Prima Pars
Lecture 38: Eternity, Time, and the Aevum: Their Distinctions and Measures

Transcript
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But you still have the problem of divine providence and how can a good man suffer at the hands of Adam and so on. So in the later books, then it gets into the question of divine providence and divine knowledge and so on. And that's where you get the definition of eternity, right? But there's an awful lot of things that come from the Consolation of Philosophy. I think I mentioned how, if you look in the, probably the Navarro website, I think, is in there. There's a commentary on the Consolation of Philosophy attributed to Thomas, but no one thinks it's authentic Thomas, right? But I mentioned how my brother Mark was looking at it and saying it's pretty good, you know, when we were teaching the Consolation, he was teaching the Consolation of Philosophy back at St. Mary's College. So it is a very thoughtful work, huh? They explain things like, you know, Lady Wisdom come down and she'll have pi here, the letter Greek, the letter pi here, and above it, the Greek letter theta, right? And that's the commentary we're putting out to be putting theoretical philosophy above what? Practical philosophy. Like we say, Mary has chosen the better part. Take away from her. And then her garments are kind of torn, right? And the symbolism there is that in grabbing at the truth, men have what? Ripped it kind of, you know, I got a tooth, you know, and you've got maybe some part of the truth, but someone else gets the other part and they're already around. So there are very subtleties that are pointed out. Well, it's a very famous work and many medieval later writers there, you know, translated like, Chaucer translated into English and so on. And in the sketchbook of Washington Irving there, right, the Scottish prince that was captured by the English in prison there, you know. He's read the Consolation of Philosophy, so Irving refers to that. So it's a well-known work, and I appreciate it by sometimes people who may not be full philosophers, but it's an awfully profound work, you know. And I put Boethius next to Augustine and Thomas, you know. So it's interesting, his little works in Thomas, which in the commentary is not on the Consolation apparently, but on the Trinitatis and the Epimodipus and some other works. So, even if time always was and always will be, right, even if that were true, right, there would still remain a difference between eternity and time, as Boethius says in the book on the Consolation of Philosophy, from the fact that eternity is totesimo, right, all at once, which does not belong to time, right, because eternity is the measure of a permanent, being, time, however, is the measure of motion. It's the number of the before and after in motion. Now, if are the four said differences pay attention to as far as the things measured and not as far as the measures, thus it has some reason, because only that is measured by time, that it has a beginning and an end in time, as is said in the fourth book of the physics. Whence is the motion of the heavens always endured, time would not measure it according to its whole duration, since the infinite is not, what, measurable, right? As Shakespeare says when he's talking about Mother Earth, common mother, thou whose womb immeasurable and infinite breast teems and feeds all. Sounds like couples immeasurable and infinite, huh? Same thing we have here, huh? But he would measure each circulation of the heavenly body, right? Which has a beginning and an end in time, huh? Okay? So my life as a whole is measured by time, my life as a whole, is measured by time because my life in time has a beginning and a, what, end. That's what Aristotle is pointing out, huh? But if my life in time had no beginning and no end, right? I would still have a before and after and you could measure part of my life, right? By time, three years of my life, whatever it might be, but you couldn't measure my life as a whole because it's infinite and you can't measure the infinite. Lungen-Halvo, however, says another reason from the, on the side of the measures if one takes a beginning and end in potency because even given that time always was, nevertheless, one can note in time a beginning and end taking some parts of it as we speak of the, what, beginning and end of the day or the beginning and the end of the year which could not be done in, what? Yeah. But nevertheless, these differences followed that which is first and through itself, namely that eternity is, what, all at once, huh? not over, what, time, huh? Okay? And so, before and after is the definition of time as Aristotle defines it, huh? It isn't, you know, defined by having a beginning and end or not having a beginning and end, but by before and after. That's the most essential way of distinguishing that in eternity. Now, the first objection, I think, and you have two measures together, right? But the first, it should be said that that argument proceeds or goes forward if time and eternity were measures of one kind, right? But this is clearly false from those things of which time and eternity are the, what, measure. Because one is a measure of ocean, the other is a measure of, yeah, yeah. Okay? Now, the second objection was very interesting there about the now of time, right? To the second it should be said that the now of time is the same in subject in the whole time but differs in its what? Yeah. Okay? And it's a count, you could say. Or another way of putting it, it's the same body throughout the motion, right? But its position is always different, right? In that, just as time corresponds to motion, so the now of time corresponds to the, what, body in motion, the mobile. But the mobile is the same in subject in the whole, what, unrolling of time, the whole course of time but differing in its, what, definition you might say insofar as it is here and, what, there, differing in its position, right? So that's, as you could say, the now of time, the now of time is always moving forward, right? Okay? And this alternation is motion. For the flux, you might say, of the now, according to its altered in definition, is time. But eternity remains the same in subject and in position, right? Okay, so that's the way through the states and we're simply, though, saying the now that flows makes time. The now that flows along makes time. But the now that stands still makes what? Eternity, right? Okay? It's not a now that's being left behind. Because then you imagine it to be, you know, the now of time. Hence, eternity is not the same as the now of what? Time, right? So sometimes I read a little bit into Boyd because this is a definition, right? When he says possess you, right? He's going to separate the now of eternity from the now of time because you can't repossess the now of time because it's always getting away from you. It's always moving on, right? It waits for no man, that's what the poet says, right? Time waits for no man. It's our master, as they say, right? Now, to the third objection, that's talking about time or eternity being the measure of all being, right? To the third it should be said that eternity is the proper measure of being just as time is the proper measure of what? Motion. Whence, according as something recedes from the permanence of being, right? And is subject to change or transmutation, according to this it recedes from eternity, right? And becomes subject to what? Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. For the being of corruptible things, because it is changeable, is not measured by eternity, but by time. Time measures not only the things which are changed in act, but also those things which are what? Changeable. Once not only does it measure motion, but also what? Rest. Which is what is apt to be moved and not moved, right? So when we say that God rested on the seventh day, God is at rest, it doesn't mean rest in the way in which you and I might be at rest, huh? Or we put a bed in there or something like that, right? And we sleep for so many hours, if you're lucky. But we could be moving in that time, right? So rest means a what? Lack of motion, right? In a subject able to move, right? That's not what rest means when it's said of God. It's not a lack of something that he's able to have, okay? It's more and more negation, simply of motion, right? So, so we start the next article here. Before I take a break down, let's look at the ejections of Eastern. Divided evenly in the time. We're slaves of time, right? To the fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that the evum is not other from time. That's hard to know exactly how to translate evum, huh? So I'll leave it in the latin, huh? But this is more the measure of what? The angels, huh? Mm-hmm. So it's in between eternity and time. For Augustine says in the eighth book on Genesis to the letter that God moves the spiritual creature, and that would include the angel then, through time, right? But the evum is said to be the measure of what? Spiritual substances. Therefore, time does not differ from the evum, huh? Moreover, it's of the notion of time that it have a before and after. And of the notion or definition of eternity that it be all at once, as has been said. But the evum is not eternity, for it is said in Ecclesiasticus that eternal wisdom is before the evum, huh? We'll have to look up the text. That's one of the books that's in what? Greek, isn't it? The original? That's the... I've got a different name now. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. It used to be called Ecclesiasticus, I guess, yeah. Yeah. It'd take a long time to get the I and the E there. If the E, it's Ecclesiastus. At the I, it's Ecclesiasticus, right? But now they call it Sirach, huh? But I think that's originally in Greek, huh? The text, the news. Yeah. I think it says that in a little prologue. Yeah. Like they translated. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that's in the Hebrew scriptures. I don't think it is. I don't think they've ever found a Hebrew... Yeah. Yeah. I don't think so. So, therefore, it is not all at once, but it has a before and after. And thus it is, what? Time, huh? Moreover, if in the Evum there was not a before and after, it would follow that in the Ev eternal things, they would not differ to be and to have been and to be future. Since, therefore, it is impossible for the Ev eternal things not to have been, it would be impossible for them, what? Not to be future. But this is false, since God is able to reduce them to nothing. Moreover, since the duration of the Ev eternal things is infinite on the part of what comes afterwards, if the Evum is all at once, it would follow that something created, it's infinite act, which is impossible. Therefore, the Evum does not differ from time, huh? But against this is what Boethius says, huh? You command time to what? Go forth from the Evum, right? Mm-hmm. So, should we take a little break now or what? Sure. Okay. Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all, right? Now those who speak with understanding by Antonia Messiah are the wise. So if you understand what Heraclius is saying there, then you realize that Thomas being called the common doctor, that's really a very, what, great title, right? And in some ways, although it's not as flattering as a title, a jelly doctor, you know, in terms of his importance, right, for learning. As I say to the students, the life of the mind together is impossible without something we have in common. And in the case of the teacher and the student, the student has to be led by the teacher from things that the student knows already, to see some things that the teacher sees the student doesn't see yet. But then those things that the student knows already that the teacher uses to lead them to something new, the teacher's got to have those too, right? So only on the basis of something that is common to the teacher and the student is teaching at all possible. And then if you have, you know, a conversation that's not between, say, a teacher and a student, but more between two more equals, you might say, right? As you know, when we converse, we often disagree, right? And we get nowhere if I just, you know, say, you're off base there because you don't agree with me, and you return the compliment. The only way we can do it is try to get back to something we both have in common that we can use to decide whether you or I are right, where we, what, disagree, right? So no life of the mind together is possible without some kind of a common, what, knowledge, common understanding. And if you look at the whole fragment of Heraclitus, he says, those who speak good understanding must be strong, but it's common to all. As much as the city is strong in its law, even more so because the law of the city is fed by one divine law, which is more sufficient for all. But notice the beautiful comparison he makes there, huh? He's saying, he's making a comparison between the life of the mind and life together in the city. They're two different lives, in a sense. But is life together in the city possible without some kind of common law? So you guys are following the law of driving the right side of the street, and I'm following the law on the left side, right? We're going to have chaos in our society, right? And if we have common laws about law, I mean, about time and so on, right? We'd have a problem there. But then he goes on to say that the law of the city is fed by the divine law. And so the law about not taking human life, innocent human life, gives rise to all kinds of laws, right? Laws about how fast you can drive your car, you know, how you can shoot your gun off in the city and so on. And all kinds of things are, you know, are invented to protect human life, right? But they're all being fed by this one divine law. So if we say, you know, that the laws of Nazi Germany are bad because they don't agree with the laws of the United States of America. The Nazis say, well, your laws are off because they don't agree with our laws. Well, again, you have to go back to some kind of common law, some kind of natural law, some kind of divine law, in order to judge that our laws are better if they are than the laws of Nazi Germany. So that's a beautiful comparison that Heraclitus makes. So, I mean, you know, life on a college campus, you've got to show up at the same time, the teacher and the students, right? They've got to have some things in common, right? You know, common room we're going to meet, right? You know? It's funny, you guys, it goes to one room to learn. It's kind of obvious, you know, but, I mean, there are subtle ways that you need something that we have in common. So, that's exactly what Erstal and the way he does in the metaphysics, right? Because he takes what's common to all men, the axioms, and defends them, right? And the words in the axioms, right, which are common to all men, we all use the words whole and part, right? We all use the word being, we all use the word one, and so on. And, so you see, Erstal's the only guy that understands these words. He's kind of the common doctor in a sense, too, right? Because he understands better than other people the words that are common to all of us. That's the kind of reason, when you go back, Thomas is tied into that tradition. Okay, I mentioned, I was looking at Thomas' little treatise called De Creature Spiritualibus, right? And then the 17th chapter there, where he speaks of Plato and Aristotle, the chief philosophers. But if you read the Constellation of Philosophy, you'll see that from Boethius, they are the chief philosophers. And now, Augustine seems to have known, you know, Plato rather than Aristotle, but he's always trying to follow Plato so far as he can, but many in conformity with the Catholic faith, right? So, these great minds, Albert the Great says the same thing. They take Plato and Aristotle as the chief philosophers, so. But again, you have to see, in a sense, how they got a distinct and ordered knowledge of what is common to all things. So, we're going to see that when we get into the 11th question here, right? The 11th question, just look at the first couple articles there. It's on the unity of God, right? But before he gets to whether God is one, let's talk to the third article, right? And whether God is most one, right? Okay, but he has some more general questions here. Whether one adds something above being, right? And whether the one and the many are opposed, and how they're opposed, right? Now, to my knowledge, Plato, I mean Aristotle, really, and Thomas are the only real great philosophers who understood the most universal things, like being, one, good, true, right? And they were able to distinguish these, as you'll see Thomas distinguishing being and one here, but how they differ in meaning. But also, you'll see the, what, order among them, right? Okay? And you'll see the same thing when he gets up talking about truth, you know? Yeah. Yeah, question 16. You'll be talking about true there in the first article, second article. And then in the third and fourth article, notice he says about the comparison of true to being and about the comparison of true to good, right? Okay? So the distinction of being, thing, one, true and good, and the order of those five are very carefully thought out by Aristotle. And then they realize each one of those words is equivocal by reason, so they think out the, what, distinction and the order of the meanings of each one of them. And they see the distinction between good and bad, true and false, one and many, being and nothing, right? And there are different kinds of opposites. Nobody else has done that, right? So what's most common, what's most universal, is understood distinctly in an ordered way by Aristotle and Thomas and by nobody else, really, except if you got a little bit from them, you know? You learned some of it from them. Okay? And so, I think I mentioned before how you can't understand the less universal without understanding the more universal. Now, if you realize that, and you realize that's true, you'll find this even in a, what, a definition. The parts of a definition are more universal than the thing being defined. So when I define a square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right, every part of that definition is set of more than square. And the genus especially, right? But even the difference is equilateral is set of square and rhombus, right-angled is set of square and abba. Quadrilateral is set of all those plus some other things. But the combination is set only to square. So I'm understanding the less universal through the more universal. universal, even in a definition. Now, once you see that, then you realize a couple of things. If you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything. And you can look at other thinkers, but the thinkers have not come into contact with Aristotle and Thomas. They don't seem to have an understanding of what the most universals are. They can't even enumerate them, and they don't see the distinction between them and the order among them. And you'll see it, you know, bits of that distinction and order in the articles on one here, in the next question, and on true and good, and the question on truth. And you'll find them today very tauty, right? You know, in different places where this is touched upon, brought out. So if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal, and therefore, you have to understand the most universal before you can understand anything. And there's a lot of truth to that. And Aristotle and Thomas are the only guys who understand fully the most universals. They're the only guys in a position to understand anything. You know, he understands what's common to everything. You know? He understands what's common to everything, than anybody else, except perhaps Aristotle. You see? He's the only guy able to understand anything. And I'm not going to be defensive, you know? That rule of two or three that I have given you from logic, huh? Well, I think I came to adopt that rule, which is the rule two for the most part, as I say. By induction, huh? It seems that Thomas is doing that all the time, right? Mm-hmm. And, um, I just gave him the students at the house there last night. Thomas's, you know, division of the Gospel of Matthew down to the individual chapters. And I was pointing out how the division of the Gospel of Matthew, the 28 chapters, is not made by Matthew, but made for editorial reference purposes of the University of Paris, the Middle Ages, right? Okay? But you can't really understand the Gospel of Matthew by trying to understand division in 28 parts. And Thomas would divide the Gospel of Matthew into three parts, and then subdivide the parts until he gets down to the individual chapters. And even within them, he'd be dividing by two into two or three, right? Now, if you wanted to, say, divide sacred doctrine, right? Would you divide sacred doctrine into two or three? Well, I would begin with the division that Thomas gives in the commentary on the Psalms, where he says, whoever teaches, right, teaches either things or words, okay? He says, we teach things when we teach faith and morals. We teach words when we teach, what, sacred scripture, okay? So there I have a division into two, right, man, okay? So there's a difference between a work like the Summa Theologiae, or the Summa Contra Gentiles, or the Compendium of Theology, right? And his commentaries on the Gospel of St. John, or the Gospel of Matthew, and so on, right? Okay? Now, when you're teaching words, now it's not a foot down, right? These are the words of God. When you're teaching words, do you divide them into two or three? Do you divide the Bible into 70 parts because there's 70 plus books or something, right? How do you divide the Bible into two or three? Okay, first, we won't put some in the adjustment. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas, in his work on the commendation and partition of sacred scripture, right, gives, as a base of that division, right, he divides it on the basis of law and what? Grace, right? Okay? That's a division into two, then, right? Okay? It starts with the text of what? Of St. John. The law was given by Moses, but truth came through Jesus Christ, huh? Okay? Now, Christ himself, when he refers to the Old Testament, huh? Thomas would note very carefully, sometimes he'll call the whole of the Old Testament law. But sometimes he'll say the law and the prophets. And sometimes he'll say the law and the prophets and the Psalms, right? Okay? So sometimes Thomas will divide the Old Testament into two parts, the law of the king and the law of the, what? Father. Okay? That's a division into two. And the law of the king will include the Pentateuch and the prophets who are urging men to obey that law. And then the sapiential books and so on, the Psalms and so on, this all pertain to the law of the father. He'll subdivide the law of the king and the law of the father, but you'll see him dividing them into two is a three. It's all the way down to the individual books and maybe inside the books, too. But, okay? So the Old Testament is divided perhaps into two parts, the law of the king and the law of the father. Well, sometimes they do it into three, you know, making the prophets kind of a separate part. Now the New Testament, Thomas divides into what? Three. Part of grace, huh? The origin of grace in the Gospels, the nature of grace in the Epistles of St. Paul, and then the effect of grace, the Acts of the Apostles, the canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse, the effect of grace being basically the Church, huh? Okay? Now Vatican II got very close to that, right? Because it talks about the New Testament. It singles out, first of all, the four Gospels, and even among the books of the New Testament, these are the greatest, because they're the main witness to the life and doings and sufferings of our Lord, right? Okay? And then it talks about the unfolding of this more in St. Paul. And then it puts the, what, Acts of the Apostles with the other parts, dealing with the origin of the Church and its growth, right? So even though we put the Acts of the Apostles, you know, between the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul, right, in our Bibles, Vatican II seems to be very close to Thomas in putting the Acts of the Apostles more with the origin of the Church and the Apocalypse is the final state of the Church and the Canonical Epistles are the growth of the Church, huh? Effectively in those epistles. So that's a division into three, huh? So, now, when you go to the other kind of sacred doctrine, we're teaching things, okay, Thomas has basically two ways of dividing it, huh? But they're both into, what, three. And in the major works like the two Sumas, he'll divide it into three. You consider God in himself or by himself. God is the maker and what he's made to some extent. And then God is the end and his providence for the end into those three parts, huh? That's very explicit in the Summa Gagiativas, huh? Okay? It's a little bit more, not as crystal clear in the Summa Theologiae because of the great expansion of the moral theology, right? But that's all under the part of, according to God, as the end, right? Now, the other way that he divides it into three is more for people in general and following the lead of the great Augustine there and in Caridion and faith, hope, and charity. In Thomas' catechetical instructions, right? In the Naples, Naples sermons, as I call them, he divides it according to faith, hope, and charity, right? So, according to faith, you expound the creed and according to hope, you expound the Our Father and maybe the Hail Mary. And then, with charity, the two commandments of love and the Ten Commandments, huh? Okay? That's more proportion to what a layman you might say, right? But, again, it's division in two. What? Three, right? Now, the Council of Trent and then the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right? They divide into four, right? Because the sacraments are so important that they kind of get into separate parts. You have a little departure from that, you know? If you look at Thomas' reply to the Bishop of Panormitanum, whatever that is, you know, he wants Thomas to explain the creed and the sacraments and so on, give him kind of a handy manual he can have, and Thomas says, well, the sacraments pertain to one article of the faith, right? You know, in the fridge of the Holy Spirit, you know, sanctifying us and so on. But because of all the importance of the sacraments in our life as a Christian, there's kind of a reason why you might expand that part, right? Then you, to a certain extent, you don't see the faith, hope, and charity as clearly as you do. You just divide it into three, right? Just like, as I said in Summa here, you know, if you look at my volumes of the second part of the Summa, you know, the Prima Pars and the Secunda Pars, and it's going to be placed as big as this. You know, so because of the necessity of entering into some detail when you talk about moral matters, as you know as a confessor or something, it's not as clearly seen as it is in the Summa Karan Gentiles, right? Where the moral theology doesn't go into the same detail as it does here. But basically, you're following the division into three, either according to God and himself, God is the maker, God is the end. Like in that Psalm 99, you know? Know that the Lord is God, he made us, his we are. His people, the flock, he tends. That's the three parts, you know? So since you're being urged to do the Summas in that part of the Psalms, right? But then you have faith, hope, and charity, then you're being, what? This is the way you begin to be instructed first, according to faith, hope, and charity. That division, huh? It's kind of beautiful that Augustine and Thomas both see that as the way to do it. You know, it's kind of followed when I was a child, when I was a catechism and so on. And sometimes they'd take, you know, I am the way, the truth, and the life. But it would be the same three, really. And take the truth would be the creed, right? Life would be the sacraments, maybe the, you know, prayer. And then the way would be, you know, which is to do and don't do. The commandments of love and the Ten Commandments, right? So, that made sense, huh? So, what is he doing dividing this into five things here, right? I kind of place the possibility, you know, of trying to write these five by two and three, right? But I'm not sure whether I should do that, you know. But I notice in the compendium of theology, that the unity of God is among the articles or chapters on the simplicity of God, right? So, they're very close together, right? Okay? And so, there might be a way of, you know. But I'm not going to try to force the thing, you know. And to me, just like with Aristotle, I guess the chapter on quality has four species, right, huh? Well, I'm not going to try to force it into two or three, you know. But a lot of times, when you try to understand it, you do come back to two or three, huh? Most of the time, huh? If you have more, I was talking about students, and I said, no. Now, there are some students who want to know, but aren't able to know. I had no students. I feel sorry for them. There are some students who are able to know, but don't want to know. I don't feel so sorry for them, but... Then there's a third group of those who are, neither want to know, nor are able to know. And once in a while, you find that rare student who is both able to know and wants to know, right? Okay? So, I divided all students into four, right? Okay? But really, what have I done? Two divisions into two, right? Those who want to know, and those who don't want to know. Those who are able to know, and those who are not able to know. And then I crisscrossed them, and so I got all those four categories, right? So if you divide into more than three, you are often, what? But crisscrossing two divisions, or else using a division and a subdivision, right? Okay? And Thomas will not always stop there. It's kind of obvious to him by now, right? But he divides order in comparison to reason, and he speaks of four orders, right? The order not made by reason, the order made by reason in its own acts, the order made by reason in the acts of the will, and the order made by reason in matter. So he's got four orders, right? But you could divide the first one against the last three, because the first one is an order not made by reason, and the last three are orders made by reason. So he could divide into two, and then subdivide one of them into three, right? But Thomas, you know, students very taught, as he says about Aristotle sometimes, he combines the two divisions once, because you need fools to be able to see what he's doing, right? You know? But most fools don't see what he's doing. You see? So, anyway. Here we're getting a... division into what? Three, right? There's not only eternity in time, but there's this third thing called the what? Evil, right? Yeah, for one of a better name, right? Okay. But the fact that they're difficult in the name is a sign that this third one is not as easily what? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just like they're calling it an intermediary form of fiction, a tragic comedy, because they didn't have a name for it, right? Okay. I answer it should be said, I'll get to the body article, that the evum differs from time and from eternity as a middle, right, existing between them, right? As I say, that's like Aristotle talking about what? Oligarchy and democracy before he talks about the public. The public is in between, right? Aristotle refers back to the fact that virtue is a middle between two extremes, right? Okay. But of these, the difference of these, some assign thus, saying that eternity lacks a beginning and an end, right? The evum has a beginning, because the angels didn't always exist, but no end. Time has both a beginning and an end, right? As I was mentioning earlier today, the apocalypse, right? Time will no longer be. Okay. But notice how Thomas says here, but this difference is perotidensa, just as has been said above, because even if the eternal things were always and would always be in the future as some lay down, or even if at some times they failed, which is possible for God, huh? Still, yet the evum would be distinguished from eternity and time, huh? Others assign the difference among these three through this fact that eternity has no before and after. Time, however, has what? A before and after with a what? Yeah, new things, right? You know, innovation, right? We say in English, huh? With new things and what? Things getting old, huh? As I know here. But the evum has a before and after without, what? Innovation and, what? Growing old, right? It's a little bit like, you know, when I think of, if I know some theory and some geometry, right? I think of one of them, and then I think about the other one, and then I go back and think about the first one, right? And there's nothing new to me, right? Now I'm getting old, but there's still a before and after in my thinking. That's kind of what the evum is of what some people think, right? Okay? But this position implies some contradictories, right? Which manifestly appears if innovation and growing old are referred to the measure itself. For if the before and after duration are not able to be together, if the evum has a before and after, it's necessary that the part before receding, then the part coming afterwards is what? New, huh? And thus there will be innovation in the evum, as in time. If however it is referred to the things measured, they still follow some things. Inconvenient, huh? For from this, huh? A temporal thing becomes what? Old in time, because it has changeable being, right? And from the changeableness of the measured, there is before and after in the measure, as is clear from the fourth book of natural hearing, the physics. If, therefore, the evum is not able to grow old or to renovate things, this will be because its being is not, what? Changed, huh? Its measure, therefore, its measure, therefore, will not have before and after. It should be said, therefore, that since eternity is the measure of a permanent being, according as something recedes from the permanence of being, according to this it recedes from, what? Eternity. Now, some things recedes from the permanence of being, that their very being is a subject of change, huh? Or it consists in change, huh? And these things are measured by time, as every motion is, and also the being of all, what? Corruptible things. But some things recedes from the permanence of being, because their being neither consists in change, nor is it a subject of change, huh? I suppose the, what, motion is more something whose being consists in change, right? And the corruptible things are a subject of change, right? Okay. But nevertheless, it has some kind of change joined to it, either in act or in ability, just as in the celestial bodies, huh? Whose substantial being is unchangeable. We may not agree with Thomas there, right? Nevertheless, their unchangeable being, they have this unchangeable being, with changeableness according to place, huh? And they go from one place to another. Of course, they're seeing in Thomas today, he was talking about the stars. And sometimes, of course, they'll call the planets a star. Yeah. But Thomas distinguishes between the fixed stars, and in Latin he says the errantia. E-R-A-R-A-N-T-I. Which means the wanderers, right? The errant, and the night errant, huh? That's what the word planet means in Greek, huh? It means that they wander, huh? And that's what I was mentioning before, how the word for er in Latin comes from the word to wander. And the Greek word for er, vane, comes from the word to wander there, too. That's the words that Christ uses when he says to the Sadducees, right? E-R, right? They translate it sometimes, but vane, vane is the verb for it. E-R, knowing neither the power of God, nor the scriptures, he says. E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A. E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A. E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A. E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R. E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A We're good because God loves us. What's the answer? The love of it. Yeah, yeah. We're good because God loves us. That our goodness is an effect of God's love for us, huh? That's kind of a humbling consideration, right, huh? Okay, so let's look again at the objections here. The first one is the text from Augustine in the 8th book of Genesis 2, the letter, right? I mean, that's obviously what? It's talking about words here, right? And I don't know. I had heard, I don't know if this is true, that... Someone had accused him of being a little bit loose or something, you know, and this is to the letter, right? Exactly the words, huh? Okay? That God moves the spiritual creature through time, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that spiritual preachers, as regards their affections and their what? Understandings, in which there is a succession, are measured by time, right? Right? Whence Augustine says there that through time to be moved is to be moved by one's what? Affections, huh? But as he guards their natural being, they are measured by the evil, right? But as he guards the vision of the glory of God, they partake of what? Eternity, right? So they've got three kinds of measure that, right, huh? I have to talk to my guardian angel about that, huh? You know? But he says, hey, you've got it right now, Burkwest, huh? You know, I see God, I partake of eternity, when I get the things out of your way, they're in place, they're in time. But my being is measured by the evil, huh? Now, the second objection was saying, hey, there's no difference between the evil and time, or eternity, rather. Okay? Most of the ways the first two objections are going. One is saying it's just time, the other is saying it's just eternity, right? And Thomas says, to the second it should be said that the evum is totum simul, right? The being of the angels all at once. But it's not nevertheless eternity, because compatible with it is a before and after of operations, right? And the third one is talking about the difference between, what? If it's all at once, there's no, what? In terms of being in the past and the future, and since it's going to be forever, it's going to be eternally, what? Actually infinite, right? Okay? To the third, it should be said that in the very being of the angel, considered in itself, there is no difference of past and future, but only according to the, what? Changes that are joined to it, huh? Changes of operations. But when we say that angel is, or was, or will be, they differ according to the taking of our understanding, right? Which takes the being of the angel in comparison to the diverse parts of time. And when it is said that the angel is, or was, there is supposed something with which its opposite is not, what? Subject to the divine power. But when we say it is future, it does not suppose something, right? Because God could still eliminate it. When, since the being and the non-being of the angel is subject to the divine power, absolutely consider, God is able to make the angel not to be in the future. Nevertheless, he is not able to make that it is not when it is, or that it was not when it was not, huh? That would involve a contradiction. Now, what way is the duration of the evum infinite, huh? He says, because it's in the fourth objection, because it is not limited by time, huh? And thus, in some way, for something created to be infinite, that not be limited by something else, is not inconvenient, huh? We have time to do the article six here. Okay. So, whether there is one evum only, it seems that there is not only one evum, huh? For it is said in the Apocryphals of Esdras, majesty and the power of the evums, in the plural, right, is before you, Lord. Moreover, a diverse genera, there are diverse measures. But some of the eternal things are in the genus of bodies, namely the heavenly bodies. Some are the spiritual substances to the angels. Therefore, there is not one evum only. Moreover, since evum is a name of duration, of which there is one evum, there is one duration. But there is not one duration of all eternal things, because some come to be after others, as is most of all clear in the, what? In the souls. Therefore, there is not one evum only. How do you think of all these objections? I mean, nobody else does this, you know. I was reading the fourth book of the Sumcant Gentiles recently. You know, he defends the incarnation, you know, against the heretics and so on, and the scriptures and so on. And then he'll give these reasons from philosophy, you might say, against the possibility of it, you know, and then he'll answer those, right? Nobody else does that, right? They don't really exercise the mind the way this guy does. Aristotle in the book on dialectic, right? He gives us the first reason for dialectic, is to exercise the mind. And these minds are not exercised in these ways. They're so weak, they're so easily deceived. It's amazing to see it. But anyway. Moreover, those things which do not depend upon each other do not seem to have one measure of their duration. On account of this, of all temporal things, it seems to be one time, because of all motions in some way, the first motion is the cause, which is measured before the arrest by time. But the Eve eternal do not depend upon each other. One angel didn't create the other, or something like that. Because one angel is not the cause of the other. Therefore, there's not one Elum only. But against this is that the Elum is more simple than time. And near having itself to eternity. But time is one only. Therefore, much more so will the Elum be one. I answer it should be said, that about this there is a two-fold opinion. Some say that there is one Elum only, some that there are many. Which of these, however, is more true, is necessary to consider from the cause, of the unity of time. Because we come to a knowledge of spiritual things through bodily things. I was seeing a text of Thomas there in the Disputed Questions on Power the other day, where he's saying how all of our words, in a sense, go back in their first meaning to the continuous. You can see that, right? They tend to go back to place. Thomas gives often the etymology of the word difference. And of course, the Greek word for difference is diaphora. Latin word is differentia. But it's put together from carry and apart. Diaphora. To carry apart. You know, put one here and one there. There are two different things. One here and one there. And understand, right? To stand under something, right? To the spatial origin of these words. Even for things that are not spatial, I understand them. God is above us. I mean, these words take on different meanings, right? Is God above us in the way that the Wilfier is above us? Above us. I know. I know. I know. But, I don't want to go through the roof. But, that's the first meaning of above, right? You've got to understand, you know, that the roof is above us before you can understand that God is above us, right? See? Or in logic, we say that the, what, the genius is above the differences. The more universal is above the less universal. And we put the less universal under the more universal. Okay? That's why they speak, you know, the magic of the tree of porphyry, right?