Prima Pars
Lecture 14: God's Existence: The Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, through the lights of our minds, Lord, illumine our images and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us, help us to understand all that you're written. Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Did I mention how I was looking at Thomas' exposition there of the 21st Psalm, and the correct number, which is kind of, I guess, the first of the penitential psalms, and the major one, I guess. And it's got a lot of things you're familiar with, like, you know, it begins with the words that Christ used on the cross in Matthew and in Mark. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And it has the words that, in that prayer we say after communion sometimes, in front of the crucifix and so on, and then you quote David, what David said about you years ago. And that's in that psalm, right? And things about the vying and garments and that sort of thing. But Thomas is something kind of interesting. Going back to what he said about metaphor and so on, he's saying that David here in this psalm is a figure of Christ. And the psalm is about Christ. David is just there as a figure of Christ. And he mentions that Theodorus Mopsotinus, whoever he was, but I know him from the Sermon Contrageteus, you know, they inherit his in various forms. But he was condemned at some consul for denying that the psalm is about Christ. So, it seems kind of something a little additional what Thomas is saying. You know, he wouldn't say that David was a metaphor for Christ, right? But he seems to say there, if I read the text correctly, that the letter is Christ. And that David is a figure. So, that kind of adds another subtlety to what we mean by the sense of the letter, right? You know, when you say that God is a rock, we're saying that the sense of the letter is not that God is a rock. And there's a true sense based upon the false sense. No, the sense of the letter is what the metaphor is meant to represent, right? By likeness. Well, what is the sense of the letter of the 21st psalm? Well, is it David, who then represents Christ in turn, or does it represent Christ directly? And David is really something more like a metaphor because he's called a figure there. You know? It's kind of a subtle thing, huh? You look at the text again, I should look at it again myself, but I think it's kind of a subtle thing that shows how very careful a writer Thomas is. Because there are other things, obviously, people in the Old Testament where we'd say the sense of the letter is the man, you know, that it seems to be written about, and that man in turn signifies what? Yeah. The thing signifies Christ, right? But in this case, it's more like the metaphor, right? And since the letter is not the metaphor, that God is a rock, but that of which it is a figure, right? Right. Okay. I was going on there, kind of rereading what that nice little addition you gave me. And the 24th Psalm there, he's talking about getting to God and getting to heaven, right? And of course, sometimes he's a little frustrated to go from the English text to the Thomas's because the Latin text he has doesn't quite fit your English text. So he's explaining the Latin words. And in the Latin words, you have the psalmist praying for the via, which is the way, the road, and the semitah, the path, yeah. And Thomas says, well, the via is the main road, the common road, right? That everyone has to take, right? The semitah is the brief road, yeah? The short road, right? Get you there quicker. And then he explains in terms of the, what? The difference between the commands, right? Which you have to obey in order to get to heaven, you know? And then the counsels, right? That's the short way, the brief way to get there quickly, you know? And this new little grandchild, you'd be after St. Trezor of Syria. I was going back reading Trezor a little bit. You realize what a short path she took to such high sanctity. She was only at the age of, what, 15 was it? And she died, was it 24 about? Yeah, 23. 23, something like that, okay. But a very short life, you know. And, well, a long way. But it was a semitah, right? Because she'd really, you know, down in there was a council very much in mind. And it's very interesting. But something like that, too, with Thomas here. I was trying to find the text, but I couldn't remember exactly where it was. But I think it's one of the popes when he talks about Thomas, right? Quote somebody with more or less, you know, support. But you can learn more from a year of studying Thomas than from, you know, I don't know, many years, whatever it is, of studying the church fathers, right? So that's kind of a reason to concentrate on Thomas, right? It's a semitah, right? And what does Albert the Great call a summa? It asks, brevis via. That's true about Thomas. You can learn more in a shorter time and in a shorter path than, you know, with a church father. It's kind of spread out and a little more loose, huh? Not that you shouldn't read the church fathers, but there's some reason to reading Thomas especially. Okay, we're up to question 2, article 3, right? Whether God is, right? And to the third, he proceeds, one proceeds thus. It seems that God is not, huh? Because if one of the two contraries was infinite, right? It would totally, what? Destroy the other, right? But this is understood in the name God, that he be something that is an infinite good, right? There's no end to God's perfection, right? If therefore God were, nothing bad would be found, huh? But there is found something bad in the world. Therefore God is not, right? So this touches upon what Thomas says, I think, elsewhere, is like the chief objection to the existence of God. And Thomas has a commentary in the book of Job. I have in the Leona, the Greek volume. But the book of Job is, when Thomas divides the books of sacred scriptures, he sees the book of Job as being ordered to faith, huh? And to the defense of faith against the chief objection, huh? Which is the objection from the evil in the world, huh? So you all, maybe, you know, heard of Jews, say, maybe who turned away from even their faith because the Holocaust helped, you know, God allows such things, right, huh? Okay? So this is an appropriate first objection, huh? That Thomas is giving. Okay, now the second objection is a little bit different, huh? It's like when I consider, you know, the question in natural philosophy, and we, I think we did it in here, didn't we? Whether nature acts for an end. And I give some of the arguments against nature acting for an end, as well as the arguments for. Then later on, we untie these objections against nature acting for an end. But some objections were saying that nature couldn't act for an end, right? Like this first one, they're saying, well, there couldn't be anything good. It is evil in the world, right? Now, the second, the last objection I'd have against nature acting for an end was that some people think we can do it with fewer principles, right? Fewer causes. And therefore, why do you have to have another cause, right? Okay? And that can be solved or answered too. But this second objection is a little bit like that, huh? Moreover, what is able to be, completed through fewer beginnings, huh? Through fewer causes, does not come to be through many, huh? And this is a basic beginning in natural philosophy, huh? And Aristotle uses it himself, and the modern physicists say this is the fundamental beginning, huh? Look at Newton's, you know, principia, that's his fundamental principle. Nature is pleased with simplicity, he says, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. Okay? This is a famous thing. But it seems that all the things which appear in this world can be completed through other beginnings, huh? Through other causes. Even supposing that God is not. Because those things which are natural can be led back to the beginning or cause which is nature. And those things which are from the will, proposing to that's one way of speaking of the will, are reduced... Just... Just... or by choice you could say also, are reduced to a beginning, to the human reason and the will, right? So everything's explained, right? You look around the world, you would see what is natural things and artificial things. What we know the cause of natural things is nature, and the cause of artificial things is art, so everything's accounted for. Why bring in some, why complicate things and bring in some other cause? That's the objection, right? The beginning of fewness in science there, which some people call the principle of simplicity, but I could say fewness better maybe. The beginning of fewness is that fewer beginnings or clauses are better if they are enough, right? That's the principle, right? So this argument is trying to say, hey, this is enough to explain what we say, so why go with some other stus clause? But against this, I was interested in saying contrary to Jesus, but against this is what is said in Exodus 3, verse 14, when the person of God, I guess, when Moses asks him, who's sending me? Which I tell them, who sent me? And I am who am, right? That's a pretty definitive text on the contrary, right? So Thomas says, I answer it should be said that for God to be, is able to be shown in what? Five ways, huh? Now in the Summa Contagentila is the other major work in theology as a whole, by Thomas, you have five ways too, huh? Okay? But the five ways, or the five arguments, are not exactly the same, right? The first argument here is going to be from motion, right? But in the Summa Contagentiles, the first two arguments are from motion. Okay? So there's two arguments from motion. And one of those arguments is given here, but not the other. And the one that's given here, there's some backup for the, what, premises, right? But in the Summa Contagentiles, there is even more backup for the same premises, huh? Okay? Now the second argument here will be from the maker. God is the first efficient cause. Maker. And that would be in the Summa Contagentiles, the third argument then. Okay? And then you have, as your third argument here, the one from the possible and the necessary. Starting off from what is able to be and not being going to what is necessary. Now that's not one of the five in the Summa Contagentiles, huh? But it is given, in the chapter on, does God exist, right? But it is given a little bit later on. Okay? But the reason he gives, in backing up the, one of the premises, is different in the Summa Contagentiles and the reason given, what? Here, right? Okay? Okay? As I mentioned, huh? In the first argument for motion, the premises used in the argument are backed up with, you know, three reasons, huh? In the Summa Contagentiles, here it's just, just one, right? Okay? But in the third argument, which is repeated in the, or anticipated, I should say, in the Summa Contagentiles, which I did earlier, he backs up one of the premises with a different reason than he gives here, right? So he could have combined the two and given two reasons for the same, what? Premise, right? Okay? Then the fourth and fifth are somewhat similar, huh? To what you have in the Summa Contagentiles, huh? So, in the Summa Contagentiles, the arguments for motion, you could say, are much more developed, right? Okay? And you begin to see how the arguments for motion depend upon understanding of the whole of the, what? The physics of Aristotle, the eight books of the actual theory, huh? And some middle terms will be drawn from book six and some from book eight and so on, right? Okay? I just mention that because sometimes Thomas is brief about something, sometimes he, what? Unfolds it, right? Okay? And sometimes you'll find that Thomas will be more unfolding, more expansive, or more developed, right? In the earlier work than in the later work. Like the Summa Contagentiles is before this, right? But vice versa, the Summa Theologiae also, and in general later works, sometimes will develop something more than an earlier work does. Okay? So, that's why I kind of think it's funny when they argue that the Gospel of St. Mark must be the first Gospel because it's the shortest, huh? And one time we were going to do a Gospel in the parish and we had to select one of the Gospels to do and we decided to do Mark because we thought we could get through it in the period that we were, you know, at that time. And, but the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the shortest, does that mean that must have been the first one written? Mm-hmm. See? Because then you have to say, well, he's shorter here in the argument for motion than in the Summa Contagentiles. Therefore, the Summa Theologiae must have been written before. That doesn't follow, right? And I know myself sometimes when I'm thinking about something and multiplying my thoughts about it and really going into it, and I develop it sometime, and then at a later time, I come back and state the same thing more briefly and succinctly and maybe better, maybe not better, maybe less developed, but you just can't judge things in that way, huh? Mm-hmm. It's sometimes, and vice versa, I'll take something I thought about before and something expanded later on in time, right? So, that's a fact of life, but I think it does, right? So, but this will also expand a little bit the difference in the order of the consideration of the divine substance in the two Summas, because in the Summa Contagentiles, the first of the five attributes of the divine substance that are considered in both Summas, right? The first one you'll consider in the Summa Contagentiles is that God is unchangeable. And it's almost, you know, already determined by the full development of the argument for the unmoved mover, right? So, it's kind of natural to begin with God being unchangeable, right? But here, it's not until the, what, the fourth attribute of the five that he takes it up, right? Okay? So, that's kind of an important difference, right? but it's kind of connected with the fact that the arguments for motion are much more developed. There's two of them and even the one that's given here is much more developed there. Okay? So, sometimes one has to go back to the earlier one. I mean, I could do that here, but, I mean, you can realize sometimes, huh? He's more brief than sometimes if there's so many difficulties, right? someone's writing an article which I had to look over for the journal on the third argument here, right? And sometimes it's just kind of brief Thomas here, right? But you can go back to the first book on the universe in Aristotle where Thomas comes on and go through six lexios and come away with maybe a better understanding of the premise here, right? Okay? But we don't always, you know, elaborate everything. What question is it in the Summa Conscientist where he deals with the argument for necessity? It's the one, it must be the one there's any passive potency in God, right? Okay. Okay. But it's one or two chapters after, two chapters after the existence of God, right? Okay. Okay. Now again, a little caution there that I mentioned before. I had a seminar from Charles DeConnick on the five ways and we were all like, you know, last year's students and so on so it's bad students and so on. And DeConnick actually began the course by talking about faith, right? And how he believes in the existence of God more from what his mother had told him than from the study of the arguments, right? And he's trying to give us kind of a foully talk, you know, that some people, you know, are looking for more than they can get out of the arguments, right? Maybe not more than somebody can get out of the arguments, but then they can get out of it, right? And the need of faith, as Thomas said before, right? because of our Weakness of our mind in trying to understand the proof, huh? And then, as I think I mentioned before, each of us had to write a paper, present a paper, actually, in the seminar, on one of the five ways, huh? We had to look at what either some modern Thomist had said about that thing, or what some modern philosopher had done, right, huh? Okay. And I think I mentioned I had to do it on Descartes because I was writing a paper, so I was talking about Descartes, and I was kind of familiar with the texts of Descartes and so on. And as I found was that Descartes had misunderstood the major premise and had misunderstood the minor premise. Of the very argument he was concerned with, right? But that was kind of a unanimous thing that happened in the examination of these modern Thomists even, right? That they had not really understood the argument that they were what? Yeah, yeah. And I remember being at a philosophical conference and suddenly came up with all these things and this, you know, very dignified, you know, Monsignor what it was. Oh, I know. But he's just staying in the argument, you know. I'm about to come in. I said, no, I don't think I will. You know, it's just appropriate to embarrass people. But I just mention that because it means, you know, you shouldn't be too ambitious, right? But you have to fully understand these arguments, especially the first, you know, several times you meet them, right? And don't have this naivete, you know, of Catholic colleges teaching the five ways and the freshmen saying, well, to convert the world, right? And they don't really understand them themselves, right? Even those people who are, you know, professionals, shall we say, philosophers or even theologians often misunderstand the very argument that they're, what, talking about, huh? Okay? Now, instead, we're going to try to understand them a little bit. You know, we're not going to, especially be exhaustive, huh? Okay. And most of these arguments, you know, were originally stated by, what, Peristava, right? Well, okay. So I answered that it should be said that for God to be, is he able to be shown by five ways, huh? The first and more manifest way is that which is taken from motion. Now, why does he say the more manifest way, or the first way? Very much of motion. Yeah, yeah. You've heard me quote Ulysses in Troyes and Cresida. Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. So if our knowledge begins with our senses, and motion most of all catches the eyes and the senses, you might say the argument for motion is kind of the first one, right? The first and most manifest one. Okay? Now notice this argument depends upon having senses, right? And that's true in the next sentence, too. For it is certain and stands by sense that some things are moved in this world, right? Now, the argument is going to assume, it's assuming now, it's obvious, that there is motion, right? And the argument is going to be based upon what two premises are. Well, omne autum quad movator, ab allium movator. Whatever is what? Moved. Moved is moved by another, right? Yes. And then, that what? Not every, what? Mover is what? A moved mover. Yeah, it's a moved mover. That there's a mover that is what? Unmoved, right? These two things you can't go on forever. In other words, it's like A is being moved by B, and B is being moved by C, and C by D, and so on forever, right? Okay? So, these two things you've got to show, right? So those are like the premises of the main, what? Syllogism. Okay? And then the others are to what? Other things said are being to back up those premises, huh? Okay? Now, right after he says, everything that is moved is moved by another, right? Now he starts to get something of the reason for that. For nothing is moved, except according as it is in, what? Potency. Potency. Potency. And this is the passive potency now, right? To that to which it is moved, huh? That goes back, in a way, to the, what? Definition of motion, right? The motion is the act of what is, what? The potential. Yeah. But, yeah, the act of what is able to be, right? Insofar as it's able to be, right? Okay? Let's recall the definition for a moment, huh? Which is in the third book of natural hearing, the third book of the physics. When I'm coming into this room, right? You could say that, like, coming into the room is the act of the ability to come into the room. This would be a true statement, right? I was able to come into the room, and now I'm actually coming into the room, right? But this couldn't be a definition of coming into the room. That's the act of what is able to come into the room, because then you'd be defining something by itself, right? In this little paradox, right? Now, if I want to avoid that circularity, I might say, well, coming into the room is the act not of the ability to come into the room, but the act of the ability to be in the room, okay? Now, to be in the room is not the same thing as to come into the room, right? So, in trying to define motion as the act, or trying to define coming into the room, as the act of what is able to be in the room, I now avoid circularity, right? But now I seem to have a, what? False statement. Remember that? Because to be in the room is the act of the, what? Ability to be in the room, right? Okay? But then you come and say, but just a minute now. Isn't coming into the room in some imperfect way an act of the ability to be in the room? When you're coming into the room, coming through the doorway, that is to say, right? Aren't you already somewhat in the room? Yeah. So maybe we could say that coming into the room is in some way, at least an imperfect act of the ability to be in the room. And that would separate it from actually being in the room in a full sense. And avoid, therefore, the falseness that was in saying that, right? And at the same time, it would be what? Saying what it really is. Now, is there something else, though, that is partly in the room without coming into the room? Well, suppose you're standing in the doorway with one foot in, one foot out. Yeah. Well, are you in the room? Partly, yeah. And perfectly and completely in the room. But you're not coming into the room, are you? Okay. So you have to separate coming into the room not only from fully being in the room, right? But also from that partial or imperfect being in the room that is out of the man standing, right? And, of course, the difference is that the man who's standing in the doorway, it's accidental, right? To the man standing in the doorway that he's ever in the room more. And standing in the doorway is not on the way to being in the room more. I might be just checking IDs there at the door, right? And I have no intention of going further into that wild part inside, right? Okay. So, you can say that motion is the act of what is able to be, huh? And then Aristotle says, insofar as it's able to be. But that last part of the definition separates it both from the full act, right? Because it's still in some ability to be in the room and not actually in there, right? And it brings out that it's, what? Essentially, ordered to be further in the room, huh? So long as I am still coming into the room, I will be in the room more than I am now. Right? And if I will not be more in the room... If that doesn't pertain to my situation, I've stopped. Right? Okay? Now, the same thing could be said about other kinds of motion or change. So, you might say that when I'm heating the water for tea or something, the water is becoming hot, right? Okay? Now, becoming hot is the act of the ability to become hot. That's a true statement, but it doesn't tell you anything. It's like saying a rose is a rose. That's true. It doesn't tell you anything about a rose, really. But becoming hot is, in some way, imperfectly, an act of the ability to be hot. But there's something different between becoming hot and being warm. If the mother is heating the milk bottle or something like that, she doesn't want it to be hot, right? She wants it to be warm, right? Okay? So, it's accidental to being warm that you're ever, what, warmer or closer to being hot, huh? But so long as the water is becoming hot, not only is it imperfectly or incompletely hot, but it's going to be hotter as long as it's still becoming hot. So, this is very much involuntary behind the idea that the thing that is, what, moving, right, is in this passive ability, right? It is in the ability that's being, what, gradually actualized, right? Okay? So, nothing is moved except according as it is in potency to that which is moved, huh? Okay? But the thing that is moving it, right, it's moving it according as it is in act, right? So, the stove is moving the water to be actually hot to being actually hot itself, huh? It's giving it the act it has, huh? Okay? And he elaborates on that a bit. For to move is nothing other than to leave something out of, what, potency into act, right? Okay? But from potency or ability, something is not able to be reduced to act except through some being already, what, in act, huh? And we saw that in the ninth book of wisdom, right, that we talked about which is before in time, ability or act, right? And Aristotle sees a distinction, huh? And it's the kind of distinction that we call the distinction between simply and not simply, right? Simply in some imperfect way. And he said that in the thing which is going from ability to act, ability is before act. But something goes from ability to act to something already in act. Therefore, simply, act is before ability. And that's the beginning for eventually concluding that the beginning of all things must be pure act. By those who make the second kind of mistake, outside of words, right, the mistake for mixing up what is so simply with what is, what, not so simply, they're thinking that because ability is before act in some way, that therefore simply ability comes first. And therefore they reach the false conclusion that matter is most in potency, is the beginning of all things, right? Okay? Now it's interesting, huh? In that chapter where I was referring to the Summa Canadi Gentiles, after the chapter, you know, it comes in a couple chapters after the chapter of the existence of God, Thomas develops not only the argument from possibility and necessity, I think, but he gives an argument just from act and ability without going down to motion, right? So you could give an argument for the existence of God, the pure act, right? Just from that understanding in the ninth book, right? But this is more, what, proportion to us because it's more concrete. And you're seeing act and ability in motion, right? Which is very sensible and gets our attention, huh? And, uh, but the basic reason why the thing which is an ability can give itself the act it doesn't have, is it has to have it to, what, give it, huh? I was quoting an old seminarian professor who would ask those questions and they couldn't answer, he'd say, Nihil dhat quod non habita. Nothing gives what it doesn't have, you know? I mean, you can't ask that question if you don't have the knowledge, right? And, but, I mean, he's kind of, you know, emphasizing in a kind of humorous way that, I'm rubbing it in, I suppose, too, a little bit, on that principle that the reason why you can't give me the answers is that you don't have the knowledge, you know, of what this is, huh? So, the thing that is an ability and not an act doesn't, in fact, then have the act and therefore it can't give itself the act it doesn't have. And therefore it has to go from ability to act because of something already in act, huh? So, simply speaking, act comes before, right? But here it's seen in a more concrete way that this is the thing that is moved, that's going from ability to act, right? But the mover must be, what? In act and moving it insofar as it's in act, right? But, of course, you know, later on the question will arise, but if he's a mover because he's being moved himself, and that is he's moving another thing insofar as, and at the same time as he's being moved himself, well, what's moving it? Same sort of thing, a moved mover? And then the question arises, well, can you have this series going on forever, or must you come to a mover that's moving other things without being moved itself, right? Because if every mover is moving other things insofar as it's being moved itself, you're going to have an infinity of what? Of moved movers, right? And is that something that could be, right? Well, that's got to be another part of the argument, right? But the first thing is to show that the moved as such is an ability, and therefore it's not moving itself, right? And therefore it has a mover, and the mover must be an act in order to move, right? And then there arises this question now, well, is it a moved mover, right? That's how it's an act, and then the other part of the argument will have to be an act, or the other part of the premise. Let's repeat a little bit there. For to move is nothing other than to lead out something from a potency to act, but from potency or ability, something is not able to be reduced in act except through some being in act, and he gives a simple example, as what is hot in act, as for example, fire is hot in act, makes the wood, which is hot in ability or in potency, to be in act hot. And through this it moves and what? Alters it, right? Okay? Notice that Thomas is not using motion there in the narrow sense we sometimes use in daily speech, where motion means just change of place, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? It includes alteration and growth and other things. But it is not possible that the same thing be at once in act and in ability according to the very same thing, right? But only according to diverse things, huh? So the wood can be actually wood, but hot in ability, right? But it can't be in ability hot and actually hot at the same time. That'd be a kind of diction. For what is hot in act is not able to be hot in ability, but is at the same time, what? Cold, you might say, in ability. It is impossible, therefore, that according to the same and in the same way, something should be what? Mover and move, or that it moves itself, right? Okay? So the conclusion then, and this is really concluding now to one of the major, one of the chief premises, yeah, okay? Everything, therefore, that is moved, necessarily is moved by what? Another, right? Okay, now he's starting to go to the other premise, huh? If, therefore, that by which it is moved is also moved, right? It's necessary that it be what? Moved by another, right? Moved by another, right? Moved by another, right? Moved by another, right? and that by another, right? This auger cannot go on forever, right? In finitum. Because thus there would not be some first, what? Mover. And consequently there would not be any other mover because the second movers do not move except by this that they are moved by the first mover. Just as the staff or stick or something is not moved except insofar as it's moved by the, what? Hand, right? Now that you don't go on forever, Aristotle will show this in a particular way in the 8th book of the Natural Hearing, the Physics, for the mover, right? In the Posture Analytics he'll show it for form. In the first book of the Nicomache Ethics he'll show it for the end, right? But if you recall in the second book of Wisdom, the second book of what the rude multitude call the metaphysics, he shows it for all four causes, right? He shows it universally, right? But now, let's recall a little bit of that reason, right? Why can't you just have moved movers, right? And an infinite series of moved movers, right? You've never reached the first, so the last one would never move on the floor. Yeah, but it kind of consists in seeing that a moved mover is by definition. But what do you mean by a moved mover, right? A moved mover necessarily has something after it that is moving, right? And necessarily has something before it, because it's a moved mover, right? Using our reasoning out of looking before and after, huh? Okay? Now, if you have the caboose, let's say, of the train, and that's the last thing, right? That's moved, but doesn't move anything. It's the, it's pulled, but doesn't pull anything, huh? But the car in front of it, the car in front of it is a pulled puller, to make more individual or particular example of a moved mover, right? It's pulling something, namely the caboose, right? But it's pulling something insofar as it's being pulled itself, right? It's a pulled puller. Now, would you get any motion for the caboose, or for that matter, for the pulled puller, if there's nothing before it? Okay? Okay? Now, the trick here, in a sense, is to say, if you put another car before it, there has to be a pulled puller, right? So you have two railroad cars, you just have a, what? A longer pulled puller, right? You could say the two of them together are one grand, what? Pulled puller. And, as Aristotle points out, it makes a difference whether you have one or many, and if many, a limited multitude, or an infinite multitude. There's still one grand, what? Pulled puller, with nothing before that. In which case, nothing moves. Okay? So there must be a mover before that is not a moved mover, right? So it depends upon seeing that a moved mover is essentially a middle. And a middle is essentially something that has, what? Something before and after, right? And seeing that, as far as that middle is concerned, it makes no difference whether you have one or many linked together, right? And if many, whether they're a limited multitude or infinite multitude, there's still, by definition, one grand moved mover, and with this hypothesis, nothing before. Okay? Makes sense? Yes. Therefore, there must be an unmoved mover, right? Therefore, it's necessary to come to a first mover that is moved by no one, right? And this, we all understand, to be what? God. Okay? So you see the argument? Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, I was thinking about this the other day. And this, you back up on the second one here, right? Mm-hmm. How do you know we don't just have moved movers, right? Well, this is one way of seeing it, right? Okay? But I was thinking of another thing, huh? I'm going back to an axiom, huh? And as you know, the axioms are what can be understood when their parts are understood, right? So if you know what a whole and a part is, you know that a whole is something that has parts and so on, then it's kind of obvious or known to itself that the whole is more than one of its parts, huh? Okay? And I was just going to axiom in class today with the students here. I was saying, well, now, if you know what before and after is, you can see that nothing is before or after itself, right? I said, today is before tomorrow, and today is after yesterday. But can today be before today? Or after today? Well, no. And the second sense of before is in being, right? And this could be without that, but not vice versa. And, well, could something be before itself in that second sense? The second sense would be, this could be without that, but not vice versa. So if something could be before itself in the second sense, it could be without itself being. Which is true, right? Okay? So it's usually that to lead up to what Thomas says in the sentences there, that distinction is before, what? Before and after, right? You have to see a distinction before you see it before and after. Well, another distinction that you meet in the fifth book of wisdom and so on, it seems to be an axiom involved, right? The distinction between the through itself and the through another, okay? I'll take very simple examples. Let me say, is coffee sweet through itself? That means is coffee sweet through being coffee? Okay? Well, then if the coffee is sweet, why is the coffee sweet? Through another, yeah. Would anything be sweet? If everything was sweet through another? No. No. No. Ah. If everything's going to be sweet, there's got to be something sweet through itself, right? So, it seems to be just about an axiom to say that before the through another, there is a what? Through itself. Through itself, right? Okay. That's very important in some things, right? You know, some people think that every statement needs to be proven. In which case, they're saying that every statement has to be known through other statements. And then they're saying that there's a through another without anything through itself. Would anything be known that way? No. No. And sometimes you take a simple example of that. You take words, right? And sometimes you don't know the meaning of a word, so you go to the dictionary, and you've come to know the meaning of this word through other words, right? So is that the way all words are learned? Through other words? No. Well, you come out of your mother's womb knowing no words, not even mommy or daddy, right? I mean, in our family, you know, it's always a question to see, what does the baby say first, mom or daddy, right? And some babies are trying to say daddy before mommy, you know? Most of us are supposed to say mommy before daddy. But they couldn't tell me which one I said first, because I was a diplomat with my mom and daddy. But the point is that you come out of your mother's womb not knowing any names, right? So how would you begin to know any names if every name had to be known to other names? You'd never know any names, right? So the first names are known by associating a sound with a, what? Object. I used to have a tape recording at the time of this high-tech equipment. A tape recording of myself trying to teach my son Paul, my oldest one, the word cookie, right? I'm getting him to say cookie, you know? But, you know, you have a cookie and he likes a cookie, and then he starts to associate the sound cookie with that. And then someday, you know, instead of you saying, do you want a cookie? He'll on his own say, cookie, cookie, or something, you know? And he's associated that, right? So you could say the first words are not known to other words. It's known to associating a sound with something that you sense, huh? So, is it true that before the through another is a through itself, right? Okay? Tarahis, right? Okay. Now, what's a mover? What kind of mover is that? What? Yeah, yeah. So, before the move mover, there's one infinity to them, and that would have to be a, what? A new mover, right? Okay. So this currently is the second way of kind of manifesting it, giving you reason for the second major premise, right? The second major premise of the new argument. If you only had moved movers, you would have only something that is a mover through another. How can you have the through another without having the through itself? But if something is a mover through itself, then it can't be the moved mover. Because a moved mover, by definition, is a mover through something else, but then it's moving it. So if there must be a mover through itself, there must be an unmoved mover, right? And that's God. Now the second way, second road, they use via to translate hodas in Greek, right? No, we translate them abstractly, we say, Christ says, I am the way, the truth, and the light. But in Latin, the way would be, the word is via. And in the Greek, it's hodas, road, hodas. The same way when you're talking about the natural road there at the beginning of the physics, the Greek word is hodas, and the Latin has via. So I have to translate road rather than the way, it's no more sensible. Now the second way is from the reason for the efficient cause. For there is found in these sensible things an order of what? Efficient causes, huh? And you could call this an order of what? Makers too, right? From facere, huh? I suppose makers are a little more concrete than efficient cause, like we say in English, huh? But in the Latin, you'd see in the word efficientium, or the idea of the maker, right? Now it's kind of interesting. Now when Aristotle talks about the four kinds of causes, I don't know if you remember exactly what he does, but he talks about the material cause first, right? And then the form. And then the third cause, he calls the mover, right? But he puts with that the maker, right? So the third cause, he first defines the mover, and first there's the beginning of motion and so on. But then he says, and in general, the maker of the made and so on, huh? It's kind of a cause. But notice how he kind of begins with the mover, and then goes to the what? Maker. Yeah, yeah. And of course, the maker has more of a sense of being a cause of the form of the thing, right? The maker is the one who forms the thing, huh? The maker is the one who gives its existence, therefore. By the way, mover, of course, is a cause of motion. The motion is more sensible than being or form, huh? It catches the tension of our senses more, huh? It's interesting that Aristotle uses the word mover before maker, and you find here the argument for the mover before the argument for maker, and Thomas calls the one from motion, manifestior, more, more manifest way, huh? Okay? So let's come back to the second argument here. So there are found in these sensible things, and order of efficient causes, huh? And order makers. Nor is it found to be so, nor is it even possible that something be the, what? Yeah, it'd be the maker of itself, right, huh? Because thus it would be, what? Before itself. Ah, the axiom I was talking about today, as I said in classes by students, huh? You know, I was trying to show them that if reason is able to see order, and order means a before and after, right? Then reason must also be able to see the distinction of things. And I was trying to show them that this by, what I call the axiom of before and after, the axiom order. Nothing is before or after itself. He's using that now here, right? Okay? Now one of the senses of before, which you might recall from the categories, huh? The first sense was before in time. The second was before in being. The third was before in the discourse of reason, or in general before in knowing. The fourth sense was before in goodness or better, right? Then Aristotle brings in the crowning sense, which is most like the second sense of those four, the sense in which the cause is before the effect, right? So that's one sense of before. So if something was a maker of itself, it would have been what? Self. I mean, in American expression, a self-made man, huh? And I suppose you would say my father was a self-made man in this sense. But is that speaking true? That he was a self-made man? No. Not finally. There's going to have to be something. Yeah. But you read that guy named Karl Marx, right? And he's trying to show that history is a process whereby man makes himself, right? And if man made himself, and that's who made me, like the catechism does, right? I made myself. But strictly speaking, it's a what? Contradiction, right? And even Sargent away sees that being the vegan nothingness, huh? Where he says that man is trying to be cause of himself, right? But that's impossible. So man is a useless passion, he says. Well, you shouldn't try to do those things. You won't be. You'll find it rather useless to try to make yourself, huh? So there's always some distinction between the maker and the made, huh? So nothing is what? The maker of itself, right? And then someone like the other argument. Nor is it possible that in efficient causes or makers, one go on forever, right? Because in all ordered efficient causes, right? The first is the cause of the middle, and the middle is the cause of the what? Last, huh? Okay? And this is true whether the middle are what? Many or one only. And you can add, as he does sometimes, whether the many are limited or unlimited, right? Okay? Okay? So, if every maker is a maker insofar as it's made itself, right? Then what? There's no making at all. You outmate everything. But if you remove the cause, you remove the effect. Therefore, if there was not a first maker, there would not be a last one, nor even a what? Middle one. Middle one, huh? But if one proceeds forever in efficient causes, there would not be, then, a first efficient cause or first maker. And thus there would not be a last effect, nor the, what? Middle makers or efficient causes. Which is clearly false. Therefore, it's necessary to, what? Lay down some first, what? Maker, right? Mm-hmm. Which all call God, right? Now we come to the third argument here, huh? Question? Samuel says, with the cause being removed, the effect is removed. Did you just make me think of that line from, what is it? Is it God who respects? Without the creator, the creature disappears. Yeah. Just make me think of that. Because now he's used a comparison there of the sun disappears, right? It'll be all dark. Oh, yeah. Nothing left. Okay. Now the third way is taken from the possible and the necessary, right? Now the possible here is used in the sense of what is able to be and not be, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. There's another sense of possible or able besides that, huh? 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