Prima Pars
Lecture 21: God's Universal Simplicity and Non-Composition with Creation

Transcript
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But it signifies an essence to which belongs to be thus, that is, to be by itself, not another. Which nevertheless, which being nevertheless, is not as very, what, essence, right? And thus it is clear that God is not in the genus of, what, substance, huh? And the second objection was taken from God being the measure of things and the measure being in the same genus, right? And Thomas says, well, that's good about a measure that is proportion, right? Okay? For this is homogeneous with the measure, right? But God is not a measure proportioned to anything, huh? He is said nevertheless to be the measure of all things, from this that each thing so much has a being as it, what, approaches him, huh? That reminds me of the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle, right? Plato has the idea that the perfect is the measure of the imperfect, huh? And therefore you need something perfect as a measure of our own goodness, right? And Aristotle says, well, that's fine, you know, but the measure has to be known. So Aristotle says, the virtuous man is the measure. Plato's saying, no, the good itself is the measure, right? There's a kind of a tension there between Plato and Aristotle because Aristotle sees truth in what Plato says, right? That the perfect is the measure of the imperfect. But he also sees that the measure has to be known so you can use it, right? So there's no way to really resolve that, right? Now, when Thomas gives the reasons for the Incarnation and following the great Augustine, huh? Augustine says, you know, God should be followed, right? Be perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect. God should be followed, but he's not seen. Man is seen, but he's not a perfect model to follow. Well, you're in a predicament here, right? How's it solved? By God becoming man, right? Then you have a perfect model to follow, and yet it can be what? No, right? See? But these poor chief philosophers, to Aristotle, they didn't know nothing about the Incarnation, right? Okay? So, Aristotle or Plato was saying, you know, the perfect is the measure of the imperfect, huh? And Aristotle's insisting the measure has to be known to be used. There's no adequate way of resolving that except the Incarnation. That way, the thinking of the two chief philosophers helps us to understand better how the Incarnation is a solution of their problem, right? As well as a solution of any other problems, too. But I mean, that problem in particular, right? When Christ says, that's kind of, he says it's so attached to it in the Sermon on the Mount, right? Be perfect, even if you have any fathers perfect, and, well, he's taking what? What is, the one who's altogether perfect, right? You know, the perfect, the sense of perfect is lacking in nothing, right? Aristotle himself distinguishes in the Fifth Book of Wisdom, the same book. He talks about perfect. But that perfect thing, called the Father, is not very well known to us, right? You see? So we've got a problem, right? Okay? So if we take the virtuous man, we take someone who's known to us, right? And therefore, we have a known measure. But you see finding certain defects in these men. That's the old thing, no man is a hero to his valet, that was the old saying. My politician friends always quote that, you know. And you get to know some of these people, you know, you realize that they're not so perfect, you know. Not so worthy of being imitated, you know, and so on. So let's go back now to whether God is, whether in God there are some accidents, right? So the first objection is saying, hey, if something is in the categories of accidents, like equality, it's stuck there, right? So if things like wisdom, he says, and virtue, right, which are in the category of quality, you know, if they're said of God, then there must still be accidents, right? They can't get out of their predicament, so. Moreover, in each genus there is one thing that is first, but many are the genre of accidents. If, therefore, the first of those genre are not in God, there will be many things first outside of God, which is inconvenient, to say the least. Not fitting. But against this, every accident is in a, what? Subject. God, however, is not able to be a subject, because a simple form is not able to be a subject. As Boethius says in the book about the Trinity, huh? That's a really magnificent book. Have you ever read that? And it's interesting, you know, Monsignor Dianne said, you know, they say this is by Boethius, you know, but so, even more perfect than his other works, you know, doesn't seem to be by the same man, you know. But somehow, the occasion here made him rise up. To me, Boethius is the greatest mind there between Augustine and Thomas, huh? In the church, huh? To be somebody. When did he, he was, he wasn't after Augustine, was he? Yeah, he was after Augustine, but something like 480, 525, something like that. For something, probably before. Yeah. Augustine's an order, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he, you know, followed Augustine in the study of the Trinity, right, and seeing that the relation multiplies Trinity and so on, huh? Thomas has a great deal of respect for Boethius. Of course, the definition of prison comes from Boethius, the definition of eternity. Many definitions come from Boethius. So, of course, the Constellation of Philosophy was so famous that Chaucer made a translation. Elizabeth I was working on translation. Boethius said that. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, yeah. Washington Irving talks about it, too, and he sketches, huh? Yeah, it's completely something. You can see in, you can see in the Constellation of Philosophy how he kind of, you know, sometimes he speaks more like a patronist, sometimes more like Aristotle, right? You can see his, his, his bell would sing, huh? He sings. Therefore, in God, there's not able to be an accident, because God is a simple form, right? Divina Substantia Forma Est, as Boethius. The answer should be said that according to the things that have been gone before, it manifestly appears that in God there is no accident, huh? Now, the first argument is going to be from a pure act again, right? So hold on to that pure act, and hold on to the thing you learned in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, right, where Aristotle showed that, what, the order of act and ability, right? And that act is, simply speaking, before ability, even in time, that although the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's an act, it does so because it's something already in act. So, simply, act is before ability, and therefore what is before all other things, the first being, the first cause, must be pure act, huh? First, because the subject is compared to the accident, in some way, as ability to act. For the subject is, by the accident, in some way, an act, huh? So, I am healthy by my health, right? I am a geometer by my science of geometry, right, huh? I am a logician by my science of logic, right? I am just by my virtue of justice, right? Okay? But to be in potency is altogether removed from God, as is clear from the fourth, said. So let's figure the syllogism again, the second figure, right? So what has an accident is an ability. God is not an ability, right, in the passive sense. Secondly, because God is his own, what? Existence, right? And as Boethius says in the book de Hebdo Maribosa, although that which is can have something other adjoined to it, to ipsum esse, nothing other can, what? It have adjoined to it, just as what is hot is able to have something extraneous than hot as whiteness, but heat itself, nothing besides heat. Notice that I did that, right? In the meantime, you take the abstract here. Can the healthy, for example, let's take the new one's examples here. Can the healthy be something besides healthy? Yeah, here's one who's healthy, let's assume. And this healthy is white, this healthy is a magician, right? So the healthy can be something other than healthy, right? But now, what is the difference in meaning between healthy and health itself? Well, health itself is that by which the healthy is healthy, right? Now, can there be any geometry or any whiteness in health itself? No. Because then geometry would be that by which the healthy is healthy, which is laughable, right? Okay? So, in health itself, there's nothing beyond that by which the healthy is healthy, right? Okay? So we can't have anything extraneous in it, right? Now, same with existence then, right? That which exists can be something besides existing, right? But existence, is that by what exists, exists, right? And could existence itself have anything in addition? That's what that is, existence itself. So you can't have anything else, right? That's a very subtle argument, right? But the great great is developed then, and that they have the body for itself. And Thomas comments on that, I think. So if you understand the difference there between healthy and health, right? Or between wise and wisdom, right? The wise could be something besides wise, right? But wisdom is signifying that by which the wise are wise, right? So can there be any whiteness in wisdom itself? Any health in wisdom itself? No. No. Okay. So if God is, what? Not only exists, but he's existence itself. Can he have anything extraneous? That's what an accident would be, huh? Yeah. But then you're piping sure, huh? Third, because everything that is through itself is before that which is through, what? Happening, right? When, since God is simply the first being, right? In him is not possible that there be anything, what? Procedence, huh? But neither accidents per se in him are able to be, as the laughable, or I mean the ability to laugh, is a per se accident or property of man. Because accidents of this sort are caused from the principles of the subject, huh? But in God, nothing is able to be caused since he is the first cause. Whence it remains that in God there is, what? No accident, right? Okay? Nothing ever happens to God. Either from something outside of him, right? Or even from his very nature, anything happened to him, right? Okay? Very dull life, you will be saying. It's interesting how somebody told me that when you read in Scripture, the Old Testament says the word of the Lord came to the prophet. Yeah. In Hebrew it really means the word happened to the prophet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, now, to the first objection, Thomas is saying, well, you think that virtue and wisdom instead of God have the same meaning as when they said of us, right? But that ain't so. Okay? And this will be more manifested in the 12th and 13th ones. The 12th reading, or the 12th question will be about our knowledge of God, and the 13th our naming of him, right? And, of course, we name him as we know him. That's by the order of 12th and 13th, huh? We have to talk about how we know God before we can understand fully how we name him, right? Because of that principle. When nothing is said uniquely of God in us, huh? That will be brought out fully at that time. That's what it says. Infra below, right? Will become clearer. But going back to the isogogia, the distinction of the five names in the isogogia, genus, different species, property, and accident, is a complete distinction of names said uniquely of many things. And one of the arguments in the isogogia, gentiles, shows that there's no name of those five kinds, huh? There are nothing that's said uniquely of God and creatures. But this will be taken up later on, more explicitly. So it's especially the genus of these things that is dropped when you carry the name over to God. Okay, now the second objection is saying, what about something being first, besides God? To the second it should be said that since substance is before accidents, the beginnings of accidents are reduced to the beginnings of what? Substance, as to something before. So, although God is not what is the first thing contained in the genus of substance, but he's the first thing outside every genus, huh? With respect to the whole of being, huh? Now, I'm going to be looking at Article 7 next time, but notice what Thomas has been doing up to this point in the first six articles. He's been eliminating different kinds of composition that you find in creature, right? The composition of legs and arms and liver and heart and other parts in me, huh? The composition of body and soul in me, right, huh? The composition of what I am in myself, right? The composition of what I am in my existence, right? The composition of me in my accidents, right? He's eliminated all of them, right? So, in the seventh article, inductively, you can say, well, we've eliminated all the kinds of composition that there are, therefore there's no composition of God, right? But then you give other arguments, you know, to show universally there's no composition of God, right? And I think I mentioned before, I would mention again here, the order is just to reverse the summa contra gentiles. In summa contra gentiles, he shows in general that there's no composition of God, and then he descends to some, to different particular kinds, right? Here he does just to reverse order, right? So this is more proportion to the student, right? Because you're being led from the less universal to the more universal. And this is, but. He says about Maniudexo here in question, what, 117 article 1, right? You know, proposiciones minus universalis, right? You're being led by the hand, right? Through these six articles, and then you're going to get a thing about the simplicity of God, omnino, altogether universal here, right? In the seventh one, right, huh? Okay? So we're leading you up gradually, right, huh? Okay? See that? But in a sense, you can see that the Summa Theologiae is a more proportion to a student than the Summa Contra Gentilis, huh? I was reading a question this morning there in the chapter in the Summa Contra Gentilis this morning, and let's see, 13 arguments, I'm trying to remember all of them, you know? At least for the time being, you know, I'll forget them tomorrow, but, you know, just for today, remember the 15 arguments, you know, and don't ask me to give them all right now. But, uh, um, it's not a proportion to a beginner, you know? You don't need 13 arguments, you know? Three good arguments is more than enough, huh? Huh? For people, you know, and so you chew on these things, huh? But it's kind of fun to read the Summa Contra Gentilis and then go to these other works and see, you know? Oh, yeah, well, we've got 15 arguments here and here's three of them are right here again, you know? But, you know, then go to the question and just be taught here and they've got three there, too, you know? But occasionally you get an argument here that's not in the Summa Contra Gentilis, you know? But also in the two Summas there's a difference in the order of the things, huh? But as a natural philosopher here, um, that you show that God is simple before you show he's unchanging, right? Well, I've always teach in the first book, you know, of natural hearing, the first book of the physics. And there Aristotle shows very clearly that whatever changes is composed, okay? And when you go through that first book of the physics, you come away knowing that everything that changes is composed. And then you come here and you learn that God is not composed, put two and two together and he's, what, can't change, right? So it fits in beautifully. But in the Summa Contra Gentilis, and he shows that God is unchanging before he shows that God is simple. So you lose something, right? It's the same beautiful here, right? And so when I'm teaching the first book of the physics, I always stop and have a theological footnote, I say, now. But you've learned here that what changes is composed. In theology, when you learn that God is not composed, you can put the two together and you realize God is, what, unchanging and beautiful, beautiful, you know? So there's something really beautiful about the order of the Summa Theologiae. But there are things you'll find out about the order of the Summa Theologiae that the Summa Theologiae doesn't have, right? And then, as I mentioned, in the Compendium of Theology, there's yet again a different order of these five, right? Because you always have these five in those three central works, huh? Next time we'll see the Compendium of the Salty that God is omnino, altogether holy. Simple, right? Next time we'll see. Next time we'll see. Next time we'll see. Next time we'll see. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our might, and of it, Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, and July Doctor, pray for us, and help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So we're up to Article 7 here, if I remember correctly, huh? And now he's going to ask, in general, right, whether God is altogether simple, but really whether God is in no way composed, huh? And he's illuminated, up to this point, six different particular kinds of composition that you find in creature. Composition of what? Quantitative parts, like my head and my arms and legs, and all my organs and so on, right? That's one kind of composition you negate, as the first one you negate of God, right? And then you have the composition of my body and soul, right? Matter and form. That's the second one he negates, right? And then because I'm a material being, what a man is is not identical to Wayne Berquist. So it's a composition of what I am with my individual matter, right? And that's negated down in the third article. And then even on the angels, let alone us, what they are and their existence is not the same. There's a distinction between the two. But in God, there's no distinction of those two, right? And then he eliminates that there's any, what, mental composition of genus and, what, differences, which is proportional to the composition of matter and form, right? And then finally, that there's no, what, accidents in God. So there's not the composition of accusing me between me and my health or me and my knowledge or me and my shape or me and my color or something of that sort, huh? So he's illuminating every kind of composition that there is in what the creature, huh? And now he's going to include universally now. But he'll make use of that fact partly by an inductive argument, huh? Okay? Induction first means, you know, an argument from many singulars to the universal, right? But then we use the word induction for an argument from many less universals, right? Many particulars in the sense of less universal to something even more, what, universal. Okay? So that's classified as an induction, right? Okay? Now, I think I mentioned how the order of the Summa Contra Gentilis is the reverse, right? Where he first shows the general thing and then he sometimes deduces some of the other ones, right? Okay? But this is more proportioned to the student. As I was saying, if you look at question 117, article 1, on the teacher, you know, the first way the teacher leaves the student is from less universal statements. He can judge more easily to a more universal statement. So this is more for the beginner, huh? It's always a joke. This is for beginners? Well. He said more for beginners, right? Yeah. It's all about philosophy, though, right? You already see the need to go back and learn more philosophy. I told you, you know, the story of Monsignor Dian, I guess he was first in the faculty of theology at Laval, right? And so he's teaching something. I think he's got to go back and explain the philosophy they don't have. He said, well, I'm also going over and teaching the faculty of philosophy, then, because this has to be learned first. So, but sometimes when you see these more difficult things, you tend to appreciate more the parts of philosophy that are especially relevant to them. So you learn that God is, say, pure act, let's say, and how that can be used to show most of these attributes, right? Or all of them, really, of the substance of God. Say, oh, gee whiz, that book on act and ability that Aristotle has is kind of, you know, a real preambula to this study of God. So the seventh article one proceeds thus. It seems that God is not altogether simple. For those things which are, what? By God, huh? From him. They imitate him, right? Whence from the first being are all other beings, right? And from the first good are all other good things. But in the things which are from God, nothing is altogether simple. Therefore, God is not altogether, what? Simple, huh? This guy would be more like us, in other words. Moreover, everything that is better ought to be attributed to God, huh? It's kind of interesting grammatically, huh? You know how we say, in a lot of words, hot, in the comparative is hotter, it's made from hot. And then the superlative, hottest, right? But we don't say with the word good in English, right? Good, gooder, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the Latins don't say what? They say milios, right? Rather than... Bonum. Than bonum. Bonum. Bonum. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why that is so, you know? But I mean, maybe there's some reason why... Because they're the same in Greek. Ah. I don't know. I have to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. But with us, composed things are better than what? Simple things, huh? As mixed bodies, huh? Are better than the elements, huh? So gold is better than fire. And the elements, then they're what? Parts. The matter and form. Therefore, it should not be said that God is altogether simple. Now perhaps this is the reason why he has the what? The question on the simplicity of God, followed by the question of the perfection of God, right? Mm-hmm. Because we're knowing God from creatures, but also by negation of what's found in creatures. Mm-hmm. And not only do you negate the, what? The composition of creatures of God and the imperfection, you might say, but the idea that simplicity and perfection goes together kind of is contrary to what you find in creatures. Mm-hmm. So the animals are more perfect than the plants, but they're more composite. Mm-hmm. And the plants are more perfect than the stones, right? And maybe the stones are more perfect than the elements it's made out of. So I think there's a reason why he puts those two together, right? Even though I think there's reasons for the other orders that I've mentioned in the other works, huh? But he does bring out something. He has to emphasize that. But, again, this is what Augustine says in the sixth book about the Trinity, that God is truly and in the highest way, what? Simple. Simple. What does St. Atreus of Avila say? God is altogether simple, and the closer you get to God, the simpler you become. I think it's kind of beautiful, too, right, huh? There's some simplicity in the, what, in the saints that there is in the rest of us sinners. Okay. Of course, no one more complex than a sinner, right? Going off in all directions, right? Distracted, you know, by all kinds of temptations of the world and so on. Because they didn't say that it's complex. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's complex as a problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because finally, God's psychology, it emphasizes the problems, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like St. Thomas' prayer, the act of communion, you know, where he's kind of praying for the, you know, stopping all these motions in him, you know, so he can be concentrated entirely upon God, huh? Okay, Thomas now comes to the body of the article. I am sure it should be said that God is altogether, what, simple, right? And this can be shown in many, what, ways, multi-picture, huh? And notice, in this article, he has, what, five arguments, huh, in the body of the article. In most of the other ones, he just gave, what, three arguments, huh? And, you know, the old rule is three is enough, huh? I notice Thomas a lot in the sentences, but in the question is disputate, okay, he'll give three arguments, say, and hits the fiction, or something like that, you know? And, because I think, you know, human beings have a hard time taking, holding on to more than three. If you add the fourth one, then you start to forget the first one, you know? But, because of this, you know, the reality of the article, Article 7, perhaps, he wants to, what? Emphasize. Yeah, yeah, and go a little bit more into it, right? Maybe three arguments is enough to reach a particular kind of composition, but omnino, you know, simplex, he wants to give, go all the way, you know, five, huh? It's like in those pages of Thomas, he's holding up his hand, you know, he's going through the five. Okay. First, he says, through the things which have been said above, right? Now, this is the inductive argument. Okay. A lot of times in Thomas, I notice, like in the Summa Gantiles, if one of the mini-arguments that he gives in a chapter, if one of them is immediately based on what he said in the chapter before, you often give that argument, what, first, huh? It's kind of a pedagogical thing, right? So we've just gone through six particular kinds of composition, that are in creatures, and he's eliminated each one of them one by one. Now he puts them all together and says, and therefore there is no composition of any sort, huh? But notice, it would take a little while to realize that those are all the kinds of, what, composition that there is in the creature, huh? Because that would have to be seen in some way before you'd see that this was a, what, complete induction, huh? You can't make a complete induction from singulars because there's no end to singulars, but you can make a complete induction from the less universal if they're limited in kind, huh? So he says, first of the things that are above, since in God there's no composition, and now he starts to enumerate them, neither of quantitative parts, huh, because he is not a body, huh? And that was the first article, right? Mm-hmm. Nor is there the composition of form and matter, which is what he did in the second article, huh? Nor is there in him the composition of nature, meaning by nature what a thing is, right? And the suppositum, the individual substance, huh? The individual matter. And that was the, what, third one, right? Nor are the other in him, his essence or what he is, and his, what, existence, his being, huh? Now I mentioned how those three are very similar, right? Because in those three, the things that are put together, one is to the other as act is to ability, yeah. Well, in the case of the quantitative whole, huh, you wouldn't say that my arm is to my leg as act is to ability, but you'd say all the quantitative parts are to the whole as ability is to act. So in everything that's composed, you have some kind of composition of ability and act, but there's two ways that can be, right? Either all the parts are to the whole as ability is to act, or also one part is to the other as ability is to act. And that's found in those second, third, and fourth kinds of composition, huh? Okay? And so I mentioned how in the Summa Congenitus, he has a chapter showing that the composition of substance and existence in the angels is not to be mixed up with the composition of matter and form, okay? Two different kinds of things. But there's some similarity, right? So you want to make sure that the student understands the distinction between them. But of course, it's perfectly ordered, because the composition of what I am and my individual matter, my individual flesh and bones and so on, that distributes me from the rest of you guys, that is closer to the distinction of matter and form than the substance and existence, or what is and its existence, huh? Okay? So it's perfectly ordered there. Then the next one is the terms of what? Genus and what? Difference, huh? And that's more on the, what, side of the reason, right? But the distinction of, or the composition of genus and difference in the mind corresponds to that of matter and form. Not one-to-one, but that the genus is taken from what is material in the thing and the difference from what is, what, more formal, right? And therefore, a lot of times we say that the, what, the matter is able to be formed in various ways, right? And the genus can be, what, determined by various differences, huh? So there's a very real likeness there. But then the next one here, the composition of subject and accident, there, I think you're departing from the idea of a whole. You have what in the fifth book of wisdom would be called a unum pracidens, okay? Or being by happening, right, huh? Now, it's not quite as accidental as a white geometer or a Swedish philosopher or something, right? But still, it's a, what, you know, we form one thing, right? Me and my health, right? Okay? It's a healthy man, one thing. Like, health is one thing, right? They don't even belong in the same genus, right? Man is in substance and health is in the category of quality, huh? Yeah. So it's manifest, then, inductively, you could say that God is in no way composed, but he's altogether, what? Simple, right? Now, again, notice the word simplex, grammatically speaking, is what? Not a negation, right? But it's understood, really, in a negative way. Nullo modo, composing to us, right? In no way is he composed, huh? Okay? You may recall Aristotle in the third book on the soul. He said that we know simple things by the negation of composed things. And this is true even in geometry, where Euclid defines the point is that which has no parts, right? But as you go from body to surface to line and then to point, you keep on adding more negations, huh? Because a body is that which has length, width, and depth. And all that's affirmative. A surface has got length and width, but no depth. There's one negation there. A line has length, but neither width nor depth. But the point is neither length nor width nor depth, huh? You see? So as it gets simpler, you have more, what? Indications. And that's because our reason's own object is that what it is is something sensed or imagined, and that's something, what? Composed. And you can't really imagine a point by itself. You can imagine a finite line, and so you could say that the point is co-imagined, but not as it were imagined by itself, huh? You try to imagine a point by itself, you try to make a little circle or something, you know? Imagination can't really imagine something that has no size at all, right? And that's why, you know, I know sometimes too in class how a student will kind of think that points don't really exist, right? Well, they don't exist like a substance by themselves, right? But I've, you know, shown you the kind of argument that I use to show that they exist, right? You know, I say there are some bodies around that don't go on forever, right? And so there's an end to the body, right? We call the end of the body a surface. And then I say, well, does the surface have any depth? Well, if it has any depth, you haven't come to the surface yet, the body, right? So you're forced to say that there is something that has length and width, but no depth, and that's the surface. But you can't really shave that off, could you? You see, if you want to shave something off the top of the desk, you'd have to take part of the desk with it. So it's not something that can exist by itself, the surface of the thing. And yet it does come to an end. It doesn't come to an end so long as it's any depth, right? Therefore, there really is something, in the way of an accident, that has length and width, but no depth. And then you can argue that since that comes to an end, too, the surface, that there's something that has length, but no width. And since that line comes to an end, there's something that has, what? No length at all, but it's real. But you're kind of knowing it from the other ones. And if it's your, when you try to say what it is, you use those negations, huh? So it shouldn't be surprising that we know God by what? Negation, when even the point is known by negation, huh? Of course, some people are confused on the point with God, right? And, uh, uh... And, uh... You see, Euclid could be a little more explicit there, because the point does have, what, position, okay? And, you know, sometimes the ancients saw that both the point and the one, which is the beginning of number, neither one has any parts. They're both all together simple. But the point has position, which the one doesn't have. So if you're talking about three points, you can talk, you know, whether they're on a straight line or not on a straight line, they can have a different position. It won't make any sense to talk about the three ones and the number three, right? Are they on a straight line or not? They don't have, the ones don't have any position, right? Okay? So sometimes they would define the point as the one having position, right? So, and that's the sign Aristotle gives that arithmetic considers less, has less to consider, and therefore is more certain than geometry. And you'll see that, you'll get Heath's edition of this, you'll see more controversy about things in geometry than there are about numbers, huh? And there's different ways you can, you know, sometimes you have to have different cases of the same figure, huh? Or the same theorem. But God is something, what, indivisible, right? But it's not the indivisible that has a position in the continuous. He doesn't have any position in the continuous. That's important to see, right? That comes up even when he talks about the soul, huh? How the whole soul is in every part of the body. But you have to understand, as Thomas will say, that the soul, although it's indivisible, it's not indivisible like the point, but has a position. So if it's here, it can't be over here, right? Okay? And a forciority, this is true about God, huh? He couldn't be everywhere. He is indivisible like a point, having some position. But you see, those who make that mistake of thinking of God as indivisible and being definitely someplace, like a point is definitely someplace, they're resolving to their imagination, huh? You can't resolve to imagination when you talk about God. In the Poethesis De Trinitate, he has a, you know, little section on that, right? And then Thomas has one of his expanded articles on that, huh? Where the one can deducere to the imagination, right? And you can't do that. You can't do so in logic, either. There's a beautiful thing in the, I use it in a couple of articles, beautiful passage in the Parmenides, you know, where Socrates is a young man and he's imagining universal, you know, to be like a sail carving individuals. And he's resolving to the imagination, something you can imagine. But you find it in the modern magicians, too, who want to substitute class for universal. And the class is really, what, a multitude and something you can imagine and so on. And universal, as universal, you can't sense or imagine. It can only be, what, understood. So in natural philosophy, your judgments resolve to the senses and geometry to the imagination, but in logic to reason. And something like that when you talk about God, huh? That's why it's so difficult, right? You tend to want to resolve to the imagination. But if you talked to a lot of Catholics in the pew, they would have the idea, you know, whatever it is must be somewhere and so on. They're tied to these things, huh? Okay. So that's the first argument, then, the inductive argument. Now the second argument. Second, he says, because everything that is composed, or composed is the Latin word for what? Put together, right? Everything that is put together, that is composed, is, what, posterior, after the things putting it together. And it depends upon them, right? But God is the first, what, being, right? Now, first means what? Not after anything, huh? Before everything else, right? So how can God be composed? There'd be something, what, before him, which is not God, huh? And he would be dependent upon that, huh? Okay. So that's his second argument, huh? And the third argument, because everything composed or put together has a cause. For things which, as such, are by themselves are diverse, do not come together to form something one, except through some cause that is uniting them, right? But God doesn't have a cause, huh? Since he is the first, what, efficient cause, huh? So he's saying everything composed or put together has a putter together. And therefore has a cause, right? And God doesn't have any cause because he's the first cause. So he can't be one of those things put together. Now the fourth one is going to make use of, what, God being pure act, huh? And everything composed, right, there necessarily is potency and act, or in English you could say ability and act, huh? Which are not found in God, okay? Now he doesn't give the whole argument there because, what, God is pure act, right? Okay. Now where in the Summa does he show that God is pure act, huh? Where does he first say it explicitly? Wasn't it in the proofs for God's existence? Well, he could have deduced it from that, but did he say it explicitly in the question on the existence of God, huh? See? Now he actually said it here in the first article, huh? In, I think, the second argument of the first article, huh? He's showing that there's no, what, God is not a body, right? Just look back to the body of article one, right? The second argument, right? Secondly, because it is necessary that that which is the first being to be an act and in no way in potency, huh? And notice, first means what? Before all the rest, right? So you have to understand the before and after of act and ability, which goes back to the ninth book of wisdom, right? And so he repeats the teaching of the ninth book of wisdom. For although in one and the same thing that goes forth from ability to act, it is an ability before it is an act in time, right? Nevertheless, simply, right, without qualification, act is before ability. Why? Because what is an ability is not reduced to act except through a being already in act, huh? And we talked about that before in the ninth book of wisdom, right? And we said that the mistake about the first cause, the main mistake about the first cause is to think the first cause is, what, matter, okay? And what kind of mistake is that, to think that the first cause is matter? Must be a confusing sense of cause, right? Confusing kinds of cause. Saying something simply and... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I mentioned before how in the book on statistical refutations, huh? Aristotle distinguishes 13 kinds of mistakes, huh? Okay? And you shouldn't try to, you know, remember all 13 at first, right? But the more common ones, right? And I'd like to emphasize with students the first kinds of mistakes from words, right? And the first two kinds of mistakes outside of words, huh? Okay? And each of these four kinds of mistakes involves overlooking some distinction that you should have seen, right? Or misunderstanding some distinction, huh? Okay? And I was talking, the other day I was talking about how we tend to use the word mixed up almost as a synonym for mistaken, right? So if I think a cat is a dog, I'm mixed up, right? I don't see the distinction between the dog and the cat, huh? And sometimes you see it as a little child, you know, who's been, has attention called a dog, you know? And then you call a cat a dog, right? So he's really understanding by dog, kind of a little four-footed animal, right? Is that what you see in the distinction between the dog and the cat, huh? And so, corresponding to each of these four kinds of mistakes is a kind of distinction, huh? And so, One of these helps the other, right? If you understand the kind of distinction that's involved there, that will help you to understand the kind of mistake being made. But vice versa, seeing that kind of mistake being made, call your attention to the importance of seeing that distinction. So the first kind of mistake from words is usually called the fallacy of equivocation, but I think it's more clearly said to be the mistake for mixing up the senses of a word. So happiness is the end of human life. The end of human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death. Anything wrong with my argument? Roger Maris hit 61 homos of the bat. The bat is a flying rodent. Therefore, he hit 61 homos of the flying rodent. Well, if you can easily see the distinction of the words, you're okay, right? Feuerbach argued, you know, man's mind is infinite, the infinite is God, therefore man's mind is God. Convinced Karl Marx, yeah? That's it? You know? But there, he was mixing up two different senses of the word infinite. It's interesting, in the first book of natural hearing, the so-called physics, Aristotle was pointing out how Alesis is mixing up two senses of the word infinite, different ones than Feuerbach was mixing up. But it's only the same kind of mistake, but with the same word, right? And it's like the moderns had never heard of these kinds of mistakes, let alone did they recognize them, right? Even if you know these kinds of mistakes, you might possibly make that kind of mistake nevertheless, right? But if you don't even know the kinds of mistakes, how are you going to recognize that this kind of mistake is being made, huh? Now, the second kind of mistake from words is like the first one, except it's with a speech rather than a name, okay? And you know my favorite example there. The Bible is the word of God. The word of God is the Son of God. Therefore, the Bible is the Son of God, huh? Okay? Well, word of God is what I'm meaning, right? That's an interesting distinction, I think, huh? Aristotle says, you know, that wisdom is the knowledge of God in both senses, right? That's very important to see, huh? Knowledge of God can mean what? A knowledge which is about God and it can mean the knowledge which God has, huh? Or Shakespeare's definition of reason is a knowledge of reason in both senses, okay? Euclid's definition of square is a knowledge of reason in only one sense. It's a knowledge had by reason, right? But the definition of reason by Shakespeare Shakespeare is a knowledge of reason in two senses. It's a knowledge which reason has about itself, right? That's very interesting, right? I like Shakespeare's calling the philosophy of nature the wisdom of nature, right? Because the wisdom of nature is about the wisdom of nature. The wisdom of nature in the sense of the philosophy of nature is about the wisdom that nature shows and what it does, huh? Because it's something of the divine art in things. And you can say the word of God in the sense of the Bible is chiefly about the word of God in the other sense, huh? As Vatican II teaches us, huh? Okay? So you have the distinction of the senses of a word, especially a word that's equivocal by reason, huh? And the distinction of the senses of a speech, right? But they correspond to the first two kinds of mistakes from words, huh? Okay? Now the first two kinds of mistakes from things, not from words, is a mistake for mixing up the through itself and the through happening, or the as such and the by happening, huh? And this is the kind of mistake, Aristotle says, to seize even the wise, as it did Plato, huh? And then the second kind of mistake is a mistake for mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply. Mixing up what is so simply and what is so only in a very qualified and perfect way, huh? And if you ever read the Mino, the dialogue called the Mino, in the middle part there, that's the kind of mistake Mino makes. And Socrates tries to reply to it, he makes the same mistake. Or you may recall when he talked about the natural road, the first road in our knowledge. And Aristotle points out the distinction between what is more known to us and what is more known simply. And Descartes confused the two, right? Well, this is also the kind of mistake made at the end, knowing the first cause. Because ability comes before act in some qualified way, they conclude, therefore it comes before simply. So they're making the mistake of simply and not simply. So you have at the beginning, when people misunderstand the actual road, huh? And at the end of philosophy, when they make the mistake about the first cause. So Aristotle here, in that first article there, in the second argument there, is recalling the teaching of the ninth book of, what, wisdom, right? Where Aristotle shows that although in some way, ability is before act, namely the thing that goes from ability to act, because it goes from ability to act, only because it's something already in act, simply act is before ability. Now, first means what? Before all the rest. So the primumens, the first being, must be what? Most in act. Must be pure act, huh? But if you make the mistake of simply and not simply, mixing them up, and then you think that ability, simply, is before act, then the first being would be what? The first matter. What is most in ability, at least in act, huh? And that leads to the great problem of what? Of what's the end of our knowledge, right? To know the best thing or to know the first cause, huh? Because they wouldn't be the same in this case, would they? If ability was simply before act, then the first cause would be the least perfect of things. Okay? And therefore, what would be the end of our knowledge? Know the first cause or know the best thing? You've got to split personality, right? But if the first cause is pure act, and act is better than ability, as he shows also in the ninth book, then with the truth, all things harmonize, right? Now, one thing I like about my favorite book, is that he has a whole chapter devoted to showing that God is pure act, huh? See? So it's more pulled out and say, hey, this is something you want to see. And then he uses it. But here it's kind of stuck in the middle of the first article, right? But he draws upon it in other articles, right? And now in the universal article, article 7, this is in the, what, fourth argument, right? Okay? So, and this will be used to show that God is perfect and many other things about God, huh? And he's infinite and so on. So it makes some sense what this one kind of gentilist does, huh? But, as I think I mentioned before, Thomas, in an earlier work, is sometimes, huh? More explicit, and folds the thing more, than in a later work, huh? Okay? I told you my famous example there, you know, I used to get thinking about order, as I do. And I thought order meant basically before and after, right? And then I'd see texts in the Summa, or texts in the Questiones Disputate, where Thomas will say, following Augustine, that there's an Ordo Naturae in the Trinity. And Thomas will say there, not the order of before and after, but the order of this from that. And so I got thinking, gee whiz, there must be two kinds of order, right? And I made a mistake, right? But then, I didn't have at that time the sentences, you know, it's kind of hard to get that, huh? Finally got a copy of it. But the sentences enfolds the whole teaching about order, right? And then he's very clear that the basic meaning of order is before and after. And what you do when you talk about the Ordo Naturae in God is to keep a difference and drop the genus. And what you do when you talk about the Ordo Naturae in God is to keep a difference. And what you do when you talk about the Ordo Naturae in God is to keep a difference.