Tertia Pars
Lecture 56: Christ's Wills: Natural, Sensual, and Rational

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

and likewise he permitted to all the powers of the soul to do those things which are, what? Proper to them, contained to them. Now, it is manifest that the voluntas sensualitatis, that's the emotions, right? The sense, sir, refuses or flees naturally sensible pains, right? And the injury of the, what? Body, right? Likewise, the will as a nature, repudiates them, those things which are contrary to, what? Nature, and which are in themselves or as such bad as, for example, death and other things of this sort, right? But these things, sometimes the will, the will per modem rationes, right, is able to choose, right, from their order to the end, just as also in some, purely a man, right, his sensuality, and his will absolutely considered, refuse, right, what is that? Burning? Okay. Which the will, secundum rationum, chooses on account of the end of what? Hell, yeah. Like a cloud of water, right? Yeah. But the will of God was that Christ was to undergo the pains or sorrows and the passions and death, right? Not that these were willed by God as such, right? But in order to the end of human, what? Salvation. Whence it is clear that Christ, according to the will of sensuality, according to the emotions, in a sense, and according to the will of what? Reason. Reason. Which is considered per modem naturae. And then notice the confusion there on the language a little bit, huh? Because the voluntas rationes, he was contrasting with the voluntas of the tour, right? By saying the will of reason as opposed to the sense desire, right? But the one that is by way of nature could will something other than God, right? But according to the will, which is per modem rationes, all things considered, as he said, the will, all things considered, he always, what? Willed what God wills, huh? Which is clear from the very thing that he said. Not as I will, but as you, so. There's some conformity there that he's talking about, right? Even though there's some will there that is willing something else, right? For he willed, according to the will of reason, to fulfill the divine will. Although, he says that he wills something other, according to his what? Yeah. What you will according to the will of reason there, one's conformity of God, is his will, simply speaking, right? Okay? That's all things considered, right? What you're choosing to do. That's why, what we see in Christ is perfect word. Because what's natural for him to want to avoid, he's a minor boy. What he chose because of God's will, is the right of that perfect word. So again, it's his nature, right? And the nature of the emotion, not to refuse this, right? To, to, to, be said, he's gone to death, as he says. Mm-hmm. Okay? After the first, it should be said, that Christ willed that the will of the Father be fulfilled, as it said in the psalm, I guess he quoted, not however according to the will of what? Yeah. Whose motion does not extend to the will of God. Now, this follows the census. Nor through the will which is considered by way of what? Nature. Which is carried towards some objects absolutely considered, right? And not in order to be what? Divine will, huh? In the same way to the second, it should be said that the conformity of the human will to the divine will is noted according to the will of what? Reason. According to which even the wills of friends are, what? In harmony. Insofar as reason considers something to be willed in order to the will of the, what? Friend, huh? He might do something that the grandchildren want to do. They absolutely consider you know what to do, right? Kind of funny. Go to Ginn, Grandpa. We went to the Ginn Museum there, you know, you know, and they got paintings and everything. Anyway, there's a courtyard there, and so I bought a green apple, right? So I started eating this green apple. And one little grandchild, she takes a couple bites on the apple, and that one takes it, takes a couple bites. Finally gets back to me, and it's always convenient to eat it, though. Well, did I want them to do that or not? Had a kind of trust, you know? I considered the other ones, and they said, they feel free to eat ground ground for this apple. They haven't learned about Obamacare yet. I saw bumper stickers the other day, the first time I saw it. And it's just, it's a sign, right? And all it's got is the name of Obama, but in front of it, so it's really like it's one word. Obama. Obama. That's pretty clever. Obama. Obama. But the third should be said that Christ was at the same time Comprehensor, right? Had viator, right? Insofar as through his mind, he enjoyed God, right? And yet he was a, what? Viator because he had a, able to suffer flesh, right? And therefore, on the side of the, able to suffer flesh, something could happen in him as he plugged in to, what? Will. And also to the sense of desire. Take a little break now. Article 6, is it? The sixth one is related to this idea, because if you have one will that is in conformity and one that's not, right, then is there in Christ a contrary to your wills, right? But Thomas seems to take a different side here. To the sixth one proceeds thus, and seems that in Christ there was a contrary to your wills. Why are you going to take the opposite side and you just said before? Well, the contrary to your wills is noted by the contrary to your wills, just as the contrary to your emotions is observed according to the contrary to your terms, as is clear to the philosopher in the fifth book of actual hearing, not physics. But Christ, according to diverse wills, willed contrary things. For according to his divine will, he willed death, which he, what, fled according to his, what, human will. Whence Athanasius says in the book, against Apollinarius, when Christ said, Father, if it is possible, let this, what, chalice pass for me. Nevertheless, not mine, but your will come about. And again, we said the spirit is prompt, but the flesh is, what, weak? That's what Faustus says, you know. I've got more flesh than I'm in, so. Let's take that into account. He shows here two wills, right? The human, which in account of infirmity, the flesh refuses the passion, and the divine, which is prompt to undergo the passion. Therefore, in Christ, there was a contrariety of wills. My text says, Ergo in Christo. Do you hear that? Do you hear the phrase spell there? What? Ergo in Christo. At the end of the objection? Yeah. Sounds like Spanish or something. Ergo in Christo. I didn't know no H in there. Oh, that's a typo in your book. Yeah, okay. Maybe in Italian they do that too, right? There'll be no H in there. Moreover, in Galatians 5.17, it is said that the flesh, what, lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, right? There is therefore a contrariety of wills when the spirit desires one thing and the flesh a, what, another. But this was in Christ, for through the will of charity, which the Holy Spirit made in his mind, for his mente, he wished, what, the passion. According to that of Isaiah's, he was offered up because he himself willed so. But according to the flesh, he, what, refused the passion. Therefore, there was in him a contrariety of what wills. Moreover, Luke chapter 22 had said that he was in agony, right? And he prayed in a, what, prolonged way, right? But agony seems to imply a certain, what, fight to the soul, tending to, what, contraries, a little war going on, as Shakespeare would say, right? Like a civil war, huh? You like that? I think what it is. Therefore, it seems that in Christ there is a contrariety of will. Against this is what is said in the determination of the sixth synod, in my book says, the, what, the third one, the consul constant. For we preach to, what, natural wills, not, what, contrary, according as, what, impious heretics assert, but following, what, his human will, right, and not resisting or fighting against it, but rather subject to his divine and omnipotent will. Well, what's Tom's going to say here now? You think he takes just the opposite side from what he said in the previous, huh? This guy surprises you, huh? I answer, it should be said, that contrariety cannot be unless, what, opposition be noted in the same and according to the same. If, however, according to diverse, and in diverse things the diversity exists, this does not suffice for the full notion of what, contrariety, just as not to the notion of contradiction. As an example of man, it is said to be, what, beautiful or healthy according to his hand, but not according to his foot. Well, that's no contradiction, right? To this, therefore, that there be a contrariety of wills in something, there is required first that, but according to the same thing, there would be noted a diversity of wills. If the will of one is something coming about according to a universal reason and another, the wills of something not coming about according to a certain particular reason, there is not altogether a, what, contrariety of wills. If, for example, the king wishes to suspend, the thief for the good of the republic, right, and some, what, one who is relative, wishes him not to be suspended in an account of his private love, there will not be a contrariety of one's wills. Unless, perhaps, to such an extent the will of the private good is extended, right, and that he wishes to impede the, what, public good, right, so that this private good might be reserved. Yeah, the kind of best thing to say about that. Okay. Then, according to the same thing, there is noted a repugnance of, what, wills, right, them. Secondly, there is required for a contrariety of will that it be about the, what, same will. For if man wills one thing according to the desire of the understanding, another according to the sense desire, there is not here any contrariety unless, perhaps, the sense desire to such an extent prevails that it changes or at least retards, right, the will or the desire, rather, of the reason. For thus, already it arrives at the, what, will of reason, something of the contrary motion of the sense apte. Thus, therefore, it should be said that although the natural will and the will of sensuality, you know, emotions, in Christ, something other will than the divine will and the will of reason of himself, right, there was not nevertheless there any contrariety of wills. First, because neither his natural will nor the will of sensuality repudiated that reason according to which the divine will and the will of human reason, right, in Christ wished the, what, the passion. for the absolute will in Christ willed the salvation of the human race. But it did not pertain, huh, to him, right, to will this in order to another, right, and the emotion of sensuality was not able to, what, extend itself to this, huh? Secondly, because neither the divine will nor the will of reason in Christ in Christ, Christ, Christ, of course in Christ. The divine will and the divine will were impeded or retarded through the what? Natural will, or through the appetite of sensuality. Since this era. Likewise, neither reversely was the divine will, or the will of reason in Christ, refusing or retarding the natural what? Motion, the natural will of man, and the motion of the sensuality of Christ. For it was pleasing to Christ, according to what? But the will, divinely, yeah, and according to the will of reason, right, that the natural will in him, and the will of sensuality, would be moved according to the order of their nature, you want to observe their nature. As opposed to the extreme position of the Stoics, right? You know, that you should not be moved at all, right? In your emotions there. Once it is clear that in Christ there was no repugnance or contrariety of what? Of wills, huh? Now the first objection, right? It seemed to be one and one, one and the other. To the first effort should be said, that some human will in Christ willed something other than his divine will, that proceeded from his divine will. Because he wanted them to, what? Have their natural motion, right? By who is what? Being pleased with, right? It was pleasing to his divine will that the human nature would be moved by its own motions in Christ, right? And if it, part of the reason why he wanted to do that is because he wanted to attest to his humanity, right? So if we said that Christ wasn't bothered at all by dying on the cross, it was no big deal. We would question, is that human nature, right? Yeah, human nature there. Just like after the resurrection there, he ate with the disciples, and they refer to that, right? That they not only were with him, but he ate with them, you know, again. And not out of any necessity, but to show his, what? His humanity, right? And so he, he was according to his divine will, right? And that the natural will and the emotions should have this, what? Repugnance, right, then? But they didn't in any way impede the rational will and the divine will. The second should be said, and this is the one from the spirit and the flesh, right? The second should be said that in us, through the concupiscence of the flesh, is impeded or retarded the desire of the spirit, huh? But this was not so in what? Christ. And therefore in Christ, there is not the same contrariative flesh to spirit as there is in us, huh? The third objection here about agony, right? How were we trying to say agony the other day? The struggle was not in Christ as regards the, what? Rational part of the soul, according as it implies a, what? Yeah, that's the word concert, right? It's kind of a struggle between the two components. The strings and the brass? Yeah. Yeah, what they call the concerto broso, right? It's kind of a struggle between two groups of instruments, right? It's the who shall win out, right? It's kind of a beautiful name, huh? And then they draw on the piano concerto, right? You know, most of the piano concerto are very kind of, you know, in some ways it's great instrumental music, but the piano's able to, you know, put up a better fight against the orchestra than the violin can, right? And so who's going to dominate, right? And Sonny Torpestow plays the tune and then the piano plays the tune, you know, and whose melody is this, you know? My melody? Oh, your melody, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think do it again. It's kind of interesting, the word there, concerto, huh? Concerto, I mean, you should say. Not concerto, but concerto. As when someone, according, if he's considered as one thing, wishes this, right? And according, if he's considered as another, he wishes the contrary. Well, that was not going on in Christ. And this happens on account of the, what? Weakness of reason, right? Which is not able to judge which is simply, what? Better. Better, yeah. So you've experienced that kind of situation, I think, right? Yeah. I don't know which is better to do. That was not in Christ, huh? Because through his reason, he judged simply to be better that through his passion, the divine will would be, what? Fulfilled, the divine will about the salvation of the human race, huh? But there was in Christ agonia as regards the sensitive part, right? According as it implies a fear of a, what? Unfortunate thing is imminent, as Dan the scene says in the third book. Maybe if you want to do something else to come up, you could like it. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you, our God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gracias. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order the room and our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you're written. Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. A little passage here from Shakespeare. I was rereading the mercy and forgiveness romances of Shakespeare, right? These are six plays, right? In Shakespeare's plays, if you set aside ten history plays, which are involved in special problems of classification, he has five comedies, three good-natured comedies and two satires. Then he has ten tragedies, right? And then in the middle, between them, he has the mercy and forgiveness plays, which there are six. And then between the mercy and forgiveness plays and the comedies, he has the love and friendship comedies, or romances, rather than that, comedies, which there's also six, right? Well, as we're reading the six plays there, the mercy and forgiveness plays, and right across this line here are these lines from Pericles, right? One of the other six plays. And it's a beautiful scene there where Pericles has apparently lost his wife, right? Who's died giving birth to a daughter on the ocean, and she had to be sent over the side, right? So he's apparently lost her. And then he had to leave his daughter with people because of her health and so on. And she grew to womanhood, but apparently died, right? And so he's a man who's very depressed, you know, his thing. But then he finally lands with his boat at the place where his daughter has ended up still alive. He doesn't know it's his daughter. But she strikes him as being, look at life as his wife, you know? And he begins to talk to her. And then she says, maybe I've had, you know, as bad a life as you've had, you know, and so on. And he starts to become, you know, convinced of something to her. And so he says here, Falseness cannot come from thee, he says. For thou lookest modest as justice, and thou seemest a palace for the crown of truth to dwell in. Beautiful, beautiful line, the way Shakespeare says it. I got thinking about a number of things here. They're applicable, of course, to theology. Why does he couple these two, or juxtapose these two things, justice and truth, right? Well, there's a certain likeness between justice and truth. If you take the adjective here, center justice, that justice is modest, huh? You've heard me quote from King Lear when Kent says, All my reports go with the modest truth, he says. Nor more, nor clipped, but so, right? And that's why the word justice is sometimes spoken with getting even, right? And even the adjective, you know, in size and so on, you say it just fits. You mean it's either bigger or smaller, but just that way. So there's a likeness between justice and, what, truth, and that both are modest, right? And also the idea of equality, huh? In another play of Shakespeare, I was just reading Measure for Measure, Shakespeare calls justice, injustice, rather, inequality. And sometimes in medievalism, they talk about truth, they say it's the equality of the mind with what? Things, right? It's either saying more than what's out there, what is not is. They're saying less than what's out there, saying that what is, is not. So, they're both modest, and they're both, has something to do with equality, and so on. That's kind of interesting, huh? Then I got thinking about this thing we met in the treatise in the Prima Pars on the will of God, where you talk about the mercy and the justice of God. And there's an article, if you may recall, in that particular part, that in all the works of the Lord, there is mercy and, what, justice, huh? But the authoritative quote that Thomas says in the Sittcutta there is from the 24th Psalm, where it says that all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. Instead of saying mercy and justice, as in the title of the article, in which you're talking about, right? He calls, used the word truth for justice, right? So, when I looked at our commentary, Thomas' commentary there on the Psalms, and looked at the 24th Psalm again, and of course he has in there a quote from, I think it's Tobias, which also speaks of mercy and truth. So, there's at least two places, maybe three places in Scripture that he has there. Where truth is used for justice, right? And I expected to find an explanation, Thomas, as to why the word truth should be used for justice, right? And he did it too. I don't know, that was too obvious to him, right? I don't think he really explains there, see? But, same thing with Shakespeare, right? He sees that, what, likeness between the two, right? And it's kind of striking that, because so much I like this, that the word truth will be used in the key texts for that truth in theology, that all the ways of the Lord are truth and justice, right? They should use the word mercy and what? Truth. But now, the other thing that struck me was that he should call the truth crowned, right? That's a beautiful expression, right? It's like saying that truth is the king, right? Truth is crowned, right? And as an Aristotelian, huh? I got thinking about what Aristotle says about wisdom in the second book of wisdom, and what he says about wisdom in the gramium, the wisdom. In the second book of wisdom, Aristotle says that wisdom is the epistamia, right? The reason out knowledge, the reason out understanding of truth, huh? He says of the truth, right? As if he's using the word truth there by Antonia Messia, right? And the reason he gives why wisdom is the knowledge of the truth, in a way that no other reason out knowledge is, is based upon that principle we've given before, which Thomas usually refers to by saying, that because of more so, but which I explain more fully as, but when the same belongs to two things, but to one of them because of the other, it belongs more to the cause. You've heard my simple examples, where sweet is said of the sugar and the coffee, but the coffee because of the sugar, so which is more sweet and so on. So, if true is said of the cause and the effect, but the effect is true because of the cause, which is more true. Yeah. And therefore the first causes would be most true of all, right? I think Christ said I'm truth itself, right? And so, if wisdom is the knowledge of the first causes, as he showed in the Kramium, then it is most of all the knowledge of the, what? Truth, okay? That shows a connection between wisdom and truth. But now, how about wisdom and being king, right? Well, in the Kramium, when Aristotle works out the six-part description of the wise man, the culmination is that it belongs to the wise man to direct and to order all others and not to be ordered or directed to anybody else. There's a net person to be wise, right? So, if the wise man directs the orders of others, he has a likeness to the, what? The king of the king. And why is that so? Because his wisdom is a knowledge of the truth by Antonia Messiah. And then, of course, I thought of the 19th chapter, no, 18th chapter. Thank you. of John, right? When Christ is talking with Pilate, Pilate says, well, then you are a king, he says. And Christ says, now I said it. As if he's agreeing, I'm a king, right? But then in explanation of how he's a king, he said, for this I was born, and this I came into the world, and I may give testimony unto the truth. His kingdom is a kingdom of what? Truth. And I was thinking, you know, how when Thomas explains the names of the sons, sometimes the sons are called the, what? Splendor of the father, right? And so in the 92nd psalm it is, in the correct numbering, the first lines are, the Lord is king in splendor role. They're tying up the kingship of the Lord with what? The splendor. of the one who was born to give testimony unto the truth. And then this other psalm, this famous one, I think it's 109, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, I make your enemies, your footstool, and so on. He's talking about kind of a kingly role. And he says, going on, yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor. Before the days, till I do have begotten you. So it's beautiful that Shakespeare calls the truth, what? Crown, right? Because there's a likeness between truth and what? Being the king, right? Now, sometimes, I might mention another thing in Shakespeare, too. Sometimes, Shakespeare used the word crown for the end. And the end crowns everything else, he says, right? Well, as Augustine says, our end is Gaudium De Veritate, right? Joy over the truth, right? So it's a crown in that sense, too. But I was thinking when I first got thinking about this, it reminded me of his kingship, right? There's various ways in which he's going to be understood, of course. But in that same psalm that I was mentioning, 109, it talks about the kingship of Christ and his, what, priesthood, huh? Or priesthood, according to the Lord of Chisedec and so on. And sometimes you have only those two mentioned, right? Other times you have king, priest, and prophet, right? And when I grew up as a little boy in the old catechisms, right? And they would teach, you know, the commandments under Christ the king and the truths of the faith under his prophetic or teaching role. And then his sacraments and so on under his being the priest, right? But if you drop out the prophet and just take two, then you've got to put the teacher somewhere in the truth. And I was thinking, well, if I put someplace, I'd probably put it with the kingship of Christ, right? Just like, you know, Christ, you know, is said to be, what, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? Well, you might kind of appropriate life to his priesthood, right? Although it's taken in his divinity there. And truth to his being, what, the king. You're going to just have those two, huh? I was thinking a little bit about the wine of wisdom, you know, the old principle there. And in the second chapter there of John, where Christ turns the water into wine, we have these vases or jars of water, and the scripture mentions of two or three measures. I say, now, why can't they say which it is? See? Because, you know, later on in the last chapter, I guess it is, they catch 153 fish, they don't give more or less, you know, 150 or so, it's very exact 153, huh? They can be that exact about the number of fish caught. Why can't they be exact as to whether the measure, right, should be two or what? Three. So, now, you know, Chris, I, the teacher of the rule of two or three, right? Yeah. But, I usually say it more quickly as you should divide into two or three or both, huh? Okay? So, when Thomas is explaining the request of Mary and so on, right? In the occasion for the request of Mary. They have no wine, she says, right? They're running out of wine, right? The wine is, what? Failing, right? I think I brought in that text one day, you know, and Thomas says, well, there's three wines that are running short here. And he says, one is the wine of charity, right? One is the wine of, what, wisdom? And one is the wine of, what, justice, right? Now, of course, this is being said metaphorically, right? And what is there in wine that indicates these three different things, huh? Well, if you put wine on a sore, you would burn, right? Okay? And so this is justice, huh? And so the good Samaritan used oil and wine, right? He uses mercy and justice, right? All the ways of that. So it's that aspect of wine that allows you to call it justice, right? What allows you to call it charity? Well, because it inebriates you, right? Okay? Makes you amourish, right? And, you know, in the famous prayer there, the great prayer, the Anima Christi, right? San Luis Christi in Ibriamme, right? It means with what? Charity, right? So that aspect of wine is metaphor for the effect of charity, right? But then Vinum etificat, you're quoting that, Vinum etificat cor hominis, huh? Or as the French say, good wine, rejoices the heart of man, in their improvement upon scripture. And then he quotes, you know, the same text that uses the beginning of the Suicant Gentiles, you know, that there's no bitterness in wisdom, just what? Delight and enjoy, huh? In these things. And so that's the way in which wine is like wisdom, rejoices the heart of man, huh? Now I was talking about the disputed questions on power again, right? Just absolutely delightful things there. And I was mmm. There's nothing bitter in there at all, just one delicious thing after another. But then when Thomas gets to the jars, the two or three, right? He has some other explanation of it, right? And I said, well, he could give another explanation here in terms of the wine of wisdom, right? Because wisdom is at about two or three. Well, sometimes we say that wisdom is about the humanity and the divinity of Christ, right? So that's two, right? But sometimes you say it's about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, huh? Like we do in the Nicene Creed, and so on. Sometimes we say that, or the theology is about God in himself and God is the beginning of things and God is the end. So sometimes we say two and sometimes we say what? Three, right? So John has fallen to rule two or three. The devil can quote scripture after all. Just give one delicious thing here from the disputed questions on power. Did God produce creatures? Did God create naturally or voluntarily? Yeah. But some of the greatest minds have said the reverse, right? And the one mind that Thomas happens to mention there of course is the great Avicenna, right? And if you read through the sentences which is an earlier work of Thomas, you see a lot of what he got from Avicenna. And when you read Albert the Great, you can see Albert quoting very wonderful things from Avicenna. So you have to have a great deal of respect for Avicenna. But at the same time, he made some poor mistakes. So in Avicenna seeing that or thinking of the procedure naturally, nature is determined to what? One. Like Shakespeare says in Coriolanus, right? Good.