quoted there from the 383 questions, that he spoke of the, what, ideal reasons, huh? Now you have to be very careful, right? It doesn't mean that there are many thoughts in God, there's only one thought in God, right? But these regard the, what, private natures of singular things, right? Okay? And therefore in them there is found a certain distinction for all, not of thoughts in God, right? But because God understands the diverse ways in which things can be, what, imitate him, right? And he knows the way in which a tree can imitate him. And therefore he can make a tree, right? Which is an imitation of him, right? He knows how the cat can, what, imitate him, right? And the lion, right? Because, you know, he's a real light to stare, metaphorically, right? The lion, right? He knows how a man can imitate him. He knows how a woman can imitate him, right? He knows how, what, an angel can imitate him, right? And the different kinds of angels, they all imitate God in a, what, different way, right? So those are called his ideas, right? Okay? It doesn't mean a multiplicity in him, but multiple ways understood by him, right? But in a simple way, huh? But law is said to be directive of acts in order to the, what? Common good. As has been said above, huh? And those things which are in themselves diverse, right, are considered as one according as they are, what? Or just something common. So what do they say in the dollar bill? Doesn't it say pluribus? Yeah, yeah, that's what he's talking about here, right? See? So that's why you speak of one law, right? You don't speak of one idea in God, right? It's just only one way you'd understand it could be imitated, right? It could be imitated in an infinity of different ways, huh? And every creature imitates them in a different way, right? Especially creatures of different kinds, right? So the tree and the dog and the stone and the man and the angel they all imitate God in different ways and God, before he made these things he understood these different ways in which you'd be imitated, right? But in the case of law you're thinking of the fact that we're all ordered to one common good, right? And in that sense we're all, what? Something one, right, huh? And therefore you would speak of the eternal law which orders us to the common good as being, what? What? One, huh? Okay. And therefore the eternal law is one which is the reason of this, what? Order of all things to the common good, right? Okay. So there's only one eternal law but there are many, what, ideas according to which God is said to have made, what, creatures, right, huh? There are many ways in which we can imitate God but they're all different. But we're all ordered to one common good which is the common good of the whole universe as Aristotle said, right? Okay. That's a beautiful teaching there. Now what about this word there with a capital V, right, huh? To the second it should be said that about the word, about any word, right, two things can be considered, right, huh? To it, the word itself and those things which are expressed by the word, right? For the vocal word, huh, the spoken word is something put forth from the mouth of man. My words are coming out of my mouth if you didn't know where they're coming from. Maybe down below they're being formed. And by this word are expressed, right, the things that are signified by human words, huh? And he says it's like that with the thought, right, which is sometimes called the, what, the mental word, right? And the same reason is about the mental word of man which is nothing other than a certain thing conceived by the mind by which a man expresses mentally those things about which he, what, thinks. thus therefore in divine things the word itself well, that's a capital V now, right? Which is a conception of the eternal of the paternal understanding, right? That's said personally, right? Because it's proceeding from the Father, right? Now, some days, you know, when you explain this you know, we have to go back to our own mind in a weak way to, you know, look at a starting point, right? When I imagine something, right? It's a little bit like a thought, right? It's not the same thing. It's more singular. But when I imagine something there proceeds from my imagination an image, right? And then when I think about something there proceeds from my mind or reason a, what, thought of that, right? And so when the Father thinks of what he is, right? There proceeds from the Father to our amazement a, what, mental word, right? And this is the second person of the, what's the Trinity, right? And he's called his verbum or thought for one reason and he's called his son for another reason because he proceeds both by, as a thought but also as, what, naturally he proceeds, right? And as the son of the Father, right? Okay. That's extremely interesting, huh? Thus, therefore, in likeness of what you find in man the, what? There is the verb which is, the verbum which is the conception of the eternal or the paternal understanding and it's said personally, right? And that's how you distinguish these, huh? If you go back to the treatise and the Trinity Thomas divides it into, what, three parts, huh? And he says the persons are distinguished by these, what? Relations, yeah. And these relations are distinguished by the way that one proceeds from the other, right? And so you begin from the perceptions, right? You know, the perception of the son from the father and then the perception of the Holy Spirit from the father and the son. But all things which are in the knowledge of the father whether they be essential things or personal things, huh? Or even the, what? Works of God are expressed by this word as is clear by Augustine, right, huh? You read my little poem about this, right? So go ahead. Remember, remember. God the father said it all by one word, right? No wonder when this word became a man he spoke in words so few and said so much. He was the brevity in the soul of it. A little borrowing there from my Pastor Shakespeare. So, you know, God the father said by this one word, right, everything he understands. He understands not only himself and everything that's in God but he understands what? Preaches too, right? So he said by his word not only himself but all things and Augustine talks about that, right, huh? Words, you know, things are brought out by word but not brought out by son, right? Okay. Otherwise, the exemplar for our sonship, huh? Okay. So he can quote the great Augustine there, huh? But all things which are in the knowledge of the father, whether they be essential things or personal things or also the works of God, right, like even the creatures, are expressed by this word as is clear by Augustine in the 15th book of the, what, Trinity, right? So Thomas, you know, follows Augustine most, most of all. Good point. Good point. Good point. Good point. Good point. Good point. Good point. Good point. Studying the Trinity, right? He quotes some other people from time to time, but Augustine, most of all. And therefore, among other things which are expressed by this word, also among them is the eternal law, right? Which is expressed by what? The word, right? But does not nevertheless follow from this that the eternal law is said personally in God, right? Just as the creatures are not said personally in God even though they're said by the word, right? But is appropriated, right, nevertheless to the Son on account of a certain, what, agreement that a reason has to the, what, word, right? Just as in English, right? You might say, you know, reason that I give you is a thought, isn't it? So the Father, the appropriate, the eternal law to the Son sometimes. Sometimes you appropriate the art to him too, right? Kind of like the art which the Father made the world, right? Okay. Now, what about the last one here, huh? To the third, it should be said that the reason of the divine understanding has itself in a different way to things than the reason of the human understanding, right? Now, as said in Fourth Lateran Council, right? And I remember Paul VI quoting it, huh? You can never find a likeness of the creature to God without a greater, what, unlike this, right? For the human understanding is measured by things, huh? Because our knowledge is derived from things, right? For the concept of man is not true on account of itself, right? My thoughts are not, say, modern philosophers would think that way. But it's said to be true from this that it is in, what? It sounds with things, right, huh? Consent of things. For as Aristotle says, from this that a thing is, there is not, the opinion is true or false, right? So if I say that what is, is, and what is not, is not, I'm speaking truly, right? If I say that what is, is not, or what is not is, then I'm speaking, what, falsely, right? So if I say two is half of four, I'm speaking truly. If I say two is not half of five, I'm speaking truly, right? If I say that two is half of five, or two is not half of four, then I'm speaking falsely, right? So my thoughts are measured by things, right? But in the case of God, it's just the reverse, right? God is the measure of all things. But the divine understanding is the measure of things, huh? Because each thing, to that extent, has truth, insofar as it imitates the divine understanding, as has been said in the first book. And therefore, the divine understanding is true by itself, right? Whence its reason is truth itself. Okay? Kind of an amazing thing, right? Okay, to put that in your pipe and smoke it for twice a year. Thank you. of 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 quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you have written. Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I was reading an article in the Sentences this morning, and it's on the famous one, whether the soul is, the whole soul is in every part of the body, and so on, right? And I know that Thomas gets this from Augustine, right? But in here he says, you know, and Augustine says this, an elper too. So he takes Augustine and Elbert, yeah. I haven't seen him quote Elbert. Yeah, by name. He says Elbert, yeah. He says those who think that it's not, they are what, false imagination, right? And he says there's two kinds of thought, there's two examples of false imagination in their thinking, huh? One is that the soul is in the body as in a place. Of course, one of the objections was that if the soul is in every part of the body, right, huh? Then it's in two places at once. And of course, Thomas says, the soul is not in the body, it's in a place. I think Descartes thought it was in a place, you know, where was it? The gland up there in the grave or something. And so the soul is in the body, it's a form in matter, right? This is a different way. It's two different senses of him, right? But it's a false imagination. You imagine, you know, the one that's more, comes into the imagination. And then the other one is that they imagine the soul, which is said to be indivisible, right? They imagine it to be indivisible like a point is. And of course, a point is the indivisible that has a position somewhere in the continuous, right? So if the soul is indivisible in that way, so two false imaginations. And Thomas says, but this is stupid, he says. Okay, stultle me. I say, how many people, you know, think that way about the soul, right? You know? You just fall back, false imagination. I noticed another text that Thomas did here in the sentences where he's talking about the act of the mind and he says, he uses the word imagine, right? And that shouldn't, you know, strike you as, you know, unheard of, right? But we often use the word to see for what? To understand, right? But to see means first the act of the eye and then it's carried over, right? But here's a text where Thomas is using the word to imagine, right? For the mind, what? Thinking, right? And the, um, you know how Shakespeare or Hamlet says, you know, I can see his father in my mind's eye, right? But that's the imagination, right? But the idea that the imagination is in some ways more like reason than the, what? Seeing because of the fact that when you imagine something, you form an image of it, right? When you think about something, you form a thought. So, it's kind of striking to see that, right? The way he speaks there. Okay, we're up to Article 2 here, whether the eternal law is known to all, right? The second one goes forward thus. It seems that the eternal law is not known to all. Because as the Apostle says, right? It's Antonia Messiah, of course, for St. Paul, the first epistle of the Corinthians. The things which are of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. That's a pretty good quote to use for this purpose. But the eternal law is a certain ratio, a certain, what? Thought, you might say. Something thought of in existing in the divine mind. Therefore, it's unknown to everyone except to God alone. That convinces me, huh? Moreover, Augustine says in the book on free judgment that the eternal law is that by which the just is, right? By which it is just that all things be what? Most ordered, right? That's the superlative of order, huh? Before and after, right? Superlative of before and after. But not all know in what way all things are most ordered, huh? So everybody thinks that there can't be evil in the world if God's around, right? How can there be this disorder, huh? Which is all thing to evil. If things are most ordered, how could there be? Therefore, not all know the eternal law. Seems good to me, that argument. Have you closed the book at this point? More of Augustine says in the book on true religion that the eternal law is that about which men are not able to, what? Judge. But as Aristotle says in the first book of the Ethics, each one judges well those things that he knows. Therefore, the eternal law is not known to us. And it seems good to me. But against this is what Augustine says, huh? In the book on free judgment or free will. that the notion or knowledge of the eternal law is pressed upon us, right? Is Thomas going to look before and after now in the body of the article? But in order to understand Shakespeare's definition, right? You have to look before and after, don't you? And what comes before before and after? Yeah. So in the ability to look before and after is included the ability to look for what? Distinctions, huh? And then for divisions and even for definitions, right? Because every division is a distinction. And a definition is in a way a division. It's also got an order in it too, huh? So answer, Thomas says, that in two ways something is able to be known, huh? In one way in itself in another way in its effect in which some likeness of it is what? Found, huh? So do you gentlemen know Sophia? Which of these two ways? No, we have a picture in here, right? Cooking, doing some cooking there, right? Yeah. Just as someone not seeing the sun in its own, what? Substance, huh? Knows it in its, what? Its irradiation, right? It's, yeah. Its effect. Something like it. Thus therefore it should be said that the eternal law no one is able to know it according as it is in itself, huh? Except only, what? The blessed, huh? Who see God through, what? His essence. Okay? Or St. John says they see him as he is, right? Face to face. But every reasonable creature every rational creature knows it according to its, what? Its irradiation, yeah. Either more or less he knows it, right? For every knowledge of truth is a certain, what? Yeah. What could he say in a less Latinized? work in the radiation. How could Jesus call that? I wouldn't say shine. Yeah? But radiation comes from what? Rays, doesn't it? Yeah. Something in the house. I suppose like when you're in the house there and the rays of the sun are coming through the windows, right? And getting the floor in front of you and so on. Yeah. I think of this as the rays coming from it, not the rays bouncing off something else. That will be a reflection. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when you speak of reflecting upon something, huh? Chesterton has a lot of water and a lot of reflections. You're reflecting all the time. Yeah. The priest in the parish here speaks of his reflection, you know, it's a little sermon, right? And he concludes the reflection with a question for us, right? Oh, sure. It's a pretty good idea. So, every or all knowledge of truth is a certain, what? Ray, radiation. And a partaking of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable, what? Truth. As Augustine says in the book on religion. Now, all in some way know truth, right? At least as regards the common beginnings of the, what? Natural law. So, it's a kind of partaking, right? The eternal law in us. In other things, huh? Some more and some less partake of a knowledge of the, what? Truth. And according to this, also they know more or less the eternal, what? Law. So, Thomas sees a distinction and he reasons, huh? To one part of that, right? That everybody in that way has some knowledge of the eternal law, right? But in its likeness, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that those things which are of God are not able to be known in themselves by us, right? But nevertheless, in their effects they are made known to us, huh? According to that of Romans, the famous text here, chapter 1, verse 20. The invisible things of God, huh? Through the things which have been made being understood, right, huh? Are looked upon, huh? That's always a text that used in Vatican, I mean, in Trent, I think, didn't they? That was a text they used. Yeah, yeah. To the second, it should be said, huh? That the eternal law, each one knows according to his, what? Capacity, right, huh? According, or in the foresaid way, right? But no one, nevertheless, is able to, what? Comprehend it, huh? For it cannot be known entirely, huh? Totaliter, through its, what? Effects, huh? And therefore, it's not necessary that whoever knows the eternal law in the foresaid way knows the whole order of things by which all things are most, what? So even these bad things are ordered in a way hidden to us, huh? To the third, it should be said, that to judge about something can be understood in two ways, huh? Thomas was always looking for distinctions, huh? I was a little annoyed by that, uh, Dominican Tommy, you know, he had a teacher, you know, who said, never affirm, seldom, deny, always distinguish. But I can see why he'd say that, right? After reading Thomas for all these years, he probably said, I mean, don't begin by saying, yes, affirmatively or negatively, you know, but you have to distinguish because maybe the one way, yes, the other way, no, right? There's nothing to be said for that, right? But it shows the importance of understanding, you know, distinction in Shakespeare's definition, right? Just like, you know, when I was first thinking about Shakespeare's definition, and he uses the word discourse, right? And Aristotle, when he talks about the human reason there in the third book on the soul, he distinguishes the first and the second act of reason. And the first act of reason there is to understand what something is. Like to understand what a square is, or to understand what a circle is, right? Or to understand what a quadrilateral is, right? And then he talks about the second act, right? Whereby you join these things to separate them, huh? So we say that the square is not a circle, right? Or the square is a quadrilateral, right? Or the circle is not a quadrilateral, right? And then he stops there, right, huh? And Thomas, in his primient logic, the beginning of his commentary on the posterior analytics of Aristotle, he quotes this text, you know, from the De Anima, third book. And he says, in which you can add a third act, which is reasoning, right? Well, of course, reasoning is the act of what? Discourse that's so characteristic of reason that it's named from reason, right? So reasoning is especially the discourse of reason, right? So I kind of, you know, puzzled by that, right, huh? Well, you've got to bear in mind that Thomas, or Aristotle rather, in the De Anima, it's part of natural philosophy. So he doesn't want to emphasize discourse, because there is kind of what's peculiar to reason, right? And Aristotle wants to emphasize more what we naturally know, right? But then you can say that when Shakespeare says discourse, he includes what we naturally understand. Because discourse means what? Yeah, it means coming to know what you don't know, through what you do know, right? Now maybe you came to know what you use there, right? But can that go on forever? You knew A through B, and B through C, and C through D, and always through something else, you would never know what? Anything. So in the ability for discourse is to be understood what? Yeah, the ability to understand some things naturally. Like what a whole is and what a part is. That the whole is larger than the part, right? Aristotle emphasizes the things that reason naturally knows in just the first two acts, because it's a natural philosophy, right? Okay? But Shakespeare, in saying that reason is capable of discourse, that implies, if you look before, that reason must be capable of knowing something naturally, and not by discourse, right? Just as if reason is capable, as we said before, of looking before and after, right? And as the axiom which we naturally know, nothing is before or after itself, right? Then reason must be capable of looking for what? Distinctions, right? See that? Very clear, right? And just like if it's capable of a large discourse, it's capable of a small discourse, right? So you have to look before and after to fully understand the excellence of what? Shakespeare's definition, right? Make a little side here, you know, talking about that. I was reading, you know, when I was on vacation there with the grandchildren there, the De Veritate, Bonitate, right? And so I finished reading through the 27 ones. But he has a couple in there on the emotions, right? A couple of questions, you know, divided into many articles. And, of course, there's a younger thinker there. Yeah. There's a lot here. There's a lot here. There's a lot here. I was very interested in that text, right, because I was interested in politics, and I was interested, therefore, in rhetoric, right, and Aristotle spoke about using the emotions to convince the crowd, right, so that's one reason I wanted to know the emotions, right, and Aristotle takes up the ones that are appropriate for the rhetorician, and then I was reading ostily, you know, and reading the book on the poetic art, and the poet is what, the playwright is representing people with various emotions, and secondly, tragedy and comedy arouse certain emotions in us, so I wanted to know about the emotions to understand tragedy and comedy, and to understand that part of rhetoric that uses the emotions, right, and then I was reading ostily, and of course I was realizing that music is a likeness of the, what, emotions, we had that famous letter of Mozart to his father, you know, where he describes how he's going to represent the emotion of anger in Osmond there, the guard there in Abduction from the Seraglio, right, and how that a man gets angry, kind of loses control of himself, and so Mozart says to his father, the music has to represent this, right, but not in a way, he says, that is displeasing to the ears, or in other words, ceased to be music, okay, so I had those reasons, plus I was studying ethics, right, and some of the virtues, like courage, and temperance, and so on, are about the emotions, right, so I had three or four different, what, arts or sciences I was pursuing, and they all required the knowledge of the, what, emotions, well, then I got a text of the De Veritati there, I think that wasn't in English, that my brother or something had, and I think I first read it in English, you know, but then a lot later, and what a marvelous explanation of Thomas said, the emotions there, right, which is kind of a key for what, all of these, right, okay, for rhetoric, for understanding poetics, for music, for the virtues, right, I mean, just really, yeah, just beautiful, but what does Thomas do, well, you find out that there are what, eleven emotions, right, and how many distinctions of two or three does Thomas use to get the eleven, about eight, eight, eight, yeah, yeah, like the number that you have, you know, in the categories, he tries to distinguish the ten, right, so Thomas is distinguishing all these emotions, right, well, the first distinction is between what, the emotions of the concupiscible, right, which are concerned with something agreeable or disagreeable as such to the senses, right, and then the virtues or the emotions of the irascible, which are concerned with the difficulty of getting what is agreeable or avoiding what is disagreeable, like, you know, okay, and then that's the first distinction, right, and then he distinguishes the, what, concupiscible, right, and those concerned with what is agreeable, those concerned with what is disagreeable, that's the second distinction of two, right, and then each of those is divided into three, right, because some things, the senses, are real, but the senses, so you like them, you love them, so as a little boy, I like candy, you know, I discovered that, and then if you like something, but you don't have it or haven't had it for a while, then you want it, right, and then if you, what, get it, and you like it, then you have joy, you enjoy what you've got, right, and then you have something like that with the bad, right, so if you taste salmon and you find it's disagreeable, you say you hate, right, you hate this, and so when it's offered on the menu, you turn away from it, right, but if you're at somebody's house for dinner and they're surprising you with a delicious dinner of salmon, it's forced upon you, right, you've got to get some kind to eat, eat the damn thing, and you're sad, huh, yeah, great pain, huh, okay, that's a distinction of what, two distinctions of two, so far, and a distinction of what, two of three, that's four distinctions there, right, then you get the irascible, and one distinction in them is in terms of the good and the what, bad, right, huh, and if it's a good that is difficult to get, then you have another distinction of two, because you can have hope or what, despair, right, and hope or despair arise after you want something, right, but there's difficulty in getting it right, and therefore the hope if you think you can overcome the difficulty and despair if you see no way of getting it, right, huh, okay, and likewise regard to the bad, right, huh, it arises from reversion, you're turning away from it, right, and it's difficult to avoid it, right, huh, and so there can be fear if you think you cannot avoid it, huh, but there's boldness, you know, if you can, overcome it, now, there's the 11th oddball, right, which is anger, right, huh, and so if you're stepping on my toes, and I say, you're on my toes, and you say, so what, and you're causing a great deal of pain, well, that's going to cause for some anger, right, huh, or you're out there using my grandchildren for target practice or something, right, well, that's going around some anger, right, huh, okay, but if I succeed in punishing you for your misdeed, then I have a sudden satisfaction, joy, right, huh, okay, but notice how Thomas at the same time was showing us the, what, not only the distinctions, 11, but the order, right, how liking gives rise to wanting in the absence of the thing you like, and to joy or enjoyment when you have it, right, and how hope and fear arise from desire, you know, and how anger arises from pain, right, but anger can give rise to what, lead on to joy if you succeed in repulsing this thing that's causing you pain, huh, so what a thing that Shakespeare was talking about, right, the distinction of the emotions and the order of them, right, the magnificent, huh, okay, realize how Thomas was fouling, right, exactly, yeah, he's looking for distinction and looking before and after, right, magnificent, magnificent text, huh, you know, we're, we're, with the Tuesday night students there in the sixth book of the natural hearing, right, right, and, you know, I remember, recall, I should say, Dick Connick's famous article in the Volatilogique Philosophique, which was the, it's in French, some of his articles were in English, some in French, but the paradox to Devenir par la contradiction, and the changes between contradictories, right, and Hegel, you know, goofed, right? But the problem that Hegel had was, you know, suppose what is not a sphere is becoming a sphere, right, or what is not a man is becoming a man, right, was a time in which the clay is not a sphere, right, and there's a last instant in which it is, what, not a sphere, right, and then there's a later time where it is a sphere, right, and therefore, since it always wasn't always, there is a, what, instant in which it began to be a sphere, right, now, are they the same instant, the last instant in which it is not a sphere, and the first instant in which it is a sphere, well, if they are the same, right, if they're not the same, there'd be some time between the two, right, in which case, in that time in between, it would either be a sphere or not a sphere, which is impossible, right, now, so Hegel says it must be the same, but, yeah, so in that instant of the chain of contradictions, you both are and are not a sphere, right, you see, well, of course, that's committing something impossible, right, a contradiction, right, well, Aristotle, of course, what, solves it, right, by showing that it becomes a sphere, in this time it becomes a sphere. Thank you. At the end of that time, you are a sphere. So there's a first instance in which you are a sphere, but there's no, what? Last instance. Instant in which you are not a sphere. That's kind of an amazing thing, right? So I was talking to him about when you're dying, right? Will there be a last instance that you're alive? There'll be a first instance in which you're dead, I said. In case you want to know, I told him. In case you're curious about that. There will not be a last instance in which you are alive, right? So when you're dying, you're coming to be dead, right? And when this activity of dying is completed, what are you? You're dead. So there's a first instance in which you're dead, but there's no last instance in which you are, what? Alive. Whereas Dal Celsus, kind of in the sixth book, but it takes up again in the eighth book, you know? Okay? Well, Deconic was talking about this in the difficulty of Habe. Well, he didn't see these things, right? That's a rather important thing, right? But then, I haven't looked at Deconic's thing for a long time, but he goes into the difficulties they had in the Middle Ages, right? And the one with the Eucharist, right? So, you've got bread here, and then the body of our Lord later on, right? You've got wine here, and then the blood of our Lord, right? Okay? So there's a time in which it is bread, right? But that time comes to an end, right? So that's the last instance in which it is bread, right? Okay? And then there's a time where it begins to be, what? The body of our Lord, and therefore there's a first instance in which it is the body of our Lord. Now, are those two instances the same? Well, if they were, then you'd have something eretical. You'd have both the body and the bread there together, right? The same thing with the wine and the blood, right? Okay? Because we're a problem for the people in the Middle Ages, right? But Thomas says, there's no last instant in which it is bread, but there's a first instant in which it is what? It is the body, yeah. And there's no last instant in which it is wine. There's a last time you can take, whatever you want to take, an hour or a minute or what. But there's no last instant. No one is visible, right? But there's a first instant in which it is what? The blood of our Lord, right? That's very important, right? You see how enormously important this was, huh? So anyway, I'm reading along here, you know? And the last question there in the De Veritatis is about grace, huh? Okay? And of course, the question is, can you be free of your guilt without grace? The answer is no, right? Okay. But anyway, one of the objections I thought was very clever, right? It says, you're in a state of guilt, but that time has an end, right? And the justification takes place in the confession. So there's a last instant in which you are what? You're in guilt, right? Okay. Likewise, the later time in which you are what? In grace, right? And therefore, it's the first instant in which you are in grace, right? Now, is the last instant in which you are in guilt the same as the first instant in which you are in grace? No, because then you have real contraries there together, right? Therefore, there are two different instances, right? But then there's some time between the two, right? In that time, you're neither in guilt nor in what? Grace. But if you're not in grace in that time in between, right? And you have to, you couldn't be, because this is where the other one begins. But you're not in guilt either. Therefore, you're freed of your guilt in that time in between the two nows without grace. Pretty good argument, right? You know? Well, what's interesting about Thomas' consideration of the thing, right, is he goes through three attempts to answer this, right? And after everyone, he says, this cannot stand. And he shows why it can't stand, right? I won't go through all of them, you know, with you, but just take one of them, right? The guy says, well, although it's the same now, right? Insofar as it's the end of the past, it has guilt, right? Insofar as it's the beginning of the future, it has, yeah. Thomas says, but that's not going to stand, right? It's still one now. It's that one now. See? They're straining, you know, to get out of this. And he goes through three different ones, apparently historical ones and so on. And then he says, and finally he solves it in the same way that we solve the one on the Eucharist. I don't know if DeKyne gives this one or not. I remember the one with the Eucharist, but I didn't remember this one. And there is a, what? A last, there's no last instance in which you are in guilt, but there's a first instance in which you are, what? In grace, right? And then he ends up saying, and this solution is from Aristotle, the eighth book of the Eucharist, the natural hearing. You say, my goodness, you know. You see, oh, Hegel going astray there, you know, and talking about change between contradictories, you know, and natural philosophy. And now you see that the Eucharist, the greatest of the sacraments, and even now the confession is a very great sacrament, too. It's a difficulty for not seeing what Aristotle saw here, right? But how does first or last, right, how are they defined? Yeah, yeah. So Aristotle is looking for what is first or last in this change, right? Or whether there is a first or a last, right? Right, you know, he's looking before and after, right? And he saw that there was no last second in which you are alive, right? In the same way, Tom saw that, you know, following Aristotle, that there was no last second in which it is bred, right? There's no last second in which you are in guilt, right? Notice the enormous accomplishment of Aristotle there, right? But looking before and after, right? In a very subtle way that he wasn't able to do, and all these theologians in those ages weren't able to do, right? You know, it's absolutely amazing, right? Did he actually study Aristotle and St. Thomas and miss this sort of thing, or were there gaps in his education? Well, at least the gap in his understanding. Yeah, what his background was, if he just missed it when he had gone through it, or if he had never actually saw him begin with it. Well, it depends on how thoroughly they read it, you know, huh? Yeah. America's theory, or the iconic saying one time, of all, you know. Oh, they read Aristotle's physics on a weekend at Columbia. He just mentioned that, you know, it's kind of, you know, it's a, it's kind of a joke, right? What do you understand, right, huh? You know, I remember my friend Warren Murray was taking a philosophy course at the University of Minnesota, you know, and the very obvious thing, the professor was just giving, you know, saying what Aristotle did not say, right? As if he had said it, right? And, you know, he's maintained that Aristotle was looking for the four causes everywhere, you know? Why Aristotle and Mathematics would look for it in their purpose, you know? What's the purpose, you know, for a, a right-angle triangle? Have you, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, like Aristotle, you know, has this thing that's forcing everything into these four things, you know? But he's a professor, you know, at the University of Minnesota, you know, that, he's read the man, obviously, but doesn't, uh. He has a similar, I think there's one particular document that just comes to mind. There's a document that published a letter from one of the councils in the Holy See. Yeah. It's something liturgical. And I've heard one, and one person say they've read it. Yeah. And it says this. Yeah. And it's exactly the opposite of what it says. Yeah. It's exactly the opposite of what it says. Yeah. And I just am astonished. I think, did you actually read this? Because you're asserting that it says exactly the opposite of what it says. Well, I know, yeah, Rosanei went to some, Rosanei went from the parish one time, some meeting, you know, this judge was doing the talking, right? And he was saying just the opposite of what the thing said, right? And so I told him, you know, that. I said, you've got to be more careful. I said, that's the nicest thing anybody said to me at all. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How is it that Hegel could have such an incredible impact with his very erroneous foundations? Well, it appeals to imagination in some way, you know. People want to believe it. Yeah, but it appeals to imagination, you know. Hegel's kind of fun to read, you know, on literature and so on, right? And he talks about the fine arts and he orders them, you know. It's good, you know. He sees that music is higher than painting, you know. I asked, is Margaret Heave had made a big splash in anthropology with her supposed excellent study in Samoa and it turned out that it was all bogus. Yeah, yeah. It was misinformation, essentially. And one of her publishers who came out and exposed this, who initially went along with it, he said, well, the reason why they caught so much traction was because we all really wanted to believe it. Even though we could see that there was merit. So I was wondering if you have a similar thing in this group. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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