Prima Pars
Lecture 64: God's Knowledge of Things Not in Act

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Because they have a common angle, and then they have this side, and this side, and this line, and this line, right? Okay. So eventually what it does is to prove that these two triangles are equal, and therefore since this is the right angle, by construction, right? This angle corresponds to the other one, it must be a right angle. And therefore we know from the previous theorem that there's one. That the line meets at a right angle is tangent. But how do you retrieve that out? It's kind of amazing the way he does these things. He's an amazing man. What was that in? That's in a different book, right? It's not the first book. This is Proposition 17 in Book 3. Yeah, Book 3 is a secular book, and Books 3 and 4 are a secular book. Okay. See, what's interesting is that he's always going with something you know to begin with. That's what's kind of interesting. Yeah. Because if you had the first point, then you said, well, you need another point. Well, you get a higher point from the center of the circle. Yeah. Then you have two points so you can make a line, and that already gives you another point. That gives you the radius of the second circle. That gives you the outer circle. That line, the first line you draw gives you the radius of the second circle. So you can draw the second circle. But anyway. Kind of interesting to compare, you know, the geometry with fiction, right? I was going to write a paper one time called Tragedy and Geometry. Because they both work on the imagination, but in different ways, right? And, you know, of course, tragedy is making a likeness in the imagination, huh? This is not making a likeness so much, but you're reasoning out something. But there's a work of the imagination there in figuring out these unusual constructions, huh? Some of them are very striking in your book. Okay, now we go up to the eighth article. Whether the knowledge of God is a cause of what? Things, huh? Incidentally, Thomas sometimes has three possibilities, right? If there's going to be conformity between what's in the mind and what's in things, right? Either things cause the knowledge of the mind, right? Or knowledge of the mind causes the things, right? Or a third thing causes both. And, of course, in the case of our mind, knowing things through our senses and so on, which are acted upon by things, right? The conformity of our mind to things is because things are the cause of our knowledge. And that's why when you make a judgment, we'll say, does that make sense? Or that's nonsense? Come to your senses. In the case of God's mind and things outside of him, right? Well, his knowledge is the cause of things, huh? Now, what about the angels? Well, that's a third possibility, right? Because of these material things, God causes them, right? And he creates the angels with their, what, mind already formed with thoughts, huh? And so he's the cause of both, and that's why they correspond, huh? It's kind of like Einstein would say, use Einstein's phrase there, pre-establish harmony between the two. To the eighth one proceeds thus, it seems that the knowledge of God is not a cause of things, huh? For origin says in his commentary in the epistle to the Romans, Not an account of that will something be, because God knows it to be future, but because it is future, therefore it is known by God before it comes to be. Moreover, if the cause be laid down, or is posited, then the effect is going to be posited, huh? But the knowledge of God is eternal. If, therefore, the knowledge of God was a cause of things, it seems that creatures would be from, what? The Trinity. Moreover, the knowable is before knowledge, and a measure of it, as is said in the tenth book of wisdom of the metaphysics. But that which is afterwards and measured cannot be the cause. Therefore, the knowledge of God is not the cause of things, huh? It's very much submitting God's way of knowing to ours, right, huh? That's what I was talking about there. But against this is what the great Augustine says in the fifteenth book about the Trinity. That the universe of creatures, both spiritual ones and immaterial ones and bodily ones, not because they are, therefore God knows them, but therefore they are, because he knows them. Okay? An answer, it should be said, that the knowledge of God is the cause of things, huh? For thus the knowledge of God has itself to all created things, as the knowledge of the artist has itself to the, what? Anything. Yeah. Artificial things. Thomas would make a beautiful use of that, explaining the Trinity, huh? You know, there'd be an objection, you know, to the word being God, because the word goes forward from God understanding himself, right? And therefore, it seems to be contrary to its being the first cause that goes forward from something. Because the first cause doesn't go forward from anything. And Thomas says, well, but the first cause is a cause in the way of an artist, right? An artist causes things through his knowledge, right? Through his thought, right? And so, the word of God is like the, what? Thought of which all things are made, as St. John says, huh? That pertains to the first cause, because the first cause is an artist. But the knowledge of the artist is the cause of the artificial things. And this artificial means made by art. The things made by art, it's just put together those two words. In that the artist operates through his understanding. Whence it is necessary that the form of the understanding is the beginning of the operation. Just as heat is the beginning of heating, right? So, our style talks about this in the seventh book there, Wisdom, huh? Even Karl Marx talked about this, right? That the artist makes the house in his head before he makes it in the wood and stone and so on. But it should be considered that the natural form, insofar as it is a form remaining in the one to whom, what? It gives being. And likewise, the understandable form does not name the beginning of action, according as it is only in the one understanding, unless there be joined to it an inclination to the effect, which is through the, what? The will, right? And that's why, you know, when he talks about those Greek philosophers who said love is the beginning of all things, right? And that philosopher who said that mind is the beginning of all things, they both have a, what? Part of the truth, right? But the mind would not give rise to anything without the, what? Because Aristotle develops this in the, in the, uh, ninth book of Wisdom, huh? Because he points out that there's the same knowledge of opposites. So the doctor, by his knowledge, can, what? Heal you or make you sick. And his knowledge enables him to do that, right? In the same way, my knowledge of, of logic enables me to reason correctly and to reason incorrectly, right? Heal you or make you sick. When I give an exam to my students, I make use of my knowledge of logic to see if I can fool them, right? And, you know, again, my knowledge of grammar, I can say, I am your professor, or I is your professor, and you are my students, right? I know how to speak incorrectly as well as correctly by the same art, huh? And so, knowledge gives me an ability for opposites, right? The rhetorician knows how to persuade you to do something and not to do it, right? You can do either one, huh? Depending on who's paying you. So there has to be some kind of will there, right? For doing one rather than the, what? Other, right? For since the understandable form has itself to opposites, right? He's going back to what his master there, Aristotle, pointed out. Since there's the same knowledge of opposites, and that was a famous thing that even Plato had talked about before Aristotle. In the great dialogue, the symposium, right? At the end of the dialogue, Socrates is talking to the Agathons, which in the great tragedy had won the prize that year. So it's a symposium in honor of his victory. And Aristophanes, the great comic poet, is there, right? And apparently, Agathon writes good tragedies, but doesn't write comedy. And Aristophanes writes comedy, but not tragedy. And Socrates, at the end, is saying, if you guys knew what you were doing, you could write, what? Both tragedy and comedy, huh? And, of course, the great Homer, right? Homer wrote the Iliad, which is tragic, huh? And he wrote a comic book, which is lost to us, called The Margites. There's a few quotes we have from it. Margites, I guess, means a worthless one in Greek. But Aristophanes says in the book on the poetic art that The Margites is to comedy, but The Iliad is to tragedy. So if The Margites, as a comic book, was as great as The Iliad, as a tragic work, then Homer knows what he's doing. He can do both, right? And I remember my brother Richard having to go to one of Shakespeare's comedies. Of course, we're more familiar with Hamlet and Macbeth and Homer and Juliet from high school, you know. He said, I didn't realize Shakespeare was so funny. But Shakespeare was both, right? While somebody like Moliere just writes, what? Comedy, right? But if you get a good actor, you know, like Alan Guinness, right, he could play both comic roles very well and tragic roles, huh? And so knowledge leads you open to, what? Contraries to opposites, yeah. So you need that, what? Will, huh? So since the understandable form has itself to opposites, for there is the same knowledge of opposites, huh? So could the doctor know, or could there be a knowledge of what abnormal blood pressure is, high blood pressure is, that wasn't also a knowledge of what normal and correct or healthy blood pressure is? No. So, necessarily, it's the knowledge of the same, huh? Both. And in the very definition, you might say, of abnormal or high blood pressure is, yeah, yeah. And in ethics there, right, I told you that, that kind of a bright student who said you shouldn't be teaching ethics, because you learn in ethics not only how to be good, but how to be bad. And people are inclined to be bad, so you're making it worse. That's a good, the best reason, you know, is to teach ethics to be a course, which is a course of everybody, you know, often is, and that's a really good reason about not teaching ethics. For some truth, it's an objection, right? Maybe there should be a reader course. Yeah. So, since the understandable form has itself to opposites, since there's the same knowledge of opposites, it would not produce a determined effect, unless it's determined to one of the two opposites, right? To desire, right? As is said in the ninth book of wisdom, or first philosophy, the ninth book after the books of natural philosophy. Okay? It is manifest, however, that God, through his understanding, causes things, since his very being is his, what? Understanding. Whence is necessary that his knowledge be a cause of things, according as it has what will join to it. Whence the knowledge of God, according as it is a cause of things, is accustomed to be named the science of approbation, approval. Okay? Now, the first objection is taken from the text of what? Origen, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Origen has spoken, paying attention to what? The notion of science, to which it does not belong, the idea of causality, unless you, what? Join to it will, as has been said. But that, what he says, that God foreknows something, because he had a future, it should be understood according to the cause of what? Consequence, not according to the cause of being, right? Let's say, if something is future, God must know it. You can draw this as a conclusion, but it doesn't mean that it's being future is the cause of his knowledge. For it follows, if some things are future, that God foreknows them. But nevertheless, future things are what? Not, however, are future things a cause that God, what? Knows them, huh? But his knowledge is a cause that they are. Okay? The second objection is saying, but God's knowledge is eternal, therefore, when his effects have to be eternal, right? If his knowledge is a cause of them. Well, he says, the knowledge of God is the cause of things according as things are in his knowledge, right? But they are not in the knowledge of God that they would be from, what? Eternity, right? Whence, although the knowledge of God is eternal, it does not follow that creatures are from eternity, huh? As you mentioned before here, the great Boethius takes this up in the last book there of the Consolation of Philosophy, right? And that's what he introduces Aristotle. This is true Fowler or Lady Wisdom does. But it goes back to what we said before that he has to understand that the way we know, right, doesn't have to be the way things are. And I went back to the central question as I call it of Philosophy. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? And as I say, there's two answers that are yes and no, right? And most philosophers seem to be answering implicitly, if not explicitly, yes. And Aristotle is answering no. Okay? What you say about things has to be with them, right? But the way you know them doesn't have to be what? And I can know the shape of this glass, what, through my eyes and through color, right? And I can know it without color, without my eyes, right? Do I make it false? Or I can know what? The past, now. Am I false? Knowing the past, now? I have to wait until I'm in the past to know the past? The past, you don't want to know. Let them pass. Now, the third objection, huh? It's taken from a text there in the metaphysics, huh? But the third, it should be said that natural things are in between the knowledge of God and our knowledge, right? For we get our knowledge from natural things, right? of which God, to his knowledge, is the cause. Hence, natural things that are knowable are before our knowledge, right? And they are a measure of our knowledge. So likewise, the knowledge of God is before the natural things and a measure of them. Just as some house is between the knowledge of the artist who made it, right? And the knowledge of the one whose knowledge is taken from it when it's already made. So if you say the artist is going to make the house, his knowledge of what a house is and how to make it is before the house, right? But I come upon the house after it's made, and now the house is before my knowledge, right? Well, this is the way that our mind is towards what? Natural things, like the man who's coming upon the house already made. That's where Aristotle says that art imitates nature, right? That's where our knowledge begins. God's knowledge is before. So Aristotle is talking about our knowledge in that text, you know, that he's referring there in the 10th book of the Metaphysics. Now, should we take a little break here before you do the 9th article? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. mind here now whether god has knowledge of things that are not okay the knowledge of god is not except the things that are what true can you know the false can you know that that two is half of five you can maybe think that two is half of five you can't know that can you no so the knowledge of god is not except of two things but true and being are what convertible therefore the knowledge of god is not of non-beings i can answer that more knowledge requires likeness between the knower and the known but those things which are not cannot have any likeness to god who is to be itself i am who am therefore those things which are not are not able to be known by god moreover the knowledge of god is a cause of the things known by him but his knowledge is not a cause of non-beings because non-being does not have a cause therefore god does not have knowledge of non-being so i'm sorry but against this is what the apostle like and that's antonio messiah for saint paul but against this is what the apostle says in the epistle to the romans who calls those things which are not just as those things which are which are i answer it should be said that god knows all things whatever that are in any way whatsoever for nothing prevents those things which are not what simply to be in some way right this is that distinction we've talked about many times huh it corresponds to the second kind of mistake outside of what speech it's the kind of mistake that mino makes in the dialogue right and when socrates tries to answer it he makes the same kind of mistake you wonder whether plato did that knowingly or those things are simply without qualification which are an act right but not those things are in potency right so someone said to me without qualifying it or simply am i standing now what would you say no because i'm not standing in act although i'm able to stand right okay and standing in ability you can't say simply you can't qualify those things however which are not an act are in the ability or the power either of god himself or the creature right whether in an active power or in a passive power those are two kinds of powers that aristotle first distinguishes in the ninth book of wisdom right or in the power of what thinking or imagining or in some other way of signifying whatever things therefore by the creature are able to what come to be or to be thought or to be said and also whatever things he is able to make god knows all these things right even if an act they are not done and to this extent it can be said that he has knowledge of what non-being so god wouldn't know his own power and the power of other things if he only knew what was an act because his power extends to things besides the things he's made and even our power extends to things that we have not made or done and so on what's that said when they paid him too much what i do to live what i could do but if those things which are not in act they should be noticed in diversity for some things although they are not now in act nevertheless they were or they will be or they were right and all of these things god is said to know by the knowledge of what vision right because since the understanding of god which is his very being is measured by eternity the things uh he comprehends uh uh without succession the whole of what existing time insofar as the inside of god goes over the whole time right and all things which are in any time whatsoever are in what yeah subject to him presently this is what what is as i mentioned again that wreath is takes up in the fifth book of the uh consolation of philosophy right and how can god know the past and the future and so on but his knowledge is eternal right and he has to you know start out first and he shows the way of knowing doesn't have to be the way things are right but thomas often makes that comparison to the circle right and he says you know the points on the circumference of the circle are before and after each other right but to the point which is the center of the circle which is not a point on the circle they're all what the opposite right so the past and the future and the present and time what is before and after each other but they're all present to what god is eternity that's very hard for us to understand right but the way we know is not the way things are right but you have a little hint of that when you and i know the past what now right and sometimes you groan when you recall the past and you laugh again when you recall something funny that happened in the past right and so the past is present to you now right but the future is also present to god right because we kind of try to anticipate the future right and imagine what we're going to be doing later on today or tomorrow or next week or something right but uh they're all present to god amazing amazing to god you know used to be a program on tv in the old days you know you were there did you ever and always reenacting events right reenacting famous events right you know and and one time they had the trial socrates on you know and they're interviewing people you know what's going on what the siri used to joke about because i probably listened to and heard about it you know and so on we get the video vision you'll be there so you're there and you're present to you the past will be present again you were there you'll be there but some things are are which are in the power of god or the creature which nevertheless will not be or or what nor were they they neither are nor were they nor will they be right and with respect to these things is not said to have the knowledge of what vision right but a simple what understanding right which is said thus because those things which are seen with us have distinct being outside the one seeing right so that's why we call the one the knowledge of vision right okay okay now the first objection said the knowledge of god is not except of things that are true but being and true are convertible therefore the god the knowledge of god is not of men beings to the first therefore it should be said that according as they are in ability or in potency thus they have truth those things which are not in what act for it is true for them to be in potency and thus they are known by god so in some sense they are right so when you say that true and being are convertible you got to realize that being is said in many ways in act and in ability the second objection there got to be a likeness between the knower and the known but those things which are not cannot have any likeness to god to the second it should be said that says since god is being itself insofar as each thing is to that extent each thing is to the extent that it partakes of what a likeness of god just as each thing to that extent is ...not insofar as if it takes of, what, heat. Thus, those things which are in potency, even if they are not in act, are known by, what, God. Because they have even some kind of likeness to them, however distant, right? Because every agent makes what is like itself, right? So the agent could not make, God could not make matter, unless in some way, however remote, it is like God, right? Okay, the third argument says God, knowledge is a cause of things. To the third, it should be said that the knowledge of God is a cause of things joined with, what, the will. Whence is not necessary that whatever things God knows either are or were or will be in the future, but only those things that he wishes to be, right? Or that he permits to be. Again, those things that are not of this sort are not in the knowledge of God as if they were, but as if they were, what, able to be, right? Okay? So, God chose you to be, right? So he chose for your parents to meet, right? But notice, even if your parents meet, your chances of being, right, are very, what, very small, right, huh? You know, you know? So that in the marriage act and so on, there's lots of, what, sperm and so on, right? Hundreds or thousands, I don't know. Huge numbers, right? And so even that day you were conceived, your chances are not very good. You know? And maybe only in that day or that month or it was, could you have been conceived at all, right? Okay? So, I mean, all these other people could have been besides you. So why are you, you know? Insignificant you. Why were you chosen to be, huh? You know? But you realize that he's choosing you to be was kind of very much gratuitous, huh? Very much gratuitous. It's like in that passage I was reading from Jude there, you know, it says, the mercy of Christ, right? Eternal life, huh? So even if you have belief and hope and charity, still the eternal life is something you're not quite worthy of, right? Still, through the mercy of God, it's still not completely simply justice, right? It could be better than you thought it was going to be. You know, people, you know, they think of something like some movie or something, you know, and how can I spend eternity? Just looking at God, you know, I mean, what, I want to get restless, you know, like Origen said, and you're going to go back into the body, you know, or escape the vision. Well, no. You never completely comprehend God, right? He always remains wonderful, marvelous. It's hard for us to kind of understand that, right, huh? That's all you're going to be doing. And Scripture speaks of us, you know, like a pillar, you know, that doesn't go out anymore. And when Thomas talks about the gift of agility, right, it's just, you know, show the power you have over your body now, the control of your body. Not that you really need to go anywhere. It seems to me it'd be interesting to see in the flesh, you know, all these saints and, you know, obviously Christ himself and Mary and so on, but all these saints, and I'd like to see Thomas, you know. You can hear his voice now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's doing it. My squeaky voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The genium quote. The genium quote. Yeah. But you first hear Churchill's voice, it's not too good a voice, you know. Are they? No. I mean, his words are very good, but his voice is not really that good. There's a recording made by the BBC toward the end of Chesterton's life. He read some essay he'd written. I never heard of him. I don't always want to hear it, because I could picture him with the end of it. He's a picture. It just doesn't carry the weight. The weight of kissing. Yeah, yeah. I guess FDR had a pretty good voice, though, that's what they say. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. That's what somebody said, St. Francis. When we were named deacon, I mean, one of your poor player friends sent us a card, because St. Francis is a deacon, and some contemporary St. Francis describes us chanting the gospel in a very sonorous voice. I remember that card. Okay, the tenth article. Whether God knows bad things. For the philosopher says in the third book about the soul, that the understanding which is not in potency does not know lack. I was talking about how our mind knows lack by knowing the fact that it sometimes knows this and something that doesn't know that, right? But bad is a lack of the good, as Augustine says. We talked a little bit about the bad before, right? But strictly speaking, the first meaning of bad is the lack of something you're able to have and should have, right? And when you should have it. Therefore, since the understanding of God is never in potency, but always in act, right? It seems that God does not know bad things, right? Peristyle is talking about one way in which our mind knows the bad, right? One way in which our mind knows lack, by the fact that it itself is lacking at times, right? That's not the way God does lack, right? Moreover, every knowledge is either a cause of what is known or is caused by it, right? As I mentioned, Thomas sometimes takes a third thing after the angels, right? Because the knowledge of the angels as regards natural things, is it a cause of natural things? No. Is natural things a cause of it? No. Well, it's a third thing then. God is a cause of both, right? And so when Augustine explains, you know, the Genesis there, you know, when something is made in the material world, it's also made in the thoughts of the angels, right? And they parallel, pre-established harmony there. So all knowledge is either a cause of the thing known or is caused by it. But the knowledge of God is not a cause of the bad, nor is it caused by the bad. Therefore, the knowledge of God is not a bad thing. So there's a special difficulty here. Saying, how does God know bad things, huh? Now, that'd be nice if he didn't know my sins. I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. He's very much aware of my sins. Yeah, too much for comfort on my part. Okay. Whoever everything that is known is known through its likeness or through its opposite, right? Whatever God knows, he knows through his very essence, right? But the divine essence is neither a likeness of the bad, right? Nor is there anything bad opposed to it, huh? And incidentally, Aristotle already pointed this out. For the divine essence, there's nothing contrary, as the great Augustine says in the 12th book on the city of God. Therefore, God does not know bad things, huh? Moreover, what is known not to itself, but to another is imperfectly known. But the bad is not known by God through itself because thus, it would be necessary that the bad would be in God. It would be necessary for the known to be in the knower. If, therefore, it is known to another as to wit, through the good, it would be imperfectly known by him. Which is impossible because no knowledge of God is imperfect. Therefore, the knowledge of God is not of bad things, huh? Knowledge is perfect. good, which is not the cause of knowing what is imperfectly bad, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, but this is a different objection now, which objection are you getting here? No, no, I'm just trying to think that out, what he says about this. But against this is what is said in the book of Proverbs, the 15th chapter, infernus, hell and perdition are before God, right? He knows these things. I answer, it should be said that whoever perfectly knows something is necessary that he knows all things which can happen to that thing, right? But there are some good things to which it can happen that they be corrupted through bad things. Hence, God would not perfectly know good things unless he knew what? Bad things, right? But thus, a thing is knowable insofar as it is, right? Okay, whence, since this is the, what? The being of the bad, that be it privation of the good, to the very fact that God knows good things, he knows also bad things, just as through light are known, what? Darkness. Once, Dionysius says in the seventh chapter, the divine names, that God to himself gets a vision of, what? Darkness. Not otherwise, or elsewhere, seeing the darkness except, what? From the light, huh? Now, he explained the words of Aristotle, he was talking about a special way that our mind knows lack. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the word of the philosopher should be thus understood, that the understanding which is not in potency, right, does not know privation in this way, namely by, what? The privation existing in it, huh? Often, you remember manifesting matter and form and privation by knowledge and ignorance and ability to know? Remember that? Note. But teaching, you teach somebody something as a freshman, you know, and you get them in classes, a junior, a senior, and, you know. But I did it when I was in college, huh? If Kusuri, you know, was teaching two sections of a chorus, I'd sit in, and I was free at both times, I'd sit on both sections, right? Yeah. And after I finished the chorus and got my aid and so on, then next year, I'd sit in that chorus again, you know. And finally, see, stop coming, Dwayne, you know what I'm going to say. But I mean, really, I kind of realized that, you know, it takes a long time to get these things, huh? So when you're manifesting that matter, form, and lack of form, you can manifest that by the ability to know, right? And by the lack of knowledge, right, huh? And the knowledge itself, the relation of the three together. Okay, well, maybe we won't go back to that today, though. So he says, the word of the philosopher should be thus understood, that the understanding, which is not an ability, does not know privation through the privation existing in it, huh? And thus it, what, agrees with what was said above, that the point and everything indivisible is known through the privation or lack of division, huh? Which happens from this fact, that simple forms and indivisible forms are not an act in our understanding, but in potency only. For if they were an act in our understanding, they would not be known through, what, privation. And thus simple things are known by, what, the separated substances like the angels and God. God, therefore, does not know bad through the privation or lack existing in himself, but through the opposite, what? Good, huh? Now, the second one says, well, God knows things because his knowledge is a cause, right? But he's not the cause of that. Well, to the second, it should be said that the knowledge of God is not a cause of the bad, but it's a cause of the good through which is known, what? Bad, yeah. Now, the third objection is saying, well, there's no bad that is opposed to God, huh? Okay? Oh, notice the way Thomas solves that. To the third, therefore, it should be said that although the bad is not opposed to the divine essence, which is not corruptible through anything bad, huh? It is opposed, nevertheless, to the effects of God, right? Which he knows through his essence, right? And in knowing them, he knows the, what, bad things that are opposed to them, right? So he doesn't know the bad is something opposed to his own nature, right? Because his nature is not capable of anything bad, right? But he knows the bad that is opposed to, what, the good of the creature, right? Through knowing the good of the creature, right? He knows what's opposed to that good, huh? Okay. So it isn't necessary that there be something bad that's, or some lack that could be in God, or it's going to know the bad, right? But the lack that there could be in the creature of something that pertains to its goodness, right? Is that clear enough? I mean, for example, for my courage is opposed to that cowardice or something of that sort, right? To my knowledge ignorance, right, huh? Okay. But is there some vice opposed to God's virtue? Some vice he could have as opposed to some virtue? Or is there some ignorance that God could have opposed to? No. So he can't know bad as a lack of something that he has and should have, right? He can only know the bad as a lack of something that some creature is able to have and should have, right? Okay. So he doesn't know the bad as the opposite of his own nature, as a lack of something that he should have. But he knows that in knowing the goodness of the creature, what would be the lack of what that creature should have. You see that? As the teacher says to the students, you're sadly lacking. Okay? Assuming the teacher knows everything. Do you see the idea? The objection is saying, you know, that, what? Look back to the objection there, right? Everything that is known is known to its likeness or to its opposite, right? Whatever God knows, he knows through his own essence, right? Dangerous word there, a pair, right? But the divine essence is not a likeness of anything bad, right? Okay. Nor is, what? There's something bad that is opposed to the divine nature, right? For to the divine essence, there's nothing contrary, right? There can't be any lack in God because he's pure act. Okay? So therefore, how can God know the bad, right? Well, if he knew only himself and didn't know anything outside of himself, right? Or besides himself, would he know bad? Well, there's no bad opposed to him, right? There's no lack that, nothing he could lack. You see? So what the bad really is, is the non-being of something you're able to have and should have, right? So you have to have an ability to have something. And therefore, what you're able to have is not the same as your ability to have it, right? And so you can lack that, what you're able to have and should have. But if God doesn't know what ability to be actualized, God is pure act, right? Going back to the argument. So you're able to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to have an ability to The act is before ability, simply speaking, right, in the ninth book of wisdom, right? You don't know how it reads now, right? Back in the beginning of the question on the simplicity of God is where he brings it out here, right? You look back in question three, article one, right? The middle argument there, right? Because it is necessary that that which is the first being to be an act and in no way in potency, right? And then he gives the reason for it from Aristotle's ninth book of wisdom. Although in one and the same thing that goes forward from ability to act, it is an ability in time before it's an act, right? Simply, without qualification, act is before what? Ability, right? Because what is in ability does not come to be an act except through what is, yeah. It has been shown above that God is the first being. It is impossible, therefore, that there be in God something in ability, right? So if there can't be anything in ability in God, then there can't be any what lack of God. And therefore there can't be bad as opposed to God, huh? So if he knows the bad as opposed to the good, it must be by his knowing the good of creatures to which there can be a lack that is opposed. Not by knowing, what, his own goodness, right? Which has nothing bad opposed to it, right? Incidentally, Aristotle is talking about the equivocation of words, right, huh? He says, if one has an opposite and the other doesn't have an opposite, it can't mean the same thing. So if good is said of God instead of us, but the good that is said of us has an opposite, and the good that is said of God doesn't have an opposite, then good can't mean the same thing, said of God instead of us. That's one of the canonical rules, huh? In the first book of places. And so, actually, the reason why Christ says God alone is good, right? In one sense, in the fullest sense, God alone is good, right? But that's because he's goodness itself, huh? There can't be any lack opposed to God as such. But to my virtue, there's opposed to vice I could have, right? To my knowledge, there's a mistake, right? Or ignorance, right? An error follows ignorance. A lack. That's because there's a real distinction in me between my ability to know and my actually knowing, right? Or in God, there's really no distinction there, right? That's all. He has knowledge only in the actual sense, huh? There's no ability to know that needs to be actualized or could be actualized in God, right? Does that go back to the nature and the existence? Yeah, the simplicity of God, yeah. Okay. You know, God is whatever he has. Whatever God has said to have, he is. That's not true about you and me, right? I might have some knowledge of geometry, but that's not what I am. I might have some health, right? But that's not what I am. Health itself. Whatever God has, he is. Because he's altogether simple, right? Not only because of our way of knowing that we speak of God as having things, right? I was thinking, because of the use of that word, that's like a thingy, back to that. Yeah, yeah. They're mixing up the way we know God with the way he is. So we negate any distinction between God and what he has. But because of our way of knowing, we speak of God as having knowledge and having love for us, right? But St. Augusta, or St. John says, God is love, right? And we can have love for somebody or something, but we aren't that love. I'm a lover of wisdom, but am I the love of wisdom? Right? Not at all. Not even Romeo is the love of Juliet, right? He may have love for her, but he's not the love of Juliet. But God is love itself. He's amazing. Very, very, wonderful. Now, you think about this. I always go back to what Dr. Brown says, you know, in the beginning of the Dhyani Mahal, where he says that all knowledge as such is good, right? But one knowledge is better than another because it's more certain or more sure, or because it's about a better thing. But in the parts of the animals, he says of those two criteria, simply that knowledge is better, which is about a better thing. So, knowledge of the triangle and knowledge of the soul. Maybe my knowledge of the triangle is more certain than my knowledge of the soul. But my knowledge of the soul is better in the sense that it's about a better thing than the triangle. And so, simply speaking, knowledge of the soul is better than knowledge of the triangle. Although in some qualified sense, you can say knowledge of the triangle is better because I know better what the triangle is than I want to know what the soul is, right? Or I know with greater certitude, right, what I say about the triangle. I'm more sure of my knowledge of the triangle, you know, the soul. But nevertheless, it's still better to know what the soul is, right? But then, when you know what God is and how good he is, right, if God is infinitely better than anything else, and infinitely better than all the things together, right, well, then the knowledge of God is how much better than all the knowledge together, let alone any other kind of knowledge by itself, right? You know? And that's in harmony with those things I'm always quoting from Augustine, you know, where he says, you know, miserable the man who knows all other things but doesn't know God. Blessed the man who knows God even if he knows nothing else. Blessed also the man who knows God and other things, but not so from knowing other things, but for knowing God alone, right? So, God will be so interesting. I don't know whether you want to, I'll be thinking much about seeing Thomas Aquinas in the flesh, you know. I can't imagine it would be a little bit of desire to see Thomas in the flesh, but it's going to be a drop in the ocean, you know, or less than that, even. It's, um, God will be all things and all, right? That's the way it's said. And it's hard to realize that, but you can reason out that he is going to be that, you know. So, let's see here now. Fourth objection. Yeah. Well, we did talk about the objection there, didn't we? The first one is taken from the words of Aristotle, right, huh? And Aristotle is talking about one way which we know lack, right? And we can know lack, too, by knowing the good that it's supposed to, right? But we can also know lack by the fact that our mind is what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, you see, um, Kind of the person out of Nick knows talking about matter in form. Let's go back to natural philosophy a little bit into it. Refresh your mind and temporarily forgotten, as Thomas says. Um, but Plato kind of confused what matter with non-being, right, huh? Okay. And how did Aristotle refute that, huh? Well, he took something that was common to him in Plato, right? And that was that form is something God wanted him. Thank you.