Prima Pars
Lecture 15: The Third and Fourth Ways: Necessity and Perfection

Transcript
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Able to be is able not to be, and what is necessary to be is able not to be. That gets you into the problem, right? So you have to realize that there's two different meanings of the word able. Now in the fifth book of wisdom, Aristotle distinguishes two basic groups of meanings, right? The kind of ability that you have in geometry or in logic, and the kind of ability we talk about in natural philosophy especially. And the ninth book of wisdom is mainly about that second kind, where ability is the beginning of some kind of motion or change, or at least a certain kind of operation or doing. It can be an active one, right? Like fire is able to burn the paper, right? Or it can be a passive one, like the paper is burnable, right? So it's able to be burnt, eh? But then there's another sense of able, right? And sometimes you use the word, it makes more sense with the word power, but in mathematics we speak of to the third power or the second power or something. But also in logic, you know, we can speak of able in terms of the statement, which is studied in logic. And if the subject and predicate can go together or are compatible, then we speak of ability there, right? For example, you could say that a triangle is able to be, what, green, right? There's no contradiction in saying that a triangle is green, right? But you'd also say that a triangle is able to be a figure, right? There's no incompatibility between the two. But in this example, it's what? Necessary, right? Okay. And so there is a able that includes the necessary and the contingent, right? So in my examples, if I say two is able to be a number and a triangle is able to be green, right? Or both can be said to be able, right? But the triangle is able to be green, this is something kind of contingent, may or may not be green, right? But it's able to be green, right? No contradictions in that, nothing impossible, right? And there's nothing impossible with too big a number. But it's in fact, what? Necessary, right? So able, there is being said, in terms of the sudden predicate, are compatible, right? But the compatibility is between things that necessarily belong together or just could belong together. But that's what evil means there, see? It doesn't mean an ability to act upon something or an ability to be acted upon in a certain way, right? But here he's using the word possible, which you could translate it by possible. But the sentence in English means the word able, right? He's using the word possible there, and able for what is able to be, and what? Not be, right? Okay? So he begins the argument. For we find in things, some things which are able to be, and not be, right? So this table is able to be, and not be, right? And you and I are able to be, and not be, right? And the tree is out there, right? And this is what's, in a sense, most known to us. These things around us, which are able to be, and not be, right? Okay? Unfolding this a bit more. Since some things are found to be, what? Generated. They come to be, and they are, what? Corrupted, right? And consequently, they are able to be, and what? Not be. Not be, yeah. It seems more colloquial, meaning it used to say, able to be and not be, than possible to be and not be. Like, say that, you know? Okay? Now he says, it is impossible, however, that all things, which are such, right? It's impossible for them to be, what? Always, right? Because what is possible not to be, at some time, is not. Now, that's something that Aristotle talks about in the first book on the universe, right? Okay? And in the last six lectios, let's say, of Thomas' commentary in the first book, it goes into this much more than he does here, right? Okay? And I think for a full understanding, I would have to go through, you know, the first book on the universe, which I don't know what I'm going to do right now. But I'm just trying to give you a little caution here about seeing this, right? And part of the reason is that if it was able, if it had the ability to be, if it was forever, let's say, right? If it never, didn't exist, right? If it was able to be forever, you would have the ability to be forever, right? And something that is able to be forever will be forever, because things may actually want to be as long as they can, right? So, something that is able to be and not be doesn't have the ability to be forever. So, at some time, it is what? Not, right? Okay? If, therefore, all things are able not to be, if they're all things that are able to be and not be, right? Every one of them is able not to be and at some time was not. Then, at some time, there was, what? Nothing, right? But some people have difficulty in seeing that. They say, well, can't you go on like this? Yeah, I don't last forever, but I had a father before me and he had a father before him. Couldn't this go on forever, right? And Aristotle also talks about that in the Book of the Universe, but also in the Book on Generation Corruption. But what you're saying now is that the generation of one from another goes on forever, right? Okay? Well, why is this? Well, as they'll point out, the cause can't be one of these members of the series because that member is not forever, right? And it can't be all of them or the cause of it because they don't exist together. So, outside that series of generations, there must be something else that is the cause of the perpetuity of this. You remind me of the arguments that they give, you know, when you're talking about grace, huh? And whether you need special guidance from God to persevere, right? This is a very important thing because, as Augustine and Thomas say, you know, only perseverance is crown, right? Right? Okay? So, what is the cause of you or me, or any other human being, persisting to their death, right? In good acts and so on, right? Can I will now, I at this moment, right, choose to be good for the rest of my life and never sin again? No, no, you're so. Can my choice today be the cause of my persisting rest of my life? I can say I want to be good for the rest of my life, right? Till my death, right? But can my wanting today be the cause of my continuing good deeds and so on? And avoiding bad things the rest of my life? A sufficient cause. Well, my wanting today, that wanting is going to come to an end when I fall asleep or something, right? And my wanting today is not going to continue, right, the rest of my life. So, that can't be the cause of my persevering to the end, right? And then they say, well, I can renew this each day. They say, but then can the act renewed, you know, the succession of acts be the cause of my remaining good to the end of my life? Well, that succession of acts don't exist together, do they? So, they can't cause anything, right? So, it has to be something outside of me, namely God, right? Who is, what, watching over me, right? And if I continue in good acts of will and deed and so on, till death do me part of this world, God will be the cause of that, right? And so, you have to pray. You have to pray. For what? Perseverance, among other things, right? It's so beautiful, that prayer, I'm a Christi, right? And you know, the way, it kind of imitates the Our Father, right? It's almost the same petitions, huh? But you go through the first five petitions, you know, and you say, Passio Christi Confortame, right? Okay, now I'm strong, right? Now I can, what, persevere? No. No matter how strong I am from receiving the Eucharist, right? Does that give me the strength to persevere? Well, then the next part is about perseverance, right? You know, hide me in your wounds, it says, right? If you do this, you may separate me. But you're asking God to not permit that you be separated from Him, right? And no matter how strong you are, as you have the first five petitions, you know, you are still not, what, capable of those of persevering and being the cause of your perseverance, right? You know, so you have to always ask God for perseverance, huh? Thomas often, you know, asks about, How about the Our Father, right? Well, he says, Thy kingdom come. You're asking in part there for perseverance, huh? Because His kingdom doesn't come, really, unless you persevere. So when you say Thy kingdom come, you're asking for perseverance, huh? But it seems to be even more explicit in the animatricity, you know, which is kind of one of the most revered, you know, prairies in the tradition of the Church, huh? It doesn't go back to Ignatius, it goes back to, although he made it very popular, I guess, it goes back to John XXII. Yeah. And they're not sure whether he approved it, you know, or whether he wrote it himself, right? I don't think that's, you know, at least the articles I read in the Catholic and St. Peter, but it's a prayer that's always been, you know, held up to me, you know, it's an excellent prayer, I think it is. And it's kind of like the Our Father, in a way, a lot. You know, it almost follows the word in the petitions and so on. It makes you think of St. Peter, too, because that line, you've been nearing on takes, exactly what St. Peter said in our Lord when he's walking on water, if it's you, command me to come to you. Yeah. That's a line written out of Scripture. You command me to come to you. But he didn't persevere, then he started to sleep. Save me, yeah. But I think it's a good example of need of special help. So if you read the treatise on grace there in Thomas in the Summa later on, in the Prima Secundae, right? And then it'll talk about, you know, the perseverance. So it's something special, right? In addition to all the theological virtues and all the other things, you need to special provide providence. Okay. So it's something like what we're saying here, right? That these things that are able to be and not be, right? No one of them could be the cause of there always being these sort of things, right? Because it doesn't exist forever, right? Nor can all of them together be the cause of there always being because they don't exist together. They ever can't be a cause. And so you have to go outside of them, right? That's something that guarantees their perpetuity if they are perpetual, right? Just like with the acts of the will. You have to go outside of them. So if there's nothing outside of them, then eventually, what? Nothing would have been in the past. And then even now, nothing would be, right? Because what is not could not begin to be accepted through something that is, right? You can't get something from, what? Nothing. Nothing. If therefore there was no being, it would be impossible if something again to be. And thus now nothing would be, which is clearly false, right? Okay? Therefore, the first conclusion, all beings are not, what? Possible. Meaning, able to be and not be, right? Okay? But it's necessary that there be something necessary in things, right? Okay? Now, in the Summa Kandagentus, and you give this argument, if I remember correctly now, it's a little bit different. The reason he gives, right? He's saying, these things are able to be and not be, right? So, why are they one rather than the other, right? And then you have to bring in something that makes them be rather than not be. And then that's something else. And then you get to the necessary, right? So it may be one way to reason, right? To the existence of something necessary. And then, you know, you know, they showed the great solitude, the great Aristotle, because there's a demarchist who said, if something's necessary, don't ask any reason for it. But Aristotle, who's known as the father of logic, and this is the kind of way of showing it, we know in demonstrations, say, of geometry, that the conclusions are necessarily true, right? But they're true because of the premises. So that there are necessary things that can have a cause of their necessity, and that's what the angels are, they necessarily are, but they have a cause of necessity. Okay? But everything that is necessary either has a cause of its necessity, or it does not have it. It's got to be one of the two, right? But it's not possible that one go on forever in necessary things which have a cause of necessity, just as neither is it in what? Yeah, or in movers, for that matter, right? Okay? They have one grand necessary to another, with no other. Therefore, it's necessary to lay down that there's something that is necessary to itself, not having a cause of its necessity otherwise, somewhere else, but which is the cause of necessity to others. And this all called what? God. Yeah, yeah. Now Thomas, you know, in the Sima Kani of Antioch, so he used this as his middle term to show that God is his own existence, right? He says something exists to existence, right? So what exists to itself, necessarily, must be existence itself. Right? right? So, that's right, you know, you say? He's so simple, you know, in a good sense, you know, the famous words of St. Teresa, you know, God is altogether simple, and the closer one gets to God, she says, there's something one becomes, right? Okay? Remember De Connick, you know, saying we have to get back to the simple understanding of Thomas, and even something profound, but not naive understanding, or, you know, I mean, De Connick had a great appreciation of difficulty in these things, and I was trying to explain, you know, in the way he did that great seminar for us, that's right, but, most of you right here, you know, we're interviewing people at the college now, and so on, and all this language, you know, they can't say simply and clearly, the way Thomas will say it, Sure. And, you know, I got through with the senses of before, I was talking about how it's commonplace now to talk about priorities, you know, and, you know, they talk about individuals get their priorities straight, and the government get their priorities, priorities, and, the word priority is like an abstraction from prior, and the word prior itself is what? It is, is the Latin word, and therefore not as familiar as before, right? And so it's really a question of getting your before straight, huh? And then when you realize that there are many senses before, you realize that there's a difference in some, sometimes you have to do this before that, not because this is better than that, but you can't do that unless you've done this first. Other times you do this before that, because this is better to do than that, right? And, and they don't realize that they say, you know, priorities, that there are different senses of before, right? You know how Shakespeare makes fun of people use the word prior and posterior instead of before and after? Huh? I borrowed part of this phrase before, but, but he, but he has these guys in Love's Labor's Lost, right? Um, or kind of, you know, pseudo-intellectuals and so on, and, uh, they say, one of those guys says to the guy, let us meet in the posteriors of the day, which the rude multitude called the afternoon. Well, it's always a scene to say the posteriors of the afternoon, you know, the same, that's clear, the same, let's meet in the afternoon, you know. I remember a kid, you know, that kid went to me when I was in college and I was a pretty, you know, good philosophy major and so on, what do you mean by first principle? Well, beginnings. Oh, oh, that's what they mean? So you've got to, um, but it shows you the bad effect of custom, right? People are accustomed to use the big words and they're not really as clear, huh? And, it impedes your understanding and impedes the understanding. Amen. I suppose they explain these things too, huh? Okay, now we come to the fourth way, right? Now Thomas seems to be, you know, as he goes on here, being more brief, you know, maybe taking things, it doesn't unfold as much as you might unfold elsewhere. The fourth way is taken from the grades which are found in things. For there is found in things something more and less good, something more and less true, right? Something more and less noble or excellent and so on. And thus about other things of this sort, huh? Now these, those first two, bonum and verum, are what we call transcendentals, right? Which we would also call the, what, you know, the most universal, right? Now maybe, huh? And maybe he means to emphasize those ones, huh? Okay, what he's going to say about them. But more and less are said of diverse things, according as they approach in diverse ways, to something that is, what, most of all so. Just as that is more hot, which more approaches what is most of all hot, then. Okay? Now, let's just kind of stop in that for a minute before we go on here. Suppose you're in the room with the fireplace there and logs and something along that fireplace, right? And as you approach the fireplace, right, things get warmer and warmer, right? Mm-hmm. And what would you say about the fire there, right? That's the warmest in the room, right, huh? Okay. But there's another aspect about this thing, huh? And that is that what is the warmest here is also the cause of the others being warm, right? So there's an aspect of cause and effect here as well, right? Although Thomas is not so much emphasizing that, huh? But there's a, he's going to state it later on here, that what is most of all, in some genus, right, is the cause of all the rest, huh? Okay? There is an aspect here. There is, therefore, he says, something most true and optimum, that's the, what's the predative of Bonham, right? Mm-hmm. Something most noble, right? I mean, there was no Democrat then, Thomas, huh? And consequently, what? Most being, right? Now, I was talking before about the definition of what reason, right? And how reason is defined by Shakespeare as the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right? And so he completes the definition of reason by its looking before and after, right? But, as I was explaining earlier today, before reason can see a before and after, it's got to see some distinction, huh? Okay? Now, what are the first distinctions? Would you say that the distinction between a dog and a cat and the distinction between an animal and a plant, is there some order between those two distinctions? Okay? What is the order? Because order means before and after. What's the order between those two distinctions? Hmm? Yeah, but I mean, order means before and after. So, what's the order between those two distinctions? Does one of them come before the other? And so, which one? Animal plant. What? Animal plant versus plant. Yeah, yeah. It might make sense to distinguish between an animal or plant, and then distinguish between... These two animals. These two, right, huh? Make sense? Mm-hmm. Okay. Distinction between moral virtue and intellectual virtue. And distinction between justice and courage. Mm-hmm. Make sense that Aristotle distinguishes between moral virtue and intellectual virtue at the end of one of the Nicomachean Ethics, right? But it's not until the Nicomachean Ethics book that he distinguishes between justice and fortitude and temperance and so on, right? Mm-hmm. And then, likewise, you know, he distinguishes between art and foresight and reasoned out knowledge and wisdom and so on, right? And then in the sixth book, which distinction of what? In virtues of reason, right? Okay. Um, so the distinction of the general is before the distinction of the particular, right? Mm-hmm. So, according to that, then the distinction of the most universals would come first, right? Okay? And, um, Thomas, say, one very famous text there, often referred to, in question one, article one, um, of the disputed questions on truth and goodness, as I add, um, Thomas, following Avicenna, right, distinguishes the most universals. And he distinguishes six of them, following our friend Avicenna. Although, we find out later on that Avicenna doesn't fully understand all of them. But, anyway, he is following Avicenna in his metaphysics, right? And many places, Thomas will come back. We'll see some of them here when he talks about, um, God being good, right? Because that's going to be one of the most universals. He talks about God being one, right? He'll also stop and say some things about those, huh? I don't want to get too much into it right now. But, he distinguishes six, and they all follow upon one, the first one, which is being, right? Okay? And some of them follow upon being in itself, and some of being in comparison to something else. Okay? That's kind of the fundamental distinction that Thomas gives following, following the great Avicenna. So, following upon being in itself, um, he distinguishes affirmative and negative. Now, the only thing affirmative that every being has is what it is. Okay? And so, the word res in Latin, or the word thing, or even maybe the word something to some extent, signifies what? Afforded. Yeah. Okay? Now, um, it's kind of interesting, because if you ask the average person, and maybe I ask you too this, um, is the existence of a cat, and what a cat is, the same thing? And is the question, does a cat exist, and what a cat is, the same question? Okay? So, to some extent, even in daily life, right, we make some distinction between the existence of a cat, and what a cat is, huh? Okay? Um, but the way we could say for a cat to be is to be a cat, right? They're very close, right? So, these are the first two multiversals, huh? Being and thing, right? Now, let me ask the next question. What's the opposite of being? None being, right? Okay. What's the opposite of... thing or something, and nothing and non-being seem to be the same thing, right? And so being and thing seem to be almost the same thing. I notice, you know, idiomatically, what we would say in English, is that really so? Which comes from the word for a res thing, right? In Greek, the adverb would be atos, from being. You wouldn't say it in English, is that beingly or something? So, it's not that way, right? But what you say, is that really so? So you see how close they are, right? Being and non-being, something, nothing, right? And you kind of see in the first book of natural hearing, you can't get something from nothing, and you can't get being from non-being. I mean, that was the same thing, huh? And then the third most universal is one. And this is where the problems, you know, where Plato and Avicenna, these two great minds, are both getting into problems. Because they confuse the one that is the beginning of number, which is therefore limited to the genus quantity, and even to one part of that, with the one that's convertible with what? Being, yeah. And, but what one adds to the idea of being or thing, is in division. Undivided, huh? And that's only a being or reason. But anyway, Plato and Avicenna, in different ways, mix up that one with the one at the beginning of number. Okay? And that's behind the thinking of Avicenna, that one adds something real to being, huh? And behind Plato's thinking, that the substances of things are numbers, huh? Okay? That's a very important distinction, huh? And then, Thomas says, there are three, most universals, outside, I mean, from Father upon being, in comparison to something else. And there's a little promise to how to translate the next one here, because Thomas says, one thing is not another. Okay? And so, the word he uses in Latin is aliquid. Okay? Now, some people might translate aliquid as by something, huh? I think that's not the best way to do it, huh? When Thomas explains it, he takes aliquid to mean aliquid. Mm-hmm. And I like to translate it myself as another thing. Mm-hmm. Everything is another thing. But that's said in reference to what? It's distinction from other things, huh? Sorry, back to my big word there, distinction, right? Okay? And so, that's adding, again, a negation, which is a being, a reason, and therefore nothing real. Now, sometimes Thomas will take one to include both of these, huh? He'll say that one is what is undivided in itself, and divided from or distinct from other things, huh? Okay? So, one chair is, what? Undivided as parts are united, and is distinct from other chairs, one chair, right? So, anyway. I put a little thing like that on the internet. There you go. Look at it. So, anyway. And then, the other two are something involving a, what? Relation of reason, huh? Okay? And it must be something that in some way is all things. And then Thomas quotes Aristotle in the Divine Mind, that the soul is in some way all things. And this is because of the universality of the mind and of the will, right? And so, the universality of the person and the mind is true, and to the will, it's the good, right? That's kind of a beautiful thing here, right? After that superficial introduction, but these are the most universals, right? And there will be various articles where Thomas will talk about these things as being, what, convertible, right? Equino-universal and so on. And so, he seems to be talking about those kind of things here when he speaks of, what, verissimum, right? And optimum, right? Okay, now, exactly what he means by nobilissimum is not clear, but the other one says, right? And then he says, and per consequence, maxima yens, huh? Well, if good and being are really, what, the same thing, right? Then what is most good might be also most meaningful. Then he refers to what Aristotle brought out in the second book of Wisdom, that the things which are most true are most beings, huh? And we saw that before when he looked at the second book, huh? But let's recall just a bit here, huh? And Aristotle used there the famous, what, statement, which in Thomas liked to state in abbreviated form, right? And in Latin say, popter quad unum quadque et illud magis, right? On account of which each is more so. But I, in my concern for the student, try to unfold a little bit more, right? And you may recall my unfolding of that a bit. And I say, when the same belongs to two things, right? But to one of them because of the other. It belongs more to the cause than to, yeah, it belongs more to the cause, isn't it up there? And then you know how I try to take these very sensible examples and say, if hot is said of the fire and the air around the fire, but of the air around the fire because of the fire, which is hotter, huh? Or sweet is said of sugar and coffee, but of the coffee because of the sugar, which is sweeter, right? Okay? And I use that when I talk about the end, huh? And the means. And I say, well, if the end and the means are both good or desirable, but the means are good or desirable because of the end, right? Then which is gooder or desirable, right? Which is better than the end, yeah, yeah. So Aristotle applies that principle here, right? And he says, if the effect is, what? Is. And if the effect is true, right? It is and is true because the cause is true and is, right? And therefore, the cause is more true and more is than the, what? Effect, right? Okay? And therefore, what is, what? The very first cause, you could say, is most, right? True and most being, right? Okay? And that's why I was saying that if Aristotle could have been introduced to the Bible, right, he would have been interested in I am who am being truth itself, right? He would have seen the connection between that and seen the, would have been a, a mode of credibility for him as a philosopher, huh? Seen the profundity of that. Okay. So he has in mind all those things that Aristotle said, right? Now he states this famous principle, that what is said most of all to be such in some genus is the cause of all those things which are that genus, right? Just as, and it takes a kind of sensible example in the old science. Just as fire, which is most hot, is the cause of all, what? Hot things there, so I think I have a sensible example, right? In science people, you know, belabor too much that sensible example, right? Okay? That's just kind of a crutch to help you understand this a bit, huh? See? Because some of you might say, well, is sugar really sweet to itself? Oh. See? Or is sugar a compound or something that some part of it makes, you know? Well, you don't even have to go into those details to see the point we're trying to do what. Yeah. Illustrated by this kind of sensible thing, right? Now, again, Thomas is brief here, and this is a very common thing they talk about. But let's just take a little less sensible example, but not a nonsensical example. I like that. I like the kind of pun of that, you know. I always remember this statement of Albert de Green, where he says that the first thing to be considered in logic is universal. And I say, well, that's good, but it's a little more sensible to say nameset of many things. And for the student to decide whether I'm not more sensible and just closer to the senses, or whether they're therefore more proportioned to us, right? Or whether I meant to consult the master of over there. Okay. Let's take the science of geometry, right? Okay. They have all these theorems of geometry, right? Some of the later ones, I think I kind of forgot the sum of the way to get there. And I like to grab, you know, an innocent TAC graduate, you know, who hasn't studied his youth group for a while, and ask them about what are these things, see, and show my superiority that way. But anyway, so as these theorems go on, they're getting what? Less and less known, right? Okay. And would the premises of the syllogism be more or less known than the conclusion? More. Yeah. Because if they were just equally known, why would you use them to prove the conclusion? Okay. So you see the connection there between being more known and being a cause. On the premises there, a cause of your knowing would be what? Conclusion, right? Okay. Now sometimes I apply that principle we were talking about a minute ago, right? And I say, if known is said of the premises and the conclusion, but it's said of the conclusion because of the premises, then which is more known? And the students will ask, as they expect it to, the premises, right? Okay. But then I'll kind of, you know, add as a kind of additional confirmation to what I said before. And if they weren't more known, right, you wouldn't use them to prove the conclusion, right? Okay. So you see, right, you work your way back. Now eventually, you work your way back from the earlier theorems all the way back to the what? Axioms and the postulates, right? And they would be what? Most known. And the cause of all the rest, right? Okay. That's the sort of thing that he has in mind. It's a very common thing for him, right? Okay. You see, the same thing in regard to the what? That's close to what you say, the true, because of the known. But you see, the same thing in regard to the what? Good, right? Okay. And without being too extensive there, you'll go back to the example we had before, where we say that good is said of the end and of the means to the end, right? Like, good is said of health and good is said sometimes of that's a good medicine, right? Okay. But it's said of the means because of the end, right? Medicine is good and desirable sometimes because it leads to health, right? Or restores health or conserves health or something, right? So, which then, according to that principle, which is gooder, which is better, which is more good, huh? The end. The end, yeah, yeah. But it's also the cause of the good, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Of the means, huh? So, sometimes you have what? A means to a means to an end, right? Right? So, you get something less good as you go along, right? But you get something that's further away from the cause but still depends upon the cause, the end, in this case, for its being good at all, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So, so it's kind of a background to see that there's a connection between the more and less that you see in things, right? and the less depending upon the more and therefore ultimately upon the, what? Most, right? Mm-hmm. But now sometimes, you know, you say, well, yeah, maybe there's a little more that has to be unfolded here, right? I see. But you kind of see, it doesn't seem that that strange to begin with, right? Mm-hmm. Once you consider these, these examples, huh? Okay. What's moving the train, most of all? The caboose? The cars in between? Well, they're pulling something, right? But it's really, most of all, what, the engine, right? Okay? Okay. Now, sometimes you go back to the idea of through itself again, right? If something belongs to a thing, through itself, right? Is it going to belong to it in a diminished way? So, if it does belong to it in a diminished way, maybe it's not, what? Through itself, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. If some statements are really less known than others, and everybody knows that, right? That to be known belongs to them in a diminished way. That's a sure sign that they are not, what? Known to themselves, right? Okay? But they're known to something more known, right? But if that is still not completely known, right? Still diminishedly and sometimes known, you go back to what is most known, right? And that must be the what? Cause of all the others being known. Okay? So therefore, there's something in all beings that is the cause of their being and their goodness and of every what? Perfection, right? In other words, if perfection belongs to you through yourself, then you're really the what? The cause is such of that, right? So why should the cause is such of that make you have it in a diminished way? That make sense? No. No. I puzzle a lot, you know, I find Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you know, saying that God is the first cause and the first being, right? And does he mean the same thing by saying it's the first cause and the first being? And now a man has got before in his mind and realizes the word first means before all the rest, right? Well, in what sense of before is God the first cause and what sense of before is he the first being, right? And, well, obviously the first cause would be before the crowning sense, which is the cause before the effect, right? but is that what the first being means? I'm not sure it means exactly that. That it's, it's, it's, it's the same thing that's the first being, but is it simply synonymous? No, because God would always be the first being, whereas he wouldn't necessarily be the first possibility that he'd ever created. Yeah, but what would you call the first being if you ignore the being, so? Well, in a way, absolutely, couldn't you still? You couldn't, but no. Okay. Well, sometimes I play with the second central sense, right? And I say, there's something interesting here, right? In the second sense of before was before and being, right? Where you say, this can be without that, but not vice versa. Well, it's rather nice to be able to say that God is not only before the things as a cause, before and effect, right? But he's before other things in other senses. He can be without them, but not vice versa. Now, Thomas, in the second book of the Summa Canta Gentilis, he'll spend a lot of time showing that God doesn't produce the universe by natural necessity. So that God could be without having created anything at all. That it's entirely a free act on the part of God that he created us or anything else at all. And then you realize that God can be without, what? Other things. But they can't be without him, right? That's something different than saying he's the cause of that. It leaves out a very important truth about that. But that way of understanding for us to suggest it by saying he's the first being you think of before and being, and you think of that second sense. But in the context here, the context I see in the Summas, isn't he saying that it's better than all the other things? It's more perfect, right? Okay. Notice that last sentence there. Therefore there's something before all things, right, that is the cause of their being and goodness and their very perfection, right? He's thinking of God as, as what? The most perfect, the most good, the best, right? And therefore being before all them in the fourth sense. Usually I get through, you know, those five senses of before. I say, clearly God is before all other things, as a cause, as a cause, as a effect. But he's also before all the things in the second sense. He can be without other things, but they can't be without him. He's also before all the things in the fourth sense of being better than all things. But in the third sense, in the discourse of reason, he's not before all other things. Because we know God from his effects, huh? So the effects, huh? And you've got to be careful about the first sense, because that's in time. God's not in time. Although there's some sense in which you could say God is before all the things in duration, but not so many in time. So you'd have to qualify that a lot, huh? But clearly in the second, the fourth, and the crowning sense, God is before all the things, right? But Tom seems to use it, every time he uses that, right, they try to get a little sense of how he's using it. But he seems to, you know, associate the idea of primal men with the perfection of God, huh? I'm not really sure of that, but I think there's a little part of the difference here. And it's closer to this fourth argument than the earlier ones, huh? Especially the first two, right? You think you're very much of a first mover, a first maker, a first cause, right? But in the third one a bit, because you don't use so much the word cause there, as much as though you do speak of having a cause and a necessity, right? But the emphasis is upon being the necessary being to itself. It's kind of, you're the first being, right? And in here, I had some of the sense of the first being, right? So I would tend to conclude more from the first two that God is the first cause, and from the third to the fourth, I'd be closer to saying he's the first being, although you could say he's the first cause of those too, because he does bring in cause. And of course, the word necessary is taken up with the words for cause in the fifth book of wisdom, huh? But, okay, I'm kind of rambling now, but you see that I think about his words, you know? Around, his words, a couple of words in my mind, it's right, you know, exactly why Thomas says that, huh? He does use the word cause here in the third and fourth too, so I mean, I don't want to exaggerate that, huh? But, uh, closer. Now, the fifth way is taken from the governance of things, huh? For we see that some things which lack knowledge, right? To it, natural bodies, uh, act for an end, right? Which appears from this that always, or for the most part, in the same way they act, huh? That what, uh, that they might achieve that which is, uh, best, right? Okay, now this is going back to the first argument that Aristotle gives for nature acting for an end. Whence it is clear that not by chance, but by intention they arrive at an end. But those things which do not have knowledge cannot tend towards an end, except as directed by someone knowing and understanding. In Thomas's example, the arrow. Tend towards a target, because the artist, I mean the, what do you call him? Archer. Archer, yeah, archer. How interesting, archer, I don't know if that's where it came from, arching? Probably archer. Arch, okay, okay. Therefore, there is someone understanding from whom all natural things are, what? Or by whom all natural things are to an end. And this we call, what? God, huh? Sometimes Thomas refers back to John Damacy, as you do this argument, right? You can say it goes all the way back in some way to, and it's agress, huh? Arcus, arcus, bow, rainbow. 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So even though Thomas himself says they're the philosophic, the chief philosophers, so even though he calls Aristotle the philosopher, right? He puts them above Plato when they disagree, he nevertheless calls them together the chief philosophers. Now, after the second one, he was saying, hey, we've got enough causes, but he'd bring more superfluous causes in. It says that, and nature is one of those causes, but since nature acts were determined in, from the direction of some superior agent, it's necessary that those things which come to be from nature are also led back to God as to the first cause. That goes back to the fifth argument, when he says it's the God. Similarly, those things which happen from what? Choice, retention, what's proposed, is necessary to reduce them to some higher cause, which is not the reason and will of man, because these are, what? Mutable and defectable. But it's necessary that all things changeable and all things able to fail, to reduce to some beginning that is unchangeable and to itself necessary, that has been shown in the arguments for God. Now, sometimes Thomas, you know, when he's talking about this, he'll go back to what Aristotle did, right? And Aristotle, indeed, in ethics, explicitly says that, that the beginning of our thinking and ruling is from God, not from us. And he's a very good reason for saying it, right? There's kind of an argument for the unknown mover, like he's tinging out here, not only from motion in an actual world, right? But from, what, our understanding? Yeah, the will, yeah. I mean, I can will to understand, right? And I can understand to will, but is that the way? Before every understanding, there's a willing and every willing and understanding? And the same infinite regress problem among you. So the beginning of us comes from the outside of our style. So it's a common argument for the distance of God from our very understanding of will. I wake up in the morning, right, with a good thought to start the day, you know? Gee. Do I have will to have that good thought? Or even to think that thought? Maybe you get in your sleep and you just get to full. I think I had something frustrating in my sleep, I had something frustrating in my sleep last night. I was like, I thought of some stupid form for the government's office. And something was wrong, and I had, you know, some stupid problem. So, it's time to stop, and next time we can start to study the substance of God, right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.