Prima Secundae
Lecture 296: Operating and Cooperating Grace: Division and Distinction

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Now, notice the order now, the summa kind of gentiles, right? The first three things you show about God is that he's altogether unchanging, he's altogether simple, he's altogether what? Perfect. That corresponds to the substance of God, right? Now, one and infinite, right, could be considered substance because they're closest to it, right? They always talk about the confusion between body as a species of continuous quantity and body as a species of substance, right? It shows the closeness of the two, right? People have a hard time distinguishing those two. Or you could say that God being one and God being infinite corresponds to the genus of what? Quantity. And then his being wise and his being just and his being merciful and his being, what? Having a mind, understanding, and so on. It corresponds to quality. And then his being a creator or a ruler or a king, as he said in the Psalms. And if it's early when you get to the Trinity, right, then you have something corresponding to the fourth category, which is relation, right? And follows exactly the order of the four, right? And you don't have five, but you have three, and then two. And then in the third, you have basically what? The understanding and the will, right? And things are either, you know, you talk about what does God understand? Well, he understands primarily himself, and by understanding himself, since he's the cause of all the things, he understands everything else, right? What does he love? He loves primarily himself, and loving himself. He loves the things that can partake of his goodness, and so on, right? So it's divided into two, right? The Trinity is obviously divided into three, and so on. So all things are so, right? Now, in the Summa Theologiae, it's not as perfect, of course, because that's not my favorite work. But notice, Thomas doesn't put the infinity of God last, as it is in the Summa Congentiles, like continuous quantities last there, right, in that order. But he puts it right after the perfection of God, and before God being unchanging, right? Because it's closely connected with that. As I mentioned before, right, when I was trying to reduce them, right, to three. And why does he end up with the unity of God? Well, it's because of those damn Muslims, right? They think they were, what, polytheists, right? And the last thing I want somebody to think about the substance of God before they go on later on to the Trinity, right, is that there's just one God, right? And that's what we think, and that's the reason why we think it's so, right? And so whatever we say about the Trinity, it can't contradict the fact that there's only one God, right? And somebody's quick, you know, to think that you're polytheists or something, right? And, you know, he was fighting the polytheism of the Arabs, right? And he's scandalized by this aberration among the Christians, right? Because they seem to be going back to the, what? And so you've got to watch that, you know, bless yourself there in the Arabs, you're going to be in deep trouble, right? But it's kind of an understandable mistake, it seems to me, right? I mean, it's going to take a hell of a lot of learning to understand this, you know? You know the famous thing about Augustin there, he's supposed to have been thinking about the Trinity, and he's seen the little boy run down to the ocean, get a little bit of water and put in a hole there in the sand, and he got distracted and said, what are you doing? And the guy said, put that in here. Well, you can't fit that in here, that ocean. Well, neither can you fit the Trinity into your mind. It disappeared, the little boy. But it's kind of a marvelous thing, though, right? Marvelous example, though, of, you know, a nice, what, transfer from quantity all the way up to, you know, the mind. You know, these, I always see these advertisements for hamburgers, you know? And I said, how the hell do you eat a hamburger like that, you know? I mean, it's just, I don't even want to bother with it, you know? I don't even want to try to eat one of those hamburgers, you know? I can't get my mouth around it, right? You know, squirting out and all the stuff. I can't get my mind around it. Well, there are some subjects, you know, you kind of think, I can't get my mind around it, right? But it's a different sense of getting around, you know, than it is, getting your mouth around. All these hamburgers that are, you know? The advertising, you see, that's what they had on TV all the time, it's even the newspaper, the magazine, you know? But that's what Chesterton says, in comparison between your mouth and your mind. You open your mouth, so you think it's solid. That's why we open our minds, we can grant one of these. Rather than these people who are so open-minded, they never chop down on anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how I'm making use of the two distinctions that the wise man most of all is concerned with, right? Distinction of ability and act, right? Or distinctions, because there's many distinctions among abilities and acts, right? And their order, right? Which is the ninth book. And the distinction of being according to the figures of predication, right? And you see, the distinction of being and acting abilities is in a way more universal, because you can apply act to God, right? God is pure act, right? But you can't even put God in one, confine him to one of these genera, right? But he has something corresponding to each of these four, what? Major genera, right? According to substance and even quantity, it's a more difficult way to see, right? And then quality and then relation, right? But he followed the same order of those four in this way of explaining the paradox of the five there in him, right? And it kind of makes me the way he does, because he takes the unity of God before his what infinity, right? Discrete quantity before what? Yeah, and that's what Aristotle does in the categories, right? That's kind of a marvelous thing, right? Why in the Summa Theologiae, he takes up the infinity of God before his unity, right? But he takes it up right next to the perfection of God, right? And he wants to emphasize the unity of God, because as we say, theologians about the uno et trino, deo, right? That's kind of the fundamental distinction, huh? Entirely not. It's kind of beautiful, though, right? And it's kind of amazing to see that order, right? A little bit corresponding to the order of the first four genera, right? It's the main genre, where you're named from something in you, right? Like, I'm a man, and I'm, you know, five foot eight or something, I don't know. And a geometer, and yeah? And a grandfather, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you might say, you know, that in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you're a little bit closer to philosophy or natural reason, right? In the Summa Theologiae, insofar as the division, right? Okay, the division of the Summa Theologiae is into how many parts? Two or three? Three, yeah. And we're in the second part, right? Which is then divided into two parts. We're in the prima secunde, and there's this big, thick secunda secunde, right? Okay. So, clearly, the Summa Theologiae is divided into three parts, right? And you look at Thomas' division of each part, you'll see he divides into two or three. Now, usually, I mean, sometimes the brevity is this, this. Now, the Summa Contra Gentiles is divided into what? I'm sorry, what are you doing with your request, right, huh? See? Yeah. Now, but, if you want to understand the division of the Summa Contra Gentiles, you can understand it by division into four. But you have to divide the first three against the fourth book, right? Now, the distinction of the first three books is that you consider God in himself or by himself in the first book, and then, as he says in the Apocalypse, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, right? The Arche, the beginning, and the Telos, the end, right? So, in the second book, he deals about God as the beginning of things, right? The Creator and so on. And then, in the third book, God being the end of things, and his providence moving things towards his end, right? So, you have those three, right? Okay. Now, what does he do in the fourth book? So, there's three again, but what's the distinction? in between doing the same thing twice, right? Yeah. What he does in the first three books is those things are going to be known about God in himself and as the beginning of things and as the end of things by natural reason as well as by what? Faith. So in those first three books he's going to proceed usually by natural reason, right? And then maybe at the end of the article or into the chapters, in fact, he'll get into, he'll give maybe the authorities from what? Yeah. So we argue that God is, from God being pure act that he's not movable, right? And then he'll, maybe at the end of that thing he'll quote this passage from our good friend St. James here, right? Okay? Okay. But in the fourth book, right, he deals with those things that can be known about God in himself or as the beginning of things or the end of things only by what? Faith, right? And then he's going to proceed by faith, right? You see the way he proceeds, right? In the chapters, you know. Hey, there's things in the Bible that seem to indicate there's a proceeding in God, right? And there's even a father and a son, you know? And, you know, you gradually develop it, right? Okay? Or the Summa Theologiae doesn't follow that distinction, right? So in the Prima Pars, we talk about God in himself, both insofar as he can be known by reason, natural reason as well as by faith, plus the Trinity where you know that, yeah, yeah. So that's the difference, right? So although the Summa Contra Gentile is divided into four books, to understand that division, you have to divide the first three against the, what? Yeah. Just like when Thomas, you know, divides philosophy up there in the premium to the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? and he divides philosophy according to the order it considers, right? So if you go to distinguish philosophies or kinds of philosophy or parts of philosophy by the order they consider, you have to begin with a distinction of order, right? But not any distinction of order. It's not the distinction of order in the five senses of order. But you have to distinguish them by what? Distinction of order in comparison to reason. Okay? And then Thomas begins by saying, well, there's an order which reason does not make but only considers. Like the order of natural things, right? Then there's the order which reason makes in its own acts. And then there's the order which reason makes in the acts of the will and the actions following upon them. And then the order which reason makes in wood or some other exterior matter, right? And then he says, well, natural philosophy is about the order not made by reason and wisdom is also about an order not made by reason, right? And then he says, and then logic is about the order made by reason in its own acts. And then ethics is about the order made by reason in the acts of the will. And then the so-called mechanical arts is the Greek, the Latin word for it, the order made by reason in the exterior matter, right? So here's a distinction of four, right? Yeah, but the first one is the order not made by reason. The last three are orders made by reason. So that's a distinction into two. And then the second of those two made by reason is divided into three. And then you can place where the ethics is. He's going to, this is the introduction to the ethics, right? And then you're going to divide that third one into ethics and domestics and politics, right? Okay, but Thomas doesn't bother, you know, to divide it into two first here, right? You know, it's kind of clear, right? But to understand what he's doing there, he divides it really into two and then one of the two into, what, three. And that's what, you know, I mean, Aristotle, when he first enumerates the categories, he enumerates ten of them, right? And exemplifies them, but he doesn't give you any division except into ten, right? See, so then the commentators have to do what? Yeah, now Thomas, when he takes up the distinction of the categories, he does so in the third book of the physics because Aristotle is comparing motion with acting upon undergoing, right? And acting upon undergoing are two of the ten categories, but motion is found in quantity and quality and where, you know, and so he's got to explain the categories a bit, right? So there he gives a division of the ten, but he divides, what, either into two or three and then subdivides into either two or three, right? Until he gets all ten. And in the fifth book of wisdom, where Aristotle again is dividing being according to the figures of predication, Thomas again explains the distinction of ten, but always dividing into either two or three and subdividing into two or three until he has the ten, right? He does the same thing with the ten, what? Commandments, right? You divide them into two first, right? Three and seven, right? Those two numbers, right? And then, you know, then you've got three, you can divide that into three, right? And then the seven are divided into what? Two or three, right? I think it's more into what? Three, right? Because you're talking, yeah. Well, you divide them into two first, right? You divide the fourth commandment, which is affirmative, against the last six. The last six are divided into what? Deeds and words and desires, right? It explains why you do that. So you're always dividing into two or three to explain this, right? When you deal with the seven sacraments, you have to divide the ones that are ordered to, the good of the one receiving the sacrament primarily, right? And the ones that are ordered to prepare you to do something for the church or the family or as a priest, right? So you have to divide, it seems, almost always, you know? That was, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, that kind of, you know, that's the order. I had given a talk one time at a convention there on the distinction of the order in the two summas, right? At that time, I didn't try to say that either one was a better order, right? But I thought something is made known, right? Or more clear in one order than the other order, right? So I just kind of talked about the excellence of each one of them, you know? I still would speak that way, you know? But you try to understand the more detail, right? In terms of the rule of two or three, you know? Yeah, yeah, you don't have any real theology there to speak of, you know? And God, I mean, God is kind of whimsical in his decisions, you know? But, I mean, part of the reason why Thomas maybe divided theology in the way he did in the Summa Canto Gentiles was that he's replying to the need of the Dominicans there, right? And the attorney, not the attorney general, but, you know, the master general, yeah. Wanted him to do something, you know, to help them down there, right? So it makes natural to separate those things and be shown by natural reason, right? As well as by faith. And then when you get to the things that require faith, you don't try to convince by reason alone that there are three prisons and God, right? But you learn how to defend what we say as not being contrary to what reason knows, huh? And it doesn't involve saying there's more than one God, right? Because is Islam even able to make a valid claim that it can lose a reason because there is nothing really to put foundation on if their God is arbitrary? Well, see, there are some Mohammedans that did get involved in philosophy, right? Like the Veraways and Avicenna and so on. And they probably, actually in the history of Islam, got in kind of trouble, right, huh? And so they're kind of in bad grace, you know? That's what we learned now. Of course, with the Muslim law. Yeah, so there was a rise in this, but it was never a majority, and then it was simply alcohol. Alcohol and destroyed. Yeah, yeah. So what did this? Yeah, I actually think when I was first on Yachinna, I was kind of interested in the Veraways and had a son and had a lot of things in common with them, you know? And, you know, I'd go down to the, you know, Egypt there, to the same university there in Egypt, and I'd go talk to these guys, and I'd go along with them, probably good, you know, I probably would be with me, I'd probably change my life, change my life, and, you know, that's happened historically, right, that they kind of, that's what our friend Benedict was kind of pointing out, right, that they had given up to some extent, right, to attempt to, yeah, and even some process a little bit like that, you know, they think that we've gone too far, you know, and using our, what? That's that predestination, again, that's it, that's the root of us, the reason why I was asking is, I was curious about how you, how do you deal with, how Muslim, because rational discourse is very difficult, not a Muslim, or, or do you see? Yeah, yeah, it's very difficult, very difficult, right, because they might, you'd rather chop your head off and talk with your head. Yeah, it might, it might be better to know that they're with Islam as, as they would be in that reason, that's the whole, that they could see the reason for something, which is kind of a work of grace, rather than just sticking, that's what Chester didn't point out about, it's not, it's not, say, art, that, you know, sometimes they say poets are mad, they say the poets aren't as mad as the magicians are, because they're Muslim, they're very logical, as far as they could, whatever, I see, not to say there's something wrong with logic, but that if you start with the wrong premise and you're consistent, you're going to end up insanity, that's the problem, and that's what you're hoping for, is that they're actually going to be more human than they're logical in terms of their religion. I was reading Romeo and Juliet, you know, and Mercutio, he talks about the imagination, it's really beautiful, what Shakespeare has to say about the imagination, kind of, being the fairies, right? She trickles across the lips of a woman, she dreams of kissing, you know, and he dreams across the fingers of the hog, he dreams of fees, you know, so, he really does, but, oh, it's a little foretaste of that great work, the hymn of Contagente, so, shall we take a little break, or shall we, yeah, a little break here? at article two here in the question 111 to the second one goes forward thus it seems that grace is unsuitably divided through operating and cooperating for grace is a certain what accident that means like it's a form right but an accident cannot act upon its what subject therefore no grace is said ought to be called what operating right okay now notice the reply here in ad primum to the first therefore it should be said that according as grace is a certain accidental quality right it does not act on the soul as an efficient cause effective but formality right huh that is just as whiteness is said to make white yeah okay so you know you might say what makes wood to be a sphere or a cube well it's a spherical shape that makes it to be a sphere and the other shape makes it to be a cube right but that's not making in the sense of the third kind of cause the maker yeah that's the other distinction of the wise right the four kinds of cause right four distinction of four but notice when they when they um distinguish the four causes they do sometimes they divide the first two against the last two saying the intrinsic causes and then the extrinsic causes right and sometimes they divide the matter and the maker against the form and the end right in another way right so you can you could divide four into two twos in two ways right and it's not violating rule two or three it's good you know it's like you have you know men and women and boys and girls you can divide men and women against boys and girls in one way right and then men and boys against women and girls in another way right and both reveal something right and you should do use both divisions right in that case but you're still dividing into two you know so it's interesting that we use the word make in that sense but the difference in the way the shape makes the chair and the carpenter makes the chair right because that's the third kind of cause of the carpenter but it's it's an effect of the formal cause right when you say that the shape of the chair or the shape of the sphere makes it to be that yeah yeah yeah but you could also say the carpenter made it to be a chair rather this chair rather than a stool okay moreover second objection moreover if grace operates something in us or does something in us it most of all makes justification justify the soul but this is not what yeah for augustine says upon that of john the works which i do you also shall do right huh and gustin says who created you without you i didn't help to create myself i don't think what no yeah you will not justify you without you right huh therefore no grace should be said to be simply what operating right because that you're not for yourself doing anything right the second it should be said that god does not justify us without us because through the motion of free will right we are justified right consenting to the justice of what god but that motion is not the cause of grace right right but in effect whence the whole operation pertains to what grace so even what we do comes of grace moreover third objection to cooperate with something seems to pertain to the lower agent right not to the chief or principal agent but grace more chiefly operates in us than free will according according to that of the epistle to the romans is not of the one willing for running right now that's the word querentis but of the misery taking misery taking mercy god right the merciful god does not belong to them right therefore grace should not be said what to be cooperating right it's it's god doing everything right well that's not going to be true to the third it should be said that to cooperate someone is said to something not only as the secondary agent to the principal agent but as the one what aiding to the end which is presupposed huh for man to grace operating is guided by god so that he might what wish to good right and they're presupposing already the end it follows that the grace what cooperates with us and in so far as it aids the will right that it might will be good so i say god help us to know and what love you yeah now the fourth one more of a division not to be given to opposites but to operate and to cooperate in our opposites for the same can both operate and cooperate therefore unsuitably is divided grace through operating and cooperating why this is this dummy over here okay to the fourth it should be said that that grace operating and cooperating is the same grace huh well then what's distinction but it's distinguished according to what diverse effects now and added the text i put on one line grace operating cooperating is the same grace and skip a line and then but it's distinguished according to diverse effects yes so you kind of see that no it's the same grace but against this is what augustine says in the book on grace and free will that what perfects what we begin to do right and operating because he that we might will he begins to operate and we willing he cooperates by perfecting it but the operations of god by which he moves us to the good pertain to grace therefore suitably grace is divided through operating and cooperating because augustine whoever he is he's really important character it seems to me right yeah what was it what said what pope was it that said the teaching of augustine on grace is the teaching of the church on grace well the pope said that it's a very strong statement you know yeah yeah forget who said it but it's really quite a compliment to the authority of great augustine i mean i guess it's a little bit like aristotle you need to understand them sometimes to understand them correctly i should say i answer it should be said this has been said above grace can be understood in two ways in one way as a divine aid by which he moves us to willing well and to acting well right in another way now more as a form right as an habitual gift given divinely to us right inside of us indeed to my guess okay now in both ways he says grace is said he said grace is conveniently divided through operating and cooperating right for the operation of some effect is not attributed to the what the movable but to the what In that effect, therefore, in which our mind is moved, and mind doesn't mean just mind, you know, it brings the will, right? As well as the understanding, right? In that effect in which our reason and will, right, is moved and is not moving, only what? God is moving. The operation then is attributed to what? God. And according to this, it is called operating grace. But in that effect in which our mind, that is our reason and our will, one or the other or both, is both moved and what? Moves, yeah? In both movet, that means he moves, right? And is moved. The operation is not only attributed to God, but also to the soul. And according to this, it is called cooperating grace. So that's an interesting distinction, huh? Now there is in us a two-fold act. The first is the inward one of the will. You can see how men, it's got to be understood there, right? Involve more the will here, making that in the reason. And as regards this act, huh? The will has itself as what? As moved. God as mover, huh? So sometimes I say, God, move me to love you, right? Above all the things and all the things for the sake of you, even myself. I have to stick in to really shove it to me, right? And especially, right, or pray certain, right, when the will begins to, what, will the good, which before it willed, what, the bad, huh? Then one is really moved by, what, God, huh? What's that woman caught in adultery, right, huh? Go and sin no more. But he's undoubtedly, what, moving her will, right, huh? To will, good, good, and willed before the bad. And therefore, according as God moves the human mind, meaning including the will, maybe especially the will, to this act, right, it is said to be grace, what, operating, right? So God moving our will to love the good, or to will the good rather than the bad, is grace acting upon our, what, or moving our will, right? Grace operating, right, huh? Okay. Another act is exterior, which is commanded by the will, right, as has been said above. And consequently, right, to this act, huh, operation is attributed to the will, right? Now, notice he's going to say, though, that God's going to help us not only in the exterior act, but in the interior act itself of the will, right? And because for this act, God aids us both inwardly, right, by confirming or strengthening, right, the will that it arrive at this act, right, and by giving an outward way the ability to operate him. And with respect to this act, then we speak of grace as, what, cooperating, right? Whence after the foregoing words, Augustine adds, that we, what, will will, operator, he operates, huh? He works, huh? When however we will, that we perfect him, right, he cooperates, huh? So, he really depended upon God as far as I can see. If, thus, therefore, if grace is taken for the gratuitous motion of God, by which he moves us to a meritorious good, right, suitably, grace is divided into what? Operating and cooperating. So, grace that initiates the movement of the will, right, is operating, it seems, right? And then the will in itself, continuing this, right, movement, huh? And then exterior act, right? Then the grace is, what, cooperating, right, huh? Because we're not just being moved now, but we are moving. Interesting. But now, if you take grace in the other sins for the habitual gift, right, huh? Thus, there is a two-fold, what, effect of grace, huh? Just as of any other, what, form, right? Of which the first is, what, to be, and the second is, what, operation. Just as the operation of heat is to make something hot and to make an exterior heating of other things, right? Codafoxia. Thus, therefore, habitual grace, insofar as it eels the soul, right, or justifies, I use those kind of synonyms here in this context, right? I'm going to confession to get my soul healed, huh? Okay. Or to make the soul, what? Exceptful to God, huh? It is said to be operating grace, right? They translate that working grace or what, operating grace or what? Operating grace. Insofar, though, as this habitual grace is the beginning resource of a meritorious, what, work, huh? Which also proceeds from free judgment. It is said to be cooperating, right, huh? So that's quite a body of the article, right? Because he distinguishes between the grace that is a, what, emotion, more, and the grace that is a form, and both of them can be divided into, what, two, huh? So you get four all together, right? It's always by dividing into two, right? He has two divisions into two here, right, huh? Or he has one division into two, and then he subdivides both of them, cooperating and operating, right, huh? Very subtle thing, huh? You can apply that to teaching. I mean, I think going back, though, to the more fundamental distinction, when Aristotle distinguishes the four kinds of cause, right, then he gets the third kind of cause. He distinguishes between the mover and the, what, maker, right? And the mover is a cause of, what, motion, right? And the maker is a cause of, what, form, right, huh? But then he's, what, you know, take the form of the ball, right, huh? Bowling ball, let's say, right? That form both is, what, it gives it a certain shape, right, huh? Okay, and the ball doesn't do anything more about that itself, right? But then when you roll it, it rolls better than if it were a cube, right? You know, because it's got, it cooperates with the rolling out of it. They drive that first, they do the last one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just play the way they want, so then they just, you've got to leave the cycle. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine, you know, if you were playing golf or something, you know, and you had a little cube, you know, to try to, I mean, it's frustrating enough, trying to get that thing, you know, like Church used to make fun of this, you know, with an instrument totally unacceptable, you know, for the operation, you know, because he probably was missing the putt, you know. But you can imagine trying to putt with a cube, right, rather than a ball. It would not cooperate with what you're trying to do. It would be 72 if you're balled by 172. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We tend to do something new. Sure. Yeah.