Prima Pars
Lecture 29: The Goodness of God: Essence, Causation, and Perfection

Transcript
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, help us to understand all that you've written. In the name of the Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. And so we begin question six here in the Prima Paras. Then one asks about the goodness of God. And about this four things are asked. First, whether to be good belongs to God. Secondly, whether God is the highest good, the sumum bodum. Third, whether he alone is good through his essence or nature. And fourth, whether all things are good by the divine goodness. Okay. Now, it's easy to see why to be good would come before being the sumum bodum, right, in the order of those articles. But I think I mentioned how in the Summa Theologiae, or Summa Concentiles, rather, he shows that God is good per summa sensima. He said he's ipsa bonitas, before he shows that God is the, what, sumum bonum. But here the order is different, huh? Although perhaps the fair echo is not exactly the same thing as saying it's ipsa bonitas, but it's very similar, right? And then, whether all things are good by the divine goodness. That would obviously be placed forth, huh? So, whether to be good belongs to God. The first one proceeds thus, it seems that to be good does not belong to God. For the thought of good consists in mode, species, and order. In fact, we had an article on that subject in the previous question. But these do not seem to belong to God, since God is imensus, which means what? Yeah. Or we could say infinite, right? Okay, but imensus means a little, not measurable. And he's not ordered to anything. So he doesn't have mode, species, and order, therefore he's not good. Therefore, to be good does not belong to what? To God, huh? Moreover, the good is what all want, huh? That's the definition of, first definition of the good. But not, but all things do not want God, huh? Because all things do not know him, huh? But nothing is wanted unless it be, what? Known, huh? So, therefore to be good does not belong to God, huh? But against this is what is said in the, what's that, Limitations? Trinity? God is good to those hoping in him, right? To the soul that is what? Seeking him, huh? Answer, it should be said that to be good, especially, most of all belongs to what? God, huh? For something is good as it is desirable, but each thing, however desire, is its own, what? Perfection, huh? Now, at this point, you'd think that Thomas would say, what? But God is perfect, as we showed back in the, what, fourth question, I guess. And, therefore, he's good, right? That would be the simplest way to do it. Same thing. Yeah. But instead, he gives a little kind of roundabout way of doing it, huh? Shame on him, right? I don't know if we do this. But the perfection and the form of the effect, huh? Is a certain likeness of the agent, huh? Since every agent makes or does what is like itself, huh? Now, sometimes you manifest that by, what, induction, right? So, when the two dogs get together, do they make a cat? No. They make a dog, right, huh? When the two cats get together, do they make an elephant? No. They make something like themselves a cat, right? And you see that when you add, subtract, multiply, or divide, right? Two numbers come together, and you get a what? Yeah. And when you syllogize, two statements come together, and you get a what? Yeah. So, you can't see it inductively, right? Some might say, yeah, but the carpenter who's a man makes a what? Chair. Chair, but now he's making the chair not by nature, but by art, and he has the idea of what a chair is, so he's making something like what he has in his art. So, in a more subtle way, he's still making what? Like itself, yeah. Okay? Now, when you go back to the distinction between act and ability, ability now in the passive sense, you can say, by your ability to receive, you don't give what you receive. But what is given is like what? Act, huh? So, something gives insofar as it's in what? Act. Act. Act, yeah. And so, act is something giveable. So, the cookie press, you know, gives its shape to the dough, right? Which is able to receive that, huh? So, every agent's going to make what is like itself and like the act that it is, huh? What's the old saying? It's more divine to give than to receive? Well, that's because God is pure act, right? He's not able to receive anything, but only to, what? To give, huh? So, since everything then seeks its perfection, and the form of the effect is a certain likeness of the agent, right? Whence the agent itself is, what? Desirable, right? And has the aspect of the good. For this is what is desired about it, that one might partake of its, what? Likeness, huh? Okay? And that in particular is true about God, too, huh? I know, you know, we've already, Shakespeare's exhortation to use reason, didn't we? And, uh, when you're giving the reasons, why we should use our reason, right? And we say, well, there's one reason in comparison to the beast. If you don't use it, you fall to love the beast. And there's two reasons in comparison to man himself, huh? That getting our chief good depends upon using reason, and only in this way can we be true to ourself. And then, I say there's two reasons in comparison to God, huh? He says, sure, he that made us with such large discourse gave us not the capability and godlike reason to fuss in us and use. We say, this is God's plan for us to use reason. He gave us reason to use, so we're obeying God's plan for us. And then when he says reason is godlike, we're becoming like God, right? But after you talk about those two, then you say, hey, there's a connection between the two. And God's plan for us is to become, what? Like him, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then that's like St. John says in the epistle there, right? We know that he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. So he's talking here about the, what? One is seeking the likeness, huh? When you say God makes everything for himself, it doesn't mean he gets anything out of it. But he means he's trying to make everything, what? Like himself, huh? He's trying to share his goodness with us. So, he's showing how the agent now is, what? Desirable, right? The maker, huh? Because each thing desires its own perfection, and its own perfection, its own actuality comes from the agent. So it desires to be like the agent, right? But we saw in the second question about the existence of God, that God is the first, what? Efficient cause of all things, huh? Whence is manifest that it belongs to him, the notion of good and desirable, right? Okay? And now the pernicious influence of Dionysius again, right? He speaks his way. Once Dionysius, in the book about the divine names, attributes good to God as to the first Ephraim cause, saying that God is said to be good as that from which all things subsist. So he's obviously thinking in the way that Dionysius thinks in that particular treatise. There's one way of bringing out that God is good. It kind of strikes me that he uses that a little more roundabout way than to just argue directly that God is perfect, that perfect is good or desirable. And therefore, I suppose it makes more sense to say that the creature wants the good and that God wants the good, because want means almost that you're what? Lack? Yeah, yeah. It's kind of interesting when you teach the dialogue of Plato, the symposium, and Socrates is trying to give a speech about love, right? And everybody else has been praising love as one of the gods, and how beautiful and magnificent love is. Socrates, and Socrates reasons in this way, says if you love something, right, then you want it. And if you want it, you lack it. Therefore, if you love something, you lack it, and since you love the good and the beautiful, then the love must be lacking the good and the beautiful. And most people say, well, they think the reasoning is good, right? Okay. Well, then I say, yeah. But then God is love, as St. John says, right? Then God would be lacking in goodness and beauty and so on. Well, you could say that in one of the premises of Socrates, it isn't necessarily true, but it has some probability. And that is that if you love something, you want it. Well, you want it when you lack what you love, right? But if you already have what you love, then you have pleasure or delight, joy, but not wanting. So it's interesting, the English word want, I think more than the Latin word desire, can mean desire, but it can also mean lack. So if I say to my students, you know, you're sadly wanting, I don't mean you're sadly wanting to know, but you're sadly lacking something that you should have in your education, right? So if you define the good as what all want, you see, well, then, and you take wanting in a strict sense where you lack what you want, then does God want himself? No. And Thomas will say that the only things you have in God are love and joy, right? You can't have wanting or hoping or anything that will imply that God lacks and doesn't have what he loves, huh? Okay. So maybe if you're insisting more upon, you know, want, you want to go back to the preacher and reason from that, back to God. But nevertheless, he could reason more directly, huh? I'll talk to him when I get up there about that in a moment. Berkowitz, revised edition. No, but it's kind of interesting, you know, if you compare this with other texts, he might argue directly in some other texts, you know, and so on. But I think if I remember writing the second article, he's going to argue very much in the Fiction of Colossus, too. So the first article prepares the way very much for the second article, huh? Okay. And he's going to, so there may be some, you know, reasons, you know. When you get a little bit further in the text, Dwayne, you'll see why I did it that way. Thomas will tell me, right? He had a point, Dwayne, but it wasn't exactly. You're not looking at the whole picture, you know? Okay. So, now the first objection was that good consists in mode, species, and order, and God doesn't have any, what? He's not measured. He'd be outside all that. What? If you'd be outside all that, like he's not in a species, he's not in order. It's interesting, the great Plato, in his last work, you know, you know, he says, you know, he says, Protagoras is wrong in saying man is a measure of all things, right? He said rather God is a measure of all things, right? But then God himself is not what measured. Now, Thomas Sauls is very interesting by pointing out that mode, species, and order is what pertains to the created good, huh? Okay, so I guess he's talking about the created good there and not good, period. To the first, therefore, it should be said that to have mode, species, and order pertains to the notion of caused good, right? Okay, but the good is in God as in a cause, right? Whence to him it pertains to impose upon others, right? To place upon others, mode, species, and order, right? That's what Scripture says, I made all things and, yeah, yeah. Those are the same sort of things. Whence these three things are in God as in a, what? Cause, yeah. Okay, so I don't know if that was clear from the article back in the previous question that this is, what, about caused blood, right? And not about the other, right? Incidentally, I was thinking at the end there of Julius Caesar there, where he says that, you know, he was, what, the elements were so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world this was a man. And when you say that the elements were so mixed in him, you're talking about that, what, modus, huh, you see? There was nothing excessive, right? If you had too much fire in you, say, you might be choleric, right? If you had too much water, you might be phlegmatic or something, you know? But they were well-balanced, you know? And so he really was a man, right? You know, nature would stand up. Now, the second objection was saying that the good is what all want, but the objector says not all want God, right? In part because they don't know God. Now, to the second, it should be said that all, in desiring their own perfections, desire God himself, insofar as, what, the perfections of all things are certain likenesses of the divine, what, being, right? So, through every, what, perfection form, one is a certain being, and therefore one is like God, who is I am who I am, right, huh? And you may recall that from the first book of natural hearing, the first book of the so-called physics, where Aristotle was reasoning against Plato from a common understanding that he and Plato have, that form is something God-like, good and desirable, right? And the reason why we say form is God-like rather than matter, because God is pure act, and form is a kind of act, right? Matter is much more distant likeness, not because it's not act, but ability. And thus, of those things which desire God, some know him by himself or in himself, right? And this is, what, private to the rational creature, huh? That mean, us and the angels, huh? Some know him, some know some partakings of his goodness, which also extends in a way to, what, sensible knowledge, huh? But some have a, what, natural desire without knowledge, because they are inclined to their ends from some superior, what, knower, right? But Thomas did also have much more in the Summa Contagentilis, right? That in desiring our own, what, perfection, we are desiring to be like God, so in a way we're desiring God, huh? So the ultimate thing is, is being desired as God, huh? He'll stop making that same point when he's commenting in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, when Aristotle gives a little induction and he says, and hence they say, well, the good is what all want. You can take that good in general, right? But you can also take the good that is God himself, huh? That we all in some way want that. And so even the sinner, in a way, is seeking to be like God in a kind of, what, perverse way, huh? You know, in that scriptural passage that they take is referring to the devil, you know? I'll be like him, you know, I'll ascend to the heaven, and then he falls, huh? You know, the Ernst Gassir, one of his last books there was the Essay on Man, and if you know, Ernst Gassir, he's kind of a famous neoconscient philosopher, came from Germany, and then he finally settled down a deal, and he wrote a lot of interesting books. But, One of his last books is the Essay on Man, right? And he makes know thyself as the end of philosophy. Okay? And so I think he kind of misunderstands the place of know thyself in philosophy. Know thyself is really the beginning of philosophy. Know what you are and what's good for you and know what you know and what you don't know and so on. But he makes that the very end of your goal, right? Well, I think that's perverse, really. But in trying to know ourselves, we're trying to be in some way like God. Because God knows himself, and by knowing himself, he knows everything else, right? So if we seek as our final goal to know ourselves, then we're seeking to be like God, okay? But in a kind of perverse way, right? And the same thing is true about Marxism, huh? Karl Marx says that In transforming the world, man in a sense sees himself in his own man-made world. So the end of man is not just to transform the world, but to see himself in the world that he's transformed. To see himself as the beginning and the end of all he knows. To see himself as a kind of God, right? But you could ask the question, are we more like God when we know ourselves, since God knows himself primarily, or are we more like God when we know God? Because actually, when we're like God, by knowing ourselves, it's kind of a proportional likeness, right? Whenever you're knowing the same thing. But knowing God, we're knowing the very thing that God knows. And when Thomas gives the order of theology, he says that we imitate in a distant way, the way God knows, huh? So in revealed theology, the first thing we consider, like we're considering here, is God, right? Then we consider other things in relation to God, huh? So we're imitating God's way of knowing. By knowing himself, he knows other things. Unlike philosophy, where you don't really know God until the last part of the last part of philosophy. And then in the last books of the first philosophy, you know, God to some extent. It has to be more like God, huh? But when we see God as he is, we'll see other things and seeing him too, huh? We'll be much more, of course, like him than we are in this book here. So even those people who perversely, I think, like Kassir there or like Karl Marx or it might be, who want to make self-knowledge be the end, right? But still they seem to be like God in a certain way, huh? Yeah. Was it Feuerbach? Feuerbach? Yeah. Feuerbach, you know, I told you, the soul is right. The human mind is infinite. The infinite is God. He quotes the theologians. They say the infinite is God. The human mind is infinite. Therefore, right? Yeah. And so there's different senses of the word infinite, of course. But it kind of strikes me, you know, you know, that in the first book of Natural Hero, Aristotle, you know, points out that Melisius is mixing up two senses of infinite. Who is who? Melisius. Okay. And Melisius is reasoning that being, I had no, what, was not generated. It had no beginning. Therefore, it has no end. Therefore, it's infinite, right? Aristotle says, well, it's one thing, one meaning of beginning and end would be in time. Another would be in, what, size, right? And he reasons from its having no beginning and no end, apparently, in time. It's neither generated nor corrupted. But therefore, it's what? Infinite. Yeah, yeah. He's obviously going two different senses of infinite, right? But then, you know, you'll find the 19th century for a body going from two different senses of infinite to make the same kind of mistake but with the same word that Melisius is doing in the very, you know, Aristotle speaks of, you know, the very, very crude thinking, you know, and Melisius is part, but that this is the first philosopher, isn't it? And he returned to this crude thinking in the 19th century and beyond, huh? I mean, in a sense, when you say that our minds are infinite, you mean, in a way, in part, that we can always learn something more. You don't mean that there's no limit to what we know. All kinds of limits to what we know. You kind of have a little bit of pride and arrogance, right, to be, to find these arguments satisfactory, you know, to pace your life on, huh? Okay, so we're convinced now that God is good, huh? Now the question is whether he's the sumum bonum, huh? Which I guess would mean the, what, the highest good, right? Sumum means highest, right? Mm-hmm. Used to have an exclusive girls' school there in Summit Avenue in St. Paul, you know, Summit. Yeah, yeah. Very snooty and so on. I guess it means highest, right? But down upon the rest of us with those some. So the second one proceeds thus, it seems that God is not the highest good, huh? It's kind of hard to argue against these propositions, huh? For sumum bonum adds something above good, right? Otherwise, it would belong to every good, right? Mm-hmm. But everything that has something from addition to something is composed. Therefore, the highest good is composed. But God is completely simple, right? as it has been shown above. Therefore, God is not the highest good. You can say the same thing about God is the first cause, huh? Okay? God is not the first cause because first adds something to cause. So the first cause is composed, right? Of cause and first. But cause is altogether simple, therefore. Right? You can have a lot of fun arguing these ways, huh? Further, the good is what all want as the philosopher says. That's Aristotle in the beginning of Diplomachian Ethics where he says this. But there's nothing other that all want except God alone who is the end of all. Therefore, nothing else is good except God. But also seems through what is said in Matthew chapter 19 verse 17 where Christ says no one is good except God alone, huh? Doesn't someone call Christ there seeing his humanity? You know, you're good, right? You say, don't call me good, you know? God alone is good, right? Why do you call me good? But sumum or highest is said in comparison of other things just as the hottest things is summa kalidum in comparison to other hot things, right? So could you be most hot? The hottest thing if there's nothing else that was hot besides you? That wouldn't mean much, but... Because hottest means hotter than all the rest, right? So there's got the other things that are hot that you can be hotter than so you can be the hottest, huh? Okay. It's kind of puzzling that God alone is good, right? Instead of me. We'll see a little bit. Moreover, highest implies a certain comparison, but things which are not of one genus are not able to be compared just as sweetness for example which is in quality, right? Is unsuitably said to be more or less than a line, right? Since therefore God is not in the same genus with other goods as is clear from above not in any genus for that matter, it seems that God cannot be said to be the highest good with respect to them, right? Now who's going to argue against this? But against this is what Augustine says, right? In the first book about the Trinity that the Trinity of the Divine Persons is the sumum bonum, the highest good which is discerned by the most what? Purged minds, huh? Okay? In a sense purgation and purification I guess are almost the same thing, but purgation is more the idea of removing something bad, right? And therefore rendering what is left purified, right? Purified means more to make pure, right? But they're kind of two sides of the same coin, huh? Sometimes in ethics they always speak of the purgation or catharsis of the emotions, huh? Which means moving something bad to them, right? But therefore Rendering the emotions pure or purified. I answer, it should be said that God is the sumum bonum, what? Yeah, now you understand a little bit what somepliciter means, right? Without any qualification, right? So we can call Aristotle the philosopher, the sumum philosophus, right? But you can't call him, you know, the sumum simpliciter. Okay, or Homer or Shakespeare, somebody, is the highest poet. So God is the highest good simply and not only in some genus or order of things. For thus good is attributed to God, it has been said, insofar as all perfections desired, right, flow out from him, right, as some of a first cause, but they do not flow out from him as from a univocal agent. As is clear from the fourth set. Now what do you mean by univocal agent, though? Oh, when a dog produces a dog, right, or a cat produces a cat, or a horse a horse, right, then the, what? Same and kind, yeah, yeah. But God is more what we call the equivocal cause, right? Okay. But as from an agent that does not come together with its effects, neither in the notion of the species, right, nor even in the notion of the, what? Genus. Genus, yeah. Okay. Or is it the ass that is the offspring of what? A horse and a mule? What mule? A mule. A mule's ass, but yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're exactly the same species but the same genus, right? You know, but God, neither in species nor in genus, son, agrees with his effects, son. Now the likeness of the effect in the univocal cause is found uniformly, right, in the same way. But in the equivocal cause, it's found in a more excellent way, right? And taking from the ancient natural science, as heat exists in a more excellent way in the sun than in fire. I suppose even true to some extent of what we think about the fire, right? The sun, right? And Aristotle rejected the idea of Anaxagoras, that the sun is a stone on fire. It would have burned out a long time ago. But you think of how much warmth and energy the sun produces. And they say we're about, what, 93 million miles away from the sun. So if you imagine kind of a sphere, you know, 93 million miles diameter or radius, right? And we're occupying how much of that sphere? Practically nothing, right? It's a huge sphere. And so it's emitting that kind of radiation, you know, and then how all dependent we are upon the sun for the day being warmer and for all kinds of energy that's, you know, built up from the sun over the course of years and so on. It's amazing, right? And so it's not surprising that we'd see that the sun is being warm in a somewhat different way than a stone on fire. So, I guess Heisenberg's pupil there, they say, if I check, it's the one who kind of explained the sun, right? In the 20th century, where the sun can, what's going on up there, they can put forth that way. And it's incredible. It's just unbelievable. Thus, therefore, it's necessary that since good is in God, as in a first cause of all things, but not a univocal cause, right, that it be in Him in the most, what, excellent way, right? And an account of this, He is called the, what, good, yeah. So maybe Thomas argued that roundabout way he did in the first article because of what he's going to argue in the second article and one naturally, what, leads into the other, right? You don't want to confuse you with too many different, what, arguments, right? But give you an argument in the first article, they would have continuity with the argument in the second one, right? So you could follow one as a stepping stone to the other, right? That was nice of him to do that, right? Yeah. You know, I noticed they can assume a kind of gentile, if he shows something in one capitulum, little chapter as they call them, and then he has, you know, the next chapter he's going to show something else, and he may have, you know, seven or eight arguments he's going to show it by, but very often the first argument would directly take off from the previous, the conclusion of the previous chapter, right? So you make a link right away, you know, and then he'll bring in other arguments that are not directly, you know, immediately linked to that conclusion. That's kind of a way of writing that is appropriate, I think, for the learner, right? Not for the teacher himself, but certainly for the learner, right? You see continuity there. Of course, in geometry, you could, well, that's probably all he does, right? You know, he only gives you one argument, maybe for the next theorem, right? And it'll be, maybe the theorem directly before it, the conclusion of the theorem directly before it, will be used as a premise in this argument here. You've heard me call those continuous syllogisms, right? But the conclusion of one syllogism is the premise of the next syllogism, right? Now, the first objection was saying this is something composed, sumum bonum, right? But you're looking upon the word sumum there as adding something, what, real to the good, right? And maybe you are... Just thinking. Just thinking, yeah. It's adding something to reason, right? The first, therefore, it should be said that sumum bonum adds over and above good, not some absolute thing. Now, Thomas used the word absolute. He's always contrasting absolute with what? Relative. Relative, yeah. You know? People, I don't, people mean to speak of absolutely good or absolutely this, absolutely that. But absolute is always taken as kind of the opposite of relative, right? That means you're distinguishing the categories there, right? You're distinguishing quantity and quality from relation, right? And you'll use the word absolute when talking about quantity and quality. So it adds only a relation, huh? But now relation is what? Sometimes only a relation of what? Reason. Reason, yeah. And relation by which something is said of God towards creature is not what? Really in God, but in the creature. But it's in God by what? Reason, huh? And then he gives the example which Aristotle first taught us, huh? Just as shibire, scientifically knowable, you might say, is said relatively to science, not because it really is referred to it, but because science is referred to it, okay? And thus it is necessary, and thus it is not necessary, that in the highest good there be some composition, but only that other things, what? Fall short of it, huh? Okay? So it's not adding a, what? Anything but a relation and a relation of reason, right? The same when you say, I suppose God is the first cause, right? First is what? Said towards creatures, right? But there's no reorientation of God towards creatures, huh? Isn't that holy different? He's not in the order of creatures at all. But we're really related to him. And our mind can't understand one thing being re-related to another without understanding that thing relative to it, right? But that other one is, can be just a relation of reason sometimes, huh? All kinds of relations of reason that Thomas, as soon as they pretend, he gives the most complete distinction of them, huh? It's a very difficult thing, huh? To distinguish between real relations and relations of reason, huh? Because finally, when we talk about God as even a cause, when we talk about the causality of God, finally is not something more real when you look at it from our point of view. But nevertheless, when we talk about it as God, there is something of reason. But we really depend upon him, right? Yeah, that's why it's real from our point of view. So it's truly said to him that he's our cause, right? But still, that relative towards us is not a what? It's not a few. Yeah, real, something really added to God, because then God would be composed. Then we'd have an accident, right? Okay? Okay. It's very hard for us to understand when you first hear that, you know. But as Aristotle first discovered, there were these relations that are only a reason, huh? And, you know, when you say Socrates is Socrates, Socrates is the same as Socrates, that's the relation of reason. Because there's only two Socrates in the mind, right? Twice. Or Thomas will take, you know, the idea that left and right is something real in us, right? But if I say, you know, the left pillar and the right pillar, that's not really in the pillar, so there's nothing more about this is left and that's right. But it's said in reference to us, right? Okay. But I used to say, you know, that I'm taller than Tabitha, our cat, huh? Much bigger than Tabitha, right? I'm convinced that's a real relation between Tabitha and me. And if I was the Tabitha, like a toy soldier would be in size to Tabitha, right? Tabitha would be, what? I'd be the hunter. Instead of the hunter, right? I'd be in real trouble with that, Tabitha. If I was that size, you know? I was, I got a little bit of respect because of my science from her, huh? That's it. So, I was really bigger than her, right? That's very important for my survival. Survival. Not my egg, but my survival. There's this movie, you know, the incredible shrinking man, the guy who took the wrong thing, he's so small, he's always eaten by the family of cats, you know? It's a horrible thing to, yeah. So, some of the nations are real. When we learn theology, that's what the teacher that we had mentioned, he just mentioned in passing, that this, what you're talking about in God is not a real relation as cause. He referred to it, when we speak of either way of that relationship, he said it's a non-mutual relationship with me, because it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, it's a real relation on our part, but not the same. We have a non-mutual relationship with God. You're kidding. Okay, now, the second part is explaining a little bit, first of all, what we mean by the good is what all desire, right? The second, therefore, it should be said, that when it is said that the good is what all desire, it should not be understood as if each good is what? Desired by all, right? Okay. But that whatever is desired has the aspect of being good, huh? But when it is said that no one is good except God alone, right, this is understood about what is good through its, what, essence. As will be said later, that's the subsequent article, right? Okay. So that's the way he's understanding what our Lord means, huh? Okay. He's not denying that we partake of good in some way if we're not good through essence, huh? That's the way God is. Now, to the third, which is the argument about comparison, to the third, it should be said that those things which are not in the same genus, if they are, what, contained in other genera, right, in no way are comparable, right? You can't compare things that are in different genera. But God is denied to be in some genus with other goods, not that he himself is in some other genus, but because he is altogether outside the genus, right? And it is as the beginning of every genus, huh? And thus, being the principium or the cause of all the genera, he's compared to all of them by, what, excess in the way that an equivocal cause, you know, exceeds its effects, huh? And highest good or greatest good implies this kind of a, what, comparison, right, huh? Okay? So it's not like he's more wise than us in, what, the same line of wisdom, or he knows more theorems of geometry than I know or something. No, but his knowledge is of an entirely different kind, not in, doesn't have the confined, generic nature of my geometry, huh? Okay? Now, the third article, whether to be good, essentially, or by essence, or nature, is, what, private to God, right? Okay? So there's no problem how to translate propium, you know, but it has a lot of times, the sense of being, what, unique to, right? Private to, huh? Okay? Sometimes you speak of the bonum commune and the bonum propium, you know? Should that be translated the common good and the proper good, or the common good and the private good? I think it's the way it should be translated, right? Okay? Now, sometimes it seems almost you should translate propium proper, but I think it's, very often, it should be translated private. And those people tend to kind of transliterate it into English to make it proper, but then they would make the other one, maybe, improper, right? Yeah. My common good is my improper good. God is my improper good, or the church is my, you know, that's exactly what you mean, huh? So, for just as one is, okay, it seems that to be good through essence or through its nature is not a property of God, right? It's not private to God. For just as one is convertible with being, so also good, as has been said above, huh? These are among the, what, most universals, huh? Right now it's giving you that, what, idea that if you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything. You know what I argued? If you don't, you can't understand the less universal unless you understand the more universal. So you can't understand what an odd number is if you don't understand what a number is. But you can understand what a number is without knowing what an odd number is. Of course, something can be, what, more universal than one thing, but less universal than something else. And so, what is most universal, right? Then, if you can't understand the less universal, the more universal. If you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything. Of course, first philosophy is about the most universal, so if you don't know first philosophy, you don't know anything. Okay? And, some truth to that, right? But likewise, if there's nothing most universal, you wouldn't understand anything. Because if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal, there'd be an infinity of, what, things to understand before you understand anything. So, anyway, we're back to some of these most universal things, like being and one, which is convertible with being, right? And good. Now, sometimes you find people are referring to those as transcendentals, right? But transcendental means transcends. What does it transcend? It transcends the ten-gen, right? You know? Okay. But every being is one through its own, what? Essence, huh? As is clear through the philosopher in the fourth book of wisdom in the metaphysics. Therefore, every being is good through its essence, huh? That's kind of interesting, what comes up in this objection, because you see how one is closer to a being, right? Than what maybe good is, huh? And, of course, Aristotle says the subject of wisdom or first philosophy is being and one. And then good and true are more like properties, you know? But there's a reason to take, you know, one as being closer to that. But every being is good through its... Okay, therefore, every being is good through its essence, right? Just as it's one through its essence, huh? Okay? Moreover, if the good is what all want, what all desire, since to be itself is desired by all, the to be itself of each thing, or its being, is its good, right? But each thing is being through its, what? Essence. Therefore, each thing is good through its essence. That's pretty convincing, right? There's a lot of times you read these objections, you say, if I only had the objections, or someone had given me, you know, I might have gone along with this. And they said that Voltaire, you know, went through and grabbed the objections, you know, and used them on his Catholics he ran into, you know, because they were, if you could handle these objections. So... So... So... So... So... So... I read somewhere, you know, somebody praising some of the early fathers, you know, for holding on to the faith despite certain objections that they couldn't answer. Most people couldn't answer these objections, right? And even if you're a student, you know, sometimes some of these objections kind of shake up for a while anyway. Sometimes for a long time. Moreover, everything through its own goodness is good. But if, therefore, there be something that is not good to its own essence, it would be necessary that its goodness not be its what? Essence, right? Therefore, that goodness, since it is a certain being, it would be necessary that it be good, right? And if it were good by another goodness, then we'll ask also about that goodness. Either, therefore, we must proceed forever, or we don't have to come to some goodness which is not good to another goodness. Therefore, we're not there. The same reason, therefore, we're not to stand in the very first and say it's good by its what? Essence, yeah. Therefore, each thing, therefore, is good through its own what? Essence, huh? We touched upon something like that earlier, didn't we, about, you know, things are said to be, what? Does my existence exist? Then I have to have an existence for my existence, right? Then you'd ask, did that existence of my existence exist? I have to have an existence for the existence of, you know? So, you get into a certain problem, right? Okay? But if you say that my existence exists through itself, then why can't I exist through myself, right? My existence exists through itself. But my existence doesn't exist in the way I do. I'm the existing thing. And my existence exists because it's that by which I exist, not because it's the thing that exists. So, there's a distinction, right, between the way it exists and I exist, right? Okay? That's kind of a subtle thing, right? That kind of mix-up, you know, may be going on in this objection, but we'll see. But against this is what Bwethius says in the book De Hebdo Maribus, which Thomas has a little commentary on. That all other things from God are good by what? Particiation. Yeah, which means by partaking, right? By having a part. Not therefore through their what? Essence, huh? Okay? Now, I answer it should be said that God alone is good through his what? Essence, through his nature, through his substance. Now, he's going to explain. For each thing is said to be good according as is perfect. That's what you should have used that first. How you go, right? You know, I'm doing the most directly doing it, right? In terms of what had gone before, right? You know, in the question about God being perfect, right? And this would be the next step, right? But Thomas seemed to be looking after rather than before. What could he do afterwards, huh? Rather than before. But the perfection of each thing is threefold, huh? First, according as it is constituted in its very what? Being or existence. Secondly, insofar as there are added in addition to it some accidents, right? Necessary for its what? Perfect operation, right? Okay? So I had to add to myself geometry and justice and many accidents, right? To make myself more perfect than I was when I came out of my mother's womb, right? Okay? The third perfection of something is through this that it attains something else as its end, right? And now here's a concrete example here from the old science. As the first perfection of fire consists in its what? To be, huh? In its being. Existence. Which it has through its own what? Substantial form. The second consists in these accidents, right? In its hotness, its lightness, right? Its dryness, huh? And others of this sort. Third, insofar as it reaches its own place, right? As it rests in its own place, huh? Now, he says, this threefold perfection belongs to nothing created by its very essence, but to God alone, because only in God is its essence, its own what? Existence, right? Okay? And to him that does not belong any accidents, as we saw in the question on simplicity of God, right? So whatever perfection we have, these additional accidents, like to be wise or just, God has to be as what? Substance, right? Okay? So our class is, the divine nature has judgment, you know, the human nature has no judgment. You've got to have all these things added to you before you can judge whether, you know, the square and the hypotenuse is equal to the square is contained at the right angle, right? I've got to have this geometry added to me before I can judge such things, you know? I don't have judgment of all these things because I'm a man, right? Okay, to whom do not, to whom, meaning God, do not belong any accidents, but what are said of other things, accidentally, belong to him, what? Essentially, as to be, what, powerful, wise, and things of this sort, huh? Okay? Also, he himself is or to nothing other, right? As to an end, huh? But rather, he is the last end of all things, huh? Whence it is manifest that God alone has every sort of perfection according to his essence, right? Because his essence is his existence, huh? And it has all the perfection we have through accidents in his essence, right? Mm-hmm. And his essence is the end of all things, right? And therefore, he alone is good through his, what? Essence. Essence of nature. That's pretty definitive, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah? I'm convinced. Now, to the first, it should be said, but the first objection says that one is convertible with being, and good is also convertible with being, right? But every being is one through its essence, as is clear through the philosopher and the fourth point of the physics. Therefore, every being is good through its essence, right? Okay? Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that one does not imply the notion of, what, perfection, right? But of indivision only, huh? Okay? Now, when you get to the article on the question on the unity of God, that God is one, Thomas will explain what one means, the transcendental means. But it means undivided being, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Now, sometimes Thomas will add to that, and Albert will, too, undivided being, but distinct from all other things, too. Mm-hmm. Okay? But the fundamental idea is undivided being, right? Okay? So that doesn't have the idea of perfection in it, huh? Yeah. But the idea of indivision only, which belongs to each thing according to its essence. Okay? For the essences or natures of simple things are undivided both in act and in ability. You can't divide a point. It's not actually divided, nor is it divisible, right? It has no parts. But if composed things, the essence of composed things are undivided according to act only, but they are divisible in potency, right? And therefore, it's necessary that each thing be one through its very nature, but not however good, because good is the idea of being, what? Perfect. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, going back to your fifth book of wisdom, Thomas divides the words there that Aristotle explains into three words that pertain to cause, right? And then you have beginning, cause, element, nature, and then necessary, which is a condition of comparison of cause to effect, big cause. And then the name's the subject, right? And under the name's the subject, he takes up what? One in being and substance, and the parts of one, the parts of being, right? And then the third one are like the properties of being. And then he takes up the word perfect, where it whole, part, and so on, right? So those transcendentals that seem to name perfect, right, are more like properties in this science, right? But one is put with being as a subject, right? And you can see a little bit, Aristotle gives some reasons why one is the same thing as being there in the beginning of Book 4, right? But you can kind of see it here a little bit, right? Perfect is not as close, right? Because to my very nature, I'm one, right? I'm divided. But to my very nature, am I good? Let's see. I don't have being to my nature, and I don't have that perfection I have through all these accidents added to me, right? I'm a very complicated person. And I certainly don't have my inner purpose to my nature, right? Okay. So it's a little more remote, huh? Now, the second objection is saying that if the good is what all desire, since to be itself is desired by all, the to be itself of each thing is its good, but each thing is being through its essence, right? Now, Thomas says, the second should be said that though each thing is good insofar as it has to be or insofar as it has existence, nevertheless, the essence or nature of a created thing is not as very, what? Existence, right? And therefore, it does not follow that a created thing is good through its own essence. Otherwise, it would be the cause of its own existence. So what does not exist would be the cause of what exists in making sense. Okay? So in a way, the nature of a thing, just like form, is the beginning of existence, but it's not really a cause, it's a sense of existence, huh? Third objection. There's one about what? Well, if I'm not good by my, what? To my nature, right? Then I'm good through some goodness added to me, right? Now, how is that goodness good? Is that good through some goodness added to it? And this will go on forever, right? Now, to the theory, it should be said that the goodness of the created thing is not its very nature itself, right? But something added above that. Either its very existence is added to its nature, right? Or some perfection, accidental perfection, you could add there, right? Added above. Or the order to the end, huh? But the goodness thus added above is not said to be good, just as it's said to be a being. But for this reason it's said to be a being, because by it is something, right? Not because it itself by something other is. Okay? When for this reason it is said to be what? Good, right? Because by it, something is good, right? Not because it has some other goodness by which it is good. So it's not good in the sense of what? What is good, but in the sense of being that good, something else? Something else good. Good, yeah. Okay? That's interesting. That's a little thing to chew on. I'm going to take a little break here, maybe, before going to the fourth article. What the... What the... What the... What the... What the... What the... What the... What the...