Prima Pars
Lecture 40: Unity, Division, and God's Supreme Oneness

Transcript
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you might attach to the consideration of the energy of God maybe as being the measure of all things. You might also attach it to simplicity. They're very close together. Okay, the next, let's look at the injections now, right? Notice how the Bible article is very short, right? And the points he wants to make in more detail are all tied up with the injections. Now, the first injection was saying nothing, no opposite is said of its what? Opposite, right? But every multitude is in some way one. Therefore, the one is not opposed to the multitude. To the first, therefore, it should be said, Thomas says, that no privation or lack takes away entirely being. Because privation or lack is a negation in a subject according to the philosopher. We've talked about that before, but notice the difference between saying that something does not see and something is blind, right? Strictly speaking, you can't say that this cup here is blind. But you can say it doesn't, what? See. Everything in this room either sees or does not see, right? Because one is really indicating the other, right? But is everything in this room either see or is blind? No. Now, what does blindness mean then, right? It doesn't mean something doesn't see, right? But it's the non-being of the ability to see in a subject, right? Act by nature to see, right? Okay. So it doesn't completely take away or just the gate only, right? It implies that there's a subject there, right? That it's capable of something and it doesn't, what? Have this, right? But nevertheless, every privation takes away some being, right? Okay. But it doesn't take away the subject. And therefore, in being, by reason of its, what? Community, huh? By reason of its commonness, huh? By reason of its being most universal. It happens that the lack of being is founded in some being. Okay. So though the blindness of the blind man is a kind of non-being, right? The blind man himself does exist, right? Okay. Which does not happen in the privations of special forms as of sight or whiteness or something of this sort. So you wouldn't say, you know, that what, if the man is blind, we wouldn't say that the man who's blind has sight, right? He sees. But if you take it in general and say, hey, there's none being in this man. But he is, nevertheless. Okay. So what is, is not in some way, right? Because he is self, if not. And just as it is so about being, so it is about the one and also about the goodness, we'll see, which are convertible with being, right? For the privation or lack of the good is founded in something good, right? So that's why we say even the devil's, right? Even the devil himself, his nature is something good, right? Okay. But there's something lacking in his will, right? There's a disorder there and so on. And likewise, the removal of unity is founded in something, what? One. And hence it fowls, or happens, rather, that a multitude is something one, right? And what is bad is something good, right? And none being is a certain what? Being, yeah. But nevertheless, the opposite is not being said of the opposite. Because one of these is simply and the other, what? Secundum quid. For what, what is in some way, being, as an ability, and is not being simply, that is an act, right? Or what is being simply in the genus of substance is none being, secundum quid, as regards accidental being. Okay? So would you say, am I or am I not? What would you say? Yes. You'd say I am, yeah. Simply you'd say I am, right? But let's say, I'm not a pianist. So, some way I am not, right? Okay? Now I can't both be and not be simply. I can't both be and not be a pianist, right? But I can be and not be a pianist. So it's not the same thing that's being, what? Affirmed and denied, right? Okay? Likewise, what is good in some way is bad simply. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the reverse, right? So the devil is bad simply, but in some way he's good. His nature is good, right? And it wasn't so good he would not have been tempted to make himself God. Okay? And likewise, what is one simply is many, secundum, quid, and a conversal, right? Okay? Is that all clear, you know? Mm-hmm. Huh? You can't get a void, you can't avoid that distinction between simply and not simply, right? Mm-hmm. So we're saying that many are one, what? In some way. You know, a quarter or something of this sort, huh? Maybe simply they're many, right? So we're not saying that something is one and many in the same way, are we? No. So we're out of that difficulty. Yeah. And Thomas too, yeah, yeah. In the approximate sense, yeah. Some that adamantly would say the opposite. Further, he says, in the second objection now, nothing opposed is constituted from its opposite, but the one constitutes multitude, therefore it's not opposed to the multitude, huh? To the second, it should be said that twofold is the whole. One, homogeneous, that is composed or put together from similar parts, and one is heterogeneous that is composed from dissimilar parts. In every homogenous whole, the whole is constituted from parts having the same form as the whole. just as each part of water is water, and such is the constitution of the continuous from its, what, parts, huh? But in every heterogeneous whole, heterogeneous whole, each part lacks the form of the whole, for no part of the house is a house, huh? Nor is a part of man a man, huh? So my arm or my leg, even my soul is not a man. And such a whole is what? Multitude. Insofar, therefore, as its part does not have the form of multitude, the multitude is composed from units, huh? Just as a house from what are not houses. Not that the, what, unities constitute the multitude according to what it, they have of, what, in division insofar as they are post-multitude, but according to what they have of, what, of being. Just as the parts of a house constitute a house, through this that they are certain, what, bodies, not through this that they are not a house, you know. Like the bricks constitute a brick wall, right? They're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're A brick is not a brick wall. So a brick wall is made out of what? What is not a brick wall, huh? But they don't constitute a brick wall insofar as they're not a brick wall, but insofar as they're a brick, right? Remember that next time you make some cake or something? Making a cake apple is not a cake. It's quite a trick, huh? Now the third objection was saying that the many is opposed to the few, right? And here Thomas simply points out that the many has two meanings, huh? To the third, therefore, it should be said that many is taken in two ways. In one way, absolutely, and thus it is opposed to the one. In another way, insofar as it implies a certain, what? Excess. And thus it is opposed to the few. Once in the first way, two are many, not whoever in the, what? The second way, right? So two different meanings, right? This is actually a rule Aristotle gives in the topics in the book on places, huh? That if a thing has more than one opposite, it has more than one, what? Meaning, yeah. Like what's the meaning of the word liberal, right? Yeah, liberal is opposed to stingy, but then liberal, say, is opposed to conservative. Okay? And liberal is opposed to, let's say, servile, right? Okay? So if it has many opposites, then the word liberal has many, what? Meanings. Meanings, yeah. Yeah. So if many is opposed to one, and many is opposed to few, many has two different meanings, huh? And sometimes when you're defining things, you know, you say like a genus is a name set of many things, other in kind, signifying what it is. What does the word many mean there? It does not mean as opposed to few. It means many as opposed to one. So sometimes, you know, to be clear, I'll say many in the sense of more than one. Which would cover two, right? But not many as opposed to few. So a genus, you know, would have as few as two species, huh? Like you divide quantity into discrete and continuous. Okay? So that's easy enough to solve, huh? But it also touches upon that rule, huh? Socrates tries to reason from the idea of there being just one opposite of each thing, huh? In the protagonist, right? He's trying to prove that the five virtues are really the same thing, right? And so he takes the opposite of wise is foolish, right? The opposite of temperate is foolish. The thing is only one opposite, right? So if folly is opposed to both wisdom and temperance, wisdom and temperance must be the same thing. So the drunk, you know, acts foolishly, right? The fourth objection. This is the one about the circularity of the definitions and so on. To the fourth it should be said that one is opposed in a privative way to the many, insofar as in the notion of the many is that they are, what, divided, right? Whence is necessary that division be, what, before unity, right? Not simply right, but according to the way of our, what, understanding things, huh? For we grasp simple things who compose things. And you remember Aristotle saying that in the third book about the soul, right? And this stock example is Euclid's definition of point, which he gives here. That the point is that of which there is no part, okay? It can also define as the beginning of a line. But when you say that the point has neither length nor width nor depth, right? Okay. Well, we go from the body, huh? We know the body in an affirmative way. And we see the body has length and width and depth, right? And then we go to surface and we say it has length and width, but no depth. One negation, right? And then we go to line and we say a line has length, but neither width nor depth, huh? And then finally we get to the point, it has either length nor width nor depth. Position only, right? So as you go from body to surface to line to point, you have one, two, three negations, right? So you're knowing the simple through the what? Composed, huh? That's the way our mind goes, huh? Because our reason's own object is that what it is is something sensed or imagined. And this is something composed. So something that is not composed we have to know by what? Negation of the composed, yeah. And so the article, the question three that we read there on the simplicity of God, right? What we did in those eight articles was to show that God is not composed in any way, right? Okay? So we're knowing the simple by the what? Composed, huh? That's why it's very interesting the way geometry proceeds because it proceeds from the what? Simple to the composed. Contrary to the normal way our mind works, okay? But it is appropriate in geometry to go from the simple to the composed, okay? But now, I'm going to show you how you avoid the singularity, right? So division comes first, right? Then understanding of one, right? But then multitude comes after that. Because the multitude is a collection of one, so you have to understand one to understand the multitude. But the multitude, even by definition, is after what? Or follows after the one. Because things divided, we do not understand to have the definition of multitude unless or except to this, that attribute, right, to each of the divided things some kind of what? Unity, right? Hence, one is placed in the definition of multitude, not multitude in the definition of one. But division falls in the understanding from the very what? Negation of being. Thus, what first falls in the understanding is being, right? Secondly, that this being is not that being. Unless we understand division or distinction. Third, one, which is undivided being. And fourth, multitude. So now you get your thoughts in order, right? Being, division, one, many. Can you draw that out some more? I see the first two, but then the third, then how do we come to the... Well, the third one there is understood now as undivided being, right? To indicate division. Oh, yeah. Okay. And then you have the multitude. You have to have many ones, right? In the idea of the multitude. Oh, okay. So those many ones are divided one from another, right? But each of them in itself is undivided, right? Mm-hmm. So there are many ones in the multitude. So you're understanding one before you're understanding multitude, huh? But you're understanding division before you understand one. Because that's undivided being, right? But you're understanding being before you understand division. You understand being and unbeing, and then you understand the division, yeah. Distinction. As I mentioned before, Aristotle and Thomas, I mean, Aristotle first, really, was the first man to understand the most universal things. And part of understanding the most universal things is to understand the distinction of them, one from another, right? And to understand the order of them. Well, now you're understanding a bit the distinction between being and one. One, and the order of them, right? And more completely, the order of being, and unbeing, and division, and then one, and then many, right? So, I told you that famous dinner where they were honoring Becery, I mean, DeConnick, and DeMoleon, you know? And DeMoleon got up after all this honoring and said it was thanking them for the nice things they were saying and so on. But you should have not been praising me, you should have been praising Thomas Aquinas. And DeConnick kind of got to say a few words, and he said, well, this is all very good to praise Thomas Aquinas, but you should have been praising Aristotle. This comes directly from Aristotle, you know? So Thomas, in that sense, was a very humble student of Aristotle. He wasn't afraid to learn from Aristotle or from St. Augustine. And, you know, what Kajetan says, he seems to have inherited the mind of all the Church Fathers because he's so, what, reverence them, right? Inherited Aristotle's mind, too. Okay. Can we continue now? We're taking our break now? Yeah, because we're breaking the two parts, right? See, this is what I was divided into four articles. Basically, you can say two of them are about one in general, right? Yeah. And then the other two are about God being one and he being most of all one, right? Okay. So now you see the idea that you have to understand things in general to understand the best things in particular. So now you see the idea that you have to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand the best things in general to understand So Article 3 now, whether God is one. It seems that God is not one. And a strange quote here from 1 Corinthians of St. Paul. If there are many, what? Gods and many lords. This is probably a necrification, right? They say they're all gods, right? Moreover, the one which is the beginning of number cannot be said of God, since no quantity is said of God. Likewise, neither the one is convertible with being, because it implies a privation, a negation, a lack. And every privation is an imperfection, which does not belong to God. Therefore, it should not be said that God is one. You could be lacking something, right? But against this is what is said in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. Here, Israel, the Lord your God is one. That's a pretty good text. I answer you, it should be said that God is one can be demonstrated from three things. First, from his, what? Simplicity. I mentioned how in the compendium of theology, the unity of God is in the middle of the treatise, or the consideration of the simplicity of God. Well, here you see the connection here again between the two. For it is manifest that that whence some singular is a this something, now that's the famous phrase of Aristotle, the individual, in no way is communicable to many, right? For that whence Socrates is a man is able to be communicated to many, right? But that whence he is this man is not able to be communicated except to one only. If therefore Socrates, through this that he is a man, through this was also what? This man. Then just as there could not be many Socrates, so there could not be many what? Men. But this is true about God. This belongs to God. Because God himself is his own what? Nature. There's no distinction between the two. Therefore, it is by the very same thing that he is God and that he is what? This God. Therefore, it is impossible that there be many gods. Okay? Notice that Plato is anticipating that with his forms, because the form of man and the form of dog or horse and so on is nothing other than what a man is, what a dog is, what a horse is. And so there's only one form of man, only one form of dog, only one form of horse. But that's the way God is. Secondly, from the, what, infinity of his perfection, right? Now notice there the coupling of infinity and perfection, huh? Gotta get down to three here, right? If you couple one and simple and infinite in perfection, you're down to three now, aren't you? It has been shown above that God comprehends in himself the whole perfection of being. If, therefore, there were many gods, it would be necessary for them to differ, right? Something, therefore, would belong to one of them that did not belong to the other. And if this were a privation, he would not be, what? Simply perfect. If, however, it was some perfection, the other one would be lacking in it, right? It is impossible, therefore, that there were many gods. And also, Thomas returns all the way back now to the ancient philosophers, huh? Whence the ancient philosophers as if, what, being coerced by truth itself. That's the phrase that Aristotle uses for the Greeks when they all talked about change being by contraries. None of them gave any reason why change had to be by contraries. But everybody who talked about change tried to explain it by some pair of contraries. And when I stop in that, you know how I stop and show that the, what, Chinese at the same time were doing this? In the moderns, you know, we're trying to explain change by contraries. So anybody who thinks about change comes up with some kind of contraries. Is it coerced by the truth itself? It doesn't seem to be a hypothesis or something. It's like when you talk about the difference between men and women, right? Anybody who thinks about men and women comes to the idea that they are different, right? Coerced by the truth itself, right? Whence the ancient philosophers is coerced, as it were, by the truth itself. Laying down that the beginning was infinite, they posited only one such beginning. Third, from the unity of the world, right? For all things which are, are found to be ordered to each other. When some of them, what, serve others, right? The things which are diverse do not come together in one order, except they are ordered by one beginning. And it's better that the many be reduced to one order by something one than by many. Because, per se, one is the cause of what? One. And the many are not the cause of something one, except by happening. In so far as they are in some way one. Of course, the old idea that what is through itself is always before what is through happening. Since, therefore, that which is first is most perfect and through itself, not by happening, is necessary that the first, reducing all things to one order, be one only. And this is what? God, huh? Do you know why he uses the word plureus instead of, like, multos or something? Just synonym there? Or is there any special, let's say, mini-gods? For some reason, in this... In this reply you mean here? Yeah, in this reply, on various occasions. For instance, at the end of the first argument there, when he comes to his conclusion that it is therefore impossible to be plureus deus. And then he'll do that in a couple other places, too. Right before the end of that... Right before that sentence about... I don't know if... Maybe there's a grammatical reason why he said it, but I don't know. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. But Mark would be the guy to consult on these matters. Yeah. Okay. Now, the first objection is saying, right... He's talking there about the pagans, right? Okay, so that's no big deal. There seem to be mini-gods, according to the error of those who, what? Worship mini-gods. Estimating that the planets and other stars are gods, or even, what, individual parts of the world. Once he subjoins, for us, there is, what? One God. Okay. Now, the second objection is more forceful here about the privation. To the second, it should be said that the one which is the beginning of number is not said of God, right? But only about those things which have being and matter. But the one which is the beginning of number is something of the genus of mathematical things, which have their being and matter, but are abstracted by, what? Reason from matter. But the one that is convertible with being is something metaphysical, right? Because, according to his very being, it does not depend upon matter. And although in God there is not any, what, privation, nevertheless, according to the mode of our, what, understanding, is not known by us except by way of, what, privation or removal or negation. And thus, nothing prevents some things being said privately of God as it is incorporeal, right? Infinite. And likewise, above all. God has said that he is one, right? Actually, in other texts where Thomas takes up this, he'll go back to the fifth book of Aristotle's book on Wisdom, right? And Aristotle will order the meanings of lack. And in the strict sense of lack, it's an unbeing of something you're able to have and should have, right? And therefore it's not a pure negation. It's not just, okay, like the difference between blindness and not seeing, okay? And then a lesser sense will be where you don't have something that your kind of animal, let's say, is apt to have, but your particular kind of animal maybe does have to have. And that's the lack of, that's the lesser sense of it. And then finally, it's what? Not having something that something or other is able to have, but you don't, right? And then you're really moving away from the idea of this being something even, what, bad, right? Okay? And the reason why I keep the idea of privation there is that one doesn't mean simply undivided period, but it means undivided being. So you keep a subject there, which is, what, positive, right? So the word privation moves from a bad sense to a sense that's not bad at all, right? By dropping out parts of its meaning, right? And so this is not an appropriate set of God, right? But you're kind of falling back on that first sense, huh? The Aristotle distinctions all those things. He doesn't do that here, but I see him do it elsewhere, you know, but kind of amazing that he'll go back and find the text there in Aristotle. I was looking at the Titus of the Trinity this morning and I was working with you today. And he's trying to solve an objection which says that the Father and the Son are not, what, distinct because God the Father is the same as the divine nature. God the Son is the same as the divine nature. things that are the same, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he goes back to the text of Aristotle in the third book of the Physics, right? Where Aristotle shows that acting upon undergoing are both the same thing as motion. And yet acting upon undergoing are not the same thing because they differ in definition. Okay? So my kicking you and you're being kicked not the same thing. See? You know, does therapy the same as the, what, change taking place in you now? But it's kind of amazing. You go back to Aristotle, right? Aristotle is making the distinction, right? Of these two because of their... Yeah, in other words, it's called kicking because it's from me to you. And it's called being kicked because it's in you from me. You see? And so, this is something like the Trinity where they're towards each other, right? They're distinguished, huh? But it's amazing to go back to Aristotle, you know, and then see that Aristotle saw something like this. And it's kind of, you might think, you know, Thomas is inventing a distinction, you know, to save a difficulty, but Aristotle's already making that kind of distinction in something more proportioned to us in these Kierkegares. It's just kind of amazing to see Thomas do this. And I see in a text where he takes this, you know, and goes back to the senses that Aristotle distinguished, huh? Of privational lack, right? Where it moves from a bad sense to a sense that's not bad at all. But there's a reason why you move the word in those ways. It's absolutely amazing to see him do that. Okay. Whither God now is maxime unus, most of all one, huh? To the fourth, he proceeds thus. It seems that God is not maxime unus, for one is said, according to their privation, a division. But privation does not receive more and less. Therefore, God has not said more one than other things which are one, right? Moreover, nothing seems to be more indivisible than that which is indivisible in act and in potency, of which sort are the point and the one, right? Of course, the modern mathematicians actually all followed up on that one, right? But the one is even simpler than the point. But insofar as something is said to be more one, insofar as it is, what? Indivisible. Therefore, God is not more one than the unit and the point, huh? Remember, what is essentially good is most of all good. Therefore, what is through its very essence one is most of all one. But every being is one through its very, what, nature or substance, as is clear through the philosopher in the fourth book of metaphysics. Therefore, every being is most of all, what? One. Therefore, God is not more one than other beings. But against this is what Bernhardt says. That among all things which are said to be one, that holds the, what? High point, I guess, right? The unity of the divine, what? Trinity, huh? Tell that to Mohammed and so. I answer it should be said that since one is undivided being, now both of those things are involved in what one is, son. It's not just undivided, but undivided being. In order that something be most one, it is necessary that it be most of all being and most of all, what? Undivided. But both of these things, what? Belong to God. For he is most of all being insofar as he is not having some being determined through some nature to which it, what, comes. but he is, what, to be itself subsisting, right? I am who I am, as we saw, right? In every, in all ways, undetermined, huh? He is over, most of all, undivided insofar as he is neither divided in act, right? Nor is he divisible in inability, right? According to any way and division, right? Since he is in all ways, what, simple, as has been shown above. Whence it is manifest that God is most of all one, right? Now notice it was in the treatise on the simplicity of God that you showed also that God is, what, I am who I am, right? So both things necessary to show that he is most of all one are in the treatise on the, what, simplicity of God. So as I mentioned in the compendium of theology, the unity of God is in the middle of the consideration of the simplicity of God. Now the first objection was saying that privation by itself does not receive more or less. He agrees with that, huh? Nevertheless, according as its opposite receives more or less, so the privatives themselves have said more or less, huh? For according as something is more divided or divisible or less so, or in no way, according in this way something is said to be more or less, or what? Most of all. Now to the second it should be said, huh? That's the argument from point in the unit, right? To the second it should be said that the point in the unit, which is the beginning of number, are not maximancia, right? They're not most beings, fullest beings. Because they do not have being except in some, what? Subject or accidents. Whence neither of them is, what? Just as the subject is not most of all one, on account of the diversity of accident and, what? Subject, right? So thus neither the, what? Accident. That goes back to Aristotle's critique there of Lysus and Primitides, right? Because they're denying any multiplicity in the world, right? But Lysus says that being is infinite, right? And Primitides says it's finite, like a sphere, you know? And Aristotle says, well now, you've got quantity there, and you've got multiplicity, right? Because you've got the substance and the quantity, right? So, um, I want to get that one. All right.