Prima Secundae
Lecture 299: Grace, Disposition, and Divine Causality in Justification

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you, God. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all that you have written. So we're up in the second article, I guess, in question 112. We've seen that God is the principal cause, right, of grace, and so on. To the second one goes forward thus. It seems that there is not required any preparation or disposition for grace on the side of what? Man, huh? You see, on the side of, right? You see, it's part of man. Because, as the apostle says in Romans chapter 4, to the one who does an award, right, is not what? Imputed to him according to grace, but according to what? Debt. He's owed. Yeah. But the preparation of man by free judgment, free will, is not except through some operation. Therefore, it takes away the notion of what? Grace. Grace, huh? Okay. So Thomas replies. That's what they apply. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the preparation of man for having grace is, what? Together with the pouring in of grace, huh? And such an operation is meritorious, but not of the grace which already is had, but of the glory which is not yet had, huh? Now, there is, however, another preparation for grace, imperfect, right, which sometimes comes before the gift of grace making one, what, acceptable, which nevertheless is from God moving us. But this does not suffice for merit, for a man not yet justified by grace, because a man is not yet justified by grace, because no merit can be except from grace, as will be said, what? Below. Thomas is answering that objection. Well, here he's talking about the preparation for, that is, preparing the way for what? Glory, right? You know, you've already received grace, right, huh? Okay. And then there's the idea, in some way, of a reward, right, huh? Not altogether gratuitous, huh? I'm noticing that check I was showing you from Jude there, right, huh? He took the word mercy in there, right? Even though you've put yourself up by faith, hope, and charity, huh? That's a text I was talking about, verse 20 in St. Jude's epistle, right? The canonical epistle. It's a short, very short epistle. It doesn't have a division of chapters, right? It's just 25 verses, so it's the 20th verse, I think it is, in the text. And he says, beloved, you know, building yourself up, right? And then he speaks of what? Faith first, right? Most holy faith. And then praying, right? Which is what hope leads you to do, right? And then he mentions charity, right? And then he speaks of what? The mercy of God, and then eternal life. So even there, there's some mercy, right, huh? Rather than what? Just a justice, right, huh? There's some element of reward, huh? For good acts done, but from grace, right? Okay. But before you had any grace, you couldn't, what? Merit that grace, right, huh? And you'd be moved by God, right, huh? Okay. Now, moreover, the second objection. The one who progresses, what? In sin, does not prepare himself for having grace. But to some, progressing in sin, there is given grace, huh? This is clear in the example of Paul, who obtained grace, right, huh? When he was breathing, what? Threats and blows, I guess, on the disciples of the Lord, as it said in Acts 9-11. Therefore, no preparation for grace is required on the part of, what? Man. That's a nice objection, huh? To the second, it should be said that since man is, what? Not able to prepare himself for grace, except by God going before and moving him to the, what? Good. It makes no difference whether subito, huh? So they're saying when they wanted John Paul II made a can I subito? With a subito or paulatum, bit by bit, someone arrives at a perfect, what? Preparation. For as it's said in Ecclesiasticus, right? I guess with the I, it's what Ecclesiasticus is now. I get mixed up. I used to know that thing, and I get kind of, that it is easy in the eyes of God, subito, right? To, what? Honestare, huh? To make honest the poor. What? This is subito, right? The quote from Ecclesiasticus, right? To honor or in this sense to make graceful. Yeah. For it happens sometimes that God moves man to some good, but not however, what? A perfect one, right? And such a preparation precedes grace. Maybe it's before in time, right? But sometimes, stop him at once, huh? Perfectly he moves him to good, right? And immediately, right? Suddenly, the man receives, what? Grace, huh? So at the same time, he's being disposed, right? And receiving grace, right? According to that of John, chapter 6. Everyone who hears from the, or listens to the Father, right? Hears from the Father, and learns, comes to me, right? As if they are, what? Together, right? And thus it happens to, thus it happens to what? Paul. Because suddenly, when he was in the, what? Progress of sin, he was perfectly moved, right? His core, by God, right, huh? Both in, what? Hearing, right? And learning, and coming, right? The three words that are in that text from John 6, right? How did it a potter, and did itch it, and he did it me, right? So, as we're simultaneous, right, huh? He was, what? Perfectly moved his heart by God in hearing, and learning, and coming. And therefore, suddenly, he, what? Yeah, as if they're almost, what? Hama, together, right, huh? Another case, when he moves the heart more, what? Slowly, right, huh? It doesn't, it's being disposed in some way, but in a more remote way, right? It's not such a way as to see grace, huh? Now, the third objection. Moreover, an agent of infinite power does not require a disposition to matter. Because it does not even require matter. just as appears in creation, to which the bestowal of grace is compared, whence it is said to be a new creature, huh? When you come out of confession, you are a nova creatura, a new creature, huh? Funny how they can have a bad word, creature, now. Creature. You hear that doing this kind of a... You hear that a way of, I don't know how it got started that way. But said to be a new creature in the epistle to the Galatians. But God alone, who is of infinite power, causes grace, it has been said. Therefore, no preparation is required on the part of man for what? That sounds pretty convincing to this dumb boy over here, right? That's my nickname, yeah? Now, Thomas simply says, to the third, therefore, it should be said that an agent of infinite power does not need matter or the disposition of matter as it were something presupposed from the action of another, what? Yeah, from the action of another cause. But nevertheless, it's necessary according to the condition of the thing, what? Cause. That it causes in that thing both the matter and the disposition that is suitable for that, what? Form. And likewise, in order that God might, what? Pour grace into the soul, no preparation is needed, which he himself does not make, right? That's not the same thing as to say that, what? There's no preparation there. There's no disposition, right? Now, they have a problem here sometimes, you know, is the fertilized egg, right? Does that have the rational soul in there? I don't think the church has ever said that definitively, right? And sometimes, you know, the pro-life people want to say that the soul is there to make even more obvious the evil of the act, right? But maybe it's not, what? The matter is not prepared, right? For it to be the subject of a rational soul, right? And when we define the soul as the first act of a natural body composed of tools, right? But these tools are not formed in some way. Maybe the body is not yet the proper subject to receive this, right? In which case, the disposition of the matter would take some time before it receives the form, right? I imagine in Christ, his soul was joined to his body. I imagine that the body was disposed, what? Yeah, yeah. Because don't they usually say, you know, that at the Annunciation, right? We had the Feast Annunciation recently. That when Mary said yes, right? Then he, the Word was made flesh, right? And that meant that his, what? His soul was created at that time, right? And therefore there was a body that was properly disposed to receive the human soul, right? But it might have been suddenly, right, that the matter was disposed, right? Not by another cause, you know? Maybe, maybe there's an analogy there, maybe there's an ad. Yeah, yeah. Because sometimes they argue from the Incarnation, you know, you know, to all of us, and you've got to be careful about that, I think. You know? Sometimes I like to argue it on, say, you know, how well, to accept the golden rule, right? Do unto others as you have to do unto you. Of course, they're going to have to say yes, unless they're going to look pretty bad. They say, now, would you have wanted to have been aborted, right? See? Of course, they're honestly going to have to say no, right? Well then, what are you aborting somebody else, right? And then you avoid the question of when the soul is in there, right? When it's actually a, what, human being, right? Okay, let's go to the body of the article now. I'm kind of cheating at the answers, you know. But let's encounter first here, huh? But against this is what is said in the prophet Amos 4, right? Prepare yourself for the, what, Lord your God Israel, right? And even more clearly in the first book of Kings, chapter seven, verse three. Prepare your hearts to the Lord, huh? Now Thomas says, I am sure it should be said that as has been said above, grace is said in two ways, huh? What distinction is he talking about here? Sometimes it is a habitual gift of God, right, huh? Sometimes it's the aid of God moving the soul to what, good. But when did I compare that to in Aristotle's distinction of the causes, huh? Well, the third kind of cause that Aristotle first speaks of as the mover, right, huh? But then he sticks in the, what, the maker, right, huh? So both the mover and the maker is the cause of act in another, right? But in the case of the mover, the act is what, motion, it's not a, what, form. In the case of the maker, the act that he gives to something is a form, right? So this is a little bit like this distinction that Thomas is giving here about, what, the habitual donum, right? The habitual gift, which is a form, right, of the soul, right, of the soul, and the, what, grace is more like a movement, right? Christ, right? God moving the soul, right? Nice distinction, right, huh? See how philosophy helps you, you know? Understand that, huh? So he says, grace is said in two ways, sometimes a habitual gift of God, and that's like a form, right? Sometimes the aid of God moving the soul to the good, right? Now, in the first way of taking grace, that's an habitual gift, there is presupposed, huh, pre-required for grace, some, what, preparation of the grace, huh? For the general reason that no form can be except in a matter, what? Disposed for it, huh? That's why I say it's like the maker, right? But if we speak of grace according as it signifies, the aid of God moving us to the good, right? Thus no preparation is required on the side of man, as it were going before, what? The divine, what? Aid, huh? He can move us without first, what? Disposing us so we can be moved by him, okay? Because moving doesn't require that, what? Disposition, right? So that's a very important distinction here, right? But rather, whatever preparation in man there must be is from the aid of God moving the soul to the good, right? That's kind of an objection that he had from Peter, I mean to St. Paul, right? And according to this, the good motion of our free will, right? It seems funny to say our free judgment, by which someone is prepared for receiving the gift of grace, right? Is an act of the free will moved by what? God, huh? And as regards this, man is said to prepare himself, according to that of Proverbs, chapter 16, verse 1. It belongs to man to prepare his soul, right, huh? But it's as a result of the soul being moved by God, huh? And it is chiefly from by God moving free will. And according to this, it is said, right, from God the will of man to be prepared, right? As it's said in Proverbs, chapter 8, huh? And from the Lord the steps of man, I guess, to be, what, directed, huh? Okay. So what's the answer to this then, huh? If we're talking about grace in the sense of a form, an habitual gift, right, there must be disposition in the soul, right? where it's a suitable subject for that gift, huh? But if it's a, what? That's the habit. But if it's the, what? Moving, then the moving brings with it the disposition, right? It's not getting a disposition already there before God can move you. God can move you whenever he wants to move you, right? And then you have a certain, what? Disposition, right? It's not really like getting a disposition to be moved by God. That's it, huh? Okay, Thomas, we'll let you get away with that, huh? I don't see any other way out of it, huh? Okay. So let's go to Article 3 now. That necessarily grace is given to the one preparing himself for race or doing what they see in himself, right? That's what I'm going to say here. Sometimes we hear that said, yeah, that God gives grace to those who do what's in their own. Now he seems to be saying the opposite, right? God helps those who help themselves. Yeah, yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Yeah. If you hold me responsible for the evil I've done, then you ought to hold me responsible, not yourself, God, for the good I've done, right? Well, God can't be the, per se, beginning of something bad, can't he? Even the right again is the beginning, right? No good comes except from God, it's goodness itself, huh? It's for me. If I do that, it's for me. It's just all about me, apparently. Wow. So that's apparently the way the argument is going, right? He's attacking, right? Saying, well, responsible for their not receiving grace because of your closed heart or whatever it is, your stony heart. Because Christ, actually, the script is being kind of angry with the, because the hardness of their hearts, right? So if you're responsible for the hardness of your heart, then you're responsible for the softness of your heart. Yeah. It's harder for people to see, though, right? See, it's a probable argument, right? I mean, there's some probability of people, anyway. Moreover, good is communicative um sui, huh? Famous thing that Dionysius so much emphasized. This is clear through Dionysius, huh, in the fourth chapter of Divine Names. Thomas goes back to that, which argues that God is good, right? That's one way you argue that God is good. He's commutative of the good. He must be good, huh? But the good of grace is better than the good of what? Nature, okay? Since, therefore, a natural form of necessity arrives when the matter is disposed, right? So you heat up the, what? Paper too much is going to burst into flame, right? It's just natural. It seems, therefore, much more will be grace of necessity be given to the one preparing himself to grace. Thomas doesn't argue here by saying that grace is, you know, something above nature, right? It seems to argue as if you don't, he's not at the premise, huh? To the third, it should be said that even in natural things, the disposition of matter does not have necessity, what? Form. Unless through the, what? Power of the agent, who, what? Yeah. So the, the cause that disposes the matter is not the one that gives the form, right, huh? In 1899, maybe, that the agent might, in some cases at least, always act, right, huh? The nearest child is talking about the difference between a natural power and a rational power, right, huh? The rational power can act or not act when the thing is present, right, huh? If you bring the paper to the fire, you know, the fire's going to automatically print up the paper, right? That's the biggest power. Yeah. Give me the old tax ones, right? Seven years. The lawyer says, well, statute of limitations, seven years. So some people, every time they've felt their taxes, then they take to go back seven years and go out the old things that are just taking up room now. No, he's not denying that it's a necessity, but he says, except through the power, right? It is not necessarily, right? He says, except through the, what? Part of the agent, right? He's not denying that the agent might have to act necessarily, right? When Aristotle says that the natural agent there is determined to one, right? And in the presence of its object, it necessarily does this, right? If you put the butter in the icebox, it's going to get chilled, right? Harden up. And you can't not do that, right? Boy, the irrational power doesn't have to do that, right? The doctor doesn't have to cure me. Maybe he can't, but maybe he could. He doesn't have enough power. Yeah, yeah. Teach doesn't necessarily teach. He doesn't have enough power to cure the head. Get a bigger hammer. But against this is that man is compared to God as clay to the, what? The potter, yeah. According to that of Jeremiah 18, verse 6, has clay, I guess, in the hand of the potter. So you in my hand, right, huh? But the clay does not, in necessity, receive a form from the potter, no matter how much it is prepared. That glandular doesn't have to chip the ice the way, right? I mean the marble way. Therefore, neither does man receive a necessity, grace from God, no matter how much he prepares himself, huh? Well, let's see what the master says. I want to do more clarification on this matter here. The answer should be said, this has been said above. The preparation for the grace of man from God, huh? It's from God as from one, what? Moving the soul, right, huh? And it's from free will as from the, what? Moved, huh? Okay. Therefore, the preparation can be considered in two ways, huh? In one way, according as it is from, what? Free will. Well, and according to this, it has no necessity for the, what? Retaining of grace. Because the gift of grace exceeds any preparation of the, what? Human power, right? In another way, it can be considered according as it is from God moving. And then it has a necessity to that to which, what? It is ordered by God, huh? Not one of, what? But infallibility, right? Unfailingness, huh? Because the intention of God is not able to, what? Fail. According as Augustine says in the book on the predestination of saints, huh? That to the benefits of God, most certainly, certissime, huh? Are liberated, freed, whoever are freed, huh? Whence, if from the intention of God moving, it is that the man whose heart is moved will achieve grace, infallibly he will, what? Achieve it, huh? According to that of John chapter 6, verse 45. Everyone who hears the Father and learns, huh? Interesting. That's where he gets that for that. Yeah. He comes to me, right? He hears, he learns. Yeah. So it's again from God moving, right? Than from my being moved, huh? It's not by my being moved by God that I, what, receive grace? It's by God's moving me. It's by my being moved? Or it's by my free will? And so far it's just by my free will? That'll help. Well. Now I've got the great question here for democracy on the next article here. To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that grace is not greater in one than in, what, another, huh? For grace is caused in us from the divine love, huh? But in wisdom, chapter 6, verse 8, it is said, the, what, little one, I guess, and the great one, right? He made them right. And equality, equally, is his care, right? About all. Therefore, all equally receive grace from him. That's right from Sapientia 6. Well, it would be that they receive it from him, but they don't necessarily receive the same. Let's look through Plyer. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the divine care, I guess, huh, do they translate correct by care, can be considered in two ways, huh? Seldom affirm, no, never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish, huh? It's annoying me when he told me that. He's doing a teacher that taught him that, but there's some truth. There's some truth to what he's saying, you know, huh? Talking about distinction there. I was reading Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles. He's talking about all these objections to God knowing things in particular, right? And the one objection is to his knowing bad things, right? We'll go into all of it, but does God know the bad, right? And Thomas argues from God knowing things distinctly, right? And not just in general. So, now how does he argue from that, that God knows badness? I said, saying to my student there on Tuesday, I'm going to get those monks there on Thursday, see? He'll say... You're plod. Yeah, yeah. He'll say, how can you reason from Shakespeare's definition, right? Of reason, to reason being able to know what is bad, right? Yeah. That's one way he argues, yeah. But in this case, he argues for distinction, right? So, if reason is able to look before and after, reason can look for distinctions, right? And he argues for God, God knows things in particular, he must be able to distinguish between a dog and a cat, let's say, right? But then he says, what things are distinct? Well, things are distinct when one is not the other. So, the idea of distinction is what? Negation. Now, what is the bad? Well, it's... Negation of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Have you know, right? So, that's why reason is able to know the bad, right? Because it knows what? Distinction, right? With the definition of reason, you have to look before and after to understand it, right? And so, including the ability to look before and after is the ability to look for distinction, just as an ability for a large discourse is included, understood the ability for a small discourse, right? So, if you can know distinction, you can know that this is not that, and therefore you know negation. And the bad is really a kind of negation. It's really the lack, right? It's an unbeing of something that you could have, that you haven't should have, right? Yeah. That's what the argument is. You've got no, you know, one opposite from the other, right? Yeah. That's... That's what the argument is. That's directly the definition of reason. So I said, I'll get those guys. It's beautiful about Thomas though, what he's arguing, he helps you to understand the things, right? He realizes. Another argument he gives for God knowing the bad is that the good of the reason is the truth, right? What's true that the bad is bad just as if the good is good, right? And so God is perfect, right? So you must have all truth, therefore you must know the bad too. It's beautiful the way he argues, you know. It's just a favorite book, you know. I mean after the Bible, officer. Only had two copies of that. He put out a nice edition, you know, of the Tsumgar Gentiles after the United edition that came out of it, you know, and it's got a bigger print than the usual Mariette, you know. So it's nice. Different from the Leland edition? No, no, but I mean, this comes out in a smaller print, you know. But when they did it, they put it on a little bigger print. I don't know why, but... So he asked, what's your favorite rookie of the town? And I say, Tsumgar Gentiles. And he said, why? Because of the bigger print, I said. They don't understand, I don't mean that, you know. But they... You might as well tell me that. I call her a cover. Yeah, yeah. I told them to Michael Grohl they're out. You see, you know. So, to the first effort should be said, the divine care can be considered in two ways. In one way, as regards the divine, what? Act, huh? Which is simple and uniform. And according to this, equally as itself is care about all things. Because by one act, and a simple act, right, huh? He dispenses greater things and what? Besser things. Another way, it can be considered on the side of those things which what? Yeah. And according to this, there is found inequality. Insofar as God, by his care, to some gives greater, right? And to some, he gives gifts that are what? Less, huh? Well, it's like the idea that God loves, let's say, Thomas Aquinas more than me. At least take this back, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a pretty personal question. Well, if you make a distinction like Thomas speaking here, right? You can say, if you're talking about the love itself, does he have a more intense love for Thomas Aquinas than for me? See? Well, if he did, he'd really have two loves, right? Like, you know, can the temperature be, you know, 90 and 30, you know? So, in that sense, he loves me as intensely as he loves. Yeah, yeah. But if you talk about the mind he gave Thomas, the mind he gave me, well, he kind of short-changed me, compared to Thomas, right? And Thomas' memory, I think, is a hell of a lot better mind, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We'll go on to all my deficiencies. But let's make the same kind of distinction that Thomas is making here, right? That's what he understands. It's God's care. He's equally careful of the mouse as the cat. He gives the cat better weapons, right? Yeah. So that's the way he replies to that text from the six chapters of the book of Wisdom. So God, by grace, he unites me to as great a thing as he unites time. Thomas, right? We're going to say, Thomas, God's supposed to appear to Thomas, right? To Christ, and said, oh, you have, you know? Thomas is just you. Okay, so, that's the greatest thing you could give Thomas is himself, right? He's going to give the greatest thing he could give to me, too, himself. I hope he is, anyway. So, why don't I just as well off as Thomas? You'll be a foe if I need you. Well, it's going to be the solution for the text, you know? It's a little hard to see it right now, right, huh? Okay? So if I listen to the best music, which is Mozart, and you listen to the best music, one of us might have a better, what? Ear, right? Might hear him better, right? We're both hearing the best. Nothing better than this. They're not hearing it as well. Yeah. The second should be said that that argument proceeds according to the first way, of the magnitude of grace. Well, let's see if that isn't by the article. Come back to this, huh? For it's not possible, right, for one grace to be, what? Greater, in this sense, that it orders us to a, what? Greater good, huh? Like he's ordered to God and ordered to the seraphim or something. Some people thought that though, right? That the, uh, our end would be to know some, what, separated substance, right? But not necessarily God himself, yeah. If you find that, yeah. But from this that it more or less orders us to the same good, partaking the same good, more or less, right? For there can be a diversity of intensity and omission according to the partaking of the subject, both in grace itself and in the final, what? Glory, right? So if we both had a chance to see the most beautiful woman in the world, one of us has got poor eyesight, he's not going to enjoy the sight as much as the guy who's got the better eyesight. With wine or something like that, you know, some man's got a more sensitive taste, you know. They can tell what the wine is right away. You can't fool them very much, you know. They have a big wine taste down there in Cambridge, you heard about that one, and they're tasting, you know, carboné sauvignon, you know. And finally they have the, you know, the mystery wine of the night, you know, that I think is covered up and so on. They're talking about this thing. It was revealed, you know, it wasn't a carboné sauvignon at all. It was a dry blueberry. If you were talking about this, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there is a dry blueberry, it's pretty good, you know, huh? But I mean, but... We had some, was that blueberry? Somebody gave us some blueberry rice that's local here. Well, I didn't taste any of them too. It does have a little taste, a little bit like that. So, you know, for all these pseudo, you know. Yeah. Actually, yes. Well, it's just like, it's like Galap went through. Yeah. They had, I guess, contempt after that. Yeah, yeah. And he went and he described it in some historic battle. And he gave a whole lecture. Yeah. This battle in the history of this battle. Yeah. Oh, they felt wonderfully strange. Any questions? Any questions? No, no, no. You sure? No questions at all? None. You fools! I make a whole thing up! I was reading Mondavi, you know, talking about his early history, you know. He grew up in an Italian family and he made wine with his father, you know, kind of these things. And then finally he went to Stanford, you know, a great university, right? And he says in the weekend, you know, they'd be going out to have, you know, get drunk, you know, as they do in college. And everybody, they're drinking either beer or bourbon or scotch and what's that? that. Luke is drinking wine," he says, you know. And of course his guy is getting horrible headaches and so on and so on. And I thought Stanford was really a great place, he thought, and these guys don't even know how to drink. I know I taught in California there and I had students who had grown up drinking wine with the family, you know, and they had a reasonable attitude towards drinking, you know, just going to get drunk, you know. So what are you going to do? That's not the way to enjoy it. Okay. Third objection. Grace is the what? Soul. The life of the soul, right? But to live is not said according to more and less, right? Therefore neither grace. Well, it says, to the third it should be said that the natural life pertains to the what? Substance of man. And therefore it does not receive more and less. But man partakes of the what? Life of grace as accidentality, right? I mean as opposed to substance, not as opposed to per se. And therefore man is able to have it more and less. It reminds me of years ago, you know, I was teaching a night course at Assumption there and I kept talking about, you know, all men created equal. And I said, well, I mean, some men are created, you know, more intelligent than other men and of course they admit that. Some men are, you know, more strong than other men, you know. And this guy in the army there who was, you know, the guy challenged him to a fight and he beat him up, you know. And then this guy goes out and he exercises, you know, for six months and he challenges him again and he beats him up again. So he's just, you know, he wasn't doing anything. And some are more healthy than others, right? My friend Jim, you know, is a Golden Gloves boxer, you know, he can beat the hell out of me. But he said, I'm strong but not healthy, right? So some of my, he was stronger than me, right? Put the gloves on me one night. He gave me a lesson. But I was more healthy than Jim, you know, you see. They're all girls equally beautiful, you know. You go to the mixer, you know, and some girls, everybody wants to dance with them. Other girls are being kind of sitting there, you know, and just kind of, I feel kind of sorry, you know. My friend Jim was, he was a handsome guy and he was strong and best conversationist I ever knew in college, you know. And the girls would throw themselves at him but he'd go and ask a very plain-looking girl. And they answered out, he said to me, I said, give her a thrill, you know. But it seems like, you know. So I said, what do you mean there, is there any truth to saying we're all created equal? Well, the only way they can say they're all equal is that we're all equally men, right? One is not more a man than the other, right? One dog is not more a dog than another dog. One man is not more a man than the other man. So it's that substantial thing, right? But in terms of the accidents like health and beauty and strength and knowledge and so on, I mean mind and so on, we're not what? Equal, right? So grace is, the argument here is from the substance of man, right? That's the only one which men are born equal, right? Well, that's so we can defend what this is and it comes from the decoration. Now, against all this nonsense is what is said in the epistle to the Ephesians. To each one is given grace according to the measure of the giving of what? Christ, huh? So he measures it out, right? He measures it out more to some than to what others, huh? So my old teacher, you know, Kisirk, you know, he used to have, you know, Trumpian ways maybe to sing things, you know. He used to say, a poet is a man with his brains kicked out, he says. And the guy who was the head of the English department at that time was interesting. And he says, that's the first definition of poet, I agree with what he said. But another thing he used to say, I moved from saying, he said, God hates equality, he said. That's saying what it says here to Ephesians, right? It's true, right? But now we've got to find out why does God hate equality, right, huh? Or why does he love inequality, right? He celebrates, I mean, after all there's problems, but not all the same. The answer should be said, this has been said above, huh? A habit is able to have a two-fold, what? Magnitude, right? A two-fold size, right, huh? Spiritual magnitude, huh? I told you how I was using that term, magnitude there, right? Explain the order there in the Summa Congentilis, huh? Okay. One on the part of the end or the object, right, huh? According, as it is said, that one virtue is more noble, insofar as it's ordered to a greater, what? Good. Good, right? And another on the side of the subject, right? That more or less partakes the, what? Habit that inherits in it, right? That exists in it. Now, according to the first magnitude, huh? The grace that makes us, what? Acceptable to God, cannot be more or less, huh? Why? Because in this object, grace, according to its very definition, right, its very nature, joins man to the, what? Highest good, which is God, right? But on the side of the subject, the grace can receive, right, more or less, insofar as one is more perfectly enlightened by the light of grace than, what? Another, right? Now, the reason for this diversity, huh, is somewhat on the side of the, what, person preparing himself for grace, huh? Because the man who more prepares himself for grace, receives a, what, fuller grace, huh? I see this talking about, you know, we're talking about the Eucharist, you know, and someone saying, you know, why do the saints get more out of their Eucharist than we, we, you know, some schools, yeah. Yeah. They prepare themselves more for the, to receive it, right? But he says, on this side, one cannot take, nevertheless, the first reason of this, what? Diversity, right? Because the preparation for grace is not in man except insofar as his free will is prepared by, what, God. Whence the first clause on the prima causa, Thomas looking for the order of what? Cause, yeah, yeah. Whence the first clause of this diversity should be taken on the side of God himself, who in diverse ways, right, dispenses the gifts of his grace. Why? In order that from these diverse, what, grades, the beauty and perfection of the church might, what, arise. Just as also he, what, instituted diverse grades of things that the universe might be, what, perfect, huh? Yeah. Whence the apostle in the epistle to the Ephesians, huh? In chapter four, after he had said, to each one is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ. That's the thing that was quoted in the Siddhartha. Having enumerated the diverse graces adds to the consummation of the saints in the building up of the body of what? Christ, huh? So sometimes they compare it to the human body, right? Where the eye might have a better, what, than the ear, right, huh? You know? Sometimes, you know, you look at somebody's eyes and they're really interesting eyes, right, huh? You know? They don't look in the ear. The ear is most interesting, you know? And the different parts of the body, right, huh? Some have more excellence than the others, right? And if the body was all the same, with just a whole bunch of eyes, it would be horrible to look at, right, huh? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.