Tertia Pars
Lecture 14: The Grace of Union and Divine Assumption

Transcript
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Okay, now this next one here is about whether it was merited, I guess. Okay, we can go on to 11. To the 11th, one proceeds thus. It seems that the union of Incarnation was made, fouling upon some merits. Is that what he translated? Subsecuta? Okay. Because upon that is Psalm 32. May your mercy, O Lord, be upon us as we have hoped in you, right? Let's go back again to this side here about the two prayers there, right? And I tied up with hope, right? The Agnus Dei and the Kyrie Elei Son. We'll notice the connection here between what? Mercy and hope here, right? Because hope seems to have its object and part of this, the mercy of God, right? You know, the faith has more God as its object as he's the first truth. And charity is God as its object insofar as he's the supreme good. But hope is looking upon God as a difficult good, right? That can be gotten to the help of God through his mercy. It's so hard to get out of this human way of thinking about God, you know, if it's been something, you know. I like to ask the question, you know, if God had created nothing, would he have been selfish, you know? What did the average person think, you know? If I think he would have been selfish, right? And then he wouldn't have been a kind of thing. I heard someone say to me once on the other side of the coin that, well, if God created us just to praise him, then he's selfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's selfish, he makes us, and he's selfish to be selfish. Yeah, I've heard people say, you know, it's a big eagle trip or something. I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I've heard people say, you know, I wish you would, you know, say something like, I wish you'd speak as intelligently about theology as you do about it. You know, this childlike image. He was also being kind about saying that. You can't be serious. So, may your mercy be upon us, Lord, as we have hoped in you. And here it's insinuated, the gloss says, right? And the desire of the prophet about the incarnation and the merit of its, what? Fulfillment, right? Therefore, the incarnation comes under merit, huh? Moreover, whoever merits something merits that without which that cannot be had. But the ancient fathers, the Old Testament, merited eternal life, right? To which they were not able to arise at or get to except through the incarnation. For Gregory says, Gregory the Great, in the book on morals, that those who before the coming of Christ, right, came into this world, however much they had the virtual justice, in no way could they, what? When they were let out of their bodies, be immediately received into the, what, bosom of the celestial fatherhood because there had not yet come the one who would, what, gather the souls of the just to the perpetual seat. Therefore, it seems that they merited the, what, incarnation, because that was the necessary means of getting there, right? More about the Blessed Virgin now, here, they were getting reading serious texts. More about the Blessed Virgin is sung that she merited to bear the, what, the Lord of all, which was made through the incarnation. Therefore, the incarnation came under the merit. I don't know. They're good, these restrictions, huh? Now, against this is what Augustine says in the book on the predestination of the saints. Quisquis, in capite nostra, whoever, right, in our head, right, would find, what, preceding merits of that singular and unique, what, generation, right, huh? He and us, his members, seeks, what, merits preceding this, what, multiplied regeneration. But no merits precede our regeneration, huh? According to that of Titus chapter, this one of Titus chapter three, verse five. Not from the works of justice, which we make, but according to his mercy, he saves us through the washing of regeneration. Therefore, neither was that generation of Christ that some merits precede the generation of what Christ. The answer, it should be said, that as regards Christ himself is manifest from the foregoing that no merits of his could precede, what, that union, right? Because he couldn't do anything until he had that nature, right? He couldn't do anything as a human. For we do not lay down that before he was a, what, pure man, just a man, and after, by the merits of a good life, he obtained to be the son of God, as Photinus said, right? Other heretics. But we lay down that from the beginning of his conception that man was truly, right, the son of God, right? As not having any other hypostasis than that of the son of God. According to that of Luke, chapter 1, verse 35, who is born of you, the saint will be born of you, this holy one, will be called the what? Son of God, right? And therefore, all operation, all doing of that man was subsequent to the what? Union. Whence no doing of his could, what, be the merit of the union, huh? It's not like the old mythology there, you know, the great war, you know, it gets summed up and rakes the gods, right, for his great deeds, you know. What about other men though? Could other men merit that, right? But neither could the doings of any other man, right, be meritorious of that union, in kind of a technical term, ex condigno, right, huh? Okay? Might be a certain appropriatist, you might say, right? But not condigno, worthy of it, right? Okay? First, huh? Because the meritorious doings of man are properly ordered to the attitude, which is the, what, reward of virtue and which consists in the full enjoyment of God, huh? But the union of the incarnation, since it was in the personal being, right, it goes beyond, it transcends the union of the blessed mind to God, which is through his act of, what, enjoying God, and thus it cannot come under, what, merit, huh? You see what Iversi is saying there, right? It goes back even to philosophy there where human happiness, right, is the reward of what, virtuous activity. right? And Thomas sometimes says, you know, virtue is the road to happiness. And you can say vice is the road to misery, right? And you can pick up the daily newspaper, which I know the gentlemen don't do anymore, but there's always somebody miserable there in some situation, and the road he got there was some vice, right? But is the union of our mind with God in the division, is that as great a union as that of the incarnation? No. So if this union of our mind with God is what we in a sense merit by our virtuous activity, right? We're meriting something less than the incarnation, huh? Most of the other side of that thing is too, you know, remember, I think we're studying the reasons for the incarnation, and, you know, in the Summa Pante Gentile, that's my favorite book, the first reason Thomas gives for the incarnation is that man would have hope of the vision as possible, right? Because if this greater union has taken place, right, then the what? Lesser one is possible. If human nature could be raised to what? This personal union with God, right? Then it could be raised to this union whereby we would see God as he is, right? And in a sense it's a little bit like the old rule in dialectic, right? If what is seem less possible is possible, right? Then what we're corrupt would be done would be so, right, huh? That's the first reason he gives. That's a very good reason, right? But it's very interesting, huh? in terms of what we saw before. Secondly, because grace cannot fall under what? Merit, right? Because it's the beginning of merit. You see, you know, in one of the prayers of Thomas there, you know, he's asking for grace, that you give him grace, and then reward that grace that you're giving me. Whence, much less, does the incarnation come under merit, right? Because it's the beginning of grace, right? According to that of John, chapter 1, verse 17, grace and truth was made through what? Jesus Christ, huh? That's interesting, right? You're saying, um, grace precedes merit, right? And the incarnation precedes even grace, right? Huh? And Thomas is dividing the Bible, right? He'll quote that passage there, the whole thing, and it says, For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through, what? Jesus Christ. And then he divided the Old Testament on the basis of law, the law of the Father and the law of the King, the New Testament, and the basis of grace, the origin of grace, the nature of grace, and the effect of grace, huh? Which is almost in the Second Vatican Council, by the way, because they give the, what, Gospels first, which is the origin of grace, and then the epistles of St. Paul, which is the nature of grace, and then they put the, what, Acts of the Apostles with the canonical epistles and the apocalypse, which is the chief, effective grace, you might say, the Church as a whole, right? The origin of the Church, and the growth of the Church, and the final state of the Church, right? That's a bit of argument, isn't it? Grace precedes merit, and if grace comes through Jesus Christ, then that precedes it. That's twice the rule, right? So don't put the cart before the horse. There's this joke about the carts now, he put the cart before the horse. Third, because the incarnation of Christ was reforming, remaking the whole of human nature, right? And therefore, it does not come under the merit of some individual man, right? Because the good of some mere man, right? Pure man, purely man, cannot be the cause of the good of the whole of nature, right? So he's saying, in those two arguments, that, and these are technical words I use elsewhere, ex condigno, right, huh? But there's a suitability, ex congruo, right? Some, what, holy fathers merited, what, the incarnation, right, huh? By desiring it, and what? Asking for it, yeah. For it is suitable that God hears those who, what? Obey him, right? And that's the way he answers the first, what, objection, right? It's taken from the text there about the fathers, right, huh? Now to the second, right? The second argument is saying, well, if you merit one thing, you merit the means to it, right? To the second, it should be said that this is false, that under merit falls all that without which reward cannot, what, be. For some things, there are which are not only required for the reward, but also they are, what, preexisted, they are presupposed to, what, merit, as the divine goodness, right? And his grace, meaning his favor, right, and even the nature of man. And likewise, the mystic incarnation is the beginning of merit, huh? Because of the fullness of Christ we have all received, as is said in John 1.16, huh? That's kind of going back to the body of the article there, right? The arguments that he's giving, huh? To the third, it should be said that the Blessed Virgin is said to have merited to carry the Lord, Jesus Christ, not because she, what, merited for God to become flesh, but because she merited from the grace given to her, right, that grade of purity and sanctity that she could suitably be the, what, mother of God. So let's take a little break, or what, before we go on to the... Good timing. Good timing. the second question here. To the twelfth one goes forward thus. It seems that the grace of union was not natural to the man Christ. For the union of the incarnation was not made in the nature but in the what? Person. Hypostatic union as they call it, right? But each thing is denominated from its limit or end. Therefore that grace ought to more be called personal than what? Natural, right? Moreover, grace is divided against nature as the gratuitous things which are from God are distinguished against the natural things which are from an intrinsic what? Beginning. But of those things which are divided as opposites, one is not denominated from the other, right? Therefore the grace of Christ is not what? Natural to him, huh? Moreover, that is said to be natural, that is according to nature. But the grace of union is not natural to Christ according to the divine nature because in that case it would belong also to the other persons. nor is it natural also according to him according to the human nature because then it would belong to all men, right? Who are the same nature with them. Therefore it seems that in no way is the grace of union natural to Christ. One can see there's going to be some distinctions about what nature is and what's going to be said to be said to be natural. But against this is what the great Augustine says in the Inchiridion of faith, hope, and charity. That in the reception or taking on of human nature, in a way, huh, that grace becomes what? Natural to that man, right? In whom no sin can find entrance, huh? Can be admitted. Now Thomas says, I answer it should be said that according to the philosopher. He's always dragging in that pagan Aristotle. In the fifth book of wisdom there, fifth book after the books in natural philosophy. Nature in one way is said to be, what? Birth itself, right? In another way, the essence of the thing. Now Thomas says, as I mentioned before, he's taking the first sense of nature and the last sense of nature that Aristotle gets there, right? Okay? Those are the ones that are important here. When something can be called natural in two ways, right? In one way, only from the essential principles of the thing, as it is natural to fire, to be carried upwards, huh? In another way, that is said to be natural to man, that he has from his birth, huh? According to that of Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 3. As I'm reading in church right now, the Ephesians. We were by nature, huh? By birth, that is to say, right? The sons of anger, wrath, huh? The original sin. In wisdom, chapter 12, verse 10, huh? Bad is the birth of them, right? And natural they're, what? Malice, huh? Okay? So, after that distinction, huh? We're now going to consider this question, huh? The grace, therefore, of Christ, whether of the, what, union to the divine person, or the habitual one, right? Cannot be called natural as caused by the principles of human nature in him, right? Although it can be called natural as, what, coming to be in the human nature of Christ by the divine, what, being caused by the divine nature, if you have, huh? But it is called natural, both grace and Christ, insofar as he has it from, what, his birth, huh? Because from the beginning of his conception, human nature was joined to the divine person, and his soul was filled with the gift of, what, grace, huh? So, we could say, in some way, Christ is naturally holy, right? See? Not in the sense that it falls from, what, the intrinsic principles of human nature, right? But from his very, what, birth, whereby he's joined, huh? To the divine person. And, therefore, he has both the grace of union and the, what, habitual grace, right? That would be due to human nature when joined to the divine person. Now, to the first objection, huh, which says that the union of the incarnation was not made in the nature of another person. To the first, therefore, it should be said that, although that's true, Thomas says, that the union was not made in the nature, huh? He was nevertheless caused from the power of the divine nature, huh? Which is true to the nature of Christ. And it also belongs to Christ from the beginning of his, what, nativity, right? So he's saying it's not natural to Christ in the sense that it, what, follows from the principles of his human nature, right? It is natural in terms of his other nature, because he has two natures, as you know. His divine nature, right? To be full of grace. And it's natural from his, what? His birth, right? Whereby he's, what? Joined, huh? To the divine person. The second objection is saying, now we've got a contradiction here, right? We've got to avoid that. To the second, it should be said that it's not by the same that it is said to be by grace and to be natural, right? But it's said to be grace insofar as it is not from, what? Merit, huh? But it's natural insofar as it is from the power of the divine nature in the humanity of Christ from his, what? Birth. Now, the third objection. To the third, it should be said that the grace of union is not natural to Christ according to his human nature as if it were caused from the, what, principles of human nature and therefore it's not necessary that it belonged to, what? All men. But it was nevertheless natural to him according to his human nature on account of what was private, huh? In his very nativity, huh? Insofar as he was conceived from the Holy Spirit, right? That he might be, what? The same one, the natural, what? Son of God and of man, right? According to his divine nature, it was natural to him insofar as the divine nature is the active beginning of this, what? Grace. Grace, huh? And this belongs, of course, to the whole trinity to be the active, what? Principle of this grace. So we get a chance to go on into another article? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So question three, right? Then one ought to consider, he says in the premium here, about the union from the side of the person, what? Assuming it, huh? And about this, eight things are asked, huh? First of all, whether it belongs to a divine person, to what? Assume, whether it belongs to the divine nature. Whether the nature is able to assume, if we abstract from it, its personality. You get a really, really... I want to penetrate these things, you know. Father Goulet used to be very good about talking about mental indigestion, right? Of course, you put it more grossly, you know, mental constipation, right? You can't digest the thing, huh? Whether one person is able to assume without another, right? Well, that better be so. We're going to be in some heresy, I think, huh? Whether any person, right, would be able to assume, right, huh? And whether many persons would be able to assume one nature and number. That's really... Almost as bad as how many angels dancing there. Seven, whether one person would be able to assume two natures and number. Now the most interesting one. We've got to go through all those before we get to the eighth one. It's really interesting one. Whether it was more suitable for the person of the Son that he assumed human nature than he... Oh, let's see. I think Thomas is going to defend that the Father could assume and the Holy Spirit too. So was there some reason why it was more suitable that the Son assumed this, huh? That should be interesting. We've got to go through these other ones. I'll be all with the grandchildren before we get through them. There's lady wisdom there, right? One of the English translations there has some handwritten notes and then I'll say, for each question, say yes, no. Then some of these, probably this whole one here, it says skip. It should be more like, you know, I've understood some things here and something I don't understand, but next time I go through, I'll understand a little bit more and understand a little bit more. Now, I was thinking of that beautiful likeness I was giving you earlier there today from the impotencia, right? Yeah. Now, you don't want to press the likeness too much there, right? But if you take, Thomas says, the substance of the power of generating, right? And the substance of the power of creating, they're the same power, right? The divine essence is this power, right? But he says if you consider the acts, right? The generating of the Son and the creation, then you can see a certain order among the Son. And you'd say that the generating of the Son is before the, what, creating, right? And you'd kind of see that, you know, authoritatively at least from St. John's Gospel because he talks about the, what, the Word, you know? And then he says all things are, what, made through the Word, right? Okay, then. So, in some sense, the divine power has to, what, generate the Son before it creates. Okay? Because in some sense, it creates through the Word, right? It's through the divine wisdom and power. Well, there's something like this, right? If you go back to the encyclical on the Eucharist there, of Paul VI, and he says, he's explaining at one point why it is that when a council defines some mystery of the faith, this definition is good for all time. And the reason that Paul VI gives in the encyclical on the Eucharist there is that the mysteries of faith are defined by thoughts that belong to a universal and necessary experience. What we sometimes call common experience, huh? So, just take a very simple example. If the Church says, God has no parts, huh? Well, that's going to be good for all time, right? Because everybody's going to understand whole and part. So, there's a sudden priority of what comes to reason naturally before the faith in that the thoughts that we naturally have are used to express the mysteries of the, what, faith. Faith, yeah. So, therefore, the order is proportional to the order of the divine, what, power to generate and the divine power to create. Which, if you consider the substance, he says, there's no order because it's the same thing. But if you consider the order of the acts, right, then the giving birth to the word, right, is before, right, creation because nothing was made without the word and so on, huh? And it kind of casts a little bit of light upon that letter that Boulay used to bring up from Augustine, you know, where somebody asked him, you know, is there any opposition between reason and faith? And Augustine says, well, it can't be because we're capable of faith because we have reason. So how can we be opposed? We've got to see this, right, you know, in terms of what you naturally understand and faith, there can't be any opposition because faith uses what you naturally, what, understand to express the statements of faith. So now we're back here to the first article, right? The first one proceeds thus. It seems that it's not suitable to a divine person to assume a, what, created nature. For a divine person signifies something most, what, perfect, maxi-me-perfectum. And the perfect is that to which no addition can be, what, made. I was reading the compendium of theology of Thomas there. I like reading, you know, between going back to the, if I go back to and he actually shows that God is infinite before he takes up the perfection of God, right? And then he takes up perfection of God and so on. And then he actually takes up that there's no accidents in God, right? And, you know, you and I, we need all kinds of accidents. Like I need the science of geometry to have a little perfection to me, right? I need the virtue of justice and so on to have another perfection to me and so on. So, but if God's substance is infinitely perfect, you couldn't add any perfection to it. So how is that can't be the accidents added to God, huh? Kind of interesting, huh? That's kind of reminded me of this by what he's saying here. Perfect is that to which one can make no addition or somebody, as Einstein said about some piece of Mozart is so well-written, you know, you couldn't improve on it. The reason he gave was that perfection is imperfectable. You know, you've heard that conversation between Mozart and the emperor, right? The emperor, you know, found Mozart's music a little bit too difficult, you know. He says, too many notes, Mozart, he said. Mozart said, just as many as I need it. Since, therefore, to assume is, as it were, to take to oneself, right? It seems that what is taken up is added to the one taking it up, right? Therefore, it would seem that it does not belong to the divine person to take on what? Now, of course, taking on human nature is not in any way perfecting God, is it? But it's doing something for human nature, that's for sure. We'll see how Thomas answers it. I don't want to anticipate the master here, huh? No one remembers that emperor's name. Just to add an addition. Moreover, that to which Something is assumed, is in a way communicated to that that is assumed to it, right? Just as dignity is communicated to the one who is taken on to some what? Dignity, huh? So the Prince marries the Cinderella, right? She takes on certain dignity, right? That she didn't have before. Before it's here or here. But it's of the notion of a person that it be incommunicable. Those are one of the definitions of person, remember? As is said in the first part. Therefore, it doesn't belong to the divine person to take on something. It's just to take something to itself, huh? That's Richard St. Victor's text. Yeah, yeah. So, how is he can't? Moreover, a person is constituted to its what? Nature, right? But it is unsuitable that the what? One constituting take on the what? Constituted, huh? Because the effect doesn't act on its what? Cause. Therefore, it's not suitable for a person to assume a nature. Against this is what Augustine says in the book on faith to what? Peter, right? That the form, that is the nature of the slave, right? God took into himself, right? The young, the only born, right? Person. But the only born God is a person. Therefore, suitable to a person to take on a nature, which is to assume. So, what's he going to say to this, huh? I answer, it should be said that in the word of assumption, right? Two things are implied. To wit, the beginning of the act, right? And the term, for to assume is said as it were, to take to oneself, what? Something. Okay, kind of just explain what the word means. Now, of this assumption, the person is both the beginning and the, what? End. The beginning, because it belongs to the person properly to, what? Act, right? But this taking of flesh, to speak synecdochly, was made or done through the divine action, right? Likewise, also, the person is the end or term of this, what? Taking. Just as we said above, that the union was made in the person, not in the, what? Nature. Nature. And thus, it is clear that most properly does belong to the person to assume, what? The nature, right, huh? Can you go too many? Well, in a sense, Thomas doesn't seem, by the article, to be so much applying a reason why it's suitable for the person to do this, right? But he's simply saying that, what does assumption mean, right? It means to, what? Take to oneself, right? And therefore, there's a certain activity there of taking something, right? And there's a limit to whom that thing is taken, right? And he says, well, since a person is the one who acts, right? And then, it makes sense to say that a person assumes, as far as the beginning, and because, as we learned before, that the union was made not in the nature, but in the person, then he's suitably the term, that's right. Sure. Okay. But doesn't fully get into the idea, was it suitable that he should do such a thing, right? You see, maybe that'll come up in some of the objections here, or five objections, right? The first objection is saying it's not suitable because you can't, perfection is imperfectible. You can't add, you think that's right? Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that since a divine person is infinite, then no addition can be made, what? Do it, huh? Whence Cyril says in the synodal letter, right, of the Council of Ephesus, that's an official letter, right? We do not understand, right, the mode or the way of union being according to a, what? Addition, right? Made of the conjunction, whatever that means. Just as in the union of man to God, which is through the grace of adoption, there's not added anything to God, but that which is divine is what? A ponytail, huh? Is applied to what? Who would be the best way of translating a ponytail? Would it be placed towards man or something? How's your English translation have that? What is that? In the first, third, third, second, last sentence. How do they translate it? A ponytail. But that which is divine is what to man? That which is divine is not even to man here. Yeah, okay. I'd say like lay to or lay at or something. In other words, actually, ponytail, which means placed, right? And placed to, right? It's kind of funny to speak of God being placed to, right? Maybe we would say applied. Whence not God, but man is what? Perfected, right? You might say that, what? Something is given to human nature there, namely what? Subsistence, divine subsistence, right? Subsistence in a, what? Divine person, right? But nothing is really added to God, huh? He's not perfected anyway. In Cyril's letter, co-opposizione, there was some kind of comparison. It's not like marriage there where your spouse is supposed to be your better part, right? So each gets something you know. Each one is being completed by the other, huh? But this is not, you know, that the divine nature of God is in a way being completed by this activity, right? But there's some completion, some perfection being given to human nature because it's been assumed in the divine person, right? Okay? So Thomas is not denying the premise that says nothing can be added to God's perfection, right? But he says, in the incarnation, nothing, God is being in no way perfected by this, right? That's human nature is being perfected, huh? It's being drawn to a subsistence that is a much greater subsistence than that that the ordinary human being has, right? The second objection is saying, well, a person is something, an individual is something that cannot be communicated, right? It says, to the second it should be said that a person is said to be incommunicable insofar as he is not able to be said of many, what? Posita, right? But nothing prevents many things from being said of the person, right? Like of this person, you can say, I'm a geometer, I'm white. Yep, grandfather. Yes. Once it is not against the notion of a person to be thus, what, communicated that it subsists in many, what, natures. Because also in a created person, many natures can run together accidentally, right? As in the person of this man is found both quantity and quality. But this is private, unique, you might say, to the divine person, which on account of its, what, infinity, it can, what? It can come to be in it a running together of two natures, right? Not in an accidental way, like the story is just saying, but by subsistence, right? So it's the same person. So it's the same person. So it's the same person. So it's the same person. So it's the same person. So it's the same person. So it's the same person. subsists into nature, right? The divine, the human nature. Something infinite about this divine person. Go on assuming as many natures as you want it to. It may not be simple to go on assuming this. When you say a person is constituted by nature, well, you have to see a distinction there, huh? In Christ, huh? Because the person of Christ is constituted only by the divine nature, right? Simply. If it's constituted by the human nature, it's only as a human being, but not simply. To the third, it should be said that the human nature does not constitute the divine person simply, but it constitutes it only according as it is, what? Denominated by such a nature. For the Son of God does not have in human nature that he be simply right, since he was a existence, right? Being from eternity. But only that he be what? A man. But according to the divine nature, the divine person is constituted simply. Whence the divine person is not said to assume divine nature, but only be what? Human. So there is that distinction again of simply and what? Not simply. Simply. Sometimes, a lot of times they'll say some picheteers they couldn't have quit, but that's a very important distinction in philosophy, huh? You know, the fundamental distinctions of being, which is rather universal, being according to the figures of predication, substance, quantity, quality, and the other accidents, and then being according to act and ability, right? That is a distinction of simply and what? Not simply. So, am I in this room? Am I in my house? No. So, simply you'd say I'm in this room, but not in my house. But I'm able to be in my house. So, in some qualified sense, I'm in my house. But that's ability, right? You're in your wife's heart. That's a different side. That's not really an ability. That's not really an ability, yeah. See? This is not the question. Is the kundal and quater not simply, is that the same as accidentally or not? It sounds like it's not. No, no. It's a different distinction, right? But they're somewhat similar, right? But they're a different distinction. Okay? So, so being an act is being simply. Being in ability is what? In some ways. Not simply, but in some ways. Palfly, right? Okay? You know, are there chairs in this room? Okay? Are there chairs in the trees out there? Potentially. Yeah. You wouldn't say simply, though, without qualification. You'd say there are chairs in ability, right? We have to qualify it, right? See? So, the distinction between being an act and being an ability is also a distinction of that kind that we call simply and not, what, simply, right? Now, the same when you take substantial being and accidental being, right? When I came here today, did I come to be? Yeah. You came to be here. Yeah, I came to be in this room, right? I didn't come to be, period, though, right? But when I was generated or conceived, then I came to be. See? And, you know, I used to always take the example in class. I said, you know, if I say to the student, now, if you leave this room, you will cease to be. That sounds like a threat, doesn't it? Now, if they take me to court, and I say to the judge, now, all I meant when I said that if you leave this room, you'll cease to be, I meant you'll cease to be in the room. So, I know and I understand that, like you said, right? So, it's only, as far as I know, in a qualified sense, secundum quid, that I'll cease to be if I leave this room. Otherwise, I wouldn't leave. You won't be here next week. Yeah. So, notice, those are very fundamental distinctions between being in a sense of substance and being in a sense of accident, right? And then, this other division of being and act and being an ability. But both of them are a distinction of what? What is so simply and what is so, not simply, but in some qualified way, right? I mentioned how in the ninth book of wisdom, Aristotle asks the question after he's kind of gone through acting ability, which is before, right? In time, and so on. And he says, well, the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act. But something goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act, so simply act is before ability. And that's why the first cause, the first being, is going to be pure act, as you find out in the twelfth book, three books later. But, you know, the early Greeks and the modern scientists, they all think that matter is the beginning of all things. and so they're thinking that what is in some way before is before simply. So they're making the fundamental mistake about the first cause and it's the second kind of mistake outside of speech, but the mistake for mixing up what is so simply and what is so not simply. Now, this beautiful dialogue of Plato I mentioned that comes up, that kind of mistake in the Mino, right? But the Mino is really an introduction to logic. And Mino makes an objection, a sophistical objection, that it's impossible to investigate what you don't know. How can you direct your thinking to what you don't know when you direct it to? If that objection was good, there'd be no logic and there'd be no reason to pay anybody to do research of any sort. Somebody's trying to find the cause of cancer or something, right? Because he doesn't know what he's looking for. That's why you pay somebody if he doesn't know what he's looking for. And Socrates tries to reply to this objection, right? And he makes the same kind of mistake. I don't know if that's intentional on Plato's part. It's really something, this Plato. but Aristotle refers back to the middle in the beginning of the posturalytics, right? And it's a mistake of simply and not simply because what you don't know, you can know in some way. And so, by knowing what you don't know in some way, you can direct yourself to what you don't know. But then Socrates, you know, he makes a different mistake because he says that the slave boy knows how to double a square because in his conversation with the slave boy, the way to double a square comes out of the slave boy's answers. What does that mean that the slave boy, no? I'm doing this Euclid and I come to a theorem and I say, I wonder how he's going to prove that, you know? And it can be proved by things I know already but I'm just too stupid to put these together, right? And then my master, my teacher there, Euclid, puts them together and says, oh yeah, see? So, did I know that theorem when I first looked at it? You know? I was able to know it. I was able to know it through the things I knew already, right? But I didn't really know it. You see? That's not really to know it simply, right? So Socrates is saying that the slave boy is just recalling something he already knew. Well, no. See? In fact, when you first asked him how you double a square and he said, you double the side, well, that would give you a square four times it'd be. So not only does he not know how to double a square in the beginning of the conversation but he's actually mistaken as to how to do this, right? But he was able to know it from the things he knows. But Socrates, you know, by asking the right questions helps him to put together things he knows. So Socrates is really teaching, you know, although he denies he's teaching, right? And I'm not really teaching you something if my words just make you recall something you already know. Yeah. Yeah. So, there at the beginning of philosophy and logic, and at the end here, when you're trying to find the first cause, you have the same kind of mistake being made, right? But it runs through the whole philosophy. You know, I used to always tell the students, talking about ethics and so on, that all day long we're making this mistake, right? Because you're doing something bad because in some ways it's good. Or we're not doing something good because in some way it's bad, right? So, if you're tired on Sunday morning, you have to go to Mass. It's going to prevent you from sleeping longer, right? So, in some way, getting to Mass is bad, right? And, you know, if you annoy me and I kill you, you know, well, in some ways it's good to kill you. It gets rid of an annoyance in my life. You know? So, in a sense, you're making this mistake all day long. And so, eventually, all of our thinking is this kind of mistake. But, again, you know, corresponding to this mistake is this kind of distinction, and that underlies these things here. He's making that distinction, wasn't he, there at the end, huh? In the third, reply to the third objection. That human nature, the human nature of Christ, does not constitute the divine person simply, right? But it does constitute it, secundum quad, right? According as a denominator for such a nature, right? So, the second person of the blessed divinity cannot be said to be through his human nature, but you can say through his human nature, he can be a man, right? He can be in some way. You know, the beginning of wisdom there, you know, Aristotle, when he's describing the wise man in wisdom, he says, the wise man knows all things in some way. And, you know, because later on, he says that wisdom is the knowledge of God, right? The knowledge which God alone would have, or God most of all, right? Well, what's the difference between man knowing all things and God knowing all things? Yeah, yeah. In a sense, we know what is said of all things, right? So, everything is something. So, in knowing something, in a way, I know what? All things, right? But in a very perfect way. And that's to know all things, secundum quad, not simply. But God knows all things, what? Simply, huh? I mean, I always used to pick on some young lady there in class, and I'd say, now, I'm going to have her, she's going to contradict herself, you know, I'll watch and she'll contradict herself. And I'd say to her, now, do you know my brother Mark? And she always answers, no. I said, I know what she said, she doesn't know my brother Mark. I said, now, do you know what a brother is? Yeah. Do you know what a man is? Yeah. Okay. That's what my brother Mark is. She didn't know my brother Mark. You said you didn't know him. Well, she really contradict herself? No. Because simply, we'd say, she doesn't know my brother Mark. But in knowing what a man is, and what a brother is, in some way she knows my brother Mark, she knows every man in the world. Every brother, right? In some way. Right? But that's in a perfect way, obviously, of knowing every man and every brother in the world, right? But in some way you do know them, right? See? That's important to see in what way the wise man knows all things, right? Not simply, but perfectly, but in some way he knows them, right? And I always have some wise guy in my class say, I'm going to tell my father, I know everything, you know? First and foremost, he just convinced me I know everything. You know how that professor? That professor, yeah. But, you know, but in a sense, you know, in the joke, you know, and maybe the father and the son, they're not seeing the distinction that I'm trying to get across. You've got this horrible thing going on out there called abortion, right? Okay? But somebody chooses abortionist because they're in a, they want to continue their job, they want to continue their schooling, or they want to, you know, pleasure without responsibility and so on, right? But something that is simply bad is in some way, what? Good, yeah. Killing the guy who annoys me, right? Or you stand in the way for my promotion, right? You're out of the way, I'll get your position, right? So eliminating you in some way is what? Good thing you could. Yeah, yeah. I was reading a story out there by Washington Irving, and this one guy got in a good of the Indian there, he gave him arsenic, right? And the Indian used it, you know, to assert his authority over the tribe, because if someone challenged him to me, he says, oh, you'll probably be dead in a few days, and sure enough, the guy will die. He must have been pointing with her, you know? I know. So. That's the quote from Chester, if a man could shoot his mother-in-law at 40 pieces between the eyes, I'd say it was a good shot, but I wouldn't say it was a good man. Good son would. Take one more article here, or what? Yeah. I already put two here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.