Tertia Pars
Lecture 119: The Suitability and Effects of Christ's Death

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That's the part of comedy, right? Aristotle, after comparing tragedy and epic, which are similar, right, in the emotional effect that they have, similar in the kind of characters they reveal or make use of, he asks, which is higher or a better form of fiction, right? And he argues that the tragedy is better than what? Epic, yeah. Because it produces the same, what, effect in a much, what, shorter time, right? And so there he has something which is simpler or smaller, anyway, right? And that sounds like a simple oxy, like God, but simpler than the, what, tragedy, I mean, than the epic, right? But it's, what, yeah. See, there's a little imitation there of what you get in God, right? Now, my other, another example that I like, of course, is the one that I was talking about in Proposition 5 there, right? In Book 2 of Euclid, where it shows, or you can deduce in that, anyway, that, take a rectangle now to include square, right? That of all rectangles, the square contains more area for the same perimeter, right? And even more area for what? Less perimeter. Less perimeter. And I don't want to try to prove it here, but just take an example. If you had a square in a 5 by 5, and you had a oblong that's 2 by 10, well, the perimeter of, oh, excuse me, 2 by 8, I think. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I have a standing challenge for anybody in 50 words or less, right? To write an exhortation, you know, as good as Shakespeare, I don't think they could. So there you see something of an imitation there in a faith way, obviously. Because none of these things are perfectly simple, right? Square or the words of the wise men. Nevertheless, they're simpler and smaller, and therefore they're more. What? You have to contain more, right? And so God, being all the other simple, in a sense, contains the whole universe. He says, you know, to Moses, I guess, or Abraham, I will show you every good. Thomas says, that is myself. So inside of him, there's every good, right? But in a very, what, simple way. So it'll be interesting to see God as he is, in the least, right? I don't think you will, and this is kind of a faint anticipation by me, you know, but it's going to be amazing to see how perfect he is, but in a simple way, you know? It's kind of an amazing thing to see, I think. But you can't get over, in this life in theology, the human way of knowing, you see? Unless we have this abstract and, what, concrete. It goes back to the fact that, say, in my being healthy, if I am healthy, my body and the health it has are not exactly the same thing, are they? And that's why my body could lose its health, right? Of course, losing it. You see what I mean? And if my body and its health are the same thing, I'd be in very good shape, you know? Because you can't separate something from itself. So the perfection of a thing, you know, is always composed here. It's always, you have something, right? But that doesn't make our knowing God false, right? Unless you think that the way we know must be the way things are, right? But the fact that we have to use both the abstract and the concrete in talking about God is because of our way of knowing, right? Not because there's a real difference between him and God. So Deus means habens, having, Dehi Tatum, right? Having the divine nature, right? Even though the one who has it is the same, right? So the abstract and the concrete don't really differ in God. What has the perfection, whatever it might be, and the perfection itself are not really, what, distinct, right? Well, we can't avoid speaking in this way because that's the way we know, drawn from sensible things, material things, huh? Of course, I'm very thankful for, you know, my education in philosophy of nature because there you really get the idea of matter and form and the distinction of them and how these things are composed of matter and form and even in some way the mathematical things are composed of matter and form, huh? Like the shape of the thing and the extension of the matter, right? So it goes back then again to that fundamental question of philosophy, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right? Well, if it did, then we couldn't know God at all by these things, right? But when we say, hey, I use the simple, I use the abstract to bring out the simplicity of God, I use it concrete to bring out its perfection, we're getting a little bit of knowledge of God, right, huh? But in, what, a composed way, right? We know something simple in a composed way, huh? Now, when I was first, you know, when I was in college there, we had a course, kind of advanced course in philosophy, it's called natural theology. And they actually did the questions in the Summa, as Eric did, before you get to Trinity, right? So the part that you could know by natural reasoning as well, and they call it natural theology, and that's kind of my favorite course, you know? But as you try to understand, you know, that God is simple and not composed and that he's perfect and so on, you can show all these things through his being, what, pure act, huh? That's kind of a very common middle term there, theology. The most common, I think, almost. And, yes, a pure act, what is that? There's a composition there, right? You're composing act with this negation, okay? Which is knowing a simple thing in a, what, composed way, huh? Just like Euclid defines a point as that which has no parts. You're knowing a simple thing by something composed, huh? By the negation of the composition, you can't. You have to go in there in an actual way of knowing, huh? Why is the negation of composition something composed? No, I see, there's a composition there in pure act, right? You have act put together with pure, right? And pure involves what, negation of potency in this case, right? That's a composition. Yeah, but I was looking at the other one when I was saying point has no parts, right? Thomas has, in a sense, it kind of comes a little different in some places because he has a question there. Does God have any parts, right? And there's no subject parts, and there's no composing parts, right? Well, in the Summa Theologiae, it doesn't proceed that way. You're learning the treatise on the simplicity of God. He's not composed, there's no composing parts. And then maybe when God is one, that he's not said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit is three gods, right? So there's no, either the universal whole, nor the integral or composed whole, right? But there you see, gee whiz, you're really knowing God negatively by, what? Negation of either kind of composition, right? Any kind of a whole in this sense that has parts in it. Beautiful things in the sentences, and I guess a lot of times he comes back and says these things again in the little works, but sometimes there seems to be something in them, you know? And it's beautiful when he talks about how the going forward in God, the going forward of the Son from the Father, right? And then the going forward of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is the first going forward, isn't it? And therefore the going forward of creatures from God reflects those two going forwards, isn't it? Well, how does he reflect the going forward of the Son from the Father? Well, the Son goes forward from the Father as a likeness of the, what? Father. Both as Son, he's like the Father, right? And as the Word, he's like that which is the Word. And therefore he's called the Immigodee, right? What we were saying before, I think we were talking about another time here, can God make something that isn't like him? You know? And of course, we more than some other creatures are made to the image of the likeness of God. But even the lowest things are said in likeness is to God, huh? So far as they have being in some way and something good about them and so on. And so, insofar as the creatures go forward from God as being like him in some way, it's like going forward naturally in the Trinity itself when the Son proceeds from the Father by way of, what? Nature as the Son. But then there's another thing you've got to be careful about when you talk about the creatures going forward from God because they don't go forward by necessity of nature. Even though they do go forward by way of likeness to the nature, which makes them like the Word, right? And Thomas would refer back to that when he says here it's appropriate for the second person to become man, right? Rather than the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the creatures proceed from God by way of choice, by way of will, right? And therefore the Holy Spirit proceeding by way of, what? Will as love. Anticipates, you might say, the going forward, right? Of the creatures. Because they proceed from the free will of God. So there's some beautiful things in there. And I don't think they're always repeated exactly the same words. You see it in a little different way, you know? And like Thomas says, you know, when the teacher sees his ideas in getting across, he says it a little differently. But at different times, you know, you'll find this, huh? When I was a student in college, I would sit down and like, if the circuit was teaching a course in a number of sections, I'd sit in both sections. And even after I got an A in the course, I'd go back and I'd sit in the course. He says, Dwayne says, you know everything I want to say. But sometimes, just the way he'd say it a little bit differently in one class than another, you know? I know myself, when I was teaching, if I teach a couple of sections of the same course, right? The second time I taught the same material, I'd have some time left over, but I thought I explained it better than I did the first time. So it's a little bit like this. You know, if you're teaching two sections of the same course, you've got to keep them together, because otherwise you've got to all accept it. What did I talk about in this class? And you've got to, you know, begin at the same point and stop or less at the same point. In other words, it's hopeless confusion that arises. And that's why I know a professor would want to, of course, say on one section on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, another one on Tuesday, Thursday, with the one and a half thing. That would confuse you, right? It should be on the same, you know, two sections on Tuesday, Thursday, or else Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But it was no frustrating. You've got five, ten minutes left, and you said what you wanted to say today, and you said it better than you said it before, but you can't just dismiss them. But it shows you what you're saying, right? You're anticipating a little bit of God there, right? In fewer words, you're saying more. Thomas has kind of a light note there. In one place there, it's kind of beautiful, though, where he's talking about the magnitude of God, right? Magnus, right? And this, of course, is first, Magnus is first using a quantitative sense, right? But now he's talking about the magnitude of the divine virtue of perfection. And one of the objections is saying, you know, that in magnitude, you've got something bigger and something smaller, right? Thomas says, well, in a way, you do have something smaller, and then he says the brevity is all met. So, you know, my little poem, God the Father said it all in one word. That's what the Jews have this pious way of sort of almost making a little humor out. When they would write the scriptures, they didn't have any space between words. And what they would do is they would join the words with the one letter that means and, and there was no punctuation. So you'd read the whole Pentateuch, it's one word. So that's what they would say, God spoke one word. Exactly. okay so up to question 50 here right on the death of christ then we have to consider about the death of christ and about this six things are asked or sought first whether it was suitable for christ to what die secondly whether through his death there was separated the union of his divinity and his flesh so when christ's body was laying there in the tomb right was it still united to the second person and the blessed trinity and the third question is about the same question there about the soul was the union of the divine and the soul the one person right uh was that separated right so two and three they're asking whether christ's body and soul are both still united after death to the uh word of god and then falling upon this with the christ in the three days there uh three days what figure speech is that yeah the part for the whole right then so forth with the christ in the twiduo mortis was a man and five whether his body was the same in number living and dead and then whether his death did something for our what salvation right so we go to the first article to the first one goes forward thus it seems that it was not suitable for christ to death for that which is the first beginning in any genus is not disposed through that which is contrary to that whole genus just as fire which is the what source of heat is never what frigid or cold but the son of god is the beginning and the fountain of all what life according to that of psalm 35 before you is the fountain of what life he said he's calling the fountain of eternal life therefore it seems unsuitable that christ would what die if he's a fountain of life how could the fountain of life die doesn't make any sense at first sight more is a defect of death than of what sickness i yes because through uh yeah morbid morbid what do you say yeah morbid because through sickness one arise at death but it was not suitable that christ what lay sick by some sickness right as christian says so we don't mean about christ being what getting a cold or or getting some other sickness right yeah so therefore uh it wasn't suitable for christ to die right even the way to death was moreover the lord says john chapter 10 i came that they might have life they might have it more abundantly but the opposite does not lead to the opposite therefore it seems it's not suitable for christ to die every maker makes what is like itself that's true even in a carpenter right because he makes something like the idea which he's making it done i mean fortiori you know a man generates a man and a dog a dog a cat a cat and so on so how can the death of christ right bring about that we have life and even have it more abundantly than we do right but against all this is what is said in john 11. it's expedient that one man died for the people that the less the whole genus the whole race perish or something which kfs said prophetically as the evangelist himself testifies there in verse 51 you know that text actually okay now thomas appropriately has five reasons why it was suitable for christ to die but the first one is the most important perhaps first to satisfy for the human race which was uh judged worthy of death on account of sin according to that genesis 2 verse 17 and whatever day you eat that tree right you will die by death right but it's over a suitable way of satisfying for another that someone undergoes the punishment which another one what yeah and therefore christ wished to die that in dying he might satisfy for us he's assuming the punishment that's due to us right according to that of 1 peter 3 christ wants for our sins to die that's perhaps the most important reason he gives here but i've only taught them between we can go on to the other four reasons secondly for showing the truth of the nature he what assumed now what did what benjamin franklin said nothing is certain about what death and taxes they very clever say right so i mean what is more common than death right now this like they say to hamilton are you so concerned about your father's death we all have to face that right okay for as eusebius says if afterwards after what he's spending time with men right he's suddenly what yeah being dead by all he would be thought to be a what a phantasm image yeah he did pay taxes too right he could get that fish out there and get the coin and pay for you and for me he says to peter i guess i'm a lot of fun with uh that and and then uh then franklin said that's very well said that was a temple tax but he also he advised that we're in the season third that in dying he might liberate us from the fear of what death that he communicated with the flesh and blood that through death he might destroy the one who had the command over death right and you might liberate those from the fear of death who through their whole life were what subject yeah to to servitude huh i used to have one colleague that assumption he thought at the age of three you begin to realize that you're going to die someday okay it's used to call the students of course he's teaching you know younger quite much younger in their 20s you know called them the immortals right they don't think they're going to ever die you know huh that's why when you have one you know thing for a teenage gets killed in the cracks and wherever it is you know just you know it just doesn't happen to people our age that's or grandfathers or something like that but uh that's what saint ephraim says when adam was told the day you eat of this you're going to die and he ate of it he didn't die right away he said he says that's because god wanted him each day yeah what's interesting that thomas says this you know he's uh uh or the texan thomas you know where he said he's talking about distraction that was a sin or something you know and he said what's it's a hard to possibly says to say when our father without being distracted i was talking to warren murray one time about that little text and he says uh thomas is a little more human isn't he in this we can say that you know in this text you know but it seems to be here he is right huh i think thomas had a certain what fear of death huh and of course you know thomas's sister one of his sisters was killed by lightning you know so apparently thomas was kind of nervous when there was one of these big storms huh because it was you know why did god take her and so on you know i suppose they have that question but you know it's this fear of death is Kind of what? Of a natural thing, right? And even a soldier, I think, is in fear of death, even though he may be hardened to it in some way. So Thomas is being a little more human here for our human weakness. I think we naturally fear death. Fourth, that by dying bodily, in likeness to what? Yeah, to give us an example of dying spiritually to what? Sin. That's beautiful, you know, and of course, coming to it from a fairly natural point of view there, you know how the great Socrates, you know, defined philosophy as the practice of dying, and that you're going to be perfected by dying, right? So I used to talk that thing in class to them and say, well, you know, you use the expression morphication, right, for taming your body and its desires and so on. But you use the word death there, right, huh? Morfication. So you're kind of separating the soul from the body. And of course, Socrates is kind of seeing that the soul is perfected by being separated from the body in some way. And one way, of course, is by resisting the bodily inclinations. And the other is, you know, when it's thinking about something and it kind of loses, you know, the absent-minded professor is the other example. But his mind is not really absent, but his mind is what? Yeah, but his body, in a sense, has been left behind, right, huh? You know, so it's interesting that Socrates saw that read as being necessary for the perfection of man is practicing and dying, huh? Which dialogue is that? What's in, it's in the, the fatal there at the end. Because John Damascene takes that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Thomas will kind of develop from that in argument for the immortality of the soul, right? If the soul is perfected even in this life by kind of separation from the body, huh? Then the separation of the soul from the body is kind of the road of the soul to its, what? Perfection. So how can that lead to the destruction of the soul, right? The road to perfection is just the opposite of the road to destruction, right? So that's kind of a beautiful argument for the immortality of the soul, right? So Socrates, you know, faces death quite, what? Willingly, right, huh? Because he sees this as going to lead to the complete perfection, it seems, of our soul, right? But the body, you know, leads us astray, not only in the vices, but also making mistakes about things, right? And so, a little similarity there, right? So Socrates, you know, you know, has part of the truth, but he doesn't see, you know, the fact that man is not just a soul, and that the body is something naturally joined to the soul, and therefore there's a sort of tension there, right? Why do you think he's a saint in heaven? I don't know. I don't know. Nobody has ever been to do this. I sometimes wondered whether, you know, Tom's ever prayed for Aristotle or not. He wondered, I mean, because he suddenly had to sit in debt to him, right? And whether God gave Aristotle some possibility of choosing, you know? So, but anyway. You know, I've spoken before of how I think in the perfection of philosophy there by Aristotle, before Christianity comes on the scene, right, is, got some divine providence in it, huh? I mean, it's unfortunate for Aristotle to see Christianity, right? But that he arrived at the immortality of the soul and private knowledge of these things about God that he did shows what natural reason is capable, right? Just like, you know, Thomas says sometimes that the reason, there's some good that God brings out of the fact that a lot of Jews were not, what, converted, right? Because they were witnesses to the antiquity of the books of the Old Testament from which the Christians argued, you know, from these prophecies being fulfilled in Christ to the truth of the Christian religion. But if all the Jews had been converted, then he would say, well, you just wrote those books yourself and you claimed they're old. That's a nonsense, you know? And so the fact that some Jews were not, huh, enabled the Christians to reason from those books with authority, right? Well, the fact that Aristotle could arrive at this knowledge of God, or his knowledge of immortality of the soul, and so on, how without Christianity is a sign and what natural reason is capable, right? You know, Romans 1.20 is what kind of text the church takes to say that it's possible by natural reason to come to know God, but in a human way. It's composed in a perfect way. So, what is dead to sin, right, is dead once. What lives, lives to God. So also estimate yourself to be dead to sin, but living to God. In Socrates, you know, he kind of makes a joke about it, you know, I think the philosopher is dead because he's not enjoying these pleasures of the senses. And it's kind of the poverty, you know, of the monk or something like that, right? You know, that he's been cut off from the real pleasures of life, you see. And Socrates is kind of amused by this, right? Of course, I guess there were ghost stories in those days, too, about spirits around the graveyards, huh? And Socrates says those are the souls that are lovers of the body, you know, and not cut off from the flesh of the body. So there are four souls trying to get back in the body so I can enjoy the pleasures of the body again. So it's just kind of an explanation of why you see these ghosts around me in the graveyards, huh? Socrates, a lot of it, Martin Socrates, I mean, everything he said was good, but... Of course, a lot of it can be Plato, too. We don't know where Plato... Socrates leaves off and Plato begins, but there are marvelous things in those dialogues. And the fifth reason he is that by rising from the dead, right, huh? He showed his, what, power, by which he had overcome, what, death. And he gives to us, right, the hope of rising from the dead, huh? So if he had never died, you say, well, okay, that's... He's an immortal preacher, but... Good for him. But we're going to die, you know, and that's it, you know? You say, well, okay, but if Christ died and he rose, huh? Whence the apostle says, if Christ, what? If we preach that Christ rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say that there will be no resurrection of the body, huh? I'm very impressed with those five reasons. Sometimes they say at home, you know, I should, you know, read something like this in the morning, you know, and they say, I should read you should read the Mortalis today and just sit, think about that all day long when I have a free moment or something, you know? Think about that, you know? There's five reasons, huh? Interesting, huh? Interesting. He's not morbid at all. He's thinking about the death of Christ, but it's marvelous the way he thinks about these things. Now, what about... First objection, what about Christ being the fountain of life, huh? To the first effort, it should be said that Christ is the, what? Fountain of life. Secundum qua Deus, according as he is God, right? Not, however, secundum qua homo, insofar as he is, what? Man. Man, huh? But he is dead, not according as he is God, but according as he is man, right? Whence Augustine says against Feliciano, let it be absent, right? That Christ thus sensed death as regards to his being in himself life, right? That he lost life, huh? Yeah, I don't think that he experienced death such that he lost the life, right? Mm-hmm. So far as he was in himself life, because if this is so, then the fountain of life would have been dried up. Right, yeah. So Gus... Augustine is agreeing with Thomas, maybe we should say Thomas is agreeing with Augustine, as Augustine said this first, he sensed therefore death, right, by participation of human affection, which he spontaneously, what, took on, for did not lose the power of his nature, through which all things he filifies, I mean his divine nature, right? Now when Christ says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, he's the way as man, as Thomas recalls the beginning of the Tertia Pars, right, remember that beginning here? If you look at the very beginning of the Prima, right, Thomas is inducing this whole thing here, the prologue, right, I don't know if you have that here, but that's it. Anyway, and Thomas comments in that passage of John, I am the way, the truth, and the life, he says, as man he's the way to God, as God he's the end, as truth and life he is the end. It's kind of applying to the questions, Philip, you know, where are you going and how did we get there? And Christ answers both of them by saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So, you know, the idea that he's life itself, right, that's more sort of his divine nature, right? Christ in his human nature is not life itself, although he's a source of life in many ways. But he's not life itself, right? And that's the original beginning of all life, the one who's life itself. Now what about Christ in the second objection, not being sick, right? It's a normal way, you get sick and then you die, right? The second should be said that Christ did not sustain death coming from sickness, lest he be thought, right, or appear to die from what? Necessity, right? An encounter of weakness of his nature, right? But he sustained a death from, you know, that was inflicted upon him from the outside, to which spontaneously he offered himself, right? That he might show that his death was, what, voluntary, right? So he's talking to apostles, going up to Jerusalem, to, okay? And, of course, he had before that, these times that wound up in death, right? They were going to take up stones and Christ wouldn't do them, you know? So you know that he's doing this, what, voluntarily, right? And not, what, grabbed him one day, that was it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If he had died from sickness, then you'd say, well, like Lazarus or something like that, he couldn't, you know, do anything about it, right? What do you do when your time comes? He's not the expression. Okay. Now what about opposites, huh? To a third, it should be said that one of two opposites, as such, per se, does not, what? Need to do it. But sometimes, by accident, huh? Just as the cold sometimes, by accident, what? Heats. Heats, huh? That's an example of that. I was trying to think of that. Well, I used to give you an example, you know, that the hot cools things off, it burns down your house, and now you're out in the cold. So, the fire, which is hot, right, is the cause of your being what? Cold. The prejudice, right? Because the fire, as such, is going to warm you. If you're bringing down your house, right? Okay. If you're cold, then you let the fire warm up. Yeah. If the cold is the cause of the cold. Yeah, yeah. That's a simple way of saying it, yeah. But maybe examples of the body, too, though, you know. Anyway, and in this way, Christ, through his death, brings us to life because he destroyed, what? Our death through his own death, right? Because he, let's go back to the first argument in the body of the article, right? Which is perhaps the most important argument there, seems to me. Most important reason, huh? Just as the one who undergoes some punishment for another removes his punishment, huh? So, let's go back to the first argument in the body of the article, right? So, let's go back to the first argument in the body of the article, right?