Tertia Pars
Lecture 28: Grace in Christ: Fullness, Infinity, and Growth

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Unlimited, right? He has everything that pertains to the excellence of grace, right? So he could do all these things he wanted to, right? The second objection. The grace of Christ has an infinite effect on account of the foresaid, right, infinity, and an account of the unity of the divine person to which the soul of Christ is, what, united, huh? Because that goes back to the kind of infinity that he's explained in the text there. Now, to the third, it should be said that the less, through growth, can arrive at the quantity of the greater in those things which have quantity of one, what? One definition, huh? One meaning. But the grace of another man is compared to the grace of Christ as a particular virtue or power to the, what? Universal one, right? Whence, that's the old example, as the power of fire, no matter how much it, what? Grows, cannot equal the power of the sun, right? So the grace of another man, no matter how much it grows, is never able to equal the, what? The grace of Christ, huh? Yeah, because unless there's a unity, it wouldn't be attached to the infinity of the divine nature, right? Okay. Parish house tonight and help out putting on these little labels they're going to send for a foca. Yeah. Oh, is that? Yeah, they're doing all the parishes, they're doing it, yeah, I guess, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a couple hours in the night, but there's going to be some more tonight, so. Has foca been assigned, but what's the status? Oh, no, they're trying to anticipate, right? It's still in the Congress, right? Yeah, yeah, it hasn't been brought up yet, but I mean, you know, they're expecting. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. God, our enlightenment. Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds. Order and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Thank you, God. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I think I mentioned last time that I happened to be reading the encyclicals of Pius X. And there is an encyclical on St. Anselm, right? It's called, the Latin title is Communium, Rerum, something like that. And I was very impressed by this encyclical. And of course, he's describing at some length there St. Anselm's problems that he had with the King of England when he was bishop, you know, at Canterbury Archbishop there. He was exiled a couple of times, I think, and all kinds of things. But from the point of view of our course in theology here, about, oh, it's about maybe number 44 in the text there, you know, the numbered sections. 44, I was to the end. Description of Anselm as the theologian and what he did for the development of theology in the Middle Ages. And among other things, I mean, he talks about something that you find even in Boethius and other people, Augustine. And avoid the extreme of being presumptuous when you take up these mysteries of the faith, that you're going to measure them by human reason or measure them by philosophy and not have faith and so on. But then the other extreme of not trying to understand, so far as you can, these mysteries that you believe. That's a very good point. And it's something that Father Boulez de-Ephasize a lot, but it's a very nice text in the encyclical. And then later on, another thing I used to talk about, too, when you have faith seeking understanding, it's kind of a foretaste of heaven where you're going to really understand these things. But it's natural for you to do that. So I think it's a very good, very interesting work. And then I got a little bit curious there, so I decided to go to Google there and look up St. Anselm, right? And I noticed on St. Anselm, there's about 300 places you can get this encyclical. So, you know, I always get it off the people, you know, the Vatican, the website, you know. So if you go to the Vatican website, go to Pius X, you'll find other encyclicals, you know. But you can also get it directly in one of these ones where St. Anselm is there. But then they have a little bit of St. Anselm's works there in English, too, on the website. At the Ethereal Library, the Christian Library, and I started reading one of them. I've always heard about this work of St. Anselm called Cur Deus Homo, right? Why did God become a man? And people said, well, this is unreasonable. He should come down here and lower himself and all that sort of stuff. And I read through the first book. There's two books that make up the work, right? And there's a little short chapter, like maybe 25 chapters there in book one. And I just got to read the first book one when I read book two now. But it's a very interesting little work, you know. There's interesting kinds of dialogue between St. Anselm and another guy, right? And he reads his questions and Anselm answers them and so on. And so it probably worked, if you had a chance to read that, for what we're studying right now. It goes back to the question that Thomas had there, you know, was it suitable if he'd become a man and so on, right? Was it necessary and so on, right? Did the book come true? Well, he doesn't talk about that, but he does say, you know, that Anselm was, by his moderation, avoiding those two extremes, right? He was preparing the way for the great princes of this classic theology. Thomas and Baudaventure, he mentioned Baudaventure, right? As well, Thomas primarily. And then he speaks later on about how Thomas, you know, sometimes doesn't entirely agree with Anselm. He goes further than Anselm, right? But he's very radical. The thing I didn't realize, you know, when I went to the website there, as you say, the Google for that, I read some little biographical things of Anselm and so on. But I guess he died in 1109, huh? Yeah. So they're having some, you know, symposia, you know, conferences on his thought this year, you see, because the 900th, I guess, in 1109. So maybe there'll be another encyclical, maybe, you know, there'll be another encyclical on him this year by only surprised at knowing Benedict. But it was very interesting, that particular work, you know? One of the earliest encyclicals of Pius X is the one dealing with the law of separation in France around 1904. That's where they threw all the religious orders out of the country. And they took over all the churches, all the historical churches, anyway. And he's protesting all this, you know, violation of the independence of the thing. So I was talking to Warren Murray on the phone today about this. And he's saying, well, one good effect, though, was that some of the orders, right, once the monasteries were closed, right, in France, first of all, they tried to live just with the people in the town, but that wasn't suitable for their religious life. So they looked for a place where they could go, and they went over to England. And they started, you know, Benedictine. There weren't even Benedictine, you know, one since 18th, right, in England. And then later on, they were allowed to come back into France. We said the other good thing was, of course, when they took over all these historic churches, then the state has to maintain them, right? But, of course, they allowed them to say the mass that are in them, right? He said they could never maintain, you know, the Church of France, could never, you know, keep up these buildings, you know, from collapsing and so on. So, yeah, interesting. The monastery you were in in Nova Scotia was inhabited by our studying who had gotten kicked out of France. Yeah. Oh, the Chappos came out. Yeah. So good comes out even on bad sometimes. Some of the things. There's a story that, of course, a piece in Scotland, some people were having to smoke a lot of a stash of Raleigh and it ended up in Belgium. And it's still there because the Belgians won't, the Belgians won't give it back. It doesn't develop its own colp there, but it's still called Raleigh of M.D. Okay, so we're up to Article 12 here in Question 7. Did the grace of Christ is able to grow, right? To the priests. To the 12, one goes forward thus. It seems that the grace of Christ is able to be increased. For to everything that is finite or limited, there can be some addition, right? But the grace of Christ was finite, as it said in the previous articles, back in Article 10, I guess. Therefore, it is able to be what? Yeah. Maybe Thomas saw the need to have this article here because different senses of infinite, right? That are hard to say. Moreover, the increase of grace comes about through the power of God, the divine power, according to that of the second epistle of the Corinthians, chapter 9. God is potent, huh? To make all grace abound in you, huh? But the divine power, since it's infinite, can in no way be, what? Restricted by some limit, huh? Therefore, it seems that the grace of Christ could have been made, what? Greater, huh? Moreover, it says in Luke, chapter 2, verse 52, that the boy, Jesus, went forward, huh? In age and wisdom and grace before God and men, right? You know those words there, sapientia et gratia, right? These two things we're talking about here about the power of Christ. Well, I get scripture even inside, right? Therefore, the grace of Christ is able to, what? Increase or grow. But against all this is what is said in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel. We see him, as it were, the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. But nothing greater can be understood than that someone be the only begotten from the Father. Therefore, it cannot be, or even be understood, that there be a greater grace than that. Christ was what? Phil. He's taking the objection here, saying that what? His being full of grace and truth is a sense of result of his being the, what? Only begotten from the Father. And nothing greater than that, right? So how can there be a fullness greater than what he has there? Thomas makes, sees a distinction here to begin with. I answer, it should be said, that some form is not able to be increased, and this can happen in two ways that some form cannot be increased. In one way, on the side of the, what? Subject of the form. In another way, on the side of the form itself. Now he starts to explain these two ways. On the side of the subject. When the subject attains to the furthest it can, in partaking of that form, according to its own, what? Mode or measure, huh? Just as if one was to say that air, huh? That it cannot increase in heat when it arrives at the, what? Furthest grade of heat that can still be saved with the nature of, what? Air. In the ancient, what? Well, science, if you made the air too hot, it would turn into, what? Fire, right, huh? So, even that air, therefore, would never have the heat that, say, fire had, right? But it could have, what? The most heat, or the hottest, that air could be, and still be air. Okay? That's according to the subject, huh? Just like, you know, you could say this class here, right? You have more water in a class than this. Not in this class. Well, maybe it's our agent, right? Okay. But there's a limit here, how much it can be received, right? But water can be received greater than that, but not in this class. That's one way it can be limited by the subject. On the side of the form, there is excluded a possibility of growth. So, when some subject reaches the, what, fruitless perfection, in which that form can be had, huh? Just as if one was to say, using the old physics here now, that the heat of, what, fire cannot be increased, huh? Because there's not able to be a more perfect rate of heat than that to which, what, fire attains, huh? Okay, now he starts to apply this distinction to the matter hand. Just as in the case of other forms, huh? There is a, what, determined proper measure from divine wisdom, so also of, what, grace, huh? According to that of the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 11, and that's the book, I guess, that's what, the original text we have is in Greek, isn't it? Yes. It's appropriate, huh? You've disposed all things in number, weight, and what? Measure, right? Augustine and Thomas often explain those words, huh? But now the measure for some form is fixed ahead in comparison to its end, huh? Let me give you an example again from the older science. Just as there is not a greater, what, heaviness, huh? Than the heaviness of the earth, huh? Because there cannot be a lower place than the place of the, what, fire, huh? In the older knowledge, the earth was at the very center of the universe, right? And heavy things go down, right? And the very center of the universe is as low as you can get. It's the furthest you can get away from the heavens, right? Okay. Now, what has this got to do with the question at hand? Well, he says, the end of grace is nothing other than the union of a rational creature to God. So, in general, you can say, what's the purpose of grace, huh? Of to unite us with God, right, huh? Now, is there some, what, limit beyond which you cannot receive grace, huh? Well, is there some union to God then which there is no and cannot be any greater one? That's the, what, hypostatic union, right? To be united to God so that this divine person is, in fact, what, a man as well as you and me. There can't be any greater union than that, huh? I think that's what he's going to say. Let's let him say it, though, huh? So, the end of grace is a union of the rational creature to God. But there cannot be, nor even be understood, a greater union of the rational creature to God than that which is in a, what, person. And therefore, the grace of Christ reaches to the highest measure of grace, huh? Thus, therefore, it is manifest that the grace of Christ is not able to be increased on the side of the grace itself, right? If it could, there could be a union to God greater than, yeah, a kind of human or reasonable nature, could it be joined to God more than to the person of God? No. So, his grace, right, which is going to correspond to that end, right? But neither on the side of the subject, huh? Because Christ, as he is man, from the first instant of his conception, was a true and full, what? Comprehensor. That is to say, he had the beauty of vision, right? Whence in him there could not be an increase of grace, just as neither in the other blessed can there be an increase of grace, huh? Whence in him there could not be an increase in that they are in the end of, what, life, huh? In which they're both. Now, men, like you and I, who are purely on the way, right? He says pure, right, because, what, Christ was not, as far as his body, right? In his ultimate goal, right? As far as his soul, right? His soul is not going to be joined to God any more than it was at the, what, moment of his, what? That conception, right? That perfection is due to Christ, because he's going to be the source of grace and wisdom for all the rest of us, huh? But we who are purely on the way, right? Neither our body nor our soul has yet reached its goal, right? Grace can be increased on the side of form, huh? Because they have not attained the highest grade of grace, and also, it can be increased on the side of the, what, subject, because they're not yet reached their, what, end or goal, huh? That's a mouthful, huh? I often wonder whether I should go on reading, you know? After, you know, we'd do our first reading at the house there, and we'd just sit around the rest of the day, and we'd think the thing that I read already. And I'd go out on St. Dionne's lectures sometimes, and give her some phrase or two of him, you know, and think about it for the rest of the day, huh? I'd criticize my first teacher, because, sir, you're repeating yourself, and I will do so, he says, until I understand it. That's my prerogative, my right, to repeat myself until the thing really sinks in, right? They say that's the difference between men and women, right? My brother Mark, one time, he was teaching at the Chesuit College there, and they had a special program, which he didn't keep up because it was too expensive, but he had just eight students, period. And he'd take each one of these eight students for two hours a week, privately, and reading the great books, right? And one thing he'd know is what the difference between men and women. Sometimes, you know, you have women who would get the idea quicker than a man, right? But they weren't willing to go over and over the same thing again and again, right? It's got to be something like... Yeah, yeah. That's kind of interesting, right? Doctor, was it the women that didn't want you to go over the world? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit like, you know, a man can put on the same, you know, shirt, the same pants day after day, you know. And a woman says, I'm going to change her. She's got to change herself. But you've got to change too, right? You expect to do that, right? And I know it's just with eating too. A man can eat the same meal, the same food, you know. Week after week, right, huh? My brother Mark and I lived together, you know, we had a little schedule, you know. So like one day we had chicken, one day we had steak, one day we had, you know, fish. Week after week after week, you know. This would drive women crazy, right? When I was, when I went to the bookstore, the females ridiculed me because when I bought a new pair of shoes, I bought the same kind of hat. Yeah. I think you'll notice that right away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what Tom's just saying, the way to be wise is you're mad at one book, right? Now it's implied rejections, right? Now Thomas is replying to the first objection that says, hey, if the grace of Christ is finite, as he said before, right, then can it be increased? To the first, therefore, it should be said that if we speak of mathematical quantities, to each finite quantity there can be a, what? Addition, yeah. Because from the side of a finite quantity, there is nothing that is upugnant to, what? Addition, right? So you look at the, you know, theorems, say, in Euclid there, you can always, what, bisect a line, right? They can get smaller and smaller, right? Or in book four, you have the famous theorems about inscribing squares and size of circles, and circumscribing them, and then doing the reverse, right? So circles within squares, and squares within circles, and circles around squares. So you keep on going forever, right? You know, smaller or bigger, right? But now the great discovery of Aristotle, right, in the text, and it's aggrist in the first book of natural area. If, however, we speak of natural quantity, there can be a repugnance from the side of the, what? Form, to which there is owed a, what? Determined quantity, just as other accidents are determined, huh? And so Aristotle's reasoning against Anaxagoras, Anaxagoras says that everything is composed of an infinitive, infinitely small pieces, everything, right? And Aristotle says, well, if the parts can be infinitely small, if the parts can fall below just any size, then the whole can fall below any size, huh? But now if you go out to the natural world, what do you find? Just any size for a dog or a cat or a tree? Well, different kinds of animals and different plants have certain limits within which that kind of animal or plant is found, right? So those limits are not due to quantity per se by itself, right? But due to the, what? Nature of this thing, huh? Okay. Now when Aristotle takes up the continuous in the sixth book of natural hearing, he says the continuous is, what? Divisible forever, right, huh? But that's considering the continuous in general, or by itself, right? When you descend down to the continuous individual things, right? Then you find that because of their form and therefore their nature, there are certain limits above which or below which they are not common, huh? So you couldn't find to have a man as small as a molecule of water, or as tall as the Empire State Building, right? So Aristotle was the first man to, what? To see this, right? That there are limits in the quantities of natural things due to their natures, right? Limits that could not be foreseen from the point of view of pure mathematics, a quantity considered by itself. And what kind of took place in modern physics, huh? What they call the physics of the 20th century, starting with quantum theory in December of 1900, and then special relativity in 1905. What distinguishes modern physics from Newtonian physics, as they call the physics of the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, was the discovery of limits, right, in the quantities of natural things due to the natures of these things. Limits that could not have been foreseen from a purely mathematical point of view. And when you were applying the pure mathematical natural world, you kind of assumed that what's true of quantity by itself is true of the quantity of natural things. But then in December of 1900, Max Planck, who's called the father of modern physics, he proposed the quantum hypothesis, right? That energy is given off or taken on, not in just any amount, but there's a smallest amount. And you have to give or receive that amount or some multiple of that amount, but nothing less than that amount. Something like the monetary system, right? Where, like in our system, there's the smallest amount, the penny, right? You can't give less than a penny, okay? And then in 1905, Einstein's special relativity proposed that there was a maximum speed in the universe, right? Which was the speed of light, huh? So although mathematically you can go beyond 186,000 miles per second, in the real world, in the natural world, this is not, according to the theory, right? It's possible, right? And then when they started to work on the elementary particles, huh? Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pollard, the guys at the Nobel Prize in the quantum theory, they were working on this. And they were looking at the idea that there's a minimum length in the universe. A length below which there can't be anything. Which made no sense to the point of 20 physics, right? You kind of, you know, closely with your math there. And, but it's interesting, when they first started, you know, studying the elementary particles, they were speaking like Anaxagoras, right? In the same difficulty as Anaxagoras. And the position would make it, but it seemed like, you know, out of any elementary particle, we could get all the rest. So every elementary particle must be composed of all the rest. Well, then inside each one of those, there would be all the rest, and so on, it would be getting smaller and smaller and smaller. But that's contrary, right, to our experience, that the electron always has the same size. And the proton and the elementary particle. So there's limits in these sizes, huh? So Thomas is putting out this distinction there, right? If you're in pure mathematics, right, you're in geometry, right, there's no such thing as a shortest line or a longest line, right? Or a smallest circle or a largest circle. And the very theorem is that you can always inscribe, you know, a circle inside a square and vice versa, or circumscribe. And these theorems that show you how you do this imply that, right? But you can always have a bigger one, right? Okay? Always have a smaller one, huh? But you go out to the nature of things, there are certain, what, limits, right? He quotes another text from the philosopher, and that means Aristotle, right? But Aristotle, incidentally, had the idea, too, that there's a maximum speed in the universe. So he anticipates, in that respect, Einstein, right? But the more general I did, Aristotle saw that there are limits in the quantities of natural things due to their natures. He's kind of open to discovering that because, as you find out in the second book of Natural Hearing, the difference between, what, quantity in mathematics and quantity in natural science. And the natural scientist, the natural philosopher, is interested in, let's say, number, only insofar as it's the number of an actual thing. That's the number of legs you have, right? Or the number of ears you have. Or the number of chambers you have in your heart or something, right? And it's interested in shape, only insofar as the shape of something. What shape is the moon or what shape is the sun or something, right? 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And therefore, if something happens to quantity or shape because of the nature of these things, that would not be discovered by the term mathematician. So R. Stiles is open to being the first man in history to see this difference, huh? That there are limits in the quantities of natural things due to the natures of these things, limits that don't appear in the abstract consideration of quantity in what pure matter. But in more particular, he also thought that there was a maximum speed universe. The Aristotle would be the revolution of the sun and the daily revolution of the sky around us, right? He had reason to think that that was the fastest thing to ever go. Einstein had reason to think of what light is the fastest, right? In a sense, what characterizes the physics of the 20th century is the discovery of these, what, limits, right? You know, when Einstein went on from special relativity to general relativity, he went on to state universe as a whole, right, in cosmology. And one of the things that seemed probable as he went on was that the universe was finite. And that it assumed since the Renaissance the universe was what? Infinite, right? You see? That was a tremendous shock, right? And he began to even wonder whether it was finite in time, you know, and he had the Big Bang and so on, right? But maybe it was limited in both, what, size and in time, huh? And as they say, when they went on to the state of elementary particles, they started to work with the idea that there was minimal links in the universe, right? So limits in the direction of the small and limits in the direction of the, what, large, huh? I think I mentioned before, but there's an interesting essay there by Feitzacher, who was a physicist to explain why the sun can go on so long without burning out. He was a student of Heisenberg, right? But an interesting essay in one of his books there, where he begins by telling about the fact he's in the lecture one time on developments in physics, right? And how these limits were occurring everywhere, right? You know? And the tricks of the large, and so on. And this older physicist, you know, got very angry. And so, after his lecture, he went to see this guy privately to see why he was so upset, right? He didn't have any scientific objections, you know, to the new things, but he just didn't like the idea of all these limits. So Feitzacher got thinking about this, and he says that this belief in modern times that the universe was infinite, because Aristotle thought it was finite, right? The universe had reasons for thinking so. But this belief that the universe is infinite arose at the same time as they started, what, to give up the study of theology. God is infinite, as you know. But the universe now has to be a substitute for God. And we can have something infinite to satisfy our mind. Well, then when they found out that the universe maybe is not infinite after all, there's kind of a panic, you know? So, that's interesting, you know? So there's a lot of things to take up here about, you know, infinity, right? And even if you deal with just pure mathematics, you can speak of a line as being, what, longer and longer and so on. But then, if you have a surface, you've got another way that can be, what, infinite, right? And then when you get to a body or a solid, then you have something that can be some pitchy chair, infinite as far as quantity is concerned, right? Quite often in all directions, right? So you might say that a surface is infinite more so than a line. So how can that be? But it's infinite in a different, what, way, right? So once the philosopher says in the second book about the soul, that of all things constituted by nature, there is a limit, right? And a reason of their magnitude and growth. That's why natural wine, right? It actually stops at it's serving alcohol. Then keep on going, it's different with different grapes, you know, but stop usually in the range of 11 to 14%, right? Something like that. And hence it is that to the quantity of the whole heaven, the universe, there can be no, what, addition, right? But that's for reason of the form, right, to the universe. Much, therefore, more in forms themselves, right? Can be considered some limit, huh? Beyond which they don't go, right? So he's saying that even in quantity, right? Because of the form, right? Of the natural thing, because of the nature of the thing, which is primarily form, there's a limit as to how much they can be, right? So if quantity is limited by form, then form in itself, right, can have a limit, right? Much more, therefore, right, in forms themselves, there can be considered some limit, right? So what limits other things, can itself, much more, right, have a limit. And therefore, on account of this, it's not necessary that there can be any addition to the grace of Christ, even though in its very nature, it is, what, limited, right? Do you see that? He's giving an argument there, a fortiori argument, right? He's saying we know that quantity considered by itself, or an abstraction, right, in math, you can, what, it doesn't seem to be any limits, right? But then you go to the natural world, and you see that there are limits in the sizes of different things, right? How big or how small they can be. That's due to the what? Yeah, and to the form of the thing, right? Well, therefore, a fortiori, in forms themselves, there can be a what? A limit, right, huh? Okay? If form itself had no limit, it would not give limit to other things, would it? You know, if whiteness existed by itself, like Plato's, I spoke a little bit sometimes, it would seem to be unlimited in its what? Yeah. But would it be a limited period? No, it wouldn't have any wisdom in it. It wouldn't have any justice in it, and so on, right? Yeah, it would be lacking many things, right? It would be limited to this one form of whiteness, right, huh? But would it have the fullness of whiteness, right, you could have more, right? So in some way it's infinite, right? But not simply without qualifications, so. Now this distinction that we've spoken about between simpicitere and say kundum quid is the way they say it in Latin. In Greek they say haklos. But simply and not simply, you see a Latin, simpicitere, kundum quid, you see, so that. This is a very important kind of distinction, huh? And it shows up all the time, huh? You find it in the first distinctions of being, huh? The first distinctions of being are into substance and accident, to act and ability to different distinctions. Now, when I came into this roof, you see a lot of people are in the first place, you see a lot of people are in the first place, you see a lot of people are in the first place, you see a lot of people are in the first place,