Tertia Pars
Lecture 24: Christ's Nature, Grace, and the Heretical Objection

Transcript
================================================================================

The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our Enlightenment, guardian angels, take from the lights of our minds, who are to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Jelly Doctor. Amen. Help us to understand what you are today. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. We'll start here with a little item here from the January New Category Report. It's a little item here down from Australia there, where they've got a rebel parish. In August, Archbishop John Gavisby of Brisbane, Australia, warned the leaders of St. Mary's Parish that they risked suffering themselves from the Catholic Church by their unorthodox teaching and ritual practices. Now, in a second stern warning, the Archbishop has said that he will begin a formal process to address the situation. If the parish does not respond to his concerns by December 1st, the formal process could lead to excommunication. There's a defiant pastor there, Fr. Peter Kennedy, right? Oh. But the thing I'm interested in for our purposes here is this other somewhat unorthodox priest, right, who may be recanting some of his errors, but his book is being sold to the parishioners, right? And there's a little quote here from Fr. Dresser's book. Fr. Dresser asserted that the idea of Christ's divinity, quote, not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point for millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion. He stated simply, this is the primatrist in this part here, no human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It's as simple as that. Now, notice, huh, when Thomas is in the commentary of Vecas de Trinitate, right, he says you can use philosophy in theology in three ways. You can use it for the preopleta of the faith, those things that can be known by natural reason, as well as by faith. And you can use it for certain likenesses, huh? Like you might use the image of the Trinity in our soul, right, to help understand a bit the Trinity, even though you know these likenesses will always be, you know, deficient, right? And then third, you can use philosophy to answer objections to the what? Yeah, okay. And here you've got an objection in the form of a what? Syllogism, right? So let's just put his other question, the syllogism on the board here, right? No human being can be God. Jesus Christ is a human being. Terrible, just as simple as that, right? I know it's written the first figure of the syllogism, right? But the middle term is in between the two extremes, huh? Now, when you examine an argument like this, huh, there's two examinations you make, huh? And that's where Aristotle wrote two books, the prior analytics and the posterior analytics, huh? You take it apart formally to see, does the conclusion, what, follow from the premises? And then you come back and say, are the premises good or not, right? Okay? And it's just like when you add or subtract, right? You didn't get the wrong number because you didn't add correctly or subtract correctly, or because there's something wrong with one of the numbers you had, right? Okay? So, when you use philosophy to defend the faith, your first book you see is the formula, right? Now, formalises, when the aristocrats do it, formalises in the first book of natural hearing, the first book of the so-called physics, his conclusions don't follow from his premises. There's something wrong with his premises, too. So, but either one is enough to, what, make the argument bad, right? Now, is the form of this argument defective or not? Defective or defective? Defective. Defective. Oh. It seems like a proper soul. Yeah. The form is perfect, right? See? No human being can be God. Right? You lay that down, and that Jesus Christ is human being, it follows necessarily that Jesus Christ is not, what? God. God. Okay? So, the defect in this argument is going to have to be in the matter, right? Okay? Now, there's two premises. Is there any defect in this minor premise? Could be. Can you say it's false? Do you say Jesus Christ is human being? No. I guess not. See? You've got to watch this guy. I sent his name into the cabinet. By human being, do you mean human person? What? By human being, do you mean human person? You know, I think a human being means a man, right? A man. An animal that has reason, right? Okay? So, the minor premise is okay, right? So, the problem here is with the, what? Major premise, right? Now, if you meant by human being, a human person, right? Then would the statement be true? Yeah. That no human person can be God, right? But, human being doesn't mean the same thing as human person, right? Human being is one who has human nature. Okay? Now, you could say that no human being, because of his nature, is God. That is, because of his nature is what? Yeah. No human being, from having human nature, is God. Okay? That still is not enough to defend this, because we're not saying that explicitly here, right? So, now you've come into philosophy, right? Now, Aristotle distinguished between the individual substance, what we might call the hypostasis, if you want to use that term, and the, what? Nature, right? This is the fundamental distinction he makes in regard to the word substance, huh? Now, let's start from what's more known to us, in you and me, right? Now, human nature in me, or even my human nature, if you wish, human nature is that by which one is a, what? Human being. Okay? A man, in part of the sense, right? Okay? Now, by human nature, am I a geometer? Is that everybody who had human nature would be a, what? Geometre. By human nature, am I a, what? Magician? You might say that because I have human nature, I'm capable of learning geometry, from Euclid. I'm capable of learning logic, from Aristotle, maybe a little bit by myself, not very far. But, nevertheless, it's not by human nature that I am a logician, or a geometer, not alone that by human nature I am white, huh? Okay? Or I am healthy, if I am. Okay? So, human nature includes only that by which I am a man, a human being. So, but I'm not only a human being, I'm also a geometer, a logician, and I'm white, too. And I'm somewhat healthy. Okay? So, am I the same as the human nature that I have? Because then I wouldn't be, in addition to being a human being, be a logician, a geometer, be white, and be healthy, and so on, right? Okay? So, my personality, if you wish, right, my being a person, who has many things besides human nature, right, is not the same thing as by human nature that I have. Okay? So, there you see a little bit of the distinction that Aristotle makes between the individual substance, whatever I want to call it, hypostasis, right, or in the case of one of a rational nature, you call it a person, right, and the nature that you have, right? So, how is it that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right? So, how is it that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, that Jesus Christ can be, what, God, right, Yeah, but how can the same person be a man and be God, right? Well, unless there's some distinction there between the nature and the person, you couldn't have this. Now, let's go back to my deficient likeness here, right? Remember an example here, right? If you take the end of this line, right, and then you draw another line to that, right? Okay, so that point that was the end of this line here is now the end of what? This line here. So the divine person, and more precisely the son of God, right? The word of God, right? That person draws, right? Or God draws, right? Human nature, right? Partly from the virgin, right? Partly they created, what, soul, right? But draws it, right, to the already existing person, which is himself, right? And then he has human nature, right? And so he's both God now and what? You see that, right? But Father Dressler doesn't see that, right? I suppose a Mohammedan, right, would say, well, Mohammed is, you know, there's no God but Allah, but Mohammed is his prophet. But Mohammedan would never say that Mohammed is God, right? And maybe they regard, you know, they would share with Father Dressler, right, the idea or the premise, right, that no human being can be what? You see how we're solving that? By reason of seeing the distinction between, what, human personality and human nature, right? And what the word of God pulled to himself was, what, a human nature, right? And that makes him to be a human being. Because what it has human nature is human being. Because the human nature is that of which a man is a man. Okay? That's kind of the result of that, the answer to that, huh? I thought it was appropriate to bring it up, right? Now, just a second thing here now, which is not a deed of Father Dressler here anymore, but... Just about the way we speak of these things, huh? I was thinking in Bill last night there, that God never changes, right? That's really hard to understand. How does he do so many things? How does he accomplish so many things? And there are changes, right? Okay? But anyway, not going to go into that. That's our consideration, the substance of God, right? Take that as a beginning, right? God never changes, right? And then, St. John's Gospel says, what? The Word was made flesh, right? Okay? Now, let's not get involved in the problem of Synecdoche, right? He could have said, and the Word was made a, what? A man, right? But notice those words we use, was made, huh? Wood was made a chair, right? And did the wood undergo a change when it was made a chair? But God never changes. So how can St. John says, the Word was made flesh, it was made a man? It seems to be saying that there's a change going on here, right? I was taking a little another way of saying this, huh? Suppose someone asks you this now in all seriousness. Do you believe that God became man? What would you answer? Yeah. And of course, God is standing there for the Word of God, right? But we've seen that, you know, somebody can stand for it in that way, right? Okay? When you say the Word was toward God, God stands for what? The Father, right? But when you say God became man, right? Now, I often teach the first book. I used to do it all the time, every year, every semester. First book of natural hearing, first book of the physics. I'm always talking about this becoming that, right? And so on. And becoming means almost the same thing as what? Change, right? So when I became even a... If I become healthy, right? That's a change. I mean, if I was sick, no? Or if I become sick, that is a change, right? If I become a geometer, that's a change, right? If I become a magician, that's a change, right? Well, then isn't God changing when he becomes a man? Wouldn't the Word seem to suggest that? And if it doesn't mean that, if it doesn't change, why do you say he becomes a man, right? When he can't change, right? He can't become something he wasn't before, right? That's a change, isn't it? So, back to my simple example again, right? Let's go to the end point here. I'll give it a name. It's going to be x, right? Okay? Now, x is the end of that line, right? We'll call the line A, right? I suppose I draw another line, which we'll call B, right? To that same point. What would you say? Would you say that x has now become the end of line B? But has there been any change at all? It's become the end point. Yeah. I mean, has there been any change? You see? Because line B has been drawn to x, right? If anything, the line is being extended to that point, right? And therefore, it's true to say that point x has become the end of line B, right? But it really hasn't changed, has it, at that point? It was there before, right? Okay? That's a little, but a very deficient likeness, right? Of the fact that, well, when you say that the word of God, or God became man, it's not really changed in, what? Like, himself, or his personality, but something has been drawn and terminated at that point. Person, right? Okay? A little bit like this, right? We could say so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it didn't seem a real change within it, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Now, let me give a little deficient likeness here, again, from philosophy, though. Now, sometimes a son becomes, what, grows taller than his father, right? This happened a lot with immigrants, right? When the son had a better diet or something, you know? But in the course of things, a son often gets taller than his mother, and sometimes even taller than his, what, father, right? Okay? Now, of course, when the son is born, and for a number of years, right? The father is, what, taller than the son, right? Okay? But as the son grows, eventually it might come about that the father is now, has become, what, shorter than the, what, son, right? So, here, using the word become, you'd say he's become shorter than the, but is it due to some change in the father that he's become shorter? Is he shrunken? And they say he's doing this. That's not too noticeably, right? Right. Okay? So, the son, the father has become shorter than the son because of the change in the son. The son has grown, right? Do you see that? So, this is, again, a little like this here, right? The father is truly said to become shorter than the son, but this doesn't signify any change in the father, as such, right? It's a change, really, in the, what? Yeah. So, when Aristotle is distinguishing the kinds of change, he doesn't have any change in the category of towards something, a relation, right? But he has change in quantity. He doesn't have any change in quantity, like. He doesn't have any change in quantity, like. growth and change in quality, that alteration, and change in where, like change in place and so on, right? So, although these are very perfect likenesses and, you know, we've adapted here, something is said to become something without really, like, changing in this example and in the other example I gave you, right? We're up to question seven. Let's look at the premium here again here to just refresh ourselves. Now, Thomas has began the consideration of the co-assumptis, as he calls it, right? The things assumed with, this body and soul, right? By the sun in human nature. And he divides us into, what, two parts of this consideration. First, those things that pertain or belong to the perfection of, you know, perfections that he co-assumed, right, or assumed with. And secondly, about those things that you retain to his, what, defect, right? Okay. And as you should know, it's going to be pertaining to his, what, suffering body, right? Okay. Not to some defect of knowledge in him or all these crazy things nowadays. Okay. About the first, he divides it into three, right? First, about the grace of Christ, right? Secondly, about his knowledge, right? And third, about his, what, power, right? So, he's adding one thing that St. John says, right? Full of grace and truth. He's got a third thing there, the power, right? Now, the first of those three things, huh? Thomas explains why he's not going to divide us into three, but into two, right? Now, about the grace of Christ, there's a two-fold consideration. First, about his grace as he is an individual or singular man. Secondly, about his grace as he is the head of the, what, church, huh? Now, the third grace, the grace of union, has already been spoken of, right? Now, about the first, 13 things are, what, asked, right? Now, Christ, you can't possibly understand the distinction of 13, right, huh? But, no, so there's a distinction of the grace of the person that we make sometimes between, in Latin, they call it gratia gratum faciens, right? Or sanctifying grace, right? And gratia gratis data. And the first group of questions, or first group of articles, are dealing more with this, what? Sanctifying grace, yeah. Gratia gratis, and gratum faciens. And, because the virtues and gifts and so on are tied up with this. And then in the seventh article, as you can see, huh? There's other kinds of graces in what? Yeah. And prophecy would be something particular under that, right, huh? Okay? So you could divide the first, what, eight articles, right, into two, right? The part dealing with the sanctifying grace, huh? And the part dealing with gratis data, right? Okay? And then the third part would be about the, what, the excellence of the grace of Christ, right? And we can subdivide those pretty easily, but there's a fullness of grace in them, right? That's a question we ask, and we also say about Mary, Hail Mary, full of grace, right? What does the fullness of grace mean in Christ or in Mary and so on? And whether such a fullness is proper to Christ, when they go together, those two, right? And whether this is infinite, this grace, huh? Whether it can be increased. And then the last article, right, is kind of standing by itself, right? Okay. Okay. So. First, let's look at the articles again a little bit. Here's the titles of them. Whether in the soul of Christ there is some habitual, what? Grace, huh? Whether in Christ there are virtues, huh? Because the virtues that follow, but having grace, huh? And then it descends in particular to faith and to hope, huh? But not to charity, right? So there's not really a problem about having charity, right? Because charity remains even in the next world. But faith, huh? Faith? See? And how about hope? Well, we'll see. Does he already have the beauty vision? I don't know. Qualification. And then the gifts of the Holy Spirit, right? Which we distinguish against the virtues on the second part of the soul, and they've been distinguished. And in particular about the gift of, what? Fear, huh? So it's. This is where there's a special difficulty, right? Virtues of hope and, what? Faith? And fear of the Lord, right? He's afraid of himself, or what? So let's start to look now at the first article. To the first one goes forward thus. It seems that in the soul, taken on by the word, right? Notice he used the word soul there, right? Look at the soul, Christ. It seems there was not habitual grace, huh? For grace is a certain partaking of the divine nature in a rational creature, according to this very famous text to the second letter of Peter, right? Through whom, right, great and precious promises are given to us that we might be, what? Partakers of the divine nature, huh? That's kind of a definition of what this grace is. It's partaking, not being essentially God, but partaking, huh? But Christ is not God by participation, but according to truth, he is God. Therefore, in him, there was no, what? Obitual grace, huh? Of course, he's not God by his human nature, is he? Even Father Dressler has read about that. Wait, wait, wait. We just learned from the heritage himself. Moreover, grace is necessary for man that he might do well, right? Operate well. According to that of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I have labored more abundantly than all, think Paul says. Not however I, but the grace of God with me, huh? And also for this, that man, what? Achieve eternal life. According to that of Romans chapter 6, by the grace of God, eternal life. But to Christ, from the fact that he was the, what? From this alone, that he was a natural son of God, there is, oh, the inheritance of, what? Eternal life. And from the fact that he was the word, to whom all things were done, huh? There was present to him the ability of, what? Doing all good things, huh? Therefore, not according to human nature did he need another grace, except the grace of the, what? Union to the word itself, huh? Moreover, that which acts by way of an instrument, or in the manner of instrument, of tool, does not need a habit for its own operations. But the habit is, what? Founded in the principal agent, huh? So does the hammer need a, what? Habit, right? In order to be used well by me? But the human nature in Christ was as an instrument of his, what? Divinity, huh? As Damascene says in the third book. It's also in the Athanasian Creed, huh? It's likeness. Therefore, in Christ, in the Athanasian Creed, in the Athanasian Creed, in the Athanas Creed, in the Athanasian Creed, It is not necessary that there be some, what, habitual grace. But against this is what is said in Isaiah 11, verse 2, there rested upon him the spirit of the, what, Lord, which is said to be in man through habitual grace, as has been said in the first part. Therefore, in Christ there was habitual grace. So what do you guys think? We already proved it in the first part. The answer, it should be said, Thomas says, it is necessary to place in Christ habitual grace. And for three, what, reasons, huh? First, an account of the union of his soul to the, what, word of God. Because the more something receptive is near to the cause, flowing in these things, huh? The more it partakes of its influence, huh? But the pouring in of grace is from, what, God. According to that of Psalm 83, the Lord gives grace and, what, glory. Grace in this life and glory in the next, huh? Though glory is sometimes said to be gratia consumata, huh? And therefore, most of all, was it suitable that his soul would receive in flowing in of divine grace, huh? God is a source of, what, grace, huh? You couldn't be closer to God than to be united to him in the same, what, person. So he must receive, most of all, a flowing in of grace into his soul, right? Far more than any other, what, saint, even, huh? What is Dionne's article there? Grace of, what, Mary is of the hypostatic order? But given her proximity to Christ, right? And therefore to God, we expect her to receive a greater influx of grace than any other saint, huh? Secondly, an account of the nobility of his soul, whose operations, huh, is necessary to attain most, what, nearly? You know, talk about, what was Buckley's book there? Yeah. And some people say, it's a prayer, right? The way it's punctuated, huh? Pope Pinchizimedo, he should be most close, huh? To attain to God through, what, knowledge and, what, love, huh? And this is talking about knowledge and love that's in his, what, human nature, not in his divine nature, right? And so that he might attain to God in his very, what, human nature, most, nearly, right? Nearly anybody else. It's necessary that, what, human nature be elevated by grace, huh? It's a very good argument, isn't it? And third, an account of the relation of Christ himself to the human, what, race, huh? For Christ, insofar as he is man, is the mediator of God in men, as is said in the first epistle to Timothy. And therefore, it's necessary that he have grace also, what, pouring over into others, according to that of John 1.16. Of his fullness we have all received grace for, what, grace. I saw that in Shakespeare that day, grace for grace, it's true. So that's kind of strange. Very interesting things there. In Shakespeare, I don't know where he gets these things, but... So, Thomas often gives three reasons, even though he could give more, but three is enough, huh? But this is pretty thorough, I think. I have nothing more to give as a reason, right? I was telling you, I was going back, looking over the treatise on the goodness of God, and my favorite book, the Sumaconda Gentiles. And, as I mentioned before, there are five chapters that he has devoted to this. And, all together, there's 22 arguments, apart from the authoritative arguments. But, the Osophage arguments, there's 22 of them. So he has four arguments to show that God is good, five to show that he's goodness itself, six to show that he can't be bad, or anything bad can happen to him, three arguments to show that he's the good of every good, and four, that he's the sumum bonum, right? So I said, I'm going to go back and look at the question there on the goodness of God and the Summa Theologiae. I said, oh, you know, the only has a little bit of what he's got in my favorite book, you know. It just whets your appetite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It treats the Gentiles. But the Summa, you know, the Summa Contra Theologiae is more appropriate to a beginner, right? Giving you milk, as Thomas says. Now, the first objection seemed, what? He's essentially God, right? What does he need this partaking, right? But that's not doing justice to the fact that there are two natures here, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Christ is true God in his person, and divine nature, right? But since, with the unity of person, there remains a distinction of what? Nature's, huh? This is clear from the thing said above. The soul of Christ, huh? Is not through what it is, through its essence, right? Divine, right? Whence is necessary that it become divine? Divine by partaking, which is according to grace. Because grace is a partaking of the divine nature. That's beautifully solved, right? I don't appreciate the fact that there are two natures here, right? And one of the natures is essentially the divine nature, yes. But the other is not. So it's not going to be divine at all unless it partakes the divinity. And it partakes the divinity, the divine nature. That's what you mean by grace. Gracious. Of course, I couldn't think it was grace. It was Thomas, one of his prayers there, he asked for more grace, and then that God would reward the grace rather than him. Kind of funny the way he speaks there sometimes. It's interesting. It's what Augustine said about God. When he crowns the saints, he crowns the work of his own hand. Yeah. Not just because he made the nature, but he's the grace. So can you pray to God, asking him to move you to love him as you should love him? Because if God moves your will, it's not contrary to your will being free. When he moves your will, he's not forcing it, huh? Okay, now the second objection was saying about we need grace for eternal life, right? And to inherit this and so on. But being the natural son of God, he always owed this right. To the second, it should be said, to Christ, according as he is a natural son of God, there is owed the eternal, what? Inheritance. Which is the uncreated, the attitude, right? Through the uncreated act of knowledge and love of God, the same by which the Father, what? Knows and what? Loves himself. In my favorite book there, at the end of the first. In the first book of the Summa Congenitalis, he shows the beatitude of God and his divine nature. Because it presupposes, you know, the Nicomarcan ethics, where you have a sort of understanding what beatitude is. He shows that God is blessed and how his blessedness excels in everybody else's beatitude. But that act by which God in himself, right, knows and loves himself, that act the soul is not capable of. A soul cannot know and love God as much as God knows and loves himself. God is infinitely knowable and lovable. And so we can never know God as much as he is knowable. And we can never love God as much as he is lovable, right? We can never praise him as much as he is worthy of being praised. And we can never thank him as much as he is deserving of being thanked, huh? Of course, the young people say, don't you get a little bit tired of thanking God in heaven? No, no. Yeah, they can't understand. They need some kind of limitation upon God. Of which act the soul is not capable on account of the difference of the nature, right? Whence is necessary that he attain to God through the created act of what? Enjoying God, huh? Which is not able to be except through, what? Grace, huh? As Aristotle points out in the third book about the soul, the natural object of our mind is of what it is, of something sensed or imagined. And so if something cannot be sensed or imagined like God, we only know him perfectly, so far as he can be known, through the things that we do sense and imagine. So we need grace in order to be raised up to what? Knowing God as he is, huh? Likewise, as far as good action is concerned. Likewise, insofar as he is the word of God, right? He has the ability of doing all good things, huh? By divine operation. But because besides a human operation is necessary to lay down a certain, what? Human operation, Christ, huh? Is necessary in him for there to be habitual grace, by whom this operation in him would be, what? Perfect, huh? Now the third objection is not distinguishing or seeing a distinction between a, what, inanimate instrument, like the hammer in my example, right? And a, what? Yeah. To the third, it should be said that the humanity of Christ is an instrument of his divinity, not as a, what, inanimate instrument, which in no way acts, but is only acted upon, but as an instrument animated by a rational soul, which thus acts, that it is also, what? Yeah. And therefore, for the suitability of the action, it is necessary that he have, what? Habitual grace. So you're all convinced now that there's going to be habitual grace? Christ, huh? Now, whether there are virtues in Christ. So you're all convinced now that you're going to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able