Prima Pars
Lecture 35: God's Immutability and the Nature of Motion

Transcript
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To the fifth it should be said that if there were one animal alone, its soul would be everywhere first but what? Pratchagans, huh? There were kind of supposing that there's only this one animal, right? So if the dog, this one dog, is the only thing it was, the soul of this one dog would be everywhere. But it happens, right, that this one dog is the only thing there is, right? But God does it by happening everywhere. Because that without which other things cannot be is not by happening everywhere where it's giving existence. And the sixth one is about the eyes looking around the universe and so on. To the sixth it should be said that when it is said that the soul sees somewhere, this can be understood in two ways. In one way, according as this adverb somewhere determines the act of seeing on the side of the object. And thus it is true that when it sees the heavens, it sees in the heavens. And the same reason it senses in the heavens. But it does not follow that it lives in the heavens or that it is in the heavens, right? Because to live and to be do not imply an act going over to an exterior object. In another way it can be understood according as the adverb determines the act of seeing, according as it goes forth in one's seeing. And thus it is true that the soul, where it senses and sees, there it is and lives, according to this way of speaking. And thus it does not follow that it is everywhere. Kind of a strange objection, huh? Now we're up to the immutability of God, huh? Now this is going to be the, what? Fourth attribute of God, right? We know so far that he is altogether simple, right? We know that he is perfect, right? And therefore good. And third, we know he is what? Infinite. That is the main thing, he is infinite, right? And consequently everywhere, right? So just as good was attached to the consideration of divine perfection, right? So God being everywhere was attached to the consideration of his infinity, right? And likewise we'll see that the consideration of the divine eternity, right? Follows upon his being what? Changeable. Yeah, yeah. Just as time follows upon something being changeable. Okay? So sometimes at the end of the philosophy of nature, of course, when I take up motion and time a bit, then I'll make kind of a side to God's being unchangeable and God being eternal, right? Because they involve the negation of motion and time. So, consequently we're not to consider about the immutability, the unchangeableness, and the divine eternity, which what follows the unchangeableness of it. Now concerning the unchangeableness of God, two things are sought. First, whether God is altogether what? Unchangeable. Secondly, whether to be unchangeable is what? Private to God, right, huh? God alone, huh? Is unchangeable, huh? And what do you do with someone who's unchangeable? Hmm. Now Julius Caesar there in the play, huh? He compares himself to the North Star, you know, and everything else evolves around. He doesn't move at all, right? Hmm. Hmm. Everything evolves around him. Marvelous the way Shakespeare represents it. Hmm. To the first one proceeds thus, it seems that God is not altogether unchangeable. For whatever moves itself is in some way changeable. But as Augustine says in the eighth book on Genesis to the letter, I guess St. Jerome was, what, complaining about is not sticking to the text close enough, huh? So, it's on Genesis adlerum, I mean, to the letter, to the word. The Creator Spiritus moves, right, itself, neither through, what, time nor through place. Therefore, God is in some way mutable. The Holy Spirit is said to, what, move himself, right? Okay. Moreover, in the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 7, it is said about wisdom that it's more mobile than all mobile things. But God is what? Wisdom. Itself, huh? Therefore, God is mobile. Reminds me of that fragment of Heraclitus, right? We speak to this wisdom moving, you know, through all things, huh? Moreover, to approach or to get further away signify motion. But these things are said about God in Scripture. Approach God and he will, what, approach you, right? You go to God and he'll come to you. Therefore, God is changeable, huh? But against this is what is said in the prophet Malachia, huh? Chapter 3, verse 6. I am God and I do not, what, change, huh? The other text is in, what, is it James, the Epistle of James? One of the epistles there, the canonical epistles. Yeah, not the shadow of change, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mentioned it here. Yeah, let me just quote it later on. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, no, that was from the drawing here. Okay. I answer it should be said that from the four-cent, it can be shown that God is altogether unchangeable. First, because above it has been shown that there is some first being, right? Which we call God. And that this first being is what? Pure act, right? Without any admixture of any potency or ability. In that potency is simply after act, huh? That's what Aristotle shows in the ninth book of what? Wisdom, huh? In the book of the metaphysics, huh? That potency simply is after act. But everything that in any way changes is in some way in ability or in potency. From which it is clear that it is impossible for God in some way to what? Change, huh? Okay. Is that clear enough? Hmm? God is pure act, right? Mm-hmm. What changes is able to be something other than it is, right? So there's no ability in God and his passive sense, right? Mm-hmm. Therefore, he can't change, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Or the idea that what? You know, the definition of motion, if you recall, is the act of what is able to be, right? Mm-hmm. Insofar as it's able to be. So what is moved or changed is in ability, right? God is not in ability, but he's pure act, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? So this idea that God is pure act is a middle term for almost all these attributes, if not all of them. Secondly, because everything that moves, as regards something remains, as regards something that, what, passes away, right? Right? Just as what is moved from whiteness to blackness remains in its substance. And thus, in everything that is moved, there is to be noted some composition. But it has been shown above that in God there is no, what? Composition is altogether simple. Whence is manifest that God is not able to be moved, huh? If you go back to the philosophy of nature, we see that very clearly, that the thing that changes must be composed, huh? Remember how the thing went there in the philosophy of nature? See the nature? No? We see the hard becomes soft, right? And there's an apparent contradiction there, right? Because if the hard becomes soft, and becomes means comes to be. Well, if the hard comes to be soft, then the hard would be soft. And then the same thing would be hard and not hard, soft and not hard. So, how is it possible if the hard becomes soft? Yeah. It's not the hard as such it becomes soft. It's not hardness as such it becomes soft. It's what the hardness is in, like the butter, right? That becomes soft. So the butter as such becomes soft, not the hard as such becoming soft. So there must be a real distinction between the butter and its hardness before the butter can become soft. If the butter and its hardness were the same thing, then could the butter ever be soft? No. So you begin to see that the thing that changes must be, what? Composed, right? And so when I teach that, you know, in philosophy of nature, I'll say, now we can use this premise, but the premise in theology that God is not composed, right? And so we syllogize in the second figure of the syllogism, where you affirm something of one thing and deny it of another, right? So if what changes is composed, as we were showing there, and God is not composed, then God cannot change. Sometimes I was pushing it this year a little bit, the idea of becoming, and I say, if something becomes something, right, there must be something in what becomes something that's able to become that, right? But there must also be something that distinguishes it, right? From what comes to be, right? So if this becomes that, whatever this is, if this becomes that, there must be something in this that's able to be that, right? Okay? Okay. So this becomes that, right? There must be something in this that can be that, right? But there must also be something in this whereby this is not that. So if this really becomes that, there will be coming, then this is not that to begin with, right? But there must be something also in this that becomes that, right? So there must be some composition in the this that becomes that. Composition of what is able to be that, and what distinguishes it from that, right? There's another way of looking at it. I mean, it's just the same idea, right? So what changes is always composed. God is not composed. Therefore, God does not, what, change, right? That's a very common way of reasoning, huh? When Socrates reasons against Simeas there in the dialogue, huh? When he reasons that the soul is not the harmony of the body, he finds three things instead of the soul that are denied of the harmony of the body. Like the soul resists the body's inclination sometimes, right? But the harmony of the body would not possess the inclinations. So the soul can't be the harmony, right? That's a very common thing, huh? If you affirm something of one thing and deny it of another, can those two be the same? If you affirm woman, let's say, of mother, and deny a woman of Socrates, can Socrates be a mother? No, no. That's what they call the second figure of the soldiers, huh? So what's the third argument here, huh? Third, because everything that moves by its motion acquires something, right? And comes to that to which before it had not attained, right? But God, since he is infinite, comprehending in himself all the, what? Fullness or the perfection of the whole being, he's not able to acquire something, right? In order to extend himself to something to which before he had not arrived, huh? Whence in no way does motion belong to him, right? I'll stop there for a moment. You say, at Christmas time, what do you give the guy who has everything? Well, if he really did have everything, there'd be nothing you could give him, right? Yeah. So God contains everything in a simple way, right? Like he says to Abraham or Moses, I will show you every good, right? And Thomas says, that is myself. So, because God is infinite, he can't, what? Change, right? Now that kind of gives a little reason for taking up the infinity of God before his, what? Unchangeableness, right? Because you reason from his being infinite now to his being, what? Yeah. And also taking up his simplicity, right? He reasoned from his simplicity to his not being changeable, right? And then more generally from his being pure act, huh? So you get three arguments, and three is enough, as Aristotle says, right? He comes to do that a lot of times in the disputed questions, too. You'll get three arguments, and then he'll stop, you know? And the Summa Conjentisi doesn't stop at three. Sometimes he has ten, twelve, thirteen. That's why the Summa is more for beginners, right? You don't need that many, you know, three arguments is enough for the beginner, right? In the first objection there, this is kind of a common thing he said about Plato, right? Plato will say that he'll call any operation a motion, right? You may recall the Night Book of Wisdom, where Aristotle begins to consider act and ability. And he begins less universally, right? He begins with act and abilities are found in motion, right? And he sees act as first of all being the same thing as what? Motion, huh? That's the way it begins, huh? And I often quote Shakespeare there where he says, Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh? So motion is the act that seems to be most known to us, huh? Now, later on, in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, in the middle part and so on, he makes a, what, extension of the word act, so that form is called act too, right? Okay. Now, the way he sees it is by a kind of proportion, right? And along with motion, he'll take other activity, right? And notice, if we use the word act in English, by itself, we're going to think of something more like motion than something like form, right? And these words that derive from act, like activity, actions, right? You never call form an activity, would you? You never call it an action, right, huh? Okay? But this word act is carried over from motion to form. And you say, well, just as the body is able to move before it actually moves, right? So the matter is able to be formed before it's actually formed, right? And so the form is to matter, something like motion is to the ability to move, right? Okay? And you can apply it to things like seeing, right, huh? Okay? So, I don't see people now, but I'm not blind. I have the ability to see, right? And now I'm opening my eyes, I go from the ability to see to actually seeing, right? And something like that takes place when you have the wood there before it's been shaped by the carpenter, and then the wood goes from being this shapeless object to being a chair or a table or something else, and the ability is to naturalize, right? So form is act two, right, huh? Okay? But now Aristotle will eventually distinguish between motion, and what we don't really have a good name for in English, Thomas will call motion and what? Operation, right? And of course, there's various ways of distinguishing them. But you begin by seeing that motion is an imperfect act, huh? And operation is a perfect act, huh? And Aristotle brings it out kind of simply by saying, when you're walking home, have you walked home yet? See? When you're building a house, have you built the house yet? See? But when I'm seeing you, have I seen you yet? Yeah. See? And when I'm understanding what a triangle is, have you understood what a triangle is yet? Yeah. So when I'm understanding what a triangle is, I have understood what a triangle is. So he calls that a perfect act, right? My motion is something imperfect. So long as I'm walking home, I haven't walked home yet. It's incomplete, isn't it? And when the activity is complete, and you can say, I have walked home, right? I'm not walking home anymore. Okay? And when you can say, I have built the house, I'm not building the house. So long as I'm building the house, or walking home, my walking home is not complete, my building is not complete. And when it is complete, that activity doesn't exist anymore. So it's essentially an imperfect act. But seeing, and understanding, and loving, and so on, these are perfect acts. So when I love somebody, I have loved them now, right? See? When I understand something, I've understood it. When I see something, I have seen it, huh? So, we'll distinguish between these two, right, huh? Okay? But, you know, we might say in English, huh? Words are not altogether clear here, but you might say, When I'm walking home, am I doing something? Yeah. And when I'm seeing something, or understanding something, am I doing something? Am I doing anything when I'm understanding? Yeah. You might call me up and say, What are you doing, Berkowitz? And I say, Well, I'm listening to Mozart, right? Or I'm looking at a painting, or something, right? Or I'm understanding something. Am I doing something? What would you say? They keep on asking, What are you going to do when you retire? And sometimes I'll say, You know, I'm going to think about God or something, you know? You know? So, am I doing something when I'm thinking about God? Yes. Yeah. But, you see, so, but you have no hesitation there, right? Because doing, you think of emotion first. But you might say that understanding what you're trying to do is, is you're doing something, right? But you need a little bit of hesitation there, right? Well, sometimes Plato likes to call what we call creation there, emotion, right? Okay? So, if God understands himself, right? He is said to be moving himself, right? And if God is loving himself, right? He's moving himself. He's moving himself, calling any kind of doing or operation a, what? A motion, right? And occasionally, even in the third book on the soul there, Aristotle will call understanding that kind of, what? Motion, right, huh? Okay? But then you're kind of extending the word motion to this perfect operation. It's a perfect doing, huh? Okay? So, this first objection is taken from, what? Augustine, right, in his commentary on Genesis to the letter, and Augustine, right, likes to speak in the botanic fashion sometimes, huh? Okay? So, the first therefore should be said that Augustine speaks there according to the way in which Plato spoke, right? Saying that the first mover, the unmoved mover, moves itself, right? Calling every operation or every doing, what? Motion, right? According as even, what? To understand itself and to will and to love are said to be certain, what? Motions, right? But then using the word motion to cover a perfect act and not just the imperfect act of motion, okay? Now, Aristotle doesn't usually do that, but occasionally he does, right? But it's very common for Plato, right? Because therefore God understands and loves himself, according to this they say that God, what? Moves himself, right? But not, however, as motion and change is something existing in ability, as we are now speaking more strictly about, what, change and motion, huh? So you could say Plato is using the word motion more loosely than Aristotle will usually do, right? He's using the word motion to cover any doing, right? Even the doing that is complete or perfect, huh? Like understanding or sensing, for that matter, and willing, right? And so, in that sense, you can say God does something, right? But if you want to call his doing something in motion, right, you've got to be careful, right? That's kind of a tonic way of speaking, huh? That can be misunderstood, huh? Okay, and now, wisdom is said to be the most mobile thing, huh? But wisdom is said to be mobile, but kind of like this. According as it diffuses its likeness to the, what? Last of things, right? To the least of things. For nothing is able to be that does not go forward from the divine wisdom by certain, what? Imitation of it, huh? Just as from the first effective and formal beginning of things. Insofar as also artificial things go forward from the wisdom of the, what? Artist, right? Thus, therefore, insofar as the likeness of the divine wisdom, step by step, goes forward from the highest things, which partake more of his likeness, down to the lowest things, which partake less, there is said to be a certain, what? Going forward in a certain motion of divine wisdom in things. Just as if we were said that the sun proceeds as far as the earth, insofar as the ray of its light extends or reaches down to the earth, right? And in this way, Danyus expounds in the first chapter of the celestial harpy, saying that every going forward of the divine manifestation comes to us from the Father, right? From the Father of lights, from his, what? The mood, right, huh? Okay. Now, I feel like we speak to a wave spreading out, huh? If you drop a rock in the water, does a wave move across the whole lake or the whole surface of the water? No, but kind of a similitude of that, right, huh? I like this of that, huh? Okay. So we speak of the dissension of what? The perfection of God to creatures, right? And the higher creatures partake more in the lower and finally gets out down there. Get down to prime matter, right? There's no actuality down there, huh? So, is the divine wisdom itself moving down? No, but it's kind of like the effect of it is moving down, right? It's in likeness there. Now, God approaching us. To third, it should be said that these things of this sort are said of God in scriptures metaphorically. Just as the sun is said to enter our house or to go out of the house, insofar as its ray arrives at the house. And thus, God is said to approach us or to, what, go away from us insofar as we perceive the influence of his goodness or we, what, fall away from it, huh? Okay. What do they say in the beginning sometimes in the office? The Lord may please to help me get here quickly. But, you know, this is kind of a metaphorical way of saying, right? To help us right away, right? And then he said to be coming, huh? What's this prayer we have? Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of life, faithful. Part of that, love. Does the Holy Spirit come to us? See? Is there a motion of his coming to us, right? Or do they speak of the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? He's sent to us, right? But does he come to us or what? Are we beginning to experience the effect of his causality, you know? And that's the, he's coming to us, right? Now a lot of students have a hard time, you know, people in general, you know, think God must be awfully bored if he can't change. And he's all thinking fine, you know, like he's tied up or something. And that's probably, I suppose, why the metaphors are good in a sense, right? Because, you know, and what's good to see, you know, God is in some sense everywhere too, right? That he needs nothing, right? I was saying scripture there will be in the temple there and we won't go out anymore. Oh, no! Captain, what do you call it? Captain Peter. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to understand, right? And, you know, people can't even understand, you know, how we won't eat in the mixed world, right? It's kind of strange, huh? It won't sleep, I guess, either, huh? You need to eat or sleep, huh? And, of course, who was at origin, right? We thought that sometime, you know, we'd get tired of vision, right? And then we'd want to put on the reincarnator or something. And it's hard for us to understand the unchangeable, right? In motion, motion seems more real than what is not moving, right? And yet, you know, you understand what motion really is. It's hardly there at all. Well, if I walk out the door here, my motion is, what, mostly gone and to come. And how much motion is there ever actually here? Well, in the now, I can't be in two places, right? Is any motion in the now? There's no motion in the now. So, my motion, in one sense, is hardly even present, huh? Very, very, very, very, very fugitive kind of existence, huh? Just very strange. Very strange. And the more I think about it, the more unreal the motion seems to be. And yet, to us, it seems to be the most real thing. Aristotle says we'll say anything about the now existence except that it moves because then it would seem real to us, right? Whatever moves is real, but it's barely real. And God seems kind of unreal because then, you know, what is he doing all day long? Just thinking about himself. Doesn't he get to? It says, you know, you want to try to introduce, you know, some reaction in God to what we do or don't do. And, you know, Scripture will speak, you know, metaphorically of God getting angry and so on. Does he react to our being good or our being bad down here? That doesn't, huh? What? But in the vision there, you're partaking, this is called eternal life, right? Because you're partaking of eternity there, huh? There's no before and after in that vision. It could be very, very unique, huh? You wonder whether you will recognize your friends up there. I'm sure you will, right? But it's going to be a very different life. Very different. So I've got a couple of the tonic things here. I'm the last dregs for my kids. I'm the last dregs for my kids. I'm the last dregs for my kids. I'm the last dregs for my kids. I'm the last dregs for my kids. Okay, we'll start now. I'll be repeating, so I'm not putting myself in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment, our angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illuminate images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand what you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thinking about the angels for a second there. I was looking at the passage, I don't know where it was in Thomas, but it's in chapter 17 of the Substances Separatis. And this may be, you know, Mondanet, it's late when Thomas, 1272, 1273, towards the end of his life. And it's, you know, addressed to Brother Reginald too, you know, but it's about the angels and so on, the separated substances. And chapter 17 is kind of the break between the first part of the work, where he's going through the philosophers, think about the separated substances and so on, what they thought out. And then the second part, what the Christians, you know, bring out. That's kind of an interesting chapter for Thomas and his authorities there, right? Because in the 17th chapter there, he says, we've gone through what Plato and Aristotle has said, right? And he calls them the Prekipui Silosophie, the chief philosophers, that's what it means, huh? So, it's just like Albert de Grey, his master has said, you know, to be a proficient philosopher, you have to know Plato and Aristotle, that's it. And he says, we've gone through what Plato and Aristotle brought out about the origin and the nature of them and so on, their distinctions and so on. And what others, different from them, have erred, you know? And then he's going to begin the Christian work. And then he says he's going to follow Dionysius, who most excellently has spoken of the separate substances. And because I've seen this, you know, in reading Thomas, that really, as far as the nature of the angels is concerned and so on, Dionysius, he follows more than Augustine. Augustine is a little bit ambiguous about it. And Augustine is certainly the guy he follows on the Trinity, right? On grace and things of that sort, right? He's the main thinker before him. But about the nature of the angels, it's Dionysius. It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that little chapter? You see, you see the respect for Plato and Aristotle and philosophy and then Dionysius in particular for the separate substances or the angels as we call them. Let's look again at Article 1 here. To the first thus one proceeds, it seems that God is not altogether unchangeable. For whatever moves itself is in some way changeable. But as Augustine says in the eighth book on Genesis to the letter, the creator spirit moves itself neither through what? Time nor through place. Therefore, God is in some way movable. Moreover, in the book of Wisdom, chapter 7, verse 24, it's said about wisdom that's more mobile than all movable things. That's the way Heraclitus speaks of it, it's darting through the whole universe, right? But God is wisdom itself. Therefore, God is movable, I guess would be the English. Moreover, to approach and to depart from or to get further away from signify motion. But these things are said of God in Scripture, as in James, chapter 4, verse 8. Approach God, and he will approach you. Therefore, God is changeable. But against this is what is said in the prophet Malachi, chapter 3, verse 6. I am God, and I do not change. That's pretty definitive. And then we said, it's in one of the canonical epistles, is it? Is it James? I forget who it is. It's James, I think it is. He's got the shadow of change in God, huh? And some of you want to make him change, make him more human or something. I don't know what the attitude is. But I don't realize that he's... We got the false idea that he's in time, he's frozen in time someplace, and he can't do anything about it. And this is a, you know, God's all eternal now. God, and it's so actual that it's hard for us to understand how actual it is. I answer it should be said, or it should be said that from the things that have been sent before, we can show God to be altogether unchangeable, huh? First, because above it was shown that there was a first being, right? Which we call, what? God, huh? That's a reference back to the, what, question 2, article 3, right? Who's the sense of God, huh? But, uh, notice he uses the term first being there rather than first cause, huh? But it's appropriate when you talk about this in terms of act and ability, because that's one of the two, uh, divisions of being as such, huh? And so you say that, that act is simply before ability, right? And time and so on. Um, then it makes sense to call, uh, the, uh, pure act, the first being, uh, rather than the first cause. But it shows how closely related those two things are. Um, so, um, this first being is pure act without the mixture of any potency, huh? Um, and he's taking potency there in the passive sense, huh? Okay? The ability to be actualized, huh? In that ability is simply after act, huh? So in the secundum quid, we'd say, huh? Uh, before act, huh? Um, the thing that goes from ability to act, but since it goes from ability to act because it's something already in act, simply act is first, huh? So that's what we're saying in the ninth book of wisdom, the metaphysics, that, um, those who think of matter as the beginning of all things are making the mistake of mixing up what is so, in some imperfect way, right? In a qualified way, with what is so simply. Which is the second kind of, what, mistake outside of speech, yeah, yeah. And surprisingly often that kind of mistake comes up again and again. But everything that is in any way changed is in some way in, what, ability. It's able to be something other than it is, right? And when you change, you become other than you are. And you can't change unless you're able to be something other than you are. So everything that changes has some kind of passive ability. But there's none of that in God who is pure act, huh? Pure act, as Thomas said in some other passages today. From which it is clear that it is impossible for God in any way to be, what, changed, huh? Okay. So that's the argument, basically, from pure act, huh? Now the second, because everything that is moved, as you guard something, remains, and as you guard something, passes away. Just as what is moved from whiteness to blackness remains according to its substance, huh? This is something about the first book of natural hearing. We did some of that, didn't we? I think in this room or this building we like. Sometimes I say, if this becomes that, this must be composed, huh? Because there must be something in this that is able to be that, or this has never become that. But there must also be something in this where it differs from that. And so it's got to be those two things, huh? The underlying subject, the substance, say, that remains in the opposite or the contrary that is lost. And thus, he says, in everything that is moved, there is to be noted some, what, composition. So I always found that this particular text, and the order of the Summa Theologiae, being a nice thing to bring in, you know, as a footnote, a theological footnote, into doing that first book of the physics. Because you can say, now we've learned here that what changes is composed. So in theology, after you learn that God is not composed, you can syllogize that it doesn't change. And of course, in the Summa Theologiae, we show that God is simple before we show he's unchangeable. Although the order is the reverse in the Summa Canta Gentiles. It's always referred to this, huh? So, thus, in everything that moves, there is noted some composition. But it's been shown above that in God there is no, what, composition. But he's also... altogether simple. Whence is manifest that God is not able to be, what, moved, huh? And Socrates, you know, talked about that in the Theod, that the simple is unchangeable, right? And that the composed is changeable, right? Then he's not exactly sure how to show that the soul is simple, so he goes to another argument, right? But they kind of see that, right? It's a very common talk there in the Great Place to the Philosophers. Now, the third argument, because everything that is moved acquires by its motion something, and it arrives at that to which, what, before it had not attained, huh? But God, since he's infinite, comprehending in himself all the fullness of perfection of the whole being, is not able to, what, anything, nor extend himself towards something to which before he had not attained. Whence in no way to him belongs, what, motion. Now, notice the order of the three arguments, right? You know, pure act could always come into the, what, very beginning of knowing God, right? And, of course, in the Summa Theologiae came up in the beginning of the discussion of the simplicity of God. So he's arguing first in the simplicity, right? And then he gives the one from, what, God being infinite, huh? He could also maybe argue from his being universally perfect, huh? In God. Okay? You know, but he gives the guy who has everything, right? But literally, God is everything, right, huh? That's kind of the problem with the ethyphro there. Or, you know, how can you give God something, see? And hence he says it is, and this is a little kind of a sign, that some of the ancients, huh? As, and he uses that phrase that Aristotle uses in physics, as they were coerced, huh? As they were forced, right? By the truth itself. They laid down that the first beginning was, what? Yeah. And even in mathematical physics, huh? They make the conservation laws, right? Beginning of everything. Even, you could say, you know, that the first matter, in a sense, remains throughout change, under different forms, right? So it's not completely, you know, separated from change, but in a way change does ultimately depend upon something unchanging. I mean, could you have the unchanging depending upon the changing? I don't think that would make any sense at all. To have the unchanging depend upon the changing. Does that make any sense? It might seem to be a paradox to have the reverse, that the changing depends upon the unchanging, huh? But as I say, you know, even if you hit the baseball, and it's kind of the outfield there, it should be the same ball that was hit. Something should remain, you know? And there's nothing that remains the same, so to speak, right? It's not the same ball. There's something fishy going on here. And of course, with the ball, you've been hit from the outfield, right? So it's interesting how the changing depends upon the unchanging, huh? Ernst Albrecht gets into the biological works there, you know. He talks about how you have to have something at rest in order to move, huh? An example, of course, is that of the mouse that they must have seen on a pile of grain. The mouse can't get anywhere because the pile keeps it giving away, right? But you have to rest yourself upon something unchanging, huh? So, now the first objection was taken from Augustine, huh? And he says, to the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine there speaks in the way in which, what? Plato spoke, right? Saying that the first mover moves itself, huh? Naming all, what? Operation or doing, motion, huh? Okay? Now, sometimes when you take act and ability, there's two ways that they do it there in the thing. So we don't call, we call motion or doing, I don't want to be too precise here. Act first, right? Okay? Motion or doing. And you have words like action, right? Activity that are derived from the word act, right? Now, later on, in the middle of the ninth book, Aristotle will carry the word act over to, what? Form. How do you do that? You see? Well, the way Aristotle does it there is by seeing a likeness of ratios. So he says, as my eyes, when they're closed, but I'm not a blind man, right, are to what? By seeing when I open my eyes, so the wood, before it's been formed, is to the wood formed into a chair or a table or a statue, right? So the wood, in a way, is to the statue, something like, my eye is to see when my eye is closed by a blind man. And so the eye goes in a built-in act and the wood goes in a built-in act. And so it's by likeness of racialism. But now Thomas, in the De Potentia, he gives another way of understanding, right? And that is that form is the end of emotion or it's the cause of emotion, right? So there he explains form as act by its ratio to emotion, right? As its beginning or by its end, right? So two different ways of understanding the equivocal, by reason, but by reason of what? Different ways of doing it, different ways, huh? It's kind of interesting to compare those texts, right? But Thomas will point out how just as we call motion or doing act first and then form, later on we call act, and that's why the word act and activity would never be applied to form because it's stuck with the first meaning of the word. So the ability to move or to do something is seen by our mind before the ability for what? For it. I think you say it even in daily speech, you talk about ability, you're thinking first of the ability to do something, okay? You're able to speak French or you're able to play the piano or you're able to walk or you're able to see or to hear, right? And you wouldn't think, by the way, of the wood as having ability, huh? Yeah. See? But the wood is able to be formed, right? So there's some kind of ability there that's kind of a secondary meaning, huh? Now eventually we'll separate and distinguish between motion and doing, although it's a little, you know, maybe like a clarity in the names and so on. But Plato kind of uses them interchangeably, right? But you're using these as opposed to that over there, okay? Now second, we began in metaphysics. I think we did the framing to metaphysics. And Aristotle was giving you order in our knowing, and he says sensing comes first and then memory, and then experience, which is a collection of many memories of the same sort of thing. And then there starts to be a knowledge of the universe, when you have experience, many things of the same sort, and your mind compares these things and separates out what they have in common. And that's the beginning, he says, of art or science, okay? And he uses art or science kind of interchangeably, as being knowledge of the, what, universal memories, as opposed to knowledge of the singular or singulars, which you have to send the same memories. Then he's kind of a footnote, to say, but, you know, six folks can think about ethics. We have elsewhere, distinguish between art and science, but for him it's not important to do so at that time, right? So you might use motion or doing, right? Is walking a motion? I'm supposed to say there's a motion now. But when you're walking, are you doing something? You know? You might kind of use these almost interchangeably, right? It's like, you know, Shakespeare there in the Henry V, right? Where he's putting your imagination to feel out when he's on the stage, right? But sometimes he'll talk about imagining these things, other times you know, use the word thought, right? He's just kind of interchanging, right? And we will do that in daily speech, and I think that's so, I imagine that's so. I kind of mean, you know, you can see a kind of similarity between thinking and imagining, and not even concerned with bringing out the precise difference, huh? But other times you might think more precisely and say, well, thinking is not imagining, huh? And you were hard to separate them kind of easily at first. He says that I'm free to imagine what I want to imagine. I can imagine myself now winning a million dollars yesterday, right? You see? On the sweet steaks, so I'd like to imagine that. I'm free to do that. But can I think that I've won a million dollars? When I have no reason to think that I've won a million dollars? When I haven't even bought a ticket? Right? So I have to have a reason to think that I've won, right? But I can imagine myself winning a million reasons, so it's not the same thing, thinking and imagining. But sometimes Aristotle will use the most interchangeably himself, right? And when they're contrasting math with natural philosophy, you know, sometimes they'll say, in math there's no math, right? In the definitions. But in other times they'll say there's understandable matter. But it's really understandable in the sense more of what? Imaginable. You can imagine the extension, part of the side of the park. So occasionally Aristotle will use what we call doing a motion, right? Okay? But it's an activity as opposed to form, right? See? And motion, of course, is the activity most known to us. So when we say that God, what does God do? Well, he understands himself, and he loves himself, right? So, is understanding God and loving God doing something? See? And you know, the joke about the foster sitting in the chair, if you might joke about that, huh? And, you know, not just not doing anything, would you? You know? I told you the story about the one philosopher where he says if he's reading, his eyes are up and down the page, his wife knows enough not to interrupt his profound work. But when he pauses and looks up like that, he's not apparently doing anything. And then he comes in with a small pocket like that, you see? And you know yourself, you tend to look up on the book and think about what you just read. That's kind of where you're really cemented in, where he really really stokes in, you really think about it. and then you're really doing something. But to the average Christian, you appear to be doing what? Prestating. Yeah. They're doing nothing. And so mostly what's the manifest? So Plato will call understanding something and loving something to be doing something, right? But he'll call that a movement, huh? So it's as if God in understanding himself and loving himself is moving himself, right? Then using the word motion, right? Kind of loosely for operation, let's say, a Latin probably or doing something, huh? People are asking, what are you going to be doing in your retirement? Sometimes they say, I'll listen to Mozart. Sometimes they say, I'll be thinking about God, see? But if I'm thinking about God, am I doing something in my retirement? Right? But I'm more apt to say, I'm doing something when I think about God than that I'm moving when I think about God, huh? I'm kind of at rest when I think about God, you see? But moving is like doing as opposed to what? Form, right? So that's the way Plato spoke. And Thomas will sometimes say that there's not really a difference between Plato when he arrives at the first cause moving itself and when Aristotle arrives at the first cause as the unmover because Aristotle is using motion in the strict sense as opposed to doing like Plato is using in a broader sense, huh? Of course, for that matter, you see, you know, we talked about the equivocation when you use the word move for the fourth kind of cause, huh? You know? The beauty of Juliet moved Romeo to go over the wall, right? Well, it doesn't mean it was a real push, though. Like, you had a guy down there pushing over the wall. That would be the third kind of cause on the move, right? But the end is said to move us, right? And to draw us, right? But not the way that the cowboy draws the horse that he's, or cow that he's lassoed and he's pulling it, right? But sometimes we see it's a big draw, a draw, this performer, where he isn't pulling the people in, right? And, so, there's a little play in those words, huh? And, you know, I ran across the other passage, I think I mentioned, where Thomas was saying somewhere that Augustine always tries to follow Plato as far as he can, you know, without getting into conflict with the faith, obviously. And, here we have Augustine again doing that, right? But the Thomas son, he's much other that Aristotle does in one place, at least in the third book on the soul, you know, speak of doing as a motion. Augustine there speaks in the way in which Plato does, you know, who said that the first mover moves itself, calling all operation a, what? Motion, right? In Thomas, this distinction that Aristotle makes in the ninth book of wisdom, right? Between an imperfect act like walking home, right? Or building a house where the activity is essentially incomplete, right? And exists only when it is incomplete. Because when I have walked home, I'm no longer walking home. And when I have built the house, I'm no longer building the house. And an activity like what? Understanding what a triangle is. Or seeing the painting or loving someone, right? Where, when I'm loving someone, I have loved them already. And when I understand, when I'm understanding where a triangle is, have I understood where a triangle is? Yes. And so he calls that a perfect act. Well, in the Latin, Thomas will use the word emotion for the imperfect act and operation for the, what? Perfect act. So, of course, God can't have motion in the sense of the imperfect act. but the two things are, you know, something in common that distinguishes them from the form, right? According as, even to understand and to will and to love are sometimes called motion, right? Or some, yeah. Okay. Because, therefore, God understands and loves himself. According to this, they say that God, what? Moves himself, huh? Not, however, as motion names an imperfect act, right? And mutation is a thing existing in, what? Potency. For motion is defined as the act of what it's able to be, right? In so far as it's able to be. And this is the way we're speaking now, more strictly, about change and motion. Okay. Now, the second objection is talking about wisdom being more mobile, now than or more movable than anything else, right? And this is said by a certain, what, likeness, huh? In so far as it's, what, diffuses its likeness to the last of things, huh? For there's nothing, for nothing is able to be that does not proceed from the divine wisdom through a certain, what, imitation. Just as from the first efficient beginning, the mover, the maker, and the formal, it's like an exemplar or model, insofar as the artificial things proceed from the wisdom of the artist. Thus, therefore, insofar as the likeness of the divine wisdom, step by step proceeds from the highest things, which partake more of his likeness, down to the lowest of things, which participate light, there seem, there's said to be a certain, what, proceeding in motion divine wisdom in things. I suppose you could say, you know, I'm just like an emotion, you hit the ball, the further it gets away from it, the slower it is, right? And so it's something like that, like wisdom is descending down, and slowing down, so to speak, or coming later.