Prima Secundae
Lecture 306: Charity as the Principal Source of Merit

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Okay, we can go on to Article 4 now. To the fourth one goes forward thus. It seems that grace is not the, what, beginning or the source of merit chiefly through charity than through the other virtues, right? The charity has some preeminence, right? That's an interesting question, right? See, for reward is owed to work. According to that of Matthew chapter 20, verse 8, call the workers and render them their reward, huh? See, your wages, huh? These are rewards. But each virtue, or any virtue, I guess, great virtue, anyone, is a beginning of some work. Therefore, for virtue is a habit that does something, right? As has been that above. Therefore, each virtue is equally a beginning of what? Yeah. Okay? Now, what does Thomas reply here? To the first, therefore, it should be said that charity, insofar as it has a last end for an object. You see, charity is in the, what, will. The object of the will is the good, right? And the end is chiefly the good. So charity, insofar as it has a last end for its object, it moves all the other virtues to, it's like the general, right? You know, Carthus says in war, there's no substitute for victory, right? So he's aiming at victory, right? He commands everybody else, right? And just aiming at getting the guy to come over the hill, you know, giving him his bullet, right? It's his great quills. It's great quills. He says, I'm the enemy of the victory of the army, right? God, I've mercy on him. Yeah, that's good. That's the ministry, the Protestant ministry there in the Revolutionary War of Independence. You know, he says, I've got to have mercy on your soul because I have none in your body. I don't know if it's kind of a famous story. I don't know if it's so early, but... Praise the Lord, damn it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, everyone told me he always prayed for his enemies before he shot them, you know? John Clark prayed for the shooting of fighting. Yeah, yeah. This gentleman asked me that question. One had marines with a sword. The other said, pray the rosary for peace. Another multi-guest told me he had to work after being brave each time he went into things. So charity, insofar as it has the last infant object, it moves the other, what? Yeah. Aristotle talks about this in the beginning of Nicomache and Ethics, right, huh? He's talking about how the art that moves at one to the last end, right, commands the other arts, huh? So the wise man, right, commands others, right, because he's aiming at the last end, too. Yeah, into the universe. Always the habit to which pertains the end commands the habits to which pertain those things which are towards the end, as is clear from the things. Yeah. So let's take an example, you know, the guy who's peeling potatoes there, right, huh? Okay. And then the master chef comes in and says, I'm going to make the best French fries you ever saw, you know. So I command him, and I tell him what shape or how big, you know, want the potato things to be, you know, because you don't want them to be. You know, they make them too thick in most restaurants, and they're just not, you know, the crispness they should, it's just terrible what they do to it, you know. They ask some famous chef, you know, who makes the best French fries? He said, McDonald's. It's not in the restaurants. I'm very rarely get good French fry in a restaurant, you know, but McDonald's ones are pretty good sometimes. That was the place where you can get on. They used to make it very thin, and they'd be like long strips, and they were like curled. Yeah, where was I? I went to my dinner there. Was it the Tribune dinner, I think, yeah, for the Cyprian, you know? I went to the Tribune dinner. It's actually a fundraiser, you know. But I was up at the Cyprian golf course there last Saturday. And Tuesday went to the other dinner, and I said, it's just terrible to do this. I'm going to. So always the habit to which pertains the end commands the habits to which pertains towards the end, right? Okay. That's why wisdom commands the end of the lower sciences, because it aims at the end. I'd say have fun with that, I'd say, you know. But doesn't the logician, you know, teach all the other scientists how to proceed, right? So it isn't logic wisdom, then. I know, but I mean, if he's directing all the others, he must be the wise man, right? The logician. But how can you say, you know? I mean, Thomas himself, when he says that logic considers the common road, the common way of proceeding, right? The common way of going forward in reasoned-out knowledge, right? So then every other reasoned-out knowledge is going to have to be directed by the logician, right? Because he considers the way of going forward in reasoned-out knowledge in general. No, no, but I mean, if he's considering the way of going forward in all reasoned-out knowledge, then he has to direct everybody else as to how to go forward, right? So then he must be the wise man because he's directing everybody else. This is by objection, right? Now, how would you answer that, right? Well, no, you can't argue from that, no, no. But I say, the logician tells you how to syllogize, right? And how to define, right? And every science goes forward. You know, Thomas sometimes has an abbreviated way of saying what the scientific road is, huh? You know, defining, dividing, demonstrating. You know, three Ds, you know? Three things. Defining, dividing, demonstrating. But it's the logician who teaches you how to define, divide, and demonstrate. Therefore, he directs everybody else. The one who directs everybody else is the wise man, ergo. There's a text in the second book of wisdom there where Aristotle says that you have to know the road to follow, right, before you can really acquire some reasoned-out knowledge. And that the way of going forward in geometry and the way of going forward in natural science is not the same, right? In ethics and so on. So at the beginning of each reasoned-out knowledge, you have to be taught the way of going forward in this reasoned-out knowledge. And Thomas has taught us in the order there, right? Okay? Because, to go back to the Greek word there that Aristotle uses a lot, he'll call philosophy a methodos, right? Which means meta over, odos, over a road. Philosophy is a methodos. It's knowledge over a road. Knowledge that follows a road, right? So it makes sense to say you've got to know the road to follow, right, before you can go down that road, right? When you go down that road to its end and stop, then you have episteme, right, which comes to the Greek word for stopping, right? But I translate episteme by a phrase, you know, reasoned-out knowledge, right? When the mind comes to a halt, it's fine, you reasoned it out, huh? Well, at that point in his commentary, Thomas says, just as at the beginning, At the beginning of each reasoned out knowledge, you have to learn the road that is private to that reasoned out knowledge before you can acquire that reasoned out knowledge. So before all the sciences, you should learn logic, because that teaches the common road, the common way of going forward reasoned out knowledge, right? So the logic professor for the volume quoted this text, you know, kind of said, we're going to do now the logic course, right? And so, once you say it back, then logic is just going to be directing everybody else, right? Well, the one who directs everybody else must be, what, wiser than them, right? Therefore, that's the answer. Well, there's three roads. You're leaving out one of the roads, right? You're leaving out in your discussion here the, what, natural road of human knowledge, right? Yeah. And that's the one that the wise men, huh? And Aristotle touches upon that at the beginning of the commentary in the physics, right, huh? The natural road is to go from what is more known to us to what is more known by nature, right? It's the wise man who sees this, right, huh? It depends on the natural road, huh? And so he directs everybody else, even in terms of the road, right? And my doctoral thesis, you know, had three parts, and I was comparing Aristotle and Descartes, right? And about the private road, and then about the, what, common road of reason of knowledge, and then the natural road, right? And knocking Descartes down, being faced with reading Descartes for the rest of my life. So, well, there's got to be an answer to these questions, right, huh? But logic, in some ways, is, what, close to wisdom, right? Because of its universality in terms of its being, what, immaterial, right? I told you when I first met Monsignor Dion, right, he'd come down to the Twin Cities there, St. Paul, Minneapolis there, and he'd pay his way down to see what's on his mind, you know, and so on. And he was staying over at the St. Paul Seminary there, and the Cerseric range may go over to see him, right? And Dion was talking about how logic prepared the way for wisdom, right? Of course, Cerseric said, you know, that's not true. It's natural philosophy. Of course, he was making the distinction that Dion was making, right? In terms of knowing causes of natural philosophy is preeminent before wisdom, right? And, in fact, you reason to the unmoved mover that there is a god, right? And you move, you know, to the immortality of the soul and so on. So you're prepared for, you know, the existence of immaterial things. In that sense, it proceeds, right? But in terms of what? Resolving to the understanding, right, and considering immaterial things, logic disposes you more for what? Wisdom than natural philosophy, right? So in a different way, right? And he, you see, well, the minute he made the distinction, I could see, you know, his superiority to Cerseric, you know. Cerseric, when he introduced me to De Connig, De Connig would come down and have a lecture tour, you know, in the Twin City areas there. And so he had about five, six questions that Cerseric couldn't answer. He said, well, that's De Connig comes down. De Connig gets of all of this. You can see his superiority, you know. But wonderful way Cerseric did that, right? He introduced me to the two greatest teachers there at Laval before I ever got up there, you know. Marvelous, marvelous man. He says, compared to Aristotle, Cerseric said, I've got the brain of an Angkor. But there's no sense of respect that Thomas has when he's showing that Avera was, you know, not understanding the text of Aristotle when he read Aristotle, and he bang, bang, bang. So I give him the text of Aristotle. He has about 15, 20 hours. He's mistaken. He said, respect for Aristotle. So you see the basic reason now, maybe, in that reply to the first objection, right? Right, huh? Why charity might be, what? More important, right? Than any other virtue. But because it moves all the other ones to their, what? To the end, right? Always the habit, huh? To which pertains the end. Commands the habits pertain to those things, to the end. More of the Apostles says in the second objection here now, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 8. Each one receives his own reward according to his own, what? Labor, huh? That's a guy who said, I can, labor fascinates me. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. He says, labor fascinates me. 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I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. I can watch other people laboring all day long. And then he realized how superficial he was, right? He had his understanding of the text, right? And then Mrs. Murray Teng, you know, exclude him until you're from the inner circle. So it's kind of funny, the whole story. So some work can be laborious and difficult in two ways. In one way, from the magnitude of the, what, work. And thus the magnitude of the labor pertains to the growth of merit. And thus charity does not diminish, what, labor, right? Rather, it makes one, what, a greedy, one attack great works, right? It does great things if it is, if it exists, right? As Gregory says in a synonym, I've seen him quote that text a lot, right? And it's beautiful in Thomas at the beginning, the Sumer Kahn Gentiles, you know, talks about what a great thing it is. And then he's going to attempt it, you know. Even though it's beyond my powers, he says. But, you know. But in another way, something can be difficult from the defect of the one, what? Yeah. Insofar as each thing is laborious and difficult, that is not, it does not do with a prompt, what, will. No, no, I am going to do that. I'm going to take the phrase out of the reality. Yeah. And such labor diminishes merit. And it's taken away by, what, charity, right? Okay, that's a good time to sound. That Dominican right there, I told you that. The guy who studied with Dominicans, his teacher said, you know, never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish. Is that true? Or would you say that you should affirm or deny after you have distinguished in many cases, you know? It's not that you shouldn't eventually affirm or deny, but you have to distinguish maybe first before you affirm or deny. So in these texts here, which is the two of them you just read, you know, there's a distinction and then you affirm one thing and maybe deny something else, right? You say in some ways, this is not worthy of eternal life, you're saying last article, right? And in this way, it's a seed of that, right? And it's a seed that's equal to, in virtute, right? But not in act. Yeah, because if you don't see the distinction, you're affirm or deny, one and the other is all the same. But when you distinct them, maybe something needs to be a part of it. Now somebody asked me, you know, does the logician direct all the sciences or does the wise man? Well, I think I better distinguish, right? Because in some way, the logician directs all the sciences, right? But in another and a higher way, the wise man directs all the sciences, right? You know, Aristotle at the beginning of the Nicomagnetics, that thing arises because he talks about what happiness is, right? I mean, happiness is the end of life, right? And so on. And then, to what science does it belong, you see? What belongs to science that directs all the other ones, right? Or directs us and our life? And that seems to be the political knowledge, right? And so the government, in a sense, directs the city, right? And therefore, the knowledge of happiness is kind of the, what, elements of political philosophy, right? It shows you how far our politicians are from having even the knowledge they should have, right? Then you've got to make some distinctions, right? Because does the political philosopher or the political statesman direct the wise man? No, no. But it's the way in which he directs the city, right, to the common good, right? And it belongs, really, to the government to decide whether we should go to war, right? And that's a, you know, great decision, a very important decision, right, to go to war or not, right? But you have to see the distinction, right, between the way the wise man would direct us, right? With political knowledge he would direct, right? What's that famous king of England there? What's his name? Newt? No, no. Alfred, yeah. Alfred, yeah. He's a great man, yeah. He's making sure that text of Wapis is getting known, you know, and so on. He's quite a man. We're down to the third act, I mean, the third objection. In article, what, four here? Okay. More of that virtue would seem chiefly to be the beginning of what? The source of meriting, whose act is most meritorious. But that would seem to be most meritorious, the act of faith and patience or, what, fortitude, huh? As is clear in the martyrs, right, huh? So we save their bones, we put them in the church, right, huh? Well, does the church have a, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why they kind of kiss the altar and so on. Okay. That makes sense, right? Just as it's clear in the martyrs who fought, right, for the faith patiently, huh? And strongly, fortitude, who squared more to him, huh? To the point of death, huh? And Christ died on the cross, too, right? Therefore, other virtues, huh? Therefore, other virtues are more principally the merit or the source of meriting than charity, right? To third, it should be said. Now, martyr means, what, witness, right? That's the way he talks about, what, faith, right, huh? To third, it should be said that the act of faith is not meritorious except the faith that acts through, what, love, what they call formed faith, right, huh? Well, this has come up in the treatise on faith in the secundae secundae, right? Okay, but you've heard this before. Likewise, the act of patience and fortitude is not moritorious unless someone acts from, what, charity. And sure enough, he's got the root. I was thinking he was going to use that one. I knew he was going to use that one. I heard it, too, you know. But he just, it's the nail on the head, doesn't he? He beats you, too. According to that of 1 Corinthians, if I hand over my body, it might be, what, burnt, huh? But I do not have charity, it profits me nothing, right? It goes through a whole bunch of things that don't profit you nothing, right? Without charity, huh? So, magnificent. Thomas must have had a good memory, though, you know, for these texts. But against this is what the Lord says in John chapter 14, verse 21. It's a pretty important work, this John. You know, this must be the, what, gospel of John, huh? If someone loves me, you'll be loved by my Father, and I will, what, love him, and then I will make manifest, huh, myself to him, huh? And my teacher, I mean, Kusurik, you know, would say the manifest comes from the hand, so I, I'm stealing the money, right? I've caught my hand to the thing. I'm a manifest, what? Thief. Thief. I don't know if that's a proper interpretation of the word, or not. That's what he explained it, the word manifest. Interesting. So these guys are very concrete. Like Aristotle, when he's talking about the difference between mathematics and natural philosophy, and he talks about the difference in the way that they define, right? And the difference between the curved line and the nose, right? The stubbed nose that apparently Socrates had, right, huh? But it's right, right there, you know, when he's lecturing, you know? So sometimes myself, when I talk about this, this point about the name is sometimes kept by one of the things in which it is said, and a new name is given to the other one. Like, you know, we speak of five fingers, you know? And then, yeah, four fingers and a thumb, right? You know, that's right, right in your face, you know? And that's good, though. You know, Thomas is... Thomas is so concrete that way, you know, and he's explaining the sacraments, of course. I studied the Dianima and so on, and I know about the plant soul, right? And the plant has the fundamental kind of life, right? Well, Aristotle takes up the powers of the plant soul, right? He has the power of, what, nourishing itself, right? The power of growing, and the power of, what, reproducing itself, right? And so he compares, you know, these three sacraments, the baptism, right? And the Eucharist and confirmation to those three things, right? That's very, what, concrete, isn't it, huh? You know, but it's because these things are, what? There's a likeness there of the sensible thing to the thing it's doing, right, huh? You see? So, like, is the Eucharist, huh? Okay, you're receiving, you're consuming the bread, right, huh? Drinking the wine, right? You're drinking the blood, but it's your, what? Yeah, but in a different way than the body is nourished, right, huh? You're not primarily nourishing your body there by drinking wine and eating the bread, right? But it's in the likeness of that, right, huh? You know, bodily eating, right? There's going on a, what, spiritual eating, right, huh? It's very concrete, huh? You know, I was kind of struck, you know, how in the Gospel of John, you know, the Gospel of John is divided into, what, two or three parts. Yeah. He divides the first chapter against the, what, rest of the chapters, right? And the first chapter shows the divinity of Christ and his incarnation, right, huh? And then how these things in the other chapters are manifest in his living and then in his dying and resurrecting, right? So you divide that, rest of that into two parts, right, huh? And then he gets into the first part there and he talks about, you know, he shows his power over the elements, right, the natural elements in chapter two, the bread and wine, I mean the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I sometimes use that as an example, you know, that in some way he's preparing the way, though, for the Eucharist, right? Because you see that he has the power to change water into wine, but you know it's wine because it keeps, it doesn't keep the taste of water, but we just kind of destroy the purpose, right, of changing water into wine under the circumstances, you know, the couple running out of wine for this, you know, kind of keep thing. And, but then he goes into, what, his, what, the spirit of regeneration, right? And it was in the third and fourth chapters, right? He talks about, in the third chapter you have Nicodemus coming to see him and he's kind of telling the Pharisee, right? He's a Pharisee, I guess, Nicodemus, he's on the nobility there. And then you have in four, you have the woman at the well, so this is the sacrament, the, talking about it for the Gentiles too, right? And then Jews. And then he says, you know, we have three things, right, from your, what do you get from your parents? So you get what? Well, he says three things, right? Yeah, you get your life, right, huh? And you get your, what, food, right? And you get some instruction from your parents, right? I've seen that, talked about a lot, you know, when you're talking in the context of the family, right? What do you get from your parents? So you get your generation, your life, right? And you get, you know, get fed by the parents, right? And you couldn't survive it. And you get some education about what's right, what's wrong, and so on, some advice. And so on. And so he says the same thing there, right? And then he divides the chapters in that way, right? So in five is talking about, what, the life, and six is talking about the nourishment. That's the famous chapter on the Eucharist. And then seven down to, what, 11 is about the teaching of Christ, right? You get later on to the origin of the teaching in seven. And then eight and nine is the enlightening, and then the life-giving in eight and nine. But you have it by word and by a miracle, right? And word and a miracle, right? For each of them, right? So you have, you know, Lazarus for life-giving, and then the blind man being healed for the miracle. Yeah, absolutely beautiful, right? But I was just struck by the fact that the way he compares that to the, what, what you get from your natural father, right? You know, he generated you, gave you the life, right? He says to my mother one day, and I said, my mother, I wouldn't even be without you. She said, well, that's good. Yeah, I wouldn't even be, you know. And, you know, but I was fed with my mother all these years, you know, I would have died if I hadn't been fed by them, right? And I got a lot of good advice, and yeah, yeah, yeah, discipline, so, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so, so nice and concrete, huh? Okay, so now we're up to, what, the body of the article? Okay, so, but, well, actually, this is about manifesting himself. But in the manifest knowledge of God consists of eternal life, according to that of John 17, verse 3. This is eternal life that might know you, the only God, and Jesus Christ, whom he sent, and so on. Therefore, in the marriage of eternal life, maxime, results from, according to charity, right, huh? I answer, and that's what Thomas said, to unfold the matter more, right, huh? That's how I feel it, freeze it, deconic, unfold yourself. Something, nice oral exam, you know, unfold yourself, unfold your thought, huh? I think that goes back in Shakespeare, too, I think you can find that phrase, huh? I answer, it should be said, that is, can be taken from the thing said, a human act has the, what, character of meriting from two things. Now, what are these two things? First and chiefly, right, from the divine, what, ordering. According as an act is said to be meritorious of that good to which man is divinely, what, ordered, huh? So an act cannot be meritorious, and this is one ordered by God to this end that he has in mind for us, huh? And secondly, on the part of, what, free judgment, huh? Thomas sometimes, he talks about the liberum edicium there, or liberum artium. He says it involves both the will and the reason, right? Because arbitrary, or judgment, is the act of reason, and liber is, what, to go for the will, yeah? Seems kind of a little strange in the translation. Sometimes I was saying free will, but kind of interesting. In so far as, what, man has above other creatures, right? Or apart from other creatures, that he acts through himself, right? Voluntarily acting, huh? The free is what is a cause of itself, as Aristotle says with metaphysics. And as regards both, huh, both what God has ordered to, what, this reward, right? As regards our will, the chiefness, right? The principality of merit consists according to, yeah. First it should be considered that eternal life consists in the enjoyment of what? God, God, but the emotion of the human mind to the enjoyment of the divine good is the proper act of charity. Now, did you know that? Through which all the acts of the other virtues are ordered to the same end, huh? Because it regards the end. The end is the object of the will, right? First thing left. According as the other virtues are commanded by, what, charity. We saw it before, earlier in the discussion of the virtues, right? But he's recalling that. And therefore, the merit of eternal life first pertains to, what, charity. But to the other virtues. virtues what secondarily according as their acts are commanded by charity so our diamonds a girl's best friend the generosity why he deserves her no it's because he loves you right huh you know that's a principle thing right huh generosity though it is I need to do it but it's not the principle thing right and it's not the result of charity or love right you know but you can see the idea that love is their philosopher is named from what yeah why is he named from the love of wisdom yeah and that's that's his end is wisdom right now one of my great teachers was Albert the Great you know a written word but never came down spoke to me but my old teacher there he had translated the Thomas's commentary and the first two books of the physics right in the little treatise of Thomas on those things too but he had a nice quote from from Albert the Great right at the beginning of the book right he's the little one from one of his commentaries in Aristotle he says anybody who studies the lower sciences but not for the sake of the highest science right now has a perverted attitude towards knowledge it was a beautiful thing you know and wish I still had it because one of my students ran out of that book of mine but anyway but anyway I find the text is but it's a beautiful thing it always struck me you know I mean the consumer kid had selected that you know it's kind of a little preface to the thing right huh but you study the philosophy of nature so you can eventually study wisdom right and first philosophy right and if you're a Christian you know you can eventually study theology right so what's really kind of you know to be a Catholic philosopher and not be ordering your philosophy to theology is but nowadays I mean seeing a society theology I mean how rare it'd be to find so-called philosophers talking about wisdom anymore right you know you get wisdom but that's where they get their name right the love of wisdom right because that's that's the end right so if you're not ordering it to that huh then there's something seriously wrong yeah yeah it's hard to name it's hard to name it's hard to name them because there's nothing there so today this is no longer applicable I've seen some of the correspondence between Deconic and Mortimer Adler you know and of course Mortimer Adler eventually you know I think in Catholic events yeah at the end yeah yeah yeah but how close are you so this was privately privately kind of yeah I mean there's there's some you know collections there at Notre Dame's places like that I forget who said it to me but it's interesting to read these things but there'd be money of course the present state of philosophy and these things okay first effort should be considered that eternal life consists in the enjoyment of God but the emotion of the human mind to the enjoyment of the divine good is the proper act of charity to which all of the acts of the other virtues are ordered in this end according as the other virtues are commanded by charity huh and therefore the merit of eternal life first pertains to charity but to the other virtues secondarily right according as their acts are commanded by what charity huh so by making that comparison you know does the mother's praise consist of the fact that she clothes and feeds her children but that she she she feeds and clothes them because she she loves them right huh it's a love that is principled right huh likewise is manifest that that which we what from love maxime voluntariae fact you must because that's necessary to the second thing whence according as what for the notion of merit is required that it be something voluntary chiefly merit should be attributed to charity huh what did president kennedy say something about his his uh surviving there in the boat you know well didn't have any choice he said you know he was a hero he didn't have any choice he could break you up yeah yeah nature takes over that's kind of funny well that's very good thomas huh should we take a little break now huh after that