Prima Pars
Lecture 47: Comprehension of God and Knowledge of All Things

Transcript
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Then we're not always understanding God more, right? But rather, we're never understanding Him more than we do when we foresee Him. And we're never loving Him more, right? Okay? That's kind of paradoxical because, you say, isn't that kind of contrary to our experience of understanding and loving in this world, right? That if you understand something or love something, you always try to understand it and love it more, right? You see? There's a little paradox there. Now, someone could say, well, God has eternally destined you for this place in heaven, right? With this clarity, this particular clarity of vision, and this particular degree of love, right? Okay? A little slop there for you. And since the saints are completely conformed to the will of God, right? They will for themselves, right? That degree of understanding, that degree of love that God has chosen for them. Okay? So God chose for Mary, you know, a higher place than the apostles, but He chose for the apostles a higher place than us, right? Okay? And so on down to the saints, right? So, you could say, well, the reason why you don't want to understand God more than you do in heaven, or love Him more, is because God has chosen for you to understand Him this much, right? And to love Him this much, right? Which may be more than somebody else in heaven, but I'm totally less than many others in heaven, right? Okay? And because you will completely conform to God's will, you have no desire to, what? Understand Him more than He's chosen for you to understand Him. You know? Okay? That gives a little hell with it, right? Okay? Okay? Okay? But there's a second thing here that seems to me that is irrelevant to this too. And that is that we forget, and have a hard time understanding, that in the beatific vision, you will partake of what? Eternity. That in the beatific vision is more measured by eternity, which has no before and after, and not measured by time, right? You see? And that you're kind of, what? Falsely imagining yourself to be in time in the beatific vision. And so long, of course, as you're in time, then you have the idea of, what, getting better in the course of time, right? But there's no time in the vision of God as He is, right? And in the love of God during the beatific vision, huh? During eternity. Now, I think if you understand that you can see part of that, right? Okay? Now, there's also, you know, the thing, you know, that the saints point out, and St. Teresa de Silva, because he's got a place here next week, you know? Let's say, you know the one about the cup, right? And everybody's filled. But my cup is smaller than yours, right? You see? And you're just like, you know, I find I don't have as much appetizing as I was a younger man, right? And if I go to a restaurant, you know, I guess it's a basic rule of the restaurant thing. Don't let anybody go away unsatisfied, huh? And therefore give them more food than some of them will want. Well, I find I get more food than I really want to eat. And, but when I see some young man, you know, really eating, you know, potting his plate up, you know, my son potting his plate up, and so on. I wouldn't want to eat that. I don't have the capacity for that anymore, right? Well, that's the third thing we'd say, right, huh? You see? That, in a sense, I'm as satisfied as a young man, but it's not the same amount of food that is satisfying him and satisfying me, right? Okay. If I love God more than I do, I would not be satisfied with the vision that I have, right? But the vision I have corresponds to my capacity, right? You see? So I'm, in one sense, is satisfied with the lesser amount that the Thomas Aquinas is not satisfied with the amount that I would be satisfied with, right? Do you see the idea? So those three things I would point to, right? One is the conformity of your will with God, right? That you want neither more nor less than what God has chosen for you, right? Your will is completely conformity with God's will, so you don't want to move it against God's will, right? But I think the most interesting to me is the idea that you will be partaking of eternity here. You will not be in time, and that's part of our difficulty in understanding is that we're falsely imagining ourselves to be in a temporal situation, and we're not in time anymore. It's all at once, right? Yeah. And then there's this thing that St. Teresa that goes back to the saints before, you know, about the, you know, you know, one of the places she talks about, God has helped you to understand this, right? How everybody is satisfied, but somebody is satisfied with less, right? So, yeah? I could say maybe that corresponds to part of the definition of eternity that's the perfect possession. It's the perfect possession for one maybe less than the one. Yeah. But he's wholly satisfied, right? Okay. So let's go on now to Article 7 here. Whether those seeing God through his essence comprehend it, right? Of course, God comprehends himself, right? So I was kind of touching that. That's why I took up those questions between these articles here. Because he was going to talk about the knowledge which God, in a way, has of himself that we don't have, right? Yeah. Yeah. That our knowledge of God would be like God and that we see God as he is, but we won't see God as much as he's knowable, right? Okay? And as I said, we won't love him as much as he's loveable. We can never do that. To the seventh one proceeds thus. It seems that those seeing God comprehend him through his essence, right? For the apostle says, I follow, if in some way I might, what? Comprehend, yeah. This is the equivocation there. Comprehend. But he did not follow in vain, right? Frista. For he says in 1 Corinthians 9, Thus I run, not as if I was uncertain as to where I was going, huh? Therefore he comprehends, and the same reason others whom he invites to this, right? Saying, thus run, that you might, what? Comprehend, huh? I suppose, what would be the English word for comprehend? Yeah. Yeah, well, I suppose, you know, for the word apprehend, you know, which is partly comprehend, and the word is grasp, right? But I suppose comprehend is the idea of grasping all around, right? You know? I can comprehend this thing here, but a marble I could comprehend entirely, right? It'd be entirely enclosed in my, what, fist, huh? Because it's small enough, right? To grasp entirely, so to speak, huh? Okay? But maybe comprehend can have just a sense of grasping, right? We shall grasp God, right? Okay, we'll let him go as it says in the Song of Songs. Whoever, as Augustine says in the book about seeing God to Paulina, Paulina. What would that be in English? That's feminine, right? Paulino? Or is it... That's Paulina's, no. But would that be Paulino? It's Paulina's, yeah, that's all I know. We have to look it up. I think it's a woman, too. Oh. We've been reading the sentences, you know, and it's just... A lot of the questions, you know, he just, what, resolves them with authorities, you know. He's quoting about six or seven different things of Augustine, right? Da-da-da-da-da-da. So he wants to read you know in Augustine, huh? That's what he did. He had digested and read all Augustine, I guess. And it all comes out there. thing, yeah. One article this morning, he ends up saying, now if someone can say this better, I would not envy him. So, he did a great service to theology, even though it's not exactly the suma, but it's very good. Okay, as Augustine says in the book about seeing God to Paulina, that is comprehended, which is seen as a whole, so that nothing of it is what? Hidden, right? But if God is seen through his essence, the whole is seen, and nothing of it is what? Hidden from the one seeing it, since God is simple. So, you can't see one part of God and not another part of God, right? Okay? Like you can see part of Euclid and not other part, right? Therefore, for whomever is seen by his essence, he is comprehended. Now, if it is said that the whole is seen, but it's not seen wholly, okay? Wholly either says the way of the seer or the way of the thing seen. But the one who sees God by his essence sees him wholly if it signifies the way of the thing seen, because he is seen as he is, right? Likewise, he is seen wholly if it signifies the way of the seer, because the whole power of the understanding, what? Sees God, right? But one guy's cup is bigger than others. Okay. Whoever therefore seeing God through his essence sees him totally. Therefore, he, what? comprehends him, huh? But again, this is what is said in the prophet Jeremiah. Now, he's one of the major prophets, I guess. I'm going to go to a shark there in France. And there's so much to see inside of him, you know. I've seen some kind of a guide to all the different pictures and so on. But I was struck by seeing, you know, the representation of the four gospel writers. And underneath each one of them, kind of the same statue, was the four major prophets, kind of. So they were kind of sitting on top of the, you know, or resting on top of the others. It's all in one statue, so to speak. So I've never seen it before in a church. I don't know if you were seen in a church before. But I mean, Thomas, I know, makes a correlation in the commendation and partition of the second scripture between the four major prophets and the four gospel writers, huh? So Isaiah goes with Matthew. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's why only in those two do you have the, what? Emmanuel. Oh. John was Ezekiel? John is Daniel. Daniel, yeah. Yeah. And Jeremiah is the, what? Was. Mark. Yeah. Yeah. I see more, though, dealing with the passion or what, Jeremiah is. Oh, yeah. But anyway, let's go back here, huh? Mm-hmm. The against is what Jeremiah says, 32. For Tissime, most strong, right? Great, potent. The God of armies, right? Is his name, huh? Great in counsel and, what? Incomprehensible in thought, huh? Okay. Therefore, he's not able to be comprehended, right? I answer it should be said that to comprehend God is impossible for any created understanding, right? I was kind of touching upon that and I say we could never know God as much as he is knowable, right? Because that would be to comprehend God, to know him as much as he's knowable, which is the way God knows himself. But to attain him, but to attain God by the mind in any way, right? Is great, the attitude, as Augustine says, huh? Okay. Now, to the evidence of this, it should be known that that is comprehended, which is perfectly what? Known, huh? Now, that is perfectly known, huh? That is known as much as it is what? Knowable, right? This is the likeness that Thomas Hobbes uses to try to help us understand this. Whence is that which is knowable by demonstrative science is held by opinion from some probable reason, conceit, it is not what? Comprehended, huh? Okay? Now, um, I used to do a class, I'd say, when straight lines intersect, are these angles equal? Now, usually my students would say yes, you know? And I'd say, now, is that obvious or how do you know that? It looks like you're equal. That's not a very good reason to say it looks like you're equal, right? Maybe somebody might say, well, let's go out and measure these two, right? You'll find them equal. But that tells you that this pair of stereotypes, it's true, right? Does it tell you about the other ones? Okay? Well, let's try to draw some more, right? Okay? But even if I drew, you know, an infinity of them, it'll tell me that it's always so. I mean, I can say, you know, that every number is odd. This is an example, this is an example, this is an example. I can give an infinity of examples to prove. It's pretty good induction, right? A large induction, huh? So, but you can say there's some reason, by induction here, to think that these will be, what? Always equal. It doesn't mean you fully know it, does it? No. See? And the way Euclid shows this is by saying, let's give you a letter here, that if this is a straight line, A plus X must be equal to? Two right angles. Two right angles. And if this is a straight line, B plus X must be equal to two right angles. And the rest is just the accidents, right? So if A plus X is equal to two right angles, and B plus X is equal to two right angles, then they're equal to each other. And then Euclid subtracted because Euclid is also equal. Now I know the same thing that they knew by kind of probable reason, by know it more what? More fully, yeah. Okay? So we're knowing the same thing, but I'm knowing it more fully, then they're knowing it, right? Okay. Once he says, if that which is know by demonstrative science is held as an opinion from some probable reason, it is not yet, what, comprehended. It's not knowable as much as it's knowable. If, for example, that a triangle has its three interior angles, right, equal to two right angles. This is the famous, what, 32 in Book 1 of Euclid. If someone knows this by demonstration, he comprehends that, right? If someone has an opinion and accepts this probability to the fact that it's said by the wise, by geometers or by the many, he's not comprehended, right? Because he does not arrive at that perfect way of knowledge in which it is knowable. He doesn't know it as much as it's, what, knowable. Okay? Now he says, no created understanding is able to arrive at that perfect way of knowledge of the divine essence in which it is knowable. Or to say it may be in more colloquial English, right? No created understanding can arrive at knowing the divine essence as much as it's, what, knowable, right? And that is clear in this way. For each thing is knowable as it is a being and act. This is what Aristotle brings out in the ninth Book of Wisdom, which is the book on act and ability, right? Where he says that ability is knowable only to act, right? And when you see a building going up, you know, what's it going to be? Sometimes people, you know, you hear people speculating what it's going to be. But the more it comes to be an act, the more you know what it's going to be, right? Therefore, God, whose being is, what, infinite, and we had an article on that earlier in the course, right? He is, what, infinitely knowable. The more you knowable. The more you knowable. The more you knowable. The more you knowable. The more you knowable. The more you knowable. but no created intellect is able to know God infinitely. For to that extent, a created intellect knows the divine essence more perfectly or less perfectly as it has, what, it's flowed over with, a greater or lesser, what, light of glory, right? Since therefore the light of glory, the created light of glory, and any created understanding received cannot be infinite, right? It's impossible that some created intellect knows God infinitely, right? Whence it is impossible that God, that it comprehends God, right? So he's saying God is infinitely knowable, right? So to know God as much as he is knowable, that whereby you know him would have to be what? Infinite, right? But the light of glory, being a creature, can't be infinite, right? Okay, so he can never know God as much as he's knowable. Only God can know himself as much as he's knowable, and only God can love himself as much as he's lovable. Have you ever read the Doctor of Divine Love? Who's the Doctor of Divine Love? Well, I think about St. Francis de Sales, right? Francis de Sales. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, because of his treatise. Yeah, because of his treatise on love, if they call him that. But in a sense, one is, you know, he's talking about glorifying God, right? Rejoicing these things. You rejoice that someone loves God more than you do. In other words, you should be glad that Mary loves God more adequately, that someone loves him right up to you than you do, right? Okay? Or that someone even understands him, you know, right up to you than you do, right? Okay? But in the end, you say, well, but no creature, not even Mary, right, can love God as much as he's lovable, right? And know as much as he'll see. Now, it would be a terrible thing for no one to know God as much as he's knowable, and for no one to love God as much as he's lovable. Wouldn't that be a pity? Huh? You know? And, you know, sometimes you feel sorry for somebody. You know, the girl's not big ass to dance, like that. But people don't love her as much as she's lovable, right? She's not infinitely lovable, but you want somebody to appreciate this person that you see something, you know, and you realize that she's not being appreciated, right? Okay? Or you might, you know, a professor or an author you think is not appreciated as much as he should be, right? You know? And you want to, you know? But if we're sorry about God, right? It would be a pity, miserable, unfortunate, if no one would love God as much as he's lovable, and no one would understand God as much as he's understandable. But that would be true if there wasn't God to understand and love himself, right? So we should rejoice that he, what? Because he's one who understands him as much as he's understandable, and what? Loved him as he's lovable. Yeah, yeah. I was working last night, I had the students at the house, and I got one of the students, you know, buying Mozart, and I see the Mozart. He liked these pieces, he liked these pieces so much, you know, and I was a little upset by that, of course. Because I wanted him to, you know, to love Mozart as much as I love Mozart, right? You know? And you want people to appreciate these beautiful things, huh? But I mean, I guess, too, if anybody, if I was teaching paintings, and I, you know, really saw these beautiful, you know, Renaissance paintings, whatever they were, I want my students to, well, begin to appreciate those paintings, and to enjoy them, and love them as much as I do, right? That's what St. Thomas says on his commentary in the Psalms, about the, somewhere about King David, he's upset, he's angry, he's distressed because God's laws aren't being kept. He's affected by them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know myself, as a teacher, you know, you want students to understand more and more what you're saying or what you're talking about, but you want them to understand Thomas. I mean, that's not me, but he'd understand Thomas. And it's so frustrating, you see, that they don't understand him as much as understandable. Okay? But this would be too very fortiorit of knowing God, huh? Should be thankful, right? Okay. On the first objection, right? Just taking it from St. Paul there about, St. Paul seems to be saying he's going to comprehend him, right? He'll invite you to comprehend him, too. Okay. And that's an equivocation in the word there. To the first, therefore, it should be said, huh? That comprehensio is said in two ways, huh? In one way, strictly and properly, right? According as something is included, right? In the one comprehending, huh? And in this way, in no way is God comprehended, right? Neither by intellect nor by anything else. Because since he is infinite, he in no way can be, what, surrounded, you might say, included, that's the idea, closed in. Don't fence me in. He can't be fenced in. Because since he's infinite, he can in no way be, what, fenced in or contained by something limited, right? That something limited could, what, grasp him infinitely, just as he infinitely is, huh? And thus, about comprehension, now one is asking the question, right? In another way, comprehension is taken, what? More largely, right? Largely as opposed to strictly, right? More loosely, huh? According as comprehension is opposed to what? Pursuing, right? So the one who attains to something, when he holds on to it, right? Is said to what? Comprehend, right? Grasp it, huh? And thus, God is comprehended by the blessed according to that of Canicles, chapter 3, verse 4. I will hold on to him, right? Nor will I let him, what, go, right, huh? And thus, it should be understood the authorities of the apostle, meaning, of course, St. Paul, about what? Comprehension, right? And then Thomas, the next little footnote to this. And in this way, comprehension is one of the three, what? Gifts of the soul, which corresponds to hope as vision to faith and enjoyment to, what? Charity, right? For with us, not everything that is seen is, what? Held or had, right, huh? Okay? Because you're seen sometimes, what? At a distance, right? Or because you're not in our power, right? So you see the movie actors, right? But you don't, at a distance, right? You don't own her, right? Nor, again, all things that we have, do we, what? Enjoy. Because we're not delighted in them, huh? Or because they are not the last end of our desire. So that our desire, so that they fill and put to rest our desire. But these three things the blessed have in God, because they will see him, right? And in seeing him, they will hold on to him as present, right? That's why I say the word see in some ways is more appropriate than the word to understand, right? Because of this idea of being present. That's why the metaphor of face-to-face is very appropriate, right? Because when I see you face-to-face, you're present to me, right? But when I go back home at night and I have an image of you, it's not face-to-face. There's a distance between us, huh? And so you're being present to me. You're in my mind. I mean, God will be in our mind. They hold on to him present, having in their power always to what? See him, right? And holding on to him, they will enjoy him as the last end, fulfilling or filling their desire. Amen. That's what Thomas says in one place, and he gets through talking about our end, you know. And therefore they will blush and place the end of man and bodily things, you know, these lonely things out. And they see how far away from that and how above us is the last end of man, right? Okay, now the second objection, huh? That is comprehended, Augustine says, and is, what, a thing to Paulina? That the whole is seen, that nothing is hidden from the one seeing. To the second it should be said, huh? That not on account of this is God said to be incomprehensible, as if something of him there is that is not seen, right? Because as we said before, God is altogether simple, right? So you either see the whole of God or you don't see him at all. But because he is not as perfectly seen as he is seeable. And then he goes, this is a common comparison Thomas makes. Just as when some statement able to be demonstrated, right, is known through some probable reason, right? There is not something of it that is not known, because you see, what, the subject or the predicate or the composition, you see all these things, right? So you see the whole statement, but the whole statement is not thus perfectly known as it is knowable. When Augustine, in defining comprehension, says that the whole is comprehended in seeing, that is thus seen, that nothing of it is hidden from the one seeing it. Or whose, what, limits can, what, be seen around, huh? And then, that's a more strict sense, I guess, huh? Then the ends of something are seen around or check them, gone around, huh? When one comes to the end in the way of knowing that thing, right? Now the last thing, now we say we see the whole of God, but we don't see him holding. Perfectly, huh? To the third, it should be said that totalitia, which I guess you translate as holy, right? Says the way of the object, huh? That's kind of strange that he says that, huh? Not that the whole way of the object does not come under knowledge, but because the way of the object is not the way of the, what? Knower, huh? Who therefore sees God by his essence, sees this in him, that he exists infinitely, one sees that he exists infinitely, and that he's infinitely knowable, right? But this infinite mode does not belong to him, that he knows him infinitely. Just as someone with probability is able to know some statement to be demonstrable, even though he himself does not, what, know it demonstrably, right? Okay? So if I look at the later books of Euclid, I say, hey, that's probably demonstrable, right? Because Euclid, you know, doesn't seem to have a deception, but I don't know a demonstration, right? Someday we'll understand the demonstration, huh? So we take a little break now, appropriate time to... Okay, now the next article, to the eighth one proceeds thus, it seems that those seeing God through his essence see all things in God, right? And of course the famous quote from Gregory, for Gregory says in the fourth book of the Dialogues, what is it that they do not see who see the one seeing all things? But God is seeing all things, right? Therefore those who see God see all things, huh? Moreover, whoever sees a mirror sees those things which are resplendent in the mirror, right? But all things, whatever, that come to be are able to come to be, shine in God as in a kind of, what, mirror, for he knows all things in himself, right? Therefore, whoever sees God sees all things which are, and all things which are able to come to be him. Moreover, who understands that which is greater is able to understand lesser things, as is said in the third book about the soul. That's when Aristotle is making the famous distinction between the senses and the reason, right? If you see something very bright, you're kind of, what, not able to see for a while, right? Or if you hear something very loud, you're even made deaf, right? But if you consider something very understandable, and then you turn to something lesser, you're not, what, impeded from understanding it, you can understand it, what? Better, right? That's why I say, you know, that, you know, my teachers, you know, had this respect for Shakespeare and Mozart and so on. But these things are less understandable than the things they're doing in philosophy, right? But when you turn, you know, from the things that were understandable to the music of Mozart, which is only understandable in potency or in participation, the way the emotions partake of reason and so on, you're more able to judge that, right? Okay? And then they saw that romantic music, you know, is kind of not following reason, huh? That's the difference between the music of the, you know, in general, the Baroque period and Mozart's music as composed compared to the music of the Romantic period, right? Because the Romantic, the Baroque period and Mozart saw that the emotions should be in harmony with reason, right? Follow reason, huh? And that's the thing that the Romantics won't quite admit, huh? But you can kind of see that their music is not, what, so good for the soul, right? Good for the emotions, huh? And, you know, Tchaikovsky goes out to the, what, to drown himself one time at least and so on. And people kind of surprised how Tchaikovsky would, what, go listen to Mozart, right? Why? To escape from the madness of his own life and the madness around him, huh? So they recognize in some way the excellence of Mozart's music and the same could be said in general about the music of the Baroque. There's something noble, more reasonable. But the philosophers, who really are good philosophers, can judge those things better. They can judge the less understandable better after considering the more understandable. And they have good judgment in fiction and things of that sort, huh? You know? Like once you just said, you know, what Shakespeare keeps on kind of an even keel, you know? Not the way the other things do. You've got to disperse your faculties and run them down and so on. But you can make that judgment, huh? Well, of course, God is the greatest thing you can understand, right? But all the things which God makes or is able to make are much less than his own essence. Therefore, whoever understands God is able to understand all things which God makes or is able to make, right? Some guy knows all those lesser things, huh? That's always, to me, a very striking argument. Moreover, the rational creature desires naturally to know all things, the whole universe. If, therefore, in seeing God, he does not know all things, his natural desire would not be put to rest. And thus, in seeing God, he would not be, what? Blessed. Which is unfitting. Inconvenient. But let's try and sense that it didn't fit together. In seeing, therefore, God, he knows all things, right? But against this is that the angels see God through his essence, and nevertheless, they do not know all things. For the lower angels are purged by the higher ones from ignorance, right? As Dan Isha says in the seventh chapter on the celestial hierarchy. For they do not know future contingents and the thoughts of the heart. So, my teacher could say, make an act of will, opening your heart to your angel, your guardian angel. But this is of God alone. Therefore, not whoever sees God's essence see all things. I'm putting the Latin word there in my English. It's kind of funny, you see, how to tell the people who read Thomas very carefully that they have kind of an English. So, lots of word order, you know, and you can tell by the way of speaking, you know, this guy is one of those, one of those strange people. I answer it should be said that the created understanding in seeing the divine essence does not see in it all the things which God makes or is able to make. For it is manifest that thus some things are seen in God according as they are in him. But all other things are in God as effects are in the power of their cause. Thus other things are seen in God as effects are seen in their cause. But it is manifest that the more perfectly some cause is seen, more are able to be seen of its effects in it. Who has, therefore, elevated understanding at once, in one principle demonstrated, proposed, is able to take any knowledge from that of many conclusions. Of course, you see it all the time, even in physics, right? You know, in fact, you see all kinds of consequences of something, people don't see them right away. Okay. Which does not belong to the one of a weaker understanding, huh? But each thing has to be explained to him. Okay. You see it all the time, it's a teacher, right? That understanding, therefore, in a cause is able to know all the effects of the cause and all the reasons for the effects, who totally comprehends that cause, huh? But no created understanding wholly is able to comprehend God as has been shown in the previous article, right? You can see how this article follows upon that, huh? Thomas has well ordered these things, huh? I think in the two Sumas, you find the things better ordered than maybe the disputed questions, which sometimes come up in kind of an ad hoc fashion. And it happens a little bit, you see a little bit in the sentences, too, in Lombard, you know, that it's kind of an ad hoc thing, you know, and this reminds me of this, you know. And, but this is according to the, what Thomas calls the beginning, the, what, order of understanding, or order of, yeah, order of discipline. That's one of the reasons why he wrote the Sumas, right? So you can get your, get the things in the order in which they can be learned, best learned. For no created understanding in seeing God is able, no created understanding, therefore, in seeing God is able to know all the things which God makes or is able to make. For this would be to comprehend his, his virtue, his power. But of those things which God makes or is able to make, more that understanding knows, that more perfectly, what, sees God. The more perfectly you see God, the more things you'll see in God. But you're not, you'll never see all that there is to see in God. Because that would be to comprehend God, huh? Now, how does he reply to the text?