Prima Pars
Lecture 56: Analogy, Relations, and the Predication of Names about God

Transcript
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Let's go back to the reply to the checkmins here now, I guess. The first one is about reducing the equivocal to the univocal, right? To the first therefore it should be said, although in predication is necessary for the equivocal to reduce to the univocal, right? Now, it's kind of explained how that was in the sense, right? You could have the word bats that univocal is baseball bats, right? Without it being said of what? Baseball bats and the flying rodent, right? But, so in some sense the univocal predication is more fundamental than the equivocal one, see? So bat has to be said univocally of baseball bats and univocally of what? The flying rodents before it can be said of all of them equivocally, right? But, in actions, the agent that is not univocal, that's equivocal in other words, of necessity precedes the univocal agent, right? So just the reverse, right? So Thomas is, I think that the word univocal and equivocal was said of words first and then carried over to what? To cause, univocal cause, equivocal cause. So, and I was mentioning earlier today, you know, I happened to see this thing in Thomas, you know, that he's saying the divinity of Christ is an equivocal cause of our, what? Resurrection, right? And the humanity of Christ is, as it were, a univocal cause of our resurrection, right? Okay? Because God in his divine nature doesn't rise at all. He's at the top, right? Okay? But Christ, in his human nature, does rise, right? Just like we will rise. And so, but nevertheless, the first cause is the divinity of God, right? And the human nature of Christ couldn't be a cause of our resurrection without his divinity. But his divinity could be a cause of resurrection without his, what? Humanity, but he's chosen to do it this way, right? And he, you know, quotes, you know, Christ is the mediator of God and man, so. It's human nature. For the non-univocal agent, right? Or the equivocal agent, is universal cause of the whole, what? Species, right? As a soul is the cause of the generation of all men. But the univocal agent is not a, not the universal cause of the whole species. Otherwise, it would be the cause of itself, right? Okay? So I'm not, I'm not the cause of man. I'm the cause of what a man is being found in this individual is my son, right? Yeah? I'm not the cause of man as such. Because I'd be a cause of myself. I am a man, right? But he's the particular cause, univocal agent, of this individual, right? Who is constituted in the partaking of the species. But the universal cause of the whole species is not a, what? Univocal agent, huh? But this universal agent, although it's not univocal, it is nevertheless not entirely, what? Equivocal. There's always going to be some likeness, huh? Between the effect and the maker. Because thus it would not make something like itself, right? But it could be called the analogous agent, right? Okay? Okay? Just as in predications, all univocal things are reduced to something first. Not univocal, but what? Analogical. He's thinking there about being and thing, right? In one. They're all said what? Equivocally, right? Okay? Remember how we did that in logic there. When we say that the same thing can be a genus and a species, right? Okay? So, but is there always something more universal than what you have? See? Can you say, is every genus a species in other words of a higher genus, right? But if that was so, you'd never come to a, what? Most universal, right? But don't you come to most universal names or words like being and thing? Could there be something that isn't a being in some way? They're kind of different terms, right? Could there be something that isn't something? You know? So something is said of everything that is, right? Being is said of everything, right? But now those most universal ones like being and something and thing and so on, are they said of all things genetically or equivocally? Is being said of my being a man and my being in this room? Identically? So even there, eventually you get to what? You reduce the univocal to the equivocal. I was trying to show away that you're, the other, you know, seem to be so. But if you look at the ultimate thing there, right? What's said of all is said of all, what? Equivocally. Equivocally by reason, right? Or an elegance, as Thomas likes to say. Just as in predications, all univocals are reduced to something one first, not univocal, but analogous, which is being, right? And of course, the other most universal things like one something and so on. Okay. I'm going to apply to the second objection here, right? This is taking the word equivocal there to exclude what? Likeness, right? Okay. To the second it should be said that the likeness of the creature to God is imperfect because neither is it the same in representing it according to genus as has been said above. Now, Thomas could have been a little more complete in his answer to that. The objection is taking maybe the purely equivocal, but there's no likeness between the meanings, right? And therefore, no reason to give these things the same, what, name, right? Okay. But Thomas, again, is emphasizing the fact that the likeness is so distant, right? That nothing can be said with exactly the same meaning. I always quote that text there from the Fourth Lateran Council that Paul VI brought to my attention first, but then I see it referred to since. Where he says, You can never know the likeness between the creature and God without at the same time a greater, what? Unlikeness, huh? Okay. So scripture is something to say who is like the Lord, right? It says, you know, who is like the Lord, right? Because we're more unlike him than like him. But even if we're more unlike him than like him, we still like him. Okay. I told you how you used that with the Mohammedan Adon class in Saudi Arabia, right? Who objected to Shakespeare calling reason God-like, right? Nothing is like God. Well, I wanted to explain that our position was what the Fourth Vatican Council says, right? Or Lateran Council says. The third objection was that God is the measure of things and the measure is homogeneous, right? Well, to the third, it should be said that God is not a measure that is proportioned to the things measured, right? Coincidence is not necessary that God and creatures be contained under one genus. Now, the other objections conclude that nothing is said uniquely of God and creatures, not that they are said, what? Equivocally, and equivocally there means just equivocal, right? So, nothing is said of God and creatures, what? Univocally. Now, when you get to the treatise on the incarnation, you've got to make a little qualification there, right? Because is man said of Christ and of us? Yeah. So, you're talking about God and his divine nature, right? But when God becomes man, then something can be said uniquely of us, huh? So, when you say that Christ, or the second person of the Word, is a man now, right? And you say, I'm a man, the word man means the same thing. Because it means human nature. He's a man, body and soul, just like I am a man, body and soul. Okay. But when my soul is separated from my body, then I'm going to be a man. By select a key, right? But when I resurrect, then I'll be a man in the same sense I am now. Now, the next question is talking about the order, because in the name, the equivocal, by reason, there's an order among the meanings, right? So it's a different meaning of good instead of us instead of God, right? And wise instead of us instead of God, huh? But is it said first of us or is it said first of God, right? Well, you might need a distinction here of the order, right? To the sixth one, he proceeds thus. Thus, it seems that names are said of creatures before they're said of God. For according to this, we know something, for as we know something, so we name it. That's the principle, right? We name things as we know them in St. English. Since names, according to the philosopher, are the signs of things understood. But we know the creature before we know God, right? Therefore, the names placed upon things by us first are placed upon creatures, then before they're placed upon God, right? So daddy is said of my daddy before it's said of God, right? Moreover, according to Dionysius in the book about the divine names, we name God from creatures. Ah, here comes the divine name as you refer to it. But names, notice the word translata there, right? Names carried over from creatures to God, right? Are first said of God before they said, I mean of creatures before they said of God, as lions, stone, and things of this sort, right? Therefore, all names which are said of God and of creatures are said of creatures before they're said of God. Of course, notice those examples are from the metaphors, right? The name is properly said of the creatures and not read properly of God. Moreover, all names which are commonly said of God and creatures are said of God as the cause of all, as Dionysius says. But what is said of something by way of causality is said of it afterwards, right? It goes back to the old example. For health is said of the animal before it's said of medicine, which is the cause of health, right? Therefore, these names are said before of creatures and of God, right? Well, if names were said of God only in that way, you might have a point, huh? But some names you saw were said substantially of God, right? But against this is what is said in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 to 15. I bend my knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, right? I think I pointed out before how Thomas says, what does he mean in Shalom? Is there fatherhood in the angels? Well, in a sense, the teacher is the father of his students, right? And one angel illuminates the other one, right? So there's a kind of fatherhood there. It's kind of interesting, huh? Yeah. When we'd have a kind of little break in class there with Necconic, you know, in the long seminars, you know? Okay, children, he'd say, come on in. He'd say it, too, you know. Get away with saying those little things, just this. Yeah. I know my teacher, my teacher, Kisurik, knows, like a father. He died, like, you know, my own father died. So there's kind of that reason. And the same reason would seem to be true of the other names which are said of God and creatures. Therefore, these names are said of God before they're said of what? Creatures, right? Well, obviously, there's a need in here for distinction that Thomas will probably make in the body of the article. And that's why he handles this place and other places. I answer, it should be said that in all names which are said of many analogously, it's necessary that all be said with regard to something one. And that that one thing be placed in the definition of all. And because the thought or the definition which the name signifies is a definition, as is said in the fourth book of wisdom, the fourth book after the book is a natural philosophy, is necessary that that name be said before of that which is placed in the definition of the others and afterwards of the others, according to the order in which they approach to that thing which is first, either more or less. Just as healthy is said of the animal, as it's said of animal, follows the definition of healthy which is said of medicine. Because that is called healthy insofar as it causes the health of the, what, animal, right? And in the definition of healthy which is said of urine, which signifies, which is called healthy insofar as it is a sign of the health of the animal, right? So obviously the first meaning of healthy is as it's said of the animal, right? Now he says, thus therefore, all names which are said metaphorically of God, right? Are said of the creature before of God, right? Because said of God, they signify nothing other than what? Likenesses to such creatures, huh? Just as to laugh is said of the field, right? Signifies nothing other than that the field has itself in beauty when it flowers, just as a man when he smiles, right? Okay? A woman's face is most beautiful when she smiles, huh? Not when she laughs. According to the likeness of, what, proportion, right? Thus the name lion said of God signifies nothing other than that God similarly has himself that he does, what, strongly in his works, just as a lion in his, right? And thus it is clear that according as they said of God, their meaning cannot be defined except through the meaning that they have in their set of creatures. But about other names which are not said metaphorically of God, right? Some names we said are said properly of God, the article in that earlier, right? It would be the same reason if they were said of God only by way of causality, right? Thus when he said that God is good, for example, if nothing other was meant than that God is the cause of the goodness of creatures, right? Then the name good said of God would include in its understanding the goodness of the creature, right? Or if wise meant only that God is the cause of the wisdom of Aristotle, right? Then the wisdom of Aristotle would be the definition of wise as a son of God, right? Once good would be said of the creature before God, but above it has been shown that these names are not only said of God, what? Causalitar, as a cause, but also what? Essentialitar, which he said before, he spoke of what? Substantialitar, right? When then God is said to be good or wise, not only is it signified that he is the cause of wisdom or of goodness, right? But that these things also pre-exist in him in a more excellent or more eminent way. Your eminence. Once according to this, it ought to be said, and now he makes a distinction that's necessarily made here, that as far as the thing signified through the name, right? They are said of God before they said of creatures, right? Because from God, these perfections flow into creatures. But according to the placing upon of the name, they are placed upon us, what? On creatures before, right? Because we know the creatures before we know God, right? Whence, they have the way of signifying that belongs to creatures, right? Okay? I might mention that Aristotle, in the fifth book of wisdom, with some words, he makes this distinction, right? Okay? Like, for example, the word nature, right? It's first placed upon birth, right? Okay? And later on, it's placed upon the source of birth within, okay? But really, in things, that's more fundamental, what's within, than the outward birth, right? And some of these Aristotle make that distinction of those two orders, right? Okay? So it's not like Thomas is drawing this distinction out of nowhere just to meet a problem with theology, right? Aristotle's already made this kind of distinction, right? about names, right? The order in the imposition of the name, right? And the order in the, what, things themselves, okay? But more immediate to the name is the, what, meaning of the name, right? And the order in which we know these things, right? So the order in which we know the goodness of God and creatures is the goodness of creatures is known before the goodness of God by us, right? But the order in things of the goodness of God and the goodness of creatures is that the goodness of God is the source of the goodness of the, what, creatures, right, huh? Okay. So Thomas will make that same distinction when he's explaining the words in the epistle to Ephesians, right? He'll make that distinction, okay? Okay, now the first objection, he agrees that that objection proceeds as regards to placing upon him the name, right? So he placed the name Father upon Daddy first before he placed it upon God, right? Okay. Now, so kind of a sign of that is, you know, that people who have a bad father, right, human father, sometimes have a hard time with speaking of God the Father, right? I always remember this, but the reverse of that, you know, one of the counsels of her towards the end there, you know, and she's just thinking of the words of our Father and part of the our Father prayer, you know? And to one of her, I think one of her nuns or something, one of her sisters there, she says, how sweet it is to think of God as our Father, right? I think she had a very good father, human father, right? And she said he loved him, you know, very much and so on. He might be canonized, I guess. He doesn't talk about it, I mean, about it too. But could she, could our Father have been so sweet to think of God as our Father if she had not found her own Father, you know, a sweet Father, right? It's a real problem for people. And if you've ever met people who have this problem, you know. Yeah, yeah. Mrs. Kershaw, her father was, I think her father was a suicide or something. Yeah, yeah. And she never really knew him, but then Mar, she told me, I was exposed to this, she says, I have a hard time relating to God as Father. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because sometimes you find this other example, too, you know, where a man doesn't get from his natural father what he should get, right? And then he gets attached to another man who kind of becomes a father figure for him, right? I suppose the same thing happened with, you know, a daughter and a mother, you know? So then how, and I think I'm missing his point, how does this work then with the, there's that sense with the Father, but then there's the other one that works with the Ephesians, where it's, the fatherhood is, Yeah, yeah. God is first. But, you know, Thomas explains that as not that we actually place the name Father upon God first, right? But that in the things themselves, right? God is a father before your human father is a father, right? Yeah. Okay. So the same point I'm making about good, right? You place good upon something that you find in the creature first, right? Yeah. But the goodness, whatever there is in the creature, is derived from goodness of God, right? So the order in things is just to reverse, right? Goodness in things is found in God before it's found in the creature, right? And it is found more perfectly, obviously. It's only more perfect. But as far as the placing of the name upon things, you place the name good upon candy or something before you place it upon God, right? Okay. Yeah. Mixing up the senses of the floor and all that, I think. Yeah, in a sense, yeah. Different senses of you. So you might make some distinction then. You know, to say the text of the Ephesians, but we don't have to reason, huh? You've got to reason and faith. They're always in harmony, right? But sometimes they appear, you know, to be in disharmony because we don't see some distinction, right? Never affirm. Somnina. I used to dislike that. There's some tooth out of it, you know? It's kind of an exaggeration, right? But through the importance of distinguishing or seeing a distinction, huh? Okay, now we've got time to start seven series. I suppose you should wait. Yeah. So you don't have to just fly through it. This week is Thanksgiving. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. You want to meet on Tuesday instead or something or what? Monday it might be. Wait, just a minute. No, I think I'm going to the doctor on Tuesday. May. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, word of God, form our words. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand all that you have written. Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So I guess we're up to Article 7 now, which is a particularly difficult part of teaching. It goes back to teaching about the relatives that the philosophers had made already, Aristotle. It's a very difficult thing to understand relatives. Because there are some relations that are relations of real things, right? And others that are, what, relations only of reason. And then there's this mixed one, where on one side it's a relation that's real. And on the other side it's a relation of, what, reason. That's going to be involved in these things that are Southern God. This is a very difficult thing. So you've got to meet this thing many times in your thinking, and you only gradually begin to fit these things together. To the seventh one proceeds thus. It seems that the names which imply or involve a relation to creatures are not said of God extemporary, right? In time, right? Because how can something truly be said, starting in time, for God, right? God is eternal, huh? Now he says, first objection. There's a lot of objections here, huh? Usually he has about three. He's got six of them. All of these names signify the divine substance, as is commonly said. Whence also Ambrose says that this name Dominus, which is what you translate Lord, right? Is a name of power, right? And the power of God is the divine substance. And creator signifies the action of God, the action of creating, which is also his essence or substance, right? Notice I'll use a substantia, a substantia, there's synonyms. But the divine substance is not in time, huh? But it's eternal. Therefore, these names are not said of God in time, but eternally. Eternity. Morver, second objection. To whomever belongs something in time can be said to have been made, huh? For what in time is white has become white, huh? But it doesn't belong to God to be made in any way, huh? And therefore, nothing is said of God in time, huh? Moreover, if some names are said of God from time, on account of the fact that they imply or involve a relation to creatures, for the same reason, would seem to be about all of those things which imply some relation to creatures, it would all be said of God extemporary. But some names involving a relation to creatures are said of God from eternity. For from eternity, he knew the creature and he loved the creature. According to the famous thing in Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 3, I have loved you with a perpetual charity, huh? Eternal, that's a very famous text. So if that's eternal, then why not other names which imply a relation to creature as Lord and what? Creature, right? It would also then be said of God from what? Eternity. Dissiri. Okay? Of course, if you know the ninth book of wisdom, you know that there's a difference between an activity that remains within the what? Doer, right? An activity that has an external product, right? And that might be involved in the difference here between God's knowing and loving us from eternity, but not being said to be our creator before we've been created. Or our Lord before we are subject to him, and that's after our creation. Morver, this is the fourth objection. Morver, names of this sort signify relation. It's necessary, therefore, that that relation be either something in God or in the creature only, but it is not able to be in the creature only, because then God would be named Lord from the opposite relation, which is in creatures, but nothing is denominated from its what? Opposite, huh? It remains, therefore, that relation is something in God. But nothing can be in God from time, since he's above time. He can't acquire something. Therefore, it seems that these names are not said of God in time. He likes to tie the other knot, doesn't he? He's tall, son. You've heard me say it before, huh? Aristotle, in the Premium to Wisdom, he says that the philomuthos is, in a way, a philosophos. The lover of mis is something of a philosopher. And the reason he gives there in the Premium to Wisdom is that a philosophy begins in wonder, and the philomuthos has a certain wonder about things. But you could also say that the, what, philomuthos could mean a lover of plots. Muthos is the word for plot in the book on the poetic art. And a plot consists of tying the knots and then untying them. So, if you love plots, huh, then you're something of a philosopher, because philosophy consists of tying knots and then untying them. And he does this also in theology, huh? He's tying you into several knots, and then, let's see, like Houdini, he can untie himself for you. But Chester and Elvis said, you know, he loved those detective stories. Yeah. And yet he was one who was always untying knots. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So St. Thomas would have liked the Fr. Brown mysteries. Yeah. I remember C.S. Lewis, you know, dealing with some kind of difficulty. He said, now let us look for the loose end. You want to try to untie it or unravel it. Now, the fifth objection is one that really gives you a difficulty here. Moreover, something is said relatively by some relation, right? As, according to domination, let us say, one is said to be a lord, right? Just as one is said to be white by whiteness. If, therefore, the relation of domination is not in God secundum rem, really, but only secundum rationally, according to reason, would follow that God is not really the Lord, which is clearly false. I think that touches upon the difficulty of understanding a relation which is, what, real on one side, right? And the other side, it's not real, but of reason. Okay? We'll come back to that. That's a little, that shows the difficulty of understanding relations. Moreover, in relatives which are not simul natura, not together by nature, or at the same, I mean, at the same time together, one is able to be, the other not existing. But the noble exists, even if there is no, what, knowledge about it, as is said in the Book of the Categories, or in Latin they call it the predicamenti son. But the relatives which are said of God and creatures are not together by nature. Therefore, something can be said relatively of God towards creature, even though the creature does not yet exist. And thus, these names, Lord and Creator, are said of God from eternity, And thus, these names, Lord and Creator, are said of God from eternity. And thus, these names, Lord and Creator, are said of God from eternity. from time, right? But now against all this, is what the great Augustine says, and perhaps his greatest book, the fifth book of the Trinity, right? That this relative naming Dominus, Lord, belongs to God extempore. So Augustine is lining up against all these objections on the other side, which makes us stop and think maybe there's something we didn't see, taken in by these objections, due to the weakness of our mind. The rest of the story I heard years ago, I don't know if it's true or not, that Voltaire is supposed to have gone through the Summa, you know, collecting all these objections. He's not caring about the rest of it, just like it's so loud, you know, he ran into a believing Catholic, you know, because most people could never handle these objections, huh? And I remember reading somewhere else, too, where someone was saying, you know, that the Church Fathers, some of them were to be commended, you know, for holding on to the faith, despite the fact that there were objections they didn't know how to answer. But as a philosopher, you know, I know that there are objections even to the obvious that most people can't answer. And so it isn't surprising, you know, that you might have objections to things that are above reason that most people couldn't answer. And it shouldn't be such a scandalous situation, huh? You know, everybody's heard of the paradoxes of Zeno, right? And according to Zeno, there's no way I can walk out that door. Well, we know I can walk out that door. But most people can't answer the argument against that. So even things that are obvious, right, are, um, I can have objections that most people can't answer, huh? And our scholar gives an answer to Zeno in the sixth book, right? That's not the real answer. And then, as Thomas explains, right, but it, the way answers his argument, right? But the real answer comes there, huh? In the last books of the natural hearing. I answer, it should be said, huh? That names, implying a relation to creature are said of God from time and not from eternity, huh? Now, Thomas is going to go and give us a little bit of a summary here of some of the teaching about relation, which is a very, very difficult thing, a very obscure thing. In a sense, um, relation usually, it's like trying to understand motion and time, huh? You know, Aristotle begins a consideration of time, and he says, well, time is made up of the past and the future, and the past doesn't exist anymore. The future doesn't exist yet, and there's no time in the present. Now, would you say that this chair exists if its legs didn't exist, and the seat didn't exist, and the back didn't exist? So how can time exist when its parts don't exist? There's no problem, right? Okay? And in a way, um, that same difficulty is in motion, right? When does motion exist, huh? So if I'm walking across this room, part of my motion across the room is, is gone. Part of it is to remain. And how much of my motion is ever there? All at once. Hmm? If any part of my motion was there all at once, I'd be in two places all at once. So things like motion and time, they barely exist, as Aristotle says. And the difficulty in understanding them is in them, right? And something like that is true about relation, or most relations, that they are, um, relations and creatures they have. So little existence, they almost seem to not exist at all. So Thomas is touching upon that, huh? To the evidence of which it should be known, that some people lay down that relation is not at all a thing of nature. It's not a real thing. But a reason relation only, huh? As if relation exists only in the comparison that our mind makes between one thing and another, huh? It seems, uh, that's kind of a sign of, uh, relation not having much existence. That people think it's only something in the mind and nothing out there. Uh, but this, he says, appears to be false. But this appears to be false from this, that things themselves have a natural order, right? In relation to each other, huh? Now my example I always take was with the family cat, huh? And I was pretty big compared to the cat, right? With the cat in his place sometimes, huh? And Tabitha didn't, uh, like to go down the basement at night time, but we didn't want to run around the house and jump in the beds in the middle of the night. So Tabitha had to be put down in the basement, and I'd pick Tabitha up, uh, around that time I was going to go to bed, and she'd be kind of nice purring in my arms and so on. And then I'd take that first step downstairs. Ah! You could get a good scratch or something, right? So I used to say to my son Marcus, you put her downstairs. But if I did, I mean, I could make sure that I secure the paws before. But I used to say, you know, um, if Tabitha was, what, let's say, uh, bigger than me, right? If I was like a toy soldier, you know, compared to Tabitha, I would have been chunked upon and played with and eaten and nibbled. And, uh, so my whole relation to her is really quite different because I was so much bigger than her, right? And so that convinced me that this, uh, being bigger or smaller is something very real. And, you know, if you start a fight there in the bar, you know, and the guy gets off his stool and he's slouching, let's say, on his stool and gets off and as he stands up, you see, he's, you know, towering over you and you realize the magnitude of the man, that he's much bigger than you, right? Uh, then you regret that you have, have engaged him, huh? Yeah. So there's something in the thing, right, huh? We have a real relation to each other because of our size, right, huh? Okay. And if you, uh, generate somebody or you teach somebody, you get a, what? Real relation to them and they have a real relation to you. It's based upon something. But now Thomas goes into a distinction among relations, huh? Nevertheless, it should be known that sense of relation requires two extremes, huh? In three ways, huh? It can be that there to be a thing of nature or just a thing of, what? Reason, huh? So he's going to make this that I referred to briefly there in the beginning of today's talk, right? There's going to be some relations where it's real on both sides, huh? Others where, what? It's something of reason on both sides. And then there's this mixed case, right? Where it's something real on one side and something of reason on the other. That's the thing that is especially difficult to understand, huh? Okay? Does that make one of your boxes? I suppose you could, but it's an example of a division into, what, three, right? Okay? Um, and you'd say that you have the two extremes, right, huh? Okay? And then one where you have the kind of mixed one. Okay? Because it's a very self-teaching, so it goes back to Aristotle. Thomas has learned it from his master there, Aristotle. So it says, sometimes on both sides it is a thing of reason only. When the order, or the having itself, you might say, huh? Um, cannot be between some things except only. by the, what, grasping of reason, as when we say the same thing is the same as itself, right? So if I said to you, could you say that Socrates is Socrates? I can't say Socrates is not Socrates, right? So you say Socrates is Socrates, you're saying Socrates is the same thing as Socrates, right? But is that a real relation? No, because Socrates in reality is only one, right? And it's because my mind has taken Socrates twice that you can, what? Yeah, yeah, but it's not a real relation, because in reality there are actually Socrates is just one, okay? This is the way DeConnick refuted Bertrand Russell, right? Because Bertrand Russell was giving a statistical argument saying that the, what, part can be equal to the whole, right? He's denying that the whole is greater than the part, right? You've heard my statistical argument, right? This is easy to understand, right? Well, the one that Russell gave was this, he had, since we take all numbers, you know, for them, of course, one is a number, one, two, three, four, five, six, you can go on forever, right? And then you can, what, put an even number opposite each one of these, right? So the double of one would be two, two, four, three, six, eight, ten, okay? So you can go on forever with numbers, and making opposite them a what? Even number, right? So if for every number there's an even number, then even number is equal to all numbers, right? The part is equal to the whole, he said. This is Bertrand Russell. Okay? But what is he doing here, right? He's multiplying, what, two twice, right? And it's only in the mind, right? And DeCang says, well, I can do this with just two, huh? But a two opposite each one means, right? So that's only multiplication in the mind, huh? Okay? But this is not the same two in the mind, but in reality there aren't two twos, right? If you're talking about reality, you can't have two over here and two over there, because if you use the two over here, no one over here for this. But if you have a two on both sides, or as many twos as you want to, it's because the mind can say Socrates is Socrates, right? And the statement Socrates is Socrates is a statement, Socrates is Socrates, now I get four of them. And I can keep it coming back and saying something is itself, right? It's like I can know that I know what a triangle is, and I can know that I know a triangle is, and I can know that I know what a triangle is, and I can know that I know what a triangle is, and so on forever, right? But confusing this beings or reason with the real thing, huh? But yet you're, as a boy he says, nothing is more true than when you say something is itself, right? A dog is a dog. You know, not to tell you much, but it's very true, right? In fact, at first sight it might seem, how can you say something is anything other than itself? Because it would be itself, huh? For according as reason grasps twice something one, right? It places it as two, right? In the subject and in the predicate, right? And thus it grasps the certain relation of it to itself, right? Okay? That's one kind of relation of reason, okay? And likewise about all relations which are between being and what? Non-being, huh? Which reason forms insofar as it grasps non-being as one extreme, right? But really non-being is nothing, right? Like talking about the relation between something and nothing, right? You say, well, nothing is really nothing. But the mind takes nothing as what? Something in reason. And so we can say that nothing is nothing. So we say that nothing is in some way, right? But nothing is only in the mind. Outside the mind is nothing. That's why it's not even nothing. You may remember, we did a little bit of the fifth book there, the chapter on being, right? And that's the being, you know, that's true or false, right? Which extends to beings then that are not real, right? So that's the second one he takes, huh? See here, one of the two things is not real, right? So you can't have a relation between something that isn't real, okay? In the first case, you had something real, but what was not real is that you take it twice, okay? Really there aren't two Socrates, although in the mind there aren't two. One's a subject, one's a predicate, okay? And then he gives you a third group, right? And the same about all relations which follow upon the act of reason, as genus and species and things of this sort, huh? Because genus and species are taken up together by Porphyry and the Isogogi, right? The genus is that which is said of many different species, and answers the question, what is it? And the species is what is placed on the genus, and which the genus is said in answer to the question, what is it, huh? But genus and species are tied up with universality, and things are universal only in the mind, right? Okay. So there can be a science, namely logic, about what? Relations of reason, huh? And they can be very, what? Exact, right? Very, very certain about some of these things, huh? But it's still not a relation in things, huh? But only in the mind. So these are three different kinds of relations and reason, please illustrate that, huh? Then he goes to the other side. There are some relations which, as far as both extremes, are a thing of nature, right? When there is a having itself between the two, according to something really belonging to both, right? And then he gives the two kinds of relations that Aristotle distinguishes in the fifth book of wisdom, huh? As it's clear about all relations which follow quantity, right? So if I'm taller than you, if I'm really taller than you, you're really shorter than me, okay? As large and small, double and half, right? So if four is really double two, two is really half of what? Four, right? For the quantity is in both of the, what? Extremes, huh? And this being double and half, or taller or shorter, is based upon the quantity that's really in both of these things, huh? And likewise, about relations which follow upon, acting upon, and undergoing. As the mover and the mobile, right? Father and son, right? Okay? And similar. So I really generated my son, and he was really generated by me, right? So my relation to him, of being a father to him, and he being a son to me, are really in both of us, okay? It's based upon something real in us, huh? The act of generation, okay? Now, this is the third, the stranger case, huh? Sometimes, though, the relation is in one of the extremes, is a res natura, right? A real thing, you might say, huh? A thing in the, in the, in the vera natura, in reality. And the other is a thing of reason only, right? How come, this is a very strange thing, and Aristotle discovered this, huh? He's an awfully smart guy, Aristotle. I don't know how he feels so smart. And this happens whenever two extremes are not of one, what? Order, right? Now, the example that Aristotle sometimes takes with this, as sense and science, or knowledge, are referred to the sensible and the knowable, right? Which, insofar as they are certain things, they exist in an actual being, right? And they are outside the order of, what? Sensible being and understandable being. And therefore, in science, and in science, sense, there is a real relation according as they are ordered to knowing or sensing things. But those things considered in themselves are outside the order of this, huh? So, I used to see on the Love and Friendship course sometimes, right? If you know somebody, you've seen somebody, you kind of attracted them. But they don't know that you know them. And that you like them. You have a real relation to that person, right? Now, since you know them, you have to conceive of them as being known by you and loved by you, right? Is that anything in them? It's all based upon, what, the act of knowing and the act of loving in you and are they in their real being in your knowledge and love? So, I have a real relation to them but not them to me, right? Okay? Or if I know the tree in my backyard, the kind of tree it is, and so on. My knowledge of that tree is really related to that tree. It's the knowledge of that tree, right? And on the side of the tree, we've got to say it's known by me, right? But is that something really in the tree, something added to the tree? Is it something added to me, really, when I come to know the tree, right? And so the relation to the thing known is found upon something real in me, my knowing of the tree. But does my knowing of the tree affect the tree at all? Is something that's taking place in the tree? No. So the relation of being known by me, which we turn to the tree, is relation of reason, not of real relation. Okay? But now this is kind of a subtle thing. Can you say the tree is really known by me? Yeah. But you say really known by me because I really know it. Not because there's something, you know, really added to the tree in being known by me, right? That's kind of a subtle thing, right? Aristotle suddenly speaks there in the fifth book of the measure being measured like that. The measure is really measured by the measure, right? But the measure is not really quite affected by this, huh? And the thing known, in a sense, measures my knowing. God is a measure of all things, right? Okay. So this is very interesting, this third case, huh? So he says, And therefore, in scientia, in knowledge, and in the sense, there is a real relation according as they are ordered to knowing or sensing things. But those things themselves, considered by themselves, right, are outside the order of this sort, right? You don't have this kind of immaterial being that things have in knowing, right? Whence, in these, there is not a relation, really, to the, what? Knowledge and to the, what? Sense, right? But according to reason only, right? And, of course, Thomas will say sometimes more explicitly about this, that reason can't really think of this towards that without thinking of that towards this. But in this case, in thinking of that towards this, it's inventing a, what? A relation that is not really in that other thing, right? Okay. Whence the philosopher, and that's the philosopher, the capital P, right? I notice when I read the sentences there and so on, I mean, the sentences there and from the, because you don't have the sentences, huh? But you can get off the Navarro website. But you don't capitalize philosopher like you do here in the Moriarty text, you know? So I think it's better to capitalize, you know, because you're using it by a tone of Messiah, right? So when I transcribe it, I think the capital P, you know? But it shows Thomas' respect for him, right? He calls him the philosopher. But that's a very common figure of speech, yeah? And sometimes we do it, in Latin, of course, you've got a problem because Latin doesn't have the article, right? But a lot of times to bring out that something is being said by Antonia Messia will say, the wolf for the Bible, right? And when Christ says, you know, I am what? The way, the truth, and the life, right? Well, is there truth and life apart from him? Yeah, there's some truth, you know. The Pythagorean theorem, there's truth there, right? So on. But he is the truth, right? See? By Antonia Messia. And he is what? The life, right? By Antonia Messia. And he is the road, right? Am I talking about the roads and then how? You know, the first road, sir? And Thomas, you know, says, virtue is the road to happiness. Vice is the road to misery. But Christ is the road, you see? And let's use the article there. In the Greek, you have the article, right? Latin doesn't have all the figures of, it doesn't have all the parts of speech. It doesn't have the article. You'll see sometimes in the scholastics, you know, they'll stick in an article that Latin doesn't have. You'll see L-Y sometimes, you know, because they realize the defect of Latin. Sometimes they stick in the Tau-Omicron. I've seen that done. Yeah. Tau. Yeah. Yeah. Once the philosopher says in the fifth book of metaphysics, of wisdom, that there are not said relatively these things in that they are referred to other things, right? But because other things are referred to them, right? And then he gives a common example, a very easy example, but it's a good one to bring out this. And likewise, dextrum, which means right, is not said of the column, except insofar as it is placed to the right of the animal, right? Hence, this relation is not really in the column, but in the animal. So there's a real difference between my, what? Right side, my left side, and me, right? Because one's more powerful than the other, and so on. But if I have a column, right, because there's a circular thing here, is it on my right or on my left? Well, if I'm on this, you know, right, it's on my left, or something, vice versa. Is that a real relation? Is it based upon something in the column? Tuta, right? No. That's kind of a simple example that Thomas often gives to bring out this, right? But the relation is really in me, right? Right and left, but not in the column. And something is said, the column on the left, the column on the right, because of me, rather than something in it that makes it to the right and the left. So that's kind of a simple example that Thomas gives sometimes to explain this strange kind of, what, situation, right? Because they say sometimes he speaks more explicitly that our mind can't think of one thing towards another without thinking of the other thing reversely towards it. That's kind of the necessity of our thought. Okay, now he applies this to the question of God. Since, therefore, God is outside the whole order of the creature, and all creatures are ordered to him, a non-econversal, right? Is manifest that creatures are really referred to God himself, right? So we have a real relation to God. But in God, there is not a real relation to creatures, but according to reason only, right? Insofar as creatures are referred to him. So he said to be my Lord because I really, what, belong to him or I really depend upon him, right? Okay.