Prima Pars
Lecture 9: God as Subject of Sacred Doctrine

Transcript
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This is the first of the three parts of the second part, right? What kind of knowledge this is, right? It's a science, one science, more speculative than practical, but in a sense transcending that division, right? And then it's what? Superior to all the other sciences, and it most of all, among human sciences, has the character of what? Of wisdom, right? So to me, it doesn't make any sense to say that a man is a philosopher, right? And if he happens to be also a Christian or a Catholic, he wouldn't study philosophy ultimately for the sake of what? Theology. If he's a lover of wisdom, this is more than character of wisdom. And, you know, when Aristotle speaks about these things, he says either God alone is wise, right? Or God, most of all. But you'll find the same thought in Thagoras and in Heraclitus and Socrates and Plato and so on, all the great Greek philosophers. Either God alone should be called wise or God most of all. So you'd say from what they say, they should be open to, if it were possible, to partake of God's wisdom, right? If God were to share his wisdom with us, then from their own principles they'd have to say that this is even more wisdom than this wisdom that we've thought out. But you could also say that in the modern philosophers, when they rejected theology, revealed theology, rejected this share in God's wisdom, they're really rejecting wisdom. And eventually they'll reject even, what? The wisdom of his first philosophy. And it would be inconsistent not to. Okay, now we come to the second part of the second part, right? And that is what the subject of this science is. And the question asked is, whether God is the subject of this science? Incidentally, that forum which these things are put, whither? That's the way you state a dialectical problem. Okay? You're going to what? Argue something's done on both sides. And then the question is disputate. I think they're very talking, so on. You might have many more objections. And sometimes objections on both sides, right? And sometimes, Thomas will answer objections on both sides sometimes. Just on one side, depending upon where the truth is. So whether God is the subject of this science, he's going to come down and say yes, but he's going to argue mainly against it. So he says it seems that God is not the subject of this science. First of all, in every science, it's necessary to suppose about the subject what it is, according to the philosopher in the first book of Apostleian Analytics. So in arithmetic, right, the very beginning there, you can tell us what a number is, right? You know what a number is. So you've got to kind of be supposed to the science of arithmetic, right? In the beginning of geometry, you have the definitions of what a triangle is, and a square, and a circle, and so on. But this science does not suppose about God what he is. For, Damascene says, to say in God what he is is impossible. You don't see God as he is, except in the scientific vision, right? Moreover, all things which are determined in some science are comprehended under the subject of that science. But in sacred scripture, one determines about many other things besides God. For example, about creatures, and about the morals of men, right? Therefore, God is not the subject of what? The science. But against this. That is the subject of the science about which there is speech in the science. But in this science, there is speech about God. For it is called theology. It's the word sermo de Deo. Well, logia is what? Like sermo, right? And theos is what? Yeah. Therefore, God is the subject of this science. Can you step in that? What he uses is this word supponere? Yeah. To place under, I suppose, literally, huh? Place under, I completely means supponere. Yeah. They sometimes call the individual substance the suppositum, yeah? Oh, yeah. You know? So I don't quite understand how he uses it in these contexts. Well, supposes, I suppose it means literally, it's placed under the science, right? Oh, that's right. So the principles, like when he was using the principles. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just like we call the subject of the science, right? Like the subject, yeah. That's where I went under, yeah. In Greek, they might say, if you pull caimanon, if you pull under, caimanon placed under. Okay. You might use a pre-support. Like if you take, yeah, yeah. The second semester of life is pre-support or the first semester of life. That's okay. But pre-support comes from the idea of being before, right? Okay. So, I mean, going back to the image area, but it has the image of being before rather than of being under, right? But supponary has the idea of being under, right? But you can say both. You can say, you know, before you begin a science, you've got to know what the subject is. And you can also say the subject underlies science. Science would be there without the subject. That's what I mean, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I answer it ought to be said that God is the subject of this science. For thus, the subject is to a science as an object is to a, what? Power or habitat. So, we talk about, what, in the three books about the soul, when you take up the potencia, the powers of the soul, right? You distinguish them by their acts and their acts by their, what? Object, yeah. So, you distinguish the eye and the ear because, in one case, you're sensing color, in the other case, you're sensing, what? Sound, right? So, the object, color and sound, eventually distinguish these things. And my digestive power is food, right? But properly, that is assigned as the object of some power or habit, by reason of which, is right. All things are referred to that power or habit, just as man and stone are referred to, say, the sight, the sense of sight, in so far as they are, what? Colored, right? Whence colored is the proper object of the, what? Sight. But all things are treated in sacred doctrine, in sacred teaching, in holy teaching, under the, ratio of, of God. Either because they are God himself, right? Or because they have an order to God as to a beginning and a, what? End. Now that threefold distinction, right, was touched upon earlier in one of the earlier articles, right? You're asking what was the one science and so on, right? And the objection was that they talked about many things, right? Okay? So, the rule three is being followed basically in theology, right? And it's not as clear in the Summa Theologiae as it is in the, what? Summa Contragetiles. Because there, the first three books, one, two, three, God himself, God as the principium or beginning, right? And then God as the, what? The end, huh? Okay? But nevertheless, the Summa Theologiae really has that same division, right? But the part about the end is great to expand it, and the second and the third parts, But basically, that's the way it is. So everything refers back to God, huh? And you might remember something like that in the, um, Fourth Book of Wisdom, Aristotle says that the subject of first philosophy is being, right? But being covers a multitude. And it's a equivocal word, right? But they all refer back to what? To substance, yeah. Because quantity is the size of substance and quality is the disposition of substance, right? And generation is the coming to be of substance. And death is the opposite, and so on. So, you can see the chief subject then of wisdom is, or first philosophy, is substance, right? Well, likewise here, the chief subject is what? God. Okay? What's the chief subject of political philosophy? The state in the sense of the polis, the city of the state, huh? Okay? So, that's a political philosophy of its name from the polis, right? Okay? But you talk about anything besides the city. We talk about government, yeah. Is the government a city? No. No. But the government governs the city. Okay? So, it has relation to the polis, and that's what we take it up, right? And what about laws? Was the law a city? No. Was the law a government? No. No. But the government rules the city by laws, right? Okay? But then they talk about revolution. Is revolution a city? No. Is the revolution a government? No. But it's a change of government, right? Okay? So, it still refers all the way back, ultimately, to the, what? Polis, huh? Some things are closer, some things are further, right? So, Aristotle takes up the various forms of government in books three and four of the politics. But then in book five, he starts talking about revolution, and then in book six, and so on, institutional governments, and so on. So, revolution, institutional governments, we did it all the way back to polis, because government, that they're the change of, or the institution of, are, who rules the polis? So, you could say the chief subject of political philosophy is the polis. Chief subject of first philosophy is substance, right? Well, here, in like ways, the chief subject here is, what? God, right? So, notice again the difference between what is sometimes called natural theology, right? Which is really the end of, what? Of first philosophy. And this theology, right? This theology has got more a right-to-the-knee theology, right? Because it is sermo de deo, right? My first philosophy is sermo de, de ente, yeah? It's about being, huh? And God is only the end or goal. But here he's not only the end or goal, but he's the very, what? Subject, right? Okay. What does the Dominican say? You should only talk about God or do God. You're talking about God, that's what I mean, and you're, you know, praying to God, you're intending towards God, right? Notice how Thomas, following the great Aristotle, you know, sometimes principium is, what, adapted or used in particular for what the cause we call the, what, the mover or the maker, right? He says principium, he has in mind God as being the mover or the maker of things. At the beginning of the first book of natural hearing, Aristotle says, in every science in which there are beginnings or causes or elements, right? And Thomas says, what does he mean by beginnings, causes or elements, right? And there he's not trying to really distinguish them in any great way. But there's one way in which you distinguish those three words in the fifth book of wisdom, right? And there you say that beginning is more general than cause, that every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. And cause is more general than what? Element, right? Okay. Because element is only, strictly speaking, in the material cause, one kind of cause. But sometimes we kind of adapt these, right? So elements to material cause, beginning to the, what, mover or maker, and then we use the word cause for the end and the form, okay? Kind of adaptation of that. That's the way Thomas is using principium here, right? Because he's contrasting principium et philum. Even though you find out in the chapter on principium and the category in the fifth book of wisdom, that the last meaning of beginning is the end. Because it's first in intention, huh? First in our goal, right? So this suggests a division of sacred doctrine into what? Three parts, right? Jesse has made more explicit the division of the books there in this, you know, Contra Gentiles. Whence it follows that God is truly the subject of this science, right? And then he's a second way of manifesting it, huh? This is also manifest from the beginnings of the science, which are the articles of faith, which is about, what, God, right? And this especially is seen in the, what, the creeds that follow the, what, Father, Son, and Spirit, right? Now, the Nicene Constantinople Creed and the Apostles Creed, right? They're divided into three parts, right? And some articles are attached to the article about the Father, and some to that about the Son, and some to the Holy Spirit. Well, if you divide the articles according to the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and God, obviously the articles are chiefly about what? God. God, yeah. So the beginnings of this science are all about God. Well, then the science must be all about God, right? Okay? Okay. So he gives two reasons here, right? For showing that the science is about God chiefly, right? Nothing else is talked about in the science, in addition to God, if anything can be in addition to God, except in reference to God, right? As its beginning and as its, what, end of God. I think the most explicit statement of, I am the Alpha and the Omega beginning and the end is in the book of the, what, Apocalypse, I think, is the most explicit end. But you find, you know, running through the Psalms a lot in different places like that, huh? These three, right? Know that the Lord is God. He made us as we are. He's the tip of the flock, he dens. In a sense, that's that threefold division, right? God in himself. God is our creator and maker. God is that shepherd, in that command, himself as an enemy. So Thomas would take up, in the third book of the Summa, God is the end, to show God is the end of all things. And then he would talk about the divine providence whereby he leads things to that end. But in the second book, you talk about God as the maker, right? And the creator, huh? What creation? A little bit about what he creates and so on. And it says, some, paying attention to those things which are treated as science, and not to the reason according to which they are considered, right? Have assigned otherwise the subject of this science as things and signs, right, huh? Okay? And notice, this has a footnote referring to, that's the way the Lombard has a sentence to define it, huh? Or the works of reparation, right? Or the whole Christ, right? That is, head and members, huh? Now, about all these things, one treats in the science. But according to their order to what? God. Right, huh? Does Christ say, I am the way, the truth, and the life? And as God, he's the end, he's truth and life, right? As man, he's the what? The way, actually the Greek word is more concrete, it says road, the hodas, I am the hodas, the road. And so when Thomas begins the third part of the Summa there, he's going to talk about the Incarnation and therefore the human nature of Christ, right? He says that this is about Christ, who as man is the, what, via, then the road, the way of getting to God. Now, I think I mentioned this interesting division that Thomas gives in the Commentary of the Psalms, and you run across it. He says, who teaches, teaches either things or words. I get it. And I think it's a very simple way of stating extinction, right? He says, when we teach the faith, the Articles of Faith and Morals and so on, the Commandments and so on, we're teaching things. When we teach Scripture, we're teaching what? Words. Now, obviously, when you talk about things, you're going to use words, and you will at some time, maybe, as he does later on in 12 and 13, you talk about the words you're using in talking about things, right? Okay? But nevertheless, you might say, up front is the things you want to talk about, right? So this is the book about things, or chiefly about one thing. God, right, huh? Okay? But when Thomas says, when we lay out Sacred Scripture, then we're talking about words. It doesn't mean that you don't talk about the things that these words signify. What's up front is the words of St. John's Gospel, or St. Matthew's Gospel, or the words of St. Paul, whatever it might be, that you're commenting on. And those words are your, what, starting point, right? And you're going to try to unfold the meaning of those words, and the order of those words, and so on, right? But there's a real difference between those two, isn't there? Okay? Now, Pius XII said, no one can really be a toldist without knowing Thomas's commentary on the Gospel of St. John, right? Okay? I think if you compare the commentary on the Gospel of St. John, or even the commentary on the Psalms, right? So, a different type of work in this. Dionysius's work on the divine names, as I mentioned before, is sort of in between those two, right? Is that about things or about words? But notice, you know, he's a pretty careful writer, right? And the name of the work is about the divine names, right? You know? And the reason is, he's talking about, as you read the books of the Bible, you'll see these names again and again, right? So, you're going to talk every time it's said that God is good, in what sense God is said to be good. I'm going to explain the word good over and over again. Then you're going to have the repetition that Thomas talked about, that the exposition of books requires, right? So, let's pull out those words that I said again and again of God, right? And give a kind of a somewhat exhaustive consideration of what it means to say God is good, or God is beautiful, or whatever else you say about God, right? But, you can see that the work of Dionysius and the divine names presupposes talking about words, right? And it's closer to that, right? And sume is. But, vice versa, Dionysius and the divine names is closer to the Summa, where you have a treatise on the divine goodness, all by itself, right? The question will be on that. Then, then, the scripture is like this, right? Okay? The reason why I kind of got into that here, is that, when you ask, what is the subject of scripture, right? How does Vatican II talk about that? What's that? If someone said to you, what is the chief subject of sacred scripture? Would you say it's God, or what would you say? Salvation. Well, what does Vatican II say? Right. And they'll say, for example, talking about the New Testament, that even among the books of the New Testament, right, the four gospels have a preeminence. So the four gospels are the greatest part, okay? And the four gospels, why are they the greatest part? Because of the chief witness to the words and the deeds of, what? The word made flesh, right? Okay? And then, when they talk about the Old Testament, they talk about, it's chiefly to prepare the way for the, what? The word made flesh, right? So, you know my enjoyment with Amphiboli, right? Okay? That the Bible, the word of God, in the sense of the, what? Bible, right? Is about the word of God. Okay? And Vatican II kind of, makes it more explicit. You see, the Bible is chiefly about the word of God, made flesh, right? Okay? And that the, the Bible, the word of God, in the sense of the Bible, is also made flesh, insofar as it takes on, what? Human language, huh? Okay? Now, that's a beautiful, beautiful, uh, teaching there, Vatican II, because it shows, the way of speaking, fits what you're speaking of. And, you may have seen Thomas, you know, when he talks about the sacraments, and the tools of Christ, huh? And how a tool, should fit the, the one who uses the tool, right? Just like, you know, the handle, the tool, you know, it should fit my hand in some way. Um, so, if you're talking about, what, the word of God made flesh, right? Um, you need a way of speaking, where the word of God, words of God, simply, become flesh, the kind of language. And just like in, going back to the, uh, sacraments there, Dustin says, the word comes to the element, becomes a sacrament. I baptize you in the Father, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When those words come to the water, then it becomes a sacrament of what? Baptism, right? So it's kind of a likeness, right? Of the words coming to the element, and the word made flesh, which is what Christ is, It fits that. Well, likewise, in the way of scripture, right? Okay? That, um, the word of God, in the sense of sacred scripture, is the word of God made flesh, the Diabolism 2 says. That is to say, the word of God, clothing itself, right? In a kind of, what? Human speech, right? Okay? It's appropriate to speak that way, when it's going to speak about, the word of God, in the sense of the Son of God, now, right? Made flesh, right? So it's appropriate, that Son. Okay? So, now obviously, because of the connection, the three person, the Trinity, right? And Christ is God, you can say, okay, in a way scripture is about God too, right? But, maybe, you know, there's some, uh, appropriateness, saying that the subject of, what? Sacred scripture, is the word of God made flesh. I wouldn't say that the subject, of the Summa Theologiae, is the word of God made flesh, I'd say, it's God. You know? Okay? I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it's false, to say the scriptures about God either. It obviously, obviously is, right? But, when you read the Gospels, especially the Gospel of St. John, but all the Gospels, you learn about God the Father, you learn about God the Holy Spirit, right? But still, would you say the four Gospels are, four books about the Trinity, or four books about the, what? Word of God made flesh. Because when we distinguish, when we distinguish the Gospels, often we divide the first three, against the fourth one, right? And the distinction between the first three, and the fourth, is that the first three, emphasize the human nature of Christ, relatively more compared to the fourth, and the fourth emphasizes the divinity of Christ, more relatively to the other. And obviously both natures are in every Gospel. Well, the very distinction, therefore, of the Gospels, right, into two, of course, is in terms of the Word of God made flesh, right? His divinity is humanity, rather than in terms of the Trinity or something else. I suppose that indicates how Scripture is more proportioned to us, you know, he teaches words in a sense to be more proportioned to us than the man who teaches things, right? Another thing here that struck me, I was thinking about this the other day, when Thomas was saying how this science is not strictly speaking to be put in the category of theoretical things, like first philosophy is, or in practical things like ethics, right? That it reflects the unity of God's knowledge, right? As opposed to the division of philosophy into these two kinds, remember that? Well, the thing that I thought about a lot over the years, I was thinking about, again, this recent feast there, the Magi coming, right? Sometimes, when you divide the Gospels, in the way I first indicated, you divide Matthew, Mark, and Luke against John on the basis of humanity and divinity of Christ. Then they distinguish Matthew, Mark, and Luke, taking the word, or taking a suggestion from the word Christ, which means anointed, right? And then Thomas will point out how in the Old Testament, you anointed kings and prophets and priests, right? And so Matthew emphasizing the kingship of Christ, and Mark, the prophetic role of Christ, right? And then Luke, the priesthood of Christ, right? That's why Luke is more explicit about the sweating blood, and about his suffering on the cross, and so on. And why it's always in the temple so much, begins in the temple, and references the temple, and so on. Why the Magi are only in Matthew, and so on. And so you point out these connections here. But sometimes, you know, I've seen texts in Thomas where sometimes he divides Matthew and Luke against Mark and John. That's kind of interesting. And of course, as you know, Matthew and Luke have an infancy narrative, right? They talk about the human birth of Christ, and so on, right? Why Mark, doesn't he begin with the adulterer, right? At least in some of our texts of Mark, it begins by saying the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So why were you in the first sentence, you told he's the Son of God? It's almost like the gospel of John, right? Okay? So sometimes Thomas, what? Puts Mark with John. I can't set it to right. Okay? Now, if you've got just Matthew and what? Luke. Then you have just the kingship and the what? Priesthood of Christ, huh? And the prophetic falls out, right? Okay? Now, I've seen it. I was trying to find it the other day. I was going through all the encyclicals they had on the internet there. I'll be the 13th. I thought it might have been the other 13th. It is Pius XI. I guess it is. But one encyclical is talking about Christian doctrine and so on, and how we sometimes divide according to Christ as King, Christ as Teacher, and Christ as Priest. You see that division? And Christ as Teacher, we teach you the creed. And Christ as King, we teach you the commandments. And Christ as Priest, we teach about prayer and sacraments and so on. Okay? But then a lot of times you find just two things mentioned, just kingship and priesthood. Like we're said to be a, what, an invitation of Christ, a royal priesthood, right? Okay? What happened to the prophetic, to the teaching? Right? You have only two now, right? See? Well then, it bothered me a lot from years ago when I was studying the Magi, because there's three gifts they bring, right? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And gold is in recognition of his kingship, right? Frankincense, which is a prayer assembly, right? That would seem to refer to his what? Being a priest. But myrrh refers to what? Burying. Yeah. And therefore, again, to his passion and death, right? And therefore, to his supreme priestly act, right? What happened to his prophetic and teaching role? Why didn't they bring a book or something, right? You see? All you've got there is the kingship and the priesthood. What happened to the prophetic and teaching role, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Mm-hmm. So that kind of body, you know? It's a three or two, right? Yeah. You see, in Scripture a lot of times we refer to our reigning with Christ, right? When we enjoy eternal life, right? And when Pilate asked Christ there, you know, are you a king? What is the answer? This was I born, for this I came into the world, and I give testimony into the truth. It seems that giving testimony into the truth, being a teacher in a sense, right, belongs to Christ as king. Okay? But it also belongs to Christ, or to God for that matter, as king, to command us, right? To give us commandments, huh? Okay? Well, then, I got thinking about this article we read last time. Is this science speculative or practical? Well, they're not two things, right? In philosophy, they're two things. Practical philosophy is one thing. Theoretical philosophy is another thing, right? When Lady Wisdom comes down, Lady Philosophy comes down to console the atheists in prison, she's got a big theta on her, and then below it, a pie for the practical philosophy. And the commentator says, well, the theoreticus, I should say, the theoretical is above the practical, right? But they're two different things, right? Okay? But this is one and the same, right? Or maybe that's one way of looking at this paradox, right? When you distinguish Christ as prophet, in a way, and perhaps along with that teacher, right? And Christ is king, you're kind of bringing out the theoretical and practical aspect of both, right? And they're both there in this doctrine. And when Tommy showed that the science was above all the rest, he used both, didn't he? Both as theoretical and practical. Remember that? But you also want to keep in mind that it's really one science. And so if you say Christ as king is both the one that, what, teaches truth, is witness to the truth, and commands us, then you see the unity of the theoretical and the practical in his being called king, right? And then it's superfluous to say that he's a teacher, too. That's included when you say king. So, makes sense, right? I was kind of set off here at the end of this body of the article in Article 7, where he said, Veltotum Christum, ides caput ed membra, right? Okay? Because that seems to me not a good way to speak of the subject of this theology, right? But that would make more sense to speak of that as the subject of the sacred, what? Scripture. Yeah, yeah. And so if you look at, say, the New Testament, right? Vatican II is fairly close in its way of dividing it to the way Thomas devised the New Testament, right? Thomas devised the New Testament on the basis of grace. The Old Testament on the basis of law. The law of the king and the law of the father. But the New Testament on the basis of grace. And he divides it. into three parts. The origin of grace on Christ, which is what the Gospels are about. The nature of grace, which is what the epistles of Paul are about. And then the chief effect of grace, which is the Church, whose origin is treated in the Acts of the Apostles. We see its progress in the canonical epistles and its final state in the book of Acts. In fact, it's very close to that distinction that Thomas gives. We can see that the New Testament is about what? Copy the number. Right? Okay? And if you had a chance to look at that premium of Thomas to the Psalms, right? Now one reason why the Psalms are especially what you see in the Mass and so on, right, is because of the universality of them. They contain, in a sense, the whole of the sacred doctrine in the form of a prayer, as Thomas says, the form of a prayer and praise and so on. But you could say it in a way that the subject of the Psalms is what? Copy the member. The thing right there. Okay? So, I wouldn't say that that's so much a subject of Summa Theologiae. I say Summa Theologiae is God. God in itself, and God is the maker in the end. And therefore, it's theory of the Summa Contra Gentiles. But that makes some sense to say that about sacred what? Scripture, right? Okay. Now we take, do you want a sufficient objection before we take a little break? Sure. And the first objection was about a science knowing what is, right? To the first effort ought to be said that although about God we are not able to know what he is, right? We use, nevertheless, his effect in this teaching, whether it be an effect of nature or grace, in place of a what? Definition, right? For those things which are considered about God and his teaching. Just as in some philosophical sciences, he's demonstrated something about the cause through the what? Effect, yeah. Taking the effect in place, the definition of the cause. So we know in this science more what God is not, right? And what he is, huh? So let's say he's the unmoved mover. He's simple, that is to say not composed, huh? He's infinite, not limited in his perfection. He's one, undivided. Okay? He's unchanging and so on. And the second objection, of course, is clearly answered already in the Bible article. Sure, you do talk about other things, right? To the second it should be said that all other things which are determined in sacred teaching are comprehended under God. Not as parts of God, right? Or particular kinds of God, or accidents of God, or accidents of God, but is ordered in some way to him, right? Or to him as their beginning, incipium, or as their end, feasts, you know. Okay? So, that in here, right in the smoke. It's a little quick now. Before we go on to the last, the third part of the second part.