Prima Pars
Lecture 7: Sacred Doctrine as Science and Its Superiority

Transcript
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It didn't move in faith, it moved in the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are the adjuncts objecting to Revelation itself or just to theology, or are they not making it? Well, they kind of go together because this is a now is based on Revelation, right? So if you object to Revelation, then you're going to do away with this knowledge too, right? Thomas, notice, replies to the first objection, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that although those things which are above the knowledge of man should not be sought by man to, what, reason, right? They are nevertheless to be received by faith when God, what, reveals them. And then he points out that later on in that same book of Ecclesiastes there in the 25th verse, once it is joined under that, many things are shown you, right? above the, what, sense or judgment of man, right? And in things of this sort, sacred teaching consists, right? Now, the second objection, huh? A little different. The second objection is saying, well, the philosophers have talked about everything there is to talk about, right? But remember what I was putting out before, it's possible, right? That what? The same things could be known in different ways, right? Plus, you could probably add that there's some things about these things that the philosopher would not know. So he might know some things about God, known other things, but he might not know everything that we know about God. So he says, a diverse way of knowing leads us into a diversity of sciences, right? He takes a famous example there from Aristotle. For the same conclusion as demonstrated by the astronomer, we call him today, right? And the, what? Natural scientists. For example, that the Earth is round, right? So Aristotle saw that the Earth cast a round, what? Shadow on the Moon, right? Okay, well, it kind of shows that the Earth is round, right? But then you might say, yeah, but look, the Earth is made out of Earth, right? And Earth tends to, what? Go towards the center, right? So it's going to end up in a round formation, okay? So one thing is taken from the nature, the natural, the nature of Earth, right? And the other is taken from a more mathematical thing from the shape of the shadow. Yeah, yeah. So one is through a mathematical middle term that is abstracted from matter. The naturalist, through a middle term that is concerned with the kind of matter that Earth is. Now, I'll take an even more known example there of the, what, eye and the, what, touch, knowing, say, the shape of this thing. I can know if this thing is round on top here, right? Just feeling it, you know, if you put it in here with my eyes closed, and it allowed me to feel it. I can also see with my eyes that is round, huh? Not square. He's taking an example that's closer because he's talking about sciences now, right? My example is, example of the fact that there can be, what, two different kinds of knowledge, two different ways of knowing, but knowing the same thing sometimes, huh? whence nothing prevents about the same things about which the philosophical disciplines treat according as they are knowable by the light of natural reason, for another science to treat of these same things according as they are, what, known by the light of divine revelation, huh? Whence the theology which pertains to sacred doctrine, revealed theology, you might say, differs in genus, right? From that theology which is a, they down as a part of philosophy, right? So the theology that we call natural theology, first philosophy, that's a, what, species of the genus looking philosophy, right? Well, this theology isn't the species of looking philosophy. No. This theology differs in genus then from it, right? Okay? So now we know that this thing exists, right? Now we've got to find out what it is. And he's asking really about the genus, serum. Now how do you translate scientia into English, right? Because if you translate it by science today, you know, you usually think of experimental science and maybe that's not the best likeness serum. Scientia is used to translate the Greek word, what, episteme, right? Now sometimes I translate it by, what, reasoned out knowledge, yeah. Okay. Well, you could take maybe knowledge as opposed to opinion, right? The knowledge in the strict sense where you have certain, sciency has the idea of being certain, right? Okay? But perhaps there's this, as you see later on, this is argumentative, right? Insofar as argumentative, there's a kind of reasoning out, right? Okay? So maybe you could translate it as reasoned out knowledge, right? But you've got to be kind of careful about that, huh? Okay? And he's going to go back to a distinction that Aristotle uses in the posturalytics, right? Between a science whose principles are obvious in that science, right? And a science who borrows principles from other science and takes them on faith in the other science. and he's going to assimilate this knowledge of being a science to that, huh? Because it's based upon the knowledge which God has of himself and perhaps the saints who see him as he is, right? Which they have, right? And this science is subordinated to that science in the same way that maybe astronomy is subordinated to geometry, right? So the astronomy will take from the geometry so it intrudes the geometry that he doesn't see himself as being what true but he believes them on the word of the challenge, right? And then he proceeds using those, right? It's like the biologist might use what the chemist has concluded to, right? And just take on human belief, huh? Okay? So the first objection, huh? It seems that sacred doctrine is not a science, huh? For every science proceeds from beginnings known through themselves, right? Okay? Now the beginnings or principles known through themselves, the atheists have divided into those known to themselves by all men and known to themselves by those who are wise in some science, right? So, wise men like me who know what a perfect number is, it's per se known that every perfect number is a composite number. Does Magnus see that as being obvious? No. Because he doesn't know what a perfect number is, right? But a perfect number is a number equal to the sum, right, of everything that measures it, in a strict sense, measures it evenly, right? So six is the first perfect number, right? It's measured by one, by two, and by three, and they add up to six, right? Well, could a number be a perfect number and be a prime number? Well, a prime number is measured only by one, and one of course doesn't add up to any numbers. So, it's impossible for a composite number to be prime, right? See, it's kind of obvious to me, because I'm pretty wise to say about these things, and I know what a perfect number is. But, see, like a whole is more than a part, but everybody knows what a whole is and what a part is. They can't eat their meal without knowing what a whole and a part is, right? So, everybody knows then that a whole is more than a part, right? But, sacred teaching, sacred doctrine proceeds from articles of the, what? Faith, right? There are three persons in God, right? God became man, which are not, what? Known to themselves, since they are not conceded by, what? Paul, right? For St. Paul says in the epistle to Thessalonians, second one, faith is not agreeable, but everyone has faith. Therefore, say, God bless you, God bless you, ...doctrine is not a science, right? Now, Thomas, in the reply to the objection, as we'll see, is going to use the distinction that Aristotle has even in what the human science is, right? And show what senses is a science. It's not a science like geometry, but more like what? Astronomy. Yeah. When astronomy takes principles from geometry, and astronomy doesn't seem to be true. But it takes him on the word of the geometry, right? And this is a science in that sense, right? Because it proceeds from things that are seen by God in his knowledge of himself, and by the blessed who see God as he is, right? Okay? We take it from what they say. And we proceed, right? A second objection. Morbius science is not about, what, singulars, individuals, huh? But sacred doctrine treats about singulars, about the doings of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, huh? And likewise, ones like that. Therefore, sacred doctrine is not a science, huh? That's history. That's biography, right? We distinguish between history and biography and science, right? And Aristotle, you know, in the book on the poetic art, he says that fiction is more philosophic than history, right? And the reason he gives is that philosophy is about the universal, history is about the, what, singular, right? And fiction is more about the universal than about the singular. So my stock example is that you see Romeo and Juliet, right? And you say, well, that's the way this, I don't know, 14th century, there were not a couple were, you know? You say, no, that's the way young lovers are, right, huh? Okay? And Oedipus, the king there, you know, someone said, it went out, when the critics there, when Oedipus' downfall comes, you know, the chorus comes in like kind of commentary almost, it doesn't say, oh, Oedipus, but it says, oh, you generations of men, right? How miserable man is, right, huh? How pathetic, how tragic man is, right? You see something universal in the downfall, right? And a man who's hesitant, they call, even today, a hamlet, right? Okay? So, although you could say, in a sense, fiction's in between, right? It's kind of the universal singularized a bit and the singular universalized, right? But there's something, it's closer to the universal, right? So, when I taught the love and friendship course, you know, I say, well, you all have an experience of love and it's individual to you, right? That's the starting point for our thinking about love, right? We're going to go from that individual knowledge we have of love, your own experience of love, to a very universal consideration of love by Thomas, right? We're going to go from one to the other through Shakespeare. Because Shakespeare, right, is closer to your experience of love than Thomas, right? But he's closer to Thomas than your experience of love. Because he's dealing more with the universal than in the love of the moment, huh? And so on. But again, this is what Augustine says in the 14th book about the Trinity. Which is my favorite book of Augustine, but anyway. I like that more than the Confessions, huh? See, that was sort of my bent of mind, huh? He's talking more about God, right? What did they say with the Dominicans, you know? A religion should talk either about God or to God. That's it. Now, Augustine says, to this science, and he calls it a science there, right? A Latin. That is attributed to that by which, what? The most saving faith is, what? Engendered, right? Nourished. Defended, what? Strengthened, right? And that's one of the famous definitions of theology, right? But notice that definition of Augustine here, of theology as a science there. You define it by, what? Faith, right? As if it's there to defend faith and strengthen it, and to engender it in others, right? To nourish it in those who have it, to defend it against the attacks, right? Strengthen it, right? A little different than that definition of, that they give to St. Anselm, although it kind of goes back to Augustine too. Faith seeking understanding, right? It might give you the impression, you know, that definition, that faith is for the sake of that understanding that we seek, you know? But actually, it's more of the reverse, right? That theology is there to defend faith, right? To engender it, to nourish it, strengthen it, huh? You know? That theology is for the sake of faith, rather than faith is for the sake of, what? Theology. It's kind of amazing there that Thomas, you know, points out later on in the Zoom here that even in the human virtues there, natural understanding is higher than Shensiya, because it is the beginning and the end, you know? We proceed from natural understanding and reasoned out knowledge, and we resolve all the way back to natural understanding, huh? That's superior, right? And the way this will be due in theology, we proceed from the faith and thinking about these things, and we turn back to the faith and to scripture to see that we're... makes sense. You haven't gone astray, right, huh? Okay? So this pertains to no other science than sacred doctrine. Therefore, sacred doctrine is a science, huh? Well, Thomas is going to say, well, in one sense it is a science, in another sense it is not, right? So he's admitting some truth during the first objection, right? But that's not the kind of science that sacred doctrine is. I answer that to be said that sacred doctrine is a science, huh? But it should be known that there is a two-fold, what, genius of science, right? Okay? Now, you know, if you didn't know that Aristotle had pointed out this distinction already, and I'd say, well, Thomas is just inventing a distinction here to save the sanctity character of theology. But no, this is a distinction Aristotle himself had already made and seen, right? For some there are which proceed from principles known by the natural light of the understanding, huh? And ones like arithmetic, right? And geometry. And ones that are served. Notice he takes those as being the most clear examples, right? Okay? So the guy doesn't know Euclid, he doesn't know. He can't understand the examples being given there, right? Some are those which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science, huh? As perspective proceeds from principles made known through what? Actually, the inverse square law in physics goes back to what? The theorems in Euclid. And music from principles known by arithmetic, huh? Okay? And in this way, sacred doctrine is a science, huh? Okay? So you have to make that distinction. Because it proceeds from beginnings known by the light of a higher, what? Science, right? Now what's that higher science? Is it arithmetic or geometry? What is it? From the science of God and also in a way from the science of the, what? What is it? What is it? What is it? Thomas is writing his exposition of the epistle of St. Paul. It didn't say Paul. It came to him in the cell, right? He was supposed to come out and said, you'll never guess who I've been talking to. That's getting in the horse's mouth, right? The only expression. Quence, just as music believes the beginnings, handed over to it from arithmetic, tick. right? And that's because you would say the perspective or the astronomer wants some geometry. So sacred doctrine believes the principles revealed to it by what? God, yeah. That's an important distinction, Thomas, I'm making here. Have you seen that in any other theologians? Is this common or is this rather an insight of three times where he speaks about the signs of God and the blessed? Oh, I don't read those other guys much. Yeah, okay. But I don't know if they would know the posterior analytics the way Thomas knows it. The distinction is there. And so as he applied to the first objection, he says, to the first, therefore, it should be said that the principles of any science are either known to themselves or reduced to the knowledge of a higher science. And such are the principles of sacred doctrine, as has been said. And the second objection was, hey, this is below fiction, right? This is like history. You're talking about singulars. About singulars, yeah. Okay. To second, it should be said that singulars are treated in sacred doctrine not because it treats of them what? Principally. Principally. But they're introduced both for the example of their life, right? Just as we use examples in the, what? Moral sciences, right? And to declare the authority of the men through whom a divine revelation proceeds to us, right? Upon which is founded sacred, what? Scripture or doctrine, right? So he gives two reasons why he talks about singulars, right? Okay. Well, I don't know what the singulars are treated as such, like, when we talk about Mary as the mother of God and things like that. Oh, you're making another objection, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you see, that's a little more subtle thing it doesn't go into right here. Mm-hmm. But when you talk about God becoming man, right? Yeah. You're understanding this in terms of something, what? Universal. Mm-hmm. Okay? In that sense, it's a knowledge of the universal. Mm-hmm. Okay? But that's an objection that one should think about more, you know? Okay? Yeah? Sure. Yeah, we'll take a little break at this point. We'll come back to the objection a little bit. We'll take a little break at this point. Thank you. Okay, the third article. Whether sacred doctrine is one science. To the third, thus one proceeds, it seems that sacred doctrine is not one science. Because according to the philosopher in the first book of the Potschian Analytics, one science is one which is about one generic subject. But the creator and the creature about which one treats in sacred doctrine are not contained under one genus of subject, right? In fact, that's not in a genus at all. Therefore, sacred doctrine is not what one science, right? Moreover, in sacred doctrine, one treats of the angels about bodily creatures and about the morals of men, but these all pertain to diverse philosophical sciences. So ethics would talk about the moribus hominum and natural philosophy about creaturis corporalibus, right? And angels would be talked about in first philosophy, right? So, why wouldn't these be different sciences then, huh? Therefore, sacred doctrine is not one science. But against this is what sacred scripture says, speaking about it as one science, as in the 10th chapter of the Book of Wisdom, 10th verse. He gave them, he gave to him the science of the saints, huh? It's one science of the saints. So he says, I answer, it should be said that sacred doctrine, sacred teaching, is one science. For the unity of a, both of a power and of a habit, should be considered according to its, what? Object, right? Not taken in a material way, but according to the, what? You know, the formal reason of the object. For example, man and the ass and the stone come together in one formal reason of the colored, which is the object of what? Sight. Because, therefore, sacred scripture considers some things according as they are divinely revealed, right? Therefore, whatever things are divinely revealable come together in one, what? Yeah. Okay. Now, you speak of the formal object, you mean that rabbi, you refer to that power or that habit or to that science, right? Okay. And, therefore, they are comprehended under sacred doctrine as under, what? One science, right? Now, the first objection was saying, how do you talk about the creator and the creature in the same science? To the first, therefore, it should be said that sacred doctrine does not determine about God and creatures ex-equo, equally, right? But it's chiefly about, what? God. God. And about creatures, according as they are referred to God, as to a beginning or to a, what? God says that in the book of Apocalypse, among other places, and the, what? Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, right? So, you see, sometimes on the tabernacles, they have the Alpha and the Omega and so on. And that's kind of the basic way we divide theology, huh? There are variations on that, but that's basically the way it is. And this is very clear in the Summa Contra Gentiles, although it really unalized the Summa Theologiae, too. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first book is about God and himself. The second book about God is the Principium, or the beginning, or the maker of creatures. And the third book is about God as the end, and the ordering of things to God as an end, right? And the fourth book differs from the first three books. The first three books deals with those three insofar as they are known by natural reason, as well as by faith. And the fourth book, insofar as those same three are known only by, what? Faith, right? Then the third book, the fourth book is divided with those three parts, too. God in himself, you talk about the Trinity, and then God as the maker, and you talk about the Incarnation Song, the greatest thing he made, and then you talk about God as the supernatural in there in the third part. So that's basically the way we, what? Divide theology, yeah. Consider God in himself, by himself as a word, and then God as the maker, and then God as the, what? The end, right? But, no, it's like when you talk about wisdom, you know, philosophical wisdom. It's about being, right? Well, being is substance, quantity, quality, relation. These aren't one genus, right? So how can it be about all of these, right? Well, it's not about all of them ex-equal. It's not about them equally. It's chiefly about substance. But it's about the others because they, in some way, are something of substance. So quantity is the size of substance, right? Quality is the disposition of substance, right? Okay? Relation is how substance is towards another, right? And so on. So they all refer back to substance, right? So substance is the chief subject, right? And so when Aristotle takes up the names of the subject in the middle part of the fifth book, you know, he first takes up the names in the way of the whole subject and then the names of the parts. And when he takes up the names of the whole, he takes up the name one, the name being, and the name what? Substance. Because that's the chief subject. So, now this will come up again when we talk later on in the seventh article about the subject of science being God, right? In a way, you could say God is the subject of science. Just as the subject of first thoughts, you could say a substance, right? Okay? So we're talking about other things besides substance, yeah. But as they are what? Yeah, in some way committed with substance, right? And so we don't talk about anything else in theology except God and other things in reference to what? God is their beginning or their end. They're in. That's why they say, you know, it's more a theological definition of man to say he's the imagodei, the image of God, than to say that he's a rational animal, or two-footed animal or something. Because then you're kind of considering man by himself, right? Okay? When you say God is, man is the imagodei, he's made in the image of God, then you're considering man in reference to God, huh? Okay, so that's the reply to the first objection, right? Now the second objection is really drawn from philosophy and saying, hey, in philosophy, these all belong to different things, right? But theology has more, what, unity than philosophy does. Why is that? Because it proceeds from, what, God's knowledge. And God's knowledge is altogether one, right? So what is one in God is many, and the philosopher is mine, right? And this is true about knowledge, as well as other things, right? Okay? So he says, To the second it should be said, that nothing prevents lower powers, right? Or lower habits, to be diversified about those matters, which in common fall under one superior power, or one superior, what, habit, right? Because the higher power, or the higher habit than the one, regards the object under a more universal, what, for a more reason? Yeah, reason for a more reason. And he goes back to senses now, right? We saw this before in the study of the Angma. In the beginning of the third book, if you recall, right? Aristotle says, you know, I can distinguish not only between red and gold, but between the whiteness of sugar and the sweetness of sugar. Well, what is it in me that distinguishes between the sweetness of sugar and the whiteness of it? It can't be the eye, because that knows only the white. It can't be the sense of taste, because that knows only the sweet. So they come back to the common sense, the simple sense, right? So what is divided in the lower senses, the outer senses, right, is unified on the what? In a way, it's here, okay? Whence the common sense, although it is one power, extends to all the objects of the five senses, huh? And A. Fort Sauri, reason does, right? So reason can talk about what color is, right? And what sound is, right? And we can talk about the taste of things and the smell of things, right? So what pertains to different senses to no outward senses? One and the same reason, right? Talks about them universally. And likewise, when things are treated in diverse philosophical sciences, sacred doctrine is able, existing as one, to consider under one, what? Reason. Insofar as they are, what? Divine or the other. So the reason why these things are considered in sacred doctrine is not the reason why they're considered in philosophy, if they are, right? And the reason they are considered in sacred doctrine is because they are divine revealed in some way. If they're not divine revealed in some way, then they're not considered in theology, right? And they're being divine revealed as a kind of partaking of God's knowledge and therefore the unity of God's knowledge. Okay? That sacred doctrine is, as it were, a certain what? Impression of the divine science, huh? And the divine science is one and, what? Altogether simple, right? And it's one and simple, one simple knowledge of all things, right? And so we have kind of a, what? Partaking of that knowledge, right? And therefore there's more unity in sacred doctrine than there is in, what? Philosophy. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. And that's going to come up also in the fourth article, right? Because unless there is one science, a sacred doctrine, and you're talking about, say, morals, right? You're talking about God himself and so on, right? Then you might say, well, this theology is speculative and that theology is practical, right? But when you say there's one science, well then, is it like theoretical philosophy or is it like practical philosophy? Well, you're thinking like a philosopher. And you don't realize that there's one knowledge whereby God, what? Knows both. Knows himself and knows us and directs us and so on, right? And so there's one sacred doctrine whereby we know God and whereby we're directed as to what we should do or not do, right? Okay. So when you divide theology into dogmatic theology and moral theology, you've got to be kind of careful there, right? Because there are not two kinds of theology, like practical philosophy and looking philosophy, two kinds of philosophy, right? But they're really just two parts of the same. What do you think uses this word, impress you, instead of maybe partaking? Well, impressed means pressed upon, right? Okay. So something of the divine knowledge and something of the unity of the divine knowledge has been, what? Bestowed upon us. Yeah. Yeah. It's used to the word, the formal object. Yeah. Yeah. But unity to our knowledge, right? Because the form gives you both the being of the knowledge and the unity of it. They go together. Like our style of self, being in one go together. It's really the same thing. You know, when we're in natural philosophy, and I was mentioning, I think, how I kind of like that amphiboli of Shakespeare's name for the philosophy of nature. He calls it the wisdom of nature. But you can call, you can say the wisdom of nature could have two meanings, right? One meaning could be that it's what? The philosophy of nature, the wisdom of nature, the science of nature. The other could be the wisdom that nature shows and what it does, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's something, as Aristotle says, something of another art. Yeah. Something of the divine art impressed upon things, right? Yeah. So in the lowly insects even, right? And in the plants, there's something of the divine art impressed upon them, right? Yes. Something of the divine art. So you could say the philosophy, the wisdom of nature, in one sense, is about the wisdom of nature in the other sense, right? Okay? Just like the word of God in one sense is about the word of God in another sense, right? So we have time for another article, I guess, sir. Sure. Whether sacred doctrine is a practical science, right? Okay? And also Thomas does it, right? In a way, the question here, if you go back to the premium here at the beginning of this question, if you look at the fourth article, utrum sit speculativa vel practica, right? Okay, they put kind of, you know, is it one or, which is it, right? But now, that we've seen in the third article that it's only one science, right? It's even more fourth of the question, right? But he's going to argue in the body article that it's more speculativa than practica, although in some sense it transcends the philosophical division, right? So that's why he gets the objection more from the practical, right? It seems that sacred doctrine is a practical science. He says, the end of the practical is doing, right? According to the philosopher in the second book of physics. But sacred doctrine is ordered to do it. According to that of James, right? Epistle there, first chapter, verse 22. Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Therefore, sacred doctrine is a practical science. You can see something, you know, reverend there is telling Thomas that that's what it is, right? And quoting this text of James, I quoted it to you, right? Okay. That's right to the point, right? Moreover, sacred doctrine is divided through the, or by the old law and the new law, right? The law pertains to moral science, right? So Plato's last work is called The Laws, right? Which is a practical science, huh? Therefore, sacred doctrine is a practical science, huh? That's right. That's where the Bible is divided in a sense, huh? Okay? So when Thomas divides it there, right, he goes to what St. John says, right, huh? The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came to Jesus Christ. So he's starting to escape a little bit from seeing the two books as being chiefly about law, right, huh? But against this, huh? Every practical science is about things doable by man. As moral science is about the acts of what? Man, right? And the building science are about what? Buildings, right? About edifices. But sacred doctrine is chiefly about God, of which men are more the works, right? So God is not something doable. He can't make... God, right? You can't change him at all, right? So if it's chiefly about God, how can it be? You know, practical science, huh? You can change God, because God moves everything, but prayer moves God, so... It is not, therefore, a practical science, but more a what? Specific. Specific, yeah. I answer it should be said that sacred doctrine, as has been said, that existing as one extends to those things which pertain to diverse philosophical sciences, an account of the, what, formal reason which it pays attention to in diverse things, huh? That is to say, in so far as they are knowable by the, what, divine light, huh? Whence, although in the philosophical sciences, other is the speculative and other the, what, practical, right? Sacred doctrine, nevertheless, comprehends under itself both, right? Just as God, by the same knowledge, knows himself and the things which he, what, makes, huh? So that's the first point that Thomas wants to draw here, right? That this transcends that dichotomy that you have in, what, philosophy, right? Okay? But notice he goes on to say, nevertheless, it is more, what, speculative than practical, right? Because it chiefly treats about, more chiefly treats about divine things than about, what, human acts, right? Okay? Or you could say it's chiefly about God, right? And he's not makeable or doable. So it's chiefly, what, speculative, right? Okay? What did Christ say to Martha, you know? Martha, Mary has chosen the better part. It should not be taken away from her. So ultimately it's ordered to a, what, speculative thing, huh? So in a sense we get thinking like the philosopher there and not realizing the unity and the transcendence there of, um, revealed theology, right? That it does partake of God's knowledge, right? When Thomas contrasts the order, you know, of philosophy and theology, he says, in philosophy God is the last thing we really know, huh? And God is considered in the last part of the last science, huh? So in the, our first philosophy in the order of learning comes last, huh? And God is considered in the twelfth book of wisdom, right? So, uh, but in revealed theology, we imitate, what, God's knowledge. And so we consider God first in another thing in reference to God. So it's just like the contrary order, right, huh? But, um, that's another example of how, um, this is much more like God's knowledge because God knows other things only by knowing himself. We kind of imitate that in, in, uh, revealed theology. Where we know God first of all, and other things are considered only in reference to God. It's a little bit like we're imitating God's way of knowing there. In a very distant way, but nevertheless. Well here we're imitating the unity of God's knowledge. When we have a knowledge that is either, what, uh, restricted to the speculative or to the practical, right? Nevertheless, Thomas goes on and makes a second point. That it's more speculative than practical because it's more about God than about him and acts. It's chiefly about God. Just like first philosophy is more about substance than about quantity. Because it's not about quantity except insofar as it's the size of substance. So it's chiefly about substance, right? Other things only in reference, it's to, to substance. And so this is only in reference to God. So God, being only the object of speculative knowledge, as such, is, um, makes the science chiefly speculative. And it treats of human acts according as, through them, man is ordered to a, what, perfect knowledge of God, right? To eternal life, to seeing God as he is, face to what? Face, right? Well, seeing God as he is, St. John says, 1, 3, 2, is it? Uh, or seeing him face to face, as St. Paul says. Uh, well that's obviously speculative knowledge, right? Because speculative means seeing, right? Yeah. In which our eternal beatitude consists, right? So Christ says there in this, what, in the 17th chapter of John, this is eternal life, right? He doesn't say to do this and to do that. This is eternal life to know thee, you know? One who God and him whom he has sent, right? Is it? So we've got time for another article, or was it? I think so, I mean. We have no. Yeah. Okay. Um, to the 5th, one proceeds thus. It seems that sacred doctrine is not more worthy than the other sciences. I can guess from that, completely the opposite. Okay. For certitude pertains the dignity of a science, huh? Now, um, Aristotle in the, uh, beginning of the Dianima there, right? Says that all knowledge is good, right? As such. But one knowledge is better than the other because it's more certain, right? Or because it's about better things, right? And, uh, in the big premium to the parts of animals, he indicates that the criterion of being about a better thing is a more, what, fundamental one, right? So it's better to know a better thing, right? Imperfectly, right? Than to know a lesser thing, but, perfectly, right? Okay. Um, but nevertheless, certitude is a criterion in the mouth, eh? Okay. But the other sciences about whose principles one cannot doubt seem to be more certain than sacred doctrine, whose principles, namely the articles of faith, receive, what, doubt. People will doubt the articles of faith sometimes. So who's the guy who's doubting the true presence of Christ in the, in the, uh, host, right, huh? Okay. And, uh, and miracle, right? Okay. Uh, secondly, uh, secondly, it's of a lower science to, what, take from a higher one, right? As the musician from the arithmetician. But sacred doctrine takes something from the philosophical disciplines. For St. Jerome says in the epistle to the great, what, oracle of the city of Rome? Um, that the, what, ancient doctors of the church, right, so, um, spread around, you might say, the teachings of the philosophers in their positions, in their books, that one doesn't know what to admire more in them. Their, what, knowledge of the world, right? Or their knowledge of scriptures, right? Therefore, sacred doctrine is, what, we know the other sciences, huh? So we're going to use philosophy, you see, throughout this stuff, so we did some philosophy before we did this, right? So, I mean, obviously, if we're bowing things, we're, we're inferior to those whom we bow, right? Okay. But against this is that the other sciences are said to be, uh, handmaidens, right, of this, or servants. And that's the explanation of this passage in Proverbs 9, that, uh, it sent its, what, handmaidens, called its handmaidens, to the, what, tower, right? Tower, to the, uh, ivory tower, right? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. So he says, I answer. It should be said that this science, in one respect, is speculative, right? And another respect is, what? Practical, right? It transcends that distinction, but it has something in both, right? And it transcends all the other sciences, both the speculative and the, what? Practical, right? So he divides it, right? And he says, of the speculative sciences, one is more worthy than another, both an account of certitude and an account of the, what? Excellence of the matter, right? That's going back to what Aristotle says in the beginning of the, what? Three books on the soul, right? He says, all knowledge is good, right? But one knowledge is better than another because it's more certain or more sure, or because it's about a, what? Yeah, yeah. I remember my teacher, Kusurik, had made a loudspeaker, you know, in the musical system, you know, perfected it himself, right? And really, it had technical, you know, they say if you turn it on full speed, it'll kill you. So I'm all a little afraid of it, right? Blow up or something. So one day, you know, I'm over there with some other guy, and the other guy had an interest in the technical aspect of this marvelous machine, you know, and he's brought some records he wants to play on his machine, you know, to see what they really sound on this great system, you know, all these fanfares and so on, right? And I had brought some, you know, not so technically correct CD of Mozart, right? So he had two different purposes in mind, right? The one guy was looking for this great sound, you know, and a sense of great reproduction of the sound, you know? But I would rather hear Mozart on an inferior, you know, reproducing system than this other junk on, what, perfectly reproduced, right? With great clarity of the sound, right? Okay. Just like, you know, I'd rather see, you know, an interesting movie, even if it's not too clear the copy we have, right? The one that's crystal clear on these new DV, or what do they call these different screens, you know? Some stupid thing going on that's very clear, you know? But that is sitting there with us in excellence, right? On the TV screen, right? Which is more important than what is being shown, or how well it's being shown, right? I'd go for the quality of the movie myself, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But these new TV sets, that's where they're bringing out now, you know, they've got a lot of money right now, and they've come down in price, I guess. They really have clarity, you know, huh? But that's obviously not the greatest criteria, right? Yeah. The clarity of the chart they put on TV, you know. But nevertheless, these are two criteria, right? To see a better thing, or to see it better. Okay? Now, by certitude, because the other sciences have certitude from the natural light of human reason, which is able to err, right? To be mistaken. But this has certitude from the light of the divine science, which cannot be, what, deceived, huh? So therefore, in that sense, this science excels all the other sciences in certitude, right? You might say we share in the certitude of God's knowledge, right? In this science, huh? So if you're looking at that criterion of certitude, which is not the greatest criterion, right? But still a criterion, this knowledge speculatively excels all the other sciences, because it has a great assertitude. According to the dignity of the matter, because this science is chiefly about those things which transcend, by the altitude, our reason, right? And the other sciences are only those things which come under, in some way, reason, huh? Okay? So, from the fact that this science is about those things that are above our reason, in some way, this science is going to have to be the best, right? In terms of what it knows, huh? Okay? Now, as far as practical sciences, huh? That one is more worthy, is greater, which is ordered to a, what? Further end, right? Okay? He's going back to what Aristotle points out at the beginning of the, what? Nicomachean Ethics, right? Where every, you know, art aims at some end, but sometimes the end of one is ordered to another one, right? So the end of the pharmacist, which is the medicine, right? Is ordered to the end of the medical art, which is health, right? Okay? So the medical art is higher, huh? So I can say to the students, which is higher, the art of making money, let's say, or the medical art, which is higher, let's say? Well, if health is a higher good than money, then the art of medical art is higher than economics, right? Most of them are in economics, they're just like that. So, which is higher, economics, you know, the wealth of nations, or the medical art, right? Which is higher, wealth or health, yeah? They're going to give your health or wealth, or they're going to use your wealth to restore your health, okay? But then truth is even higher than health, so logic is even higher than medical art. So they should give more money to the medical schools, which is okay, but they should give some to the logical schools of logic. So he says, of practical sciences, that is more worthy, which is ordered to a, what, further end, right? Okay, as the civilian, as the civilian is higher than the military art, right? For the good of the army is ordered to the good of the, what, the city, okay? Defensive. But the end of this teaching, insofar as it is practical, right, is eternal beatitude, eternal life. To which, as to a last end, are ordered all the other ends, right, of the practical sciences. Whence is manifest that, in this way, it is, what, more worthy than the others, right? Okay. Notice how well Thomas has ordered these articles, right? Because in the fourth article, you see that, although it transcends, being just a looking science, or just a practical science, it nevertheless has something of both of them, right? Although it's primarily, you know, looking. And then when he decides, is it better, well, he uses both the criterion for saying one science is better, another in terms of just the knowing itself, right? And then you have two criteria that you're asked, I'll don't find out. How well you know it, and what you know, and in both respects, how well you know, how certain you are, and what you know, both are what? It's higher. And then in terms of the practical, what's the end of which you're ordered, right? That's knowledge. In order to a higher end, right? Therefore, this knowledge is higher, right? So in every way, it's higher, right? Now, the first objection was saying, well, yeah, but people can doubt the articles of faith, right? And so on. He says to the first, therefore, it should be said that nothing prevents that which is more certain by nature to be towards us less, what? Certain. This goes back to what Aristotle said in the beginning of the physics, right? And then also in the second book of wisdom. On account of the weakness of our understanding, which has itself to the most manifest things of nature, as the eye of the back to the light of the sun, as is said in the second book of the, what? Manifesic sun. And Plato has it in the public, right? It's a similar example, you know. It compares us to those who are born in the cave, right? Oh, yeah. And there's less light in the cave than outside the cave. If you get out of the cave, you're kind of, you know, you'd be kind of blinded by the sun, huh? It's like coming out of a movie theater in a bright summer afternoon, you know. Can't kind of see what you're doing, right?