Prima Pars
Lecture 17: Divine Simplicity and God's Non-Corporeal Nature

Transcript
================================================================================

I divide into one, or into two rather, and then one of them I subdivide into three, and then subdivide, and I get parts, huh, okay? A little sleight of hand there, but I mean, right there. Now, you see, as a natural philosopher, and I've done some study in philosophy of science too, right, you're struck by those four that I mentioned, huh, coming up, you know, and all the Greek natural philosophers in the beginning, and then the mathematical physicists, right? And you can begin to see that our mind is naturally inclined towards that, even before you see addition to reasons why the first cause must be these four things, huh, okay? As people into these things will see, better and better, it's not exactly the same meaning in bold, right? But these four ones are in the same way. Now, another way of taking these five, and dividing them into, say, three, right? You could put, as they say, one and simple together, you're going to expand it. Then you have perfect, the second one is going to take out. It seems to me that infinite, we'll see it again when it becomes infinite, but infinite is especially close to perfect then. Because when Thomas is going to explain how God is infinite, you'll be very careful to point out this is not a privation or a lack of a limit, it's a negation of a limit, right? And it's something quite different from what we mean by infinite in quantity, huh? You know, he wants to bring out, he says that God is infinite, but there's no end to God's affection, no limit, huh? You know, you know, a lot of things, you know, if you multiply the creature's perfection, eventually you get the idea of God. How could you multiply the perfection of the creature? You're never going to equal God, right? There's no limit to his perfection. There's various ways of seeing that, right? You know, there's no limit to his perfection. I think this is very close to the idea of what? Perfect, right? Kind of almost an extension of consideration of perfection of God. And then you have us being unchanged, right? So if I was trying to divide these, not into two as I did before, and then subdividing one into three, and then two, right? If I divide right away into three, I'd probably put one and simple together in perfect infinite, and then unchanging more, right? If that's a really value, I don't know, right? The other thing interests me more, though, because it seems to me that it's good to see, you know, that four of these five are mined without ever, you know, being induced to Christianity is moving in that direction. Even non-believers are moving in that direction without maybe reflecting upon it too much, but they know it. And Einstein himself says, all scientific work of a higher order proceeds from a state of mind akin to that religion, huh? See? You're convinced that the universe is going to make sense, it's going to be intelligible, you know? And therefore, you're thinking something like a believer that this is a product of a greater mind, huh? Although Einstein's notion of a greater mind might be kind of pantheistic and so on. And the force be with you. I don't know if the force has a mind or not, but... It doesn't sound too personal, the force. Okay? So let's look now at the first question, which is on the simplicity of God, huh? It says, about the first, there are eight things to be asked, huh? First, whether God is a, what? Body, huh? Secondly, whether in him there is the composition, the putting together of form and matter. Now those two are fairly close together, right? As I mentioned before, in the fifth book of wisdom, right? Aristotle distinguishes between a quantitative whole and the composition of matter and form, huh? Okay? And it's sort of interesting, you know, in some of the key texts there where whole and heart comes up, until Aristotle determines the truth, the composition of matter and form is left out. See if that's harder for our mind to see, huh? But no, just think of something simpler, maybe you're thinking of more substantial form, but just think of the rubber ball, right? The composition of rubber and that shape, right? It's something quite different from, you know, lungs and liver and pancreas and all the rest of my parts, stomach and other parts, right? Okay? The parts are what may be in contact, but they're surfaces, right? But matter and form is not the surface of form is touching the surface of matter, no, but form is the very actuality of the matter's ability. It's a quite different kind of composition. Now the third article is a little bit like the second article, right? Okay? Whether there be in God a composition of what he is, huh? That terrible word, quiddity, which I don't like to translate in Danish, but quiddity, whatness, what it is, or the essence, another name for the same thing, or the nature, right? Okay? And the subject, right? Okay? Now, we talked about that a bit earlier when we were doing wisdom, just philosophy, Is Socrates and what a man the same thing? No. So some distinction between the what it is of Socrates, a man, and Socrates, right? He's the subject of that, what it is. That's a little bit like matter and what? Form, huh? Okay? It's not quite the same thing as body and soul, right? So there's a distinction in Socrates between his body and his soul. And there's some distinction between Socrates and what a man is. It's not exactly the same distinction, right? And so we're asking about both of those. Are they distinct in God? Is there a composition of those two? Well, I feel like that. Then the fourth article, whether there be in him a composition which is from what it is and what? To be. His existence, right? Okay? And you know the existence of a cat and what a cat is are not the same thing, right? But this is true even though the angels are not the same. Gabriel and what, the existence of Gabriel and what he is are not identical. In God, it will be the same thing, huh? Now notice that is in some way like the composition of matter and form insofar as the composition of ability and act, huh? So when Thomas is showing that the angels are not pure act, right? It's because their substance, what they are, right? Is to their existence as ability to act. So it's a composition of ability and act. It's only in God that you have pure act, huh? But we're more potential than the angels, right? Because not only is there the composition of our nature and our existence, but our nature itself is composed of matter and form, which I like ability and act, huh? After he shows that about angels there in the Summa Concentives, he has a chapter to show that the composition of matter and form and substance and existence are not the same composition. And then whether there be in him the composition of genus of difference, huh? Well, that's another kind of composed whole that Aristotle talks about in the Fifth Book of Wisdom. And that is the definition, huh? Okay. Now those up to this point are more, what, intrinsic composition, right? Then whether there is in him the composition of subject and what? Like you and your health, right? Or you and your shape, right? Or you and your knowledge. Not really the same thing, even your knowledge, are they? Me and my knowledge of geometry? Just as before I had any knowledge of geometry. I'm losing some weight now, so my shape is changing, right? I'm still there, but my shape is changing now. Improving, they say. My size is going down. This is composition of substance and accident. God won't be to that. Now what he's done in the first six articles is eliminate every kind of composition found in the, what? Creatures. And then in the seventh article, he's going to, what? Give a reason in general, right? But there can't be any composition in God. Now, if you read the Summa Contra Gentiles, he has reverse order, right? Where he first shows there's no composition in God, and then in later chapters he eliminates different particular kinds of this. So this is more inductive, isn't it? And he goes through all the particular kinds of composition, and then finally says universally. So this is more proportioned to a beginner in its way of proceeding than the Summa Contra Gentiles. And if you read Thomas, you know, I think I've referred to it before, but in Question 117, Article 1, if you look at that just for a second, it was talking about whether one man can be a teacher of another man. Question 117, Article 1, if you have a little text here. Whether one man is able to, what? Teach another, right? And without going into the difficulties about that, if you look at the last paragraph, and he's talking about how the teacher of a religious scare leads the student, right? At the end of the body of the article, Question 117, Article 1. The teacher leads the student from things already known, great cognities, right? To a knowledge of things unknown, but in two ways, right? First, he says, by proposing to him some aids, or some tools, right? By which his understanding, which his understanding uses to acquiring reasoned out knowledge, and sciencia. And then he kind of, you know, enumerates these some of the main ways. As when he proposes to him some statements or propositions, minus universalis, less universal, right? Okay? Not that, show that God is not a body is more, what? Is less universal, than to show that God is not composed. And each of these particular kinds of composition are being illuminated, right? Before he shows it universally, right? So it's closer to this first way that the teacher leads the student, huh? While in the Summa Ga Gentiles, he begins with the, what? The universal reason, and then descends, huh? More deductive, less inductive. Or when he proposes to him some sensible examples, right? Or likenesses or opposites, right? Or other things of this sort, by which the understanding of the learner is led by the hand, huh? To a knowledge of the unknown truth, huh? Now the noun that Monsignor Dian used to use was manudaxio, right? And Monsignor Dian gave us a course on the manudaxio required for wisdom. And another course on the manudaxio for logic, right? Because logic and wisdom have the greatest difficulties. They're dealing with immaterial things and so on. And so you need a large manudaxio leading up to them. And Dian was showing us how to do this. Then the second way he leads them, you know, is by proposing the order of principles to conclusions, right? Okay? And that's, in an easy scientific geometry, that's all Euclid does. He proposed the order of principles to conclusions in all the demonstrations. But when you get into a more difficult science, then you have to lead somebody by the hand, huh? To invest universal things from sensible examples, from likenesses and opposites and so on, huh? Okay? So he's following more of the order of manudaxio here in Summa Theologiae than in the Summa, what? Consciousness, huh? And in particular, in this question on the simplicity of God, right? You know, just kind of impressed, huh? Now, the eighth article could be divided against the other ones because the other ones is asking, is there some composition in God, right? But now you're asking, whether you're interested in composition with what? Other things. Other things, huh? Okay? I don't know if you remember my lecturing there on the great fragment on the mind there of Anxagoras, huh? He says a number of things about the mind. It's unlimited and so on. And another thing he says about the mind is that it's not mixed with matter, right? And then later on he says it's the purest of things. Now, when I first, you know, read this, I thought that when he says it's not mixed with anything and it's the purest of things, he's saying the same thing, just in one way grammatically, affirmative word, purest, and the other, the negative word, unmixed, right? A little bit like it ours would say, God is in no way composed. And then go on to say he's the simplest of all things. Well, I'd be saying the same thing almost, right? But then on second thought, I said no, no. Before he said that God is not mixed with matter, right? Because then he couldn't rule over it. Later on he says it's the purest of things. There he seems to be saying that the mind is not a mixture of things, huh? See, that's a little different point, isn't it? See? To say you're mixed with other things is one thing, right? To say you are yourself a mixture of things is something else, right? And Anaxagius is saying that the greater mind is neither mixed with other things, nor is it, what? A mixture of things itself. Of course, he says it actually, he says it's the thinnest of all things. It couldn't be the thinnest of all things, it could be a mixture of things, it could be something thinner inside you, than you, right? So they're really two different things, right? So, in those first six articles, right? In a sense saying there is no composition of God, right? Okay? And then in the eighth article he's asking the opposite, another question, right? That God doesn't enter in the composition of other things. So he can't be the soul of the world, or something of that sort, right? Mm-hmm. You see that? So that's why that one comes last, huh? It's a really different thing you're saying there. The first ones are more intrinsic, and the seventh one is, of course, universal. Okay. Want to take a little break now, or is it appropriate to take a time to break now? Sure. Mm-hmm. So we're up to Article 1 here now, huh? It seems that God is not a body, or is a body, rather. For a body is that which has three dimensions. But Sacred Scripture attributes to God three dimensions. It is said in the book of Job, He is higher than the heaven, right? What are you going to do? He's deeper than the infernal regions. And whence, you know, he's longer than the earth is measured, and wider than the sea. Therefore, God is a body, right? You know, it's there you're thinking of God as being infinite in the, what? Material. Yeah, quantitative sense, yeah, the way a body would be. Moreover, everything that has a figure is a body, since figure is a quality about quantity. It's the fourth species of quality, right? But God is seen to have a figure, huh? Now, since it's written in Genesis 1.26, let us make man to our image and likeness, huh? But figure is said to be an image, according to Hebrews, since he is a splendor of, what? Glory and a figure of his, what? Substance, huh? That is the image. Therefore, God is a body. Moreover, everything that has bodily parts is a body. But Scripture attributes to God bodily parts. It's said in the book of Job. If you have a, what? Arm as God, huh? For the eyes of the Lord in the psalm there are upon the just. And the right hand of the Lord makes power and so on, huh? Therefore, God is a body, right? You can see why he had that article on where the Scripture uses metaphors, right? Even though they don't argue metaphors, somebody might argue for metaphors. Moreover, sight or location does not belong to, except to a body. But those things which pertain to sight are said in Scriptures about God. For it, or position maybe, huh? Yeah. For it is said in Isaiah, I saw the Lord sitting, right? And then he stood up, the Lord to judge him, right? Moreover, nothing is able to be a, what? A local term, a local limit, from which or to which something goes. Yeah, except a body, something bodily. But God is said in Scripture to be the local term to which, according to that of Psalm, approach him and be illuminated, right? And also that from which something recedes. Receding from him, those receding from him are written on in the earth. Therefore, God is, what? A body, right? So you're all convinced? Okay, totally. But the sent contra in John 4, 24, is that God is a, what? Spirit, huh? You see, the word spirit is almost like the word air, right, huh? And so it's placed first upon air, and then what? Carried over, and applied to an immaterial substance. So it's an equivocal word, right? It's not a metaphor, though, when it's carried over, huh? It takes on a new meaning. I answer, it should be said, absolutely, without question, that God is not a body, right, huh? Which is able to be shown in three ways, huh? First, because no body, huh, moves, not being moved itself, huh? As is clear, inductively, going through the various kinds of motion. But it has been shown, however, above, that God is the first immobile mover, right? When it says, manifest, that God is not a, what? Body, right, huh? Okay, that's clear enough, huh? No body moves without being moved itself, right? God moves without being moved, right? Therefore, he's not a body. Now, second, because it is necessary that that which is the first being, Here you have the expression of Thomas, huh? They sometimes call God the prima causa, right? Mm-hmm. And sometimes you'll call him the primum what? Emus. Yeah. And the first being and the first cause are the same thing, But are the two expressions synonymous, huh? Mm-hmm. Right. And when he develops that God is the first being here, But he's going back to the before and after of act and ability, right? Mm-hmm. And act and ability don't name cause, but they name two ways of being, right? So it's kind of natural to see that what's first is the primum ends here, right? But it would also be the first cause. But it's kind of interesting to see that little difference in those two phrases. Okay? Let's see how he develops this here. Secondly, because it's necessary that that which is the first being Be and act and in no way in ability. The potencia there is being used in the passive sense, huh? And then the thing we were talking about earlier. For though in one and the same thing that goes forward from ability to act, It is, what? In ability before in time, then it's an act, huh? Or it's ability before it is act in time. Some fidget here, right? Never like simply speaking. Act is what? Honor. Yeah, to potency. And then the reason for that. Because what is in potency or in ability in the passive sense Is not reduced to act except through a being in act, huh? But it has been shown above that God is the first being, right? Now, I mean, you might stop upon it and say, Hey, I thought you were showing that God was the first cause. How can you say that God is the first, what? Being, right? Although maybe in the third and the fourth arguments, You're getting more of the, what? First being, right? The third argument is the one from the set, from, you know, What is he able to be or not to be depends upon what is necessary to be. And what is necessary to be through another depends upon what is necessary to be through itself. So that's said more explicitly with reference to being than to, what? Cause and effect. Although it's talking about that cause and effect a bit there. And then when he talks about if the same belongs to some things more or less, It's because it belongs to them because it's something that belongs to most of all. And that's what's said about truth and being, right? So in the third and fourth argument, He's closer to showing the existence of a first being, if you want to have a little difference there. That's what he says here. So it's impossible, therefore, if God is the first being, That means the being before others, right? It's the first being, right? Before all the rest. Therefore, he can't be in potency at all, right? If there's any potency in God that had been actualized, There would have been something before God. So in a way here, he's showing that God is pure act at this point. Isn't he? That's kind of funny because in the Summa Congentiles, Act is shows that God is unchangeable. Then he shows there's no potency in God and he's pure act. And in that same chapter, you develop the argument from Act and Ability from the Ninth Book of Wisdom, right? Without, you know, making it more concrete in motion or something like that. We just argue that, you know, simply speaking, act is a poor ability. Therefore, the beginning of all things must be pure act. Here he develops in the middle of the, what, second argument to show that God is not a body, right? Okay. In some way, the Summa Congentiles is better in one sense because he's going to be arguing from God being pure act through all of these articles, right? So it's not just to develop that God is not a body, right? So it makes some sense that the Summa Congentiles does to put that by itself in its own chapter, right? To some extent, in the article, five attributes of divine substance was being dragged. But Thomas doesn't develop that, I think it's here to the second article. or second argument, rather, against God being a what? Body. But every body is in what? Potency, in ability. Because it's continuous, and continuous as such is divisible forever. That's what she wrote in the famous sixth book of the physics, right? Continuous is divisible forever. It is impossible, therefore, for God to be a what? Body, right? Okay. When he makes that point, that's looking at quantity in itself, because according to Aristotle, say the heavenly bodies were indivisible, even though they did have quantity. So aren't you taking away that potency, the potency of divisibility, given the nature of the heavenly body? Well, I see, in the sixth book you consider... Well, in the sixth book of physics, you consider the continuous kind of by itself, almost an abstraction, right? There might be something else that prevents you from dividing a body, right? Because Aristotle himself said you can't divide matter... Infinitely. Yeah, that's because of nature, right? But in the more general consideration, there's nothing in the continuous that prevents you from dividing it forever, right? Yeah, I was just thinking that given what its nature may be, you may end up taking away that potency from it, not because of quantity. But even if it has the continuous, it has part outside of part, there's going to have some kind of potency there, right? Because no part by itself will be actually in the whole. So parts are always to the whole matter to form, like a built-in act. And you can't still make any mental life rule of vision, as it were. Yeah. Third, because God is that which is most, what, noble in beings, huh? And it goes back again to maybe the fourth argument, right? But it's impossible for some body to be the most noble thing in beings. Because a body is either alive or it's not alive. A body that is alive is more noble, obviously, manifestly, than a body that's not alive. But a body that is alive does not live insofar as it abides, because thus everybody would be alive. It's necessary, therefore, to live through something other, just as our body lives through the soul. That, therefore, through which the body lives is more noble than the body. It is impossible, therefore, that God be a, what? Body, right, huh? So three arguments are enough, huh? famous statement, first book of the physics, right? Three is enough? Okay. That shows up enough, huh? Three arguments to show God is not a body? Mm-hmm. And you have to read these kinds of practice and say, can I remember those three arguments, huh? The argument is that, what, God is the unmoved mover, right? And a body is only a moved mover, right? Mm-hmm. So it can't be the same thing, right? Unmoved mover can't be a moved mover, can it? Okay. And we just saw the third argument, right? That every body is, what, in... That's what? That's noble. Yeah, yeah. What's the second argument? Body's in a place. No potency, so you can't have a quantity in it. Yeah. You can't be divisible in any way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what kind of syllogisms are these, huh? The main syllogisms in each of these three arguments, huh? If you argue like this, you say, God, let's say, every body is a moved mover. God is not a moved mover. Therefore, God is not a, what? No. Body. What kind of a syllogism is that? Second. Second figure, yeah. Yeah. In the second figure of the syllogism, the middle term is the, what? Predicate in both. And when you start in the second figure, you see the only way that you have a syllogism in the second figure is going to involve one of them being affirmative and one of them being, what? Negative, right? Okay. So, it's kind of the basic syllogism, right? And this part of the series shows more natural philosophy and this one here we showed in the previous question, right? Now, what's the second main syllogism here? I used to say, every body is in potency, and you mean potency in the passive sense, right? Yes. You know, if you were back in the ninth book of wisdom, you just used to be active and the passive, and this is passive. God is not in potency. Same form there, right? Reminds me of Socrates when he's showing in the pharaoh that the soul is not the harmony of the body, right? And he argues, well, the soul resists the body's inclination sometimes. The harmony of the body does not. Okay? So, he affirms one thing of the soul and denies of the harmony or vice versa. Okay? He does that same kind of argument a few times, right? Okay? The soul has a harmony. But a harmony doesn't have a harmony. So, you can affirm of one what you deny of the other, right? Now, what's the third argument here? God is most noble. The body is not what's noble. Yeah. The body is not. No story. It might be, by the way, you can state these arguments, but that's one way, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. But now, if someone says to you, why does he say that God is pure act? Is that one of the premises here? It's one of the outbursts of the second. Yeah. But it would be kind of a beginning to see the truth of the second premise here, right? Yeah. If God is pure act, then God is not in what? What is he, right? Mm-hmm. So, when you analyze these things, you try to find the main syllogism, and the main syllogism is the syllogism whose conclusion is the main conclusion. The main conclusion in this article is that God is not a body, right? So, what are the two premises? It's just two premises in a syllogism. What are the two premises which are immediate and next to that conclusion, right? Okay. And then there's something else in there. It must be in there to illustrate or support or back up in some way one of the premises or other, right? Sometimes they call it back up syllogism, if this one, a pro-syllogism, right? Something like that, huh? Or you can call it the back up syllogism. It's secondary, huh? So, in a way, when you analyze these things, you proceed in the opposite direction, right? You start with the final conclusion, and then you see what leads immediately to that, and then what leads to what leads to it. And so it goes back to several, what? Steps, right? Can we look at the third one again? It's a little bit different. How do we go through that again? We say God is most noble. Yeah. A body is not most noble, right? But see how we're different from the other ones because we switched around. Yeah, yeah. Where actually you see... But you can, in the second figure, you can argue in three different ways, or two different ways, I should say. Let's put it down formally, actually. You can say, no A is B, and every C is B, right? And then, every A is B, no C. Now, in both of these forms, you can draw the conclusion that no C is A, right? But, Aristotle calls these syllogisms of the second figure, and the third figure of that matter, but the second figure is more important than the third, he calls them imperfect syllogisms, right? Because they're not altogether clear, as it's stated, and if you want to show that it's altogether clear, you will convert the premise. So, in this case, you convert, no A is B to no B is A, and you have to show, which he does, that a universal negative always converts. And then, bring this over like it is, every C is B, and now it's obvious, right? That no C is A, right? Now, here, it's a little more complicated, if you want to show that no C is A, right? You convert this, and you get no B is C, bring this down, right? And you've got every A is B, and you're back, lo and behold, in the first figure again. But the conclusion here, now, is going to be no A is C. You can convert that, right? So, I always put this one in the final example of this one, because now that converts, you have to convert twice, you see? And then you have to show the conversion, right? You see? So, it makes no difference, right? You know, in a way, it's simple as three arguments, not necessarily, but whether God is an affirmative or a negative one, right? Couldn't get the same, right? Now, it's kind of interesting, and of course, you're dealing with universal terms of this, but if you have a singular, right, you can convert that, too. So, if we say, no woman is Socrates, you know, then Socrates is not only in the right. You say, I can't turn around, but singular, right? Socrates is not only in the right, okay? And so, if God is a singular, right, you can still turn around and say, we're universal. You know how we show that the universal negative can be turned around? It's kind of an amazing thing, too. It shows about the human mind, huh? Because whatever Scotland does with the universal negative, he'll say, you know, means you've got a little mind, that's right. If no dog is a cat, and you turn it around, it would be true that no cat is a dog, okay? You say, okay, in this example, you can turn it around, and both are, if one is true, the other is true, right? But now, is that going to be true about any universal negative statement, huh? Well, there's an infinity of universal negative statements that are true. And is there any way of knowing that in that infinity of universal negative statements that are true, that every one of them will be turned around and still true? At first, I say, well, that's an impossible task, right? We can't possibly look at an infinity of universal negatives. No square is a circle? No circle is a square, yeah. Okay. No elephant is a tiger, you know, no tiger is an elephant, yeah. You see? But how do you know there isn't some, you know, example where this isn't the case, right? You assume that there is an example, that there is a case of maybe some hypnominate is B? No, Aristotle's a regular way of showing it, right? Oh, he does? And it presupposes that you understand, you know, what statements are posed contradictorily. He'll say here, no matter, let me get some more room here, no matter what A is and what B is, right? If it is true that no A is B, right? No matter what A is and what B is, you could always turn this around and it would be true also that no B is A. I feel a bit that, you know, everybody might say. But if you say, no, it could possibly happen that this is true, right? No A is B and this is what? False. False. I'd say that can never happen, okay? But if it did happen, you say it may happen. If no B is A is false, then with a square of opposition, some B is A is what? True in that case, right? Okay? Because no B is A would not be false unless there's at least some B that is A. Now, if some B is an A is true, let's give a name to that one B that is an A. Here, A. And let us call the B, which is an A. Whatever you want to call this, call it an X, right? Therefore, X is both a B and an A, right? Therefore, there's some A, which A, the one we call it X, right? Some A, namely X, is B. Now, can that be true when this is true? No. No. So something impossible follows if you don't admit this is true. So this is the way Aristotle shows. It's kind of marvelous, isn't it? The way he shows that no matter what, and there's an infinity of examples, right? For A and B, where it's true that no A is B, right? And then he's shown that for every one of those, the reverse, no B is A is true. And he had to do that to show those syllogisms in the second figure that we're using here now are valid, huh? They're valid, and you go use them. Where is it that he developed the square of opposition, wasn't it, before he... That's in the Peri Hermeneus, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's when he was just dealing with... Yeah, yeah. But he teaches conversion in the prior analytics, right? Because it's necessary to reduce imperfect syllogisms into perfect syllogisms. Yeah, that's how he proves them. But you see, you can't do that with every A is B. The reverse might not be true, huh? Every dog is an animal. Every animal is a dog? No. See, all you need is one example to show it ain't necessarily so, right? But you can say if every A is B is true, at least some B is an animal, you think? Because if some B were not an A, then no B would be an A, and that would obviously not go back with this, because no A would be a B, whatever A is a B. And that's the reason why in the second figure you can only get these negative conclusions. Because you can turn it around with the universal negative and keep the universality, but you can't do that with the universal affirmative, huh? Yeah. To do a particular affirmative is where you get the same thing. So, when you go through all the cases of the syllogism, of the three figures, I have to say, there's only one case where you can prove the universal affirmative. But there's one way in the first figure you can prove the universal negative, and two ways in the second figure. So, when you go through all the cases of the syllogism, you have to say, there's only one case where you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove it, but you can prove And those four are the most important, right, of all the cases. So, it's easy to prove a universal negative is a universal affirmative. At least there's more ways to do it, anyway. And so, you know, sacramentists and Thomas are using the same form here. Aristotle teaches us an affirmative. Now, sometimes, of course, we use the if-then syllogism, right? Right? And sometimes we use the either-or, right? As an example, later on, when Thomas is showing, say, that there's no composition at all of God, right? We've gone through all particular kinds of composition, right? So, he can reason, you know, if every composition is this and this and this and this and this, and he eliminates all of them, therefore there's no composition of God. That's a different kind of argument, right? And now we've got all these objections to answer. The first one says, well, God's got what? Length and width and depth and so on. The first, therefore, it should be said, that has been said above, in the first question, right, that sacred scripture treats for us spiritual and divine things under the likenesses of what? Bodily things, huh? Whence, since it attributes three dimensions to God under the likeness of what? Bodily quantity. It designates his what? Word. Virtual quantity, huh? So that through, what? Depth, huh? His power to knowing hidden things, right? Of course, we speak sometimes of the deep mind, right? Not as deep as God, but as something else, right? As opposed to a shallow mind, huh? There are a lot of shallow minds in the news these days. Through altitude, right? The excellence of his power above all, right? Through longitude, the duration of his what? Being, right? Through latitude, huh? The affection of his love for all things, huh? You often do that for Christ on the cross, too, right? Raising the world, right? Okay. That's one way of understanding it. Another way is given by Dionysius in the chapter 9 of the Divine Needs. Now, notice, what is the sense of the letter when you have these metaphors in Scripture? The sense of the letter would be false. Well, no, no, no. What? Wait. The sense of the... This is the thing I was worrying about. The sense of the letter, in the case of metaphor, is what the speaker intends, not what the words signify, right? Yes, yes. So you say, God, the Lord is a rock. The sense of the letter is not that God is a rock. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But you're speaking, what, metaphorically, you know? And the meaning is he's my support, or he supports me, or something of this sort, huh? Yeah. Okay? I think I mentioned how Thomas, there, in the commentary, this is of Paul, and Paul uses the figure of speech. I read it instead of metaphor, but it's also a figure of speech. And Thomas says that when you speak figuratively, the meaning of the speaker is not the meaning of the words, right? Mm-hmm. And it's the meaning of the speaker that is the sense of the, what, letter, right? Okay? Okay? Now he's giving another one from Dionysius, right? And this goes back to what we said before, these two great minds there, Augustine and Thomas, that even in the sense of the letter, there can be more than one, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay? Or as Dionysius says in the chapter 9 of the Twin Names, through the profundity of God is understood the incomprehensibility of his essence, huh? Okay? Through the, what, length, the procession of his power, right? Penetrating all things, huh? A long arm of the law, right, huh? That's something like this, right? Uh-huh. Huh? Penetrating all things. Through latitude, huh? He has, what, being extended, so to speak, over all things, right? Mm-hmm. Insofar as all things are contained under his, what? Perfection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know what Dionysius is doing, talking about this in the Divine Names. It should be the symbolic theology he's talking about this, right? Mm-hmm. It maybe came up in some way there in the text, right? Mm-hmm. When Thomas divides the works of Dionysius, huh, and there are some books about names that are said properly of God, and some books about names that are metaphorically of God, and then some ones where you have another problem with Trinity names there. Okay. Now to the second one, about man being said to be the image and likeness of God, huh? That man is said to be to the image or likeness of God, not by his body, right, but by that by which man excels the other animals. Mm-hmm. Whence in Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26, after it is said, let us make man to our image and our likeness, there is some join so that he may, what, rule over, right, the fish in the sea and so on. Whence according to his understanding and reason, which is incorporeal, man is to the image of God, right? It might include the will there, too, the intellectual part. Okay. Now to the third objection, huh? And I don't know if there's something the same in these objections in a way, right, because they're all kind of misusing their metaphors, right? But there's something kind of unique about them. Thomas has answered these things because there's something different about the metaphors. To the third it should be said, huh, that the parts of the body, right, are attributed to God in scripture by reason of their acts, right? It's a little different now, right? But according to a certain likeness, huh? For just as the act of the eye is to see, huh, whence the eye is said of God signifies his power to see in an understandable way, not in a sensible way, right? That reminds me of what Gregory the Great says, huh, in the Moralia of it. Anger, anger, disturbs the eye of the soul. What does he mean by the eye of the soul? Reason. Yeah. Saying anger disturbs your reason, you don't think too clearly when you're angry, huh? That's kind of a metaphor to call reason the eye of the soul. But if our reason can be called the eye of the soul, right, huh, then God's understanding might be called metaphorically an eye, too, right? Sin and likeness there. So we carry the word see actually over to understanding, right? See? But I don't think eye really becomes a meaning of reason, right? It remains a metaphor, huh? Mm. Okay. Now, what about the fourth one, huh? I hear you're talking about God, I think I'm a certain position, I guess, huh? To the fourth it should be said that also those things which pertain to, how should you translate situm, is that position or what? Posture. What? Posture. Posture, yeah. Posture, yeah, yeah. They're not attributed to God except by a certain likeness. As he is said to be sitting on account of his, what? Immobility and what? Authority. And standing on account of his, what? Helping. Yeah. To fighting against, right? Everything that's very... Yeah, opposed to him, yeah. That makes sense, right? We stand up to, you know? You're going to get out of a fight there in the bar, you stand up, right? But the, kind of the chair there, the chair of the bishop and so on, right? Oh, sure. And then the chair of the charge and so on, right? Mm-hmm. His authority and the mobility, it's in the chair. And then the chair of the bishop and so on, right?