Prima Pars
Lecture 65: God's Knowledge of Singular Things

Transcript
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Okay? Something good and desirable, okay? That's a profound, common understanding of form that Plato and Aristotle share. And Aristotle used what was common to him in Plato to say that Plato should distinguish between matter and lack. Because matter could be said to desire form because matter is perfected by form. Form is the good of matter, right? But if form is something God-like could have desirable, lack being opposed to form would seem to be something what? Bad, right? And if lack were to desire what? Form, it would desire its own what? Yeah, its own destruction, right? So how can matter and lack be the same thing if the one desires, right, form, but the other could be desired form, or if the one is perfected by form and the other is eliminated by form, right? They can't do the same thing, right? Now, sometimes I would manifest that by, what, something like that and say, well, we might admit that knowledge is something God-like, good, and desirable, right? Now, can the mind, or the ability to know, right, be the same as a lack, which in this case is called ignorance, right? Well, if knowledge is something God-like, good, and desirable, then the mind, being capable of knowledge, is something good also, right? And you'd say the mind wants to know. To know would be the perfection of the mind, right? But, if knowledge is something God-like, good, and desirable, ignorance, being opposed to knowledge, right, would seem to be something bad, being opposed to the good, right? It would make any sense to say that ignorance wants to know, because knowledge is going to be the elimination of ignorance, right? So if ignorance is destroyed by knowledge, and the mind is perfected, how can we be the same, right? So kind of using this to bring out, right, this likeness here, and this is easy to see in some sense, right? But to see the nature or the character of this argument, right? But this involves the idea that our mind has, what, sometimes it's pervaged, quite often. We're in that state, right, huh? And Hegel makes that mistake when he speaks of the pretentious power of the negative, right? Well, the negative doesn't have any power, and that's why in Richard II there, Shakespeare says, dull, barren, unfeeling ignorance, right? And he calls ignorance barren, right? Because ignorance doesn't give rise to knowledge in discourse on it. Your knowledge of the premises gives rise to the knowledge of the conclusion. Now before you know the conclusion, you're ignorant of it, right? So the ignorance comes before the knowledge of the conclusion. But does ignorance give rise to the knowledge of the conclusion? No. It's the premises, right, huh? Okay. Or if you wanted to know the area of this room, right? Before you know the area, you're ignorant of the area, right? But your knowledge of the area is produced by a knowledge of the length and the width, not by a knowledge of the what? No, not by the ignorance of the area, right? Okay. And then I sometimes make the comparison to Sartre, right? Where Sartre identifies our freedom with none being. Nothingness, right? You see? And you can see kind of why you do that, because if I'm really free to choose, right? If I'm really free to choose to have steak or chicken or fish or something else, then before I choose, right, am I determined to have steak? Then we'll be free, right? So, he says that my indetermination, which is the kind of none being, is my freedom. And of course, this is the great source of man's superiority, but everything else is none being. And from the point of view of theology, it's really funny because, you know, he's a revolt against God, right? Sartre is. And he seems the source of man's greatness is none being. Which is the only thing that man has he didn't get from God. If we have anything from ourselves, it's our none being, right? Okay? But you could argue against his position in the same way that he's confusing the ability to choose with the lack of choice before you choose. Just like if I confuse ignorance with what? The mind, right? I'd be confusing the lack of knowledge before you learn, right, with the ability to learn, right? Okay? But you could argue against it the same way. You see, the ability to choose is for the sake of choice, huh? The lack of choice is not the sake of choice. And the lack of choice, the indetermination of your will before you choose, is lost when you choose, right? But the ability to choose is fulfilled. And it's very virtuous, right? Which was choose, huh? You see? But I come back to this, you know, because it strikes me that I always use this particular example here, you know, to kind of manifest this bilateness about matter and lack of form, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, sometimes, you know, when Aristotle goes on to a good example there, you know, does the sick man want to be healthy? Yeah. Now, but does the sick want to be healthy? Does the sickness of such want health? See? But a lot of times, without thinking too deeply about it, we'd say, yeah, the sick want to be healthy, the ugly want to be beautiful, the poor want to be rich, right? But does sickness want health? No. It's the body that wants health, right? Because health is the perfection of the body, health is not the perfection of sickness, it's the elimination of sickness, right? Mm-hmm. So if health is the perfection of the body, but not the perfection of sickness, sickness can't be the same thing as the body, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? And likewise, if beauty is the perfection of the body, but not the perfection of ugliness, but the elimination of it, then the ugly as such don't what? Want it to be beautiful, right? Well, we'd probably say the ugly want to be beautiful, right? Not seeing the distinction there between the as such and the by happening, right, huh? Mm-hmm. So it's not the ugly as such that wants to be beautiful, but that to which ugly happens. Make me the body, you see? And it's not ignorance as such that wants knowledge, but that to which ignorance happens, huh? Mm-hmm. The mind is such that wants knowledge, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? So you remember that a little bit? We talked about that before, huh? Right. But I mean, in a way, in manifesting that, I'm doing so because the fact that my mind is sometimes what? Lacking, right, huh? That's not the way God moves lack, huh? Well, sometimes I lack a knowledge of purposes. I'm like... Sometimes I lack a knowledge of geometry and... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's no lack in God, nor could there be a lack in God, right? Because lack has to be found in something that is able to have some act, right, but doesn't have it when it should have it, right? And therefore, there has to be a real mixture there of ability and act to have the bad, right? Okay? Well, if God is pure act, there can't be anything bad in them, can there? There can't be any ability that is lacking the act, you see? So God can't know bad is something opposed to his very nature. This is a lack that I could have. I know. But this is a lack between breakfast or something, a creature could have, right? Okay? But strictly speaking, you don't have a lack, do you? Because strictly speaking, lack is what? Not having what you should have, right? Yeah. But notice how we do speak of someone as having a lack, right? Or having blindness, right? Or having ignorance, you know? That's kind of like the way being is said in an analogous way. So that's the way he's applying to the first objection, right? Now the second objection is saying, well, God knows things insofar as he's the cause of them, right? But he's not the cause of the bad, right? But he is the cause of the good of creatures, right? Which is the opposite of the bad of creatures. And so through knowing the good of creatures, he knows the opposite of them, right? Now the third one, of course, is saying as if God was going to know bad as the opposite of himself, right? He doesn't know bad as the opposite of himself, because there is no bad as the opposite of himself, okay? So, you know, we're speaking kind of metaphorically, we're speaking of hurting God or, you know, or don't sat in the Holy Spirit as St. Paul said sometimes, right? But this is said, what? Metaphorically, right? Just as God is metaphorically said to be angry with us, right? So he knows the bad as the opposite of the good of creatures, not as opposite of his own goodness. Then he'd be false. Now the fourth objection, let's look at it again. That's one we didn't talk about before, I don't think. Moreover, what is known not to itself but to another is imperfectly known, right? But bad is not known by God to itself, because thus it would be necessary that bad be in God, huh? For it's necessary that the known be in the knower. If therefore it is known to another, namely to the good, it would be imperfectly known by him. But that's impossible, because no knowledge of God is imperfect. Therefore, the knowledge of God is not of, what? Evil things, huh? No. But evil is not a thing to be known to itself. Yeah, yeah. To the fourth, it should be said that to know something through another only pertains to imperfect knowledge if it is knowable through itself, right? But the bad is not knowable through itself, because it's of the very definition of the bad that would be the lack of the good. And therefore it can be neither defined nor known except for the good, right? So the imperfection is not in God that it's known in that way, but in the thing itself that it's not knowable any other way, huh? And that's in a way true to some extent of potency, too, huh? I know potency through act, well. That's because potency is not knowable through itself, but only through act. But therefore it's your privation or lack. So blindness is knowable only through what? Yeah. You can't really know what blindness is in that. So there's an order there. Yeah. I ask you sometimes, say to the students, you know, do you know if you're ignorant? Well, in a sense, to really know you're ignorant, you have to know what you're ignorant of, and you have to know what you don't know, and then you wouldn't be ignorant, right? So really, the professor knows more than the student. The student's ignorant. Can the student know he's ignorant of something? So you might argue, you know, don't you know you're ignorant of rocket physics or something? You know, but, you know, strictly speaking, how can you know what you're ignorant of if you don't know what it is that you're ignorant of? In which case, you would know what you're ignorant of, and then you would not be ignorant of it. Well, in some way, you know what you're ignorant of. You know it's something perfect. Do you know the number of pages in my book? So you know what you're ignorant of then? Assuming the number that's right here, you see, I'm going to look here now. It's 605 pages here, right? You know? So did you know you're ignorant of 605? See? So you didn't fully know what you're ignorant of, did you? You were ignorant of 605. You know, all you knew was in some general, you were ignorant of some number, but, you know? A lot of numbers you're ignorant of. Yeah. It's kind of interesting to think about that, huh? To what extent can you know your ignorance, right? Like you could show Pythagoras' Theorem, and I could see what it is I'm ignorant of in a certain way, and I don't even know how to get there. I don't know all the reasons to get there, but I can see. When you say, you know, I don't know God, I don't know God as He is, right? Do you really know what it is to not know God as He is? You don't really know what it is to know God as He is, right? So you don't really realize how ignorant you are. God. See? But the blessed are now who see God as He is, right? They know our ignorance much better than we know it. See? I can know in some imperfect way that I don't know God as He is, right? But what it is for me not to know God as He is, I don't realize fully my ignorance in the way that Thomas Aquinas now realizes fully our ignorance of God. You know? Those who see God as He is, right? They know what it is we don't know. In a way that we don't know very well down there. Would you say that the demons don't see God as He is, but they would know better our ignorance than we do, by nature? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still not as... Not perfectly as we do. Yeah, yeah. You don't know what you're missing. They don't know what they're missing, but they know better what we're missing than what we know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it seems to be much better than we do what we're missing, what we don't see now. Again, the distinction between simply and in some way, right, is very important. That comes up in the Mino, when Mino argues with Socrates, Socrates wants to investigate what virtue is. And in a sense, he wants to direct his thoughts and his thinking towards what each of them knows. And Mino says, well, how can we direct ourselves towards what we don't know? So it's like asking the guy in the gasoline station, how did he get there? And he says, well, you don't know where you want to get, but I can't tell you how to get there. But that's an objection, a physical objection, against the very possibility of logic, right? Because logic is the art that directs us to coming to know what we don't know, right? And so how can we direct ourselves towards what we don't know when we don't know it? How can you aim at something if you don't know what you're aiming at, you see? You've got to see the guy moving or something to aim at him, right? You've got to see the deer or whatever it is, you know, moving, you know. How can you aim at the deer if you don't see the deer in some way? And so that would seem to make impossible, right? I mean, logic and logistic, too, logique. But that is a sophisticated argument from not distinguishing between what is so simply and what is so in some respect, right? If I didn't know the number of pages in this book, I could direct myself to 605. I didn't know how to get there, in fact, just by counting the pages, you know, by one, you know? When I come to know money, get my thing, you know? I'm going to have to pay for this. And so I must know in some way what I don't know in order to direct myself towards that. You know, the simple example I always give in class, you know, I had a class of about 30 students, something like that, and I'd say, you know, I don't know how many students are in class today. I really don't know how many students are in class today. But I know how to get to what I don't know. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I don't know how many students are in class today. I know that by counting them, I can come to know the number of students in class today. So I count them, I end up, let's say, with 27, and I say, now, did I know I was trying to get to 27? No, because then I'd know what I was trying to know, right? But I must have known 27 in some way to know that the way to it was counting. Well, 27 is, in fact, the number of students in class today, and I knew I was trying to get the number of students in class, so in some sense, 27 was known to me, right? Yeah, yeah. You know my simple example of that fallacy, right? There was a knock on the door there, right? And I say to you, do you know who was at the door? What would you say? You open up and maybe it's the abbot. Or maybe it's your mother, right? So you don't know your mother? You say you didn't know the person who was knocking at the door, right? And it's your mother. So you don't know your mother. Well, it's wrong with the argument, right? You didn't know in some way. Yeah. You know your mother, so you can say something. You know who your mother is? Yeah. I know my mother, but I don't know my mother as a person knocking at the door. Right. So in some way, I don't know my mother, right? So that's a distinction that comes up again and again, but it's a very important. So next time we'll start with whether God knows singularia, singular things, right? Okay. 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God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order the room in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Praise to you. And help us to understand all that you have written. Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So, whither God knows singulars, right? To the 11th, one proceeds thus. It seems that God does not know singulars. For the divine understanding is more immaterial than the human understanding. But the human understanding, on account of its immateriality, does not know singular things. But, as is said in the second book about the soul, Reason is of universals, sense of the, what? Singulars. Therefore, God does not know singulars, huh? Or as Boethius says in Porphy there, right? The thing is singular when sensed, but universal when, what? Understood, huh? Moreover, only those powers in us know singulars, which we see forms that are not separated from material conditions. But things in God are most of all separated from all materiality. Therefore, God does not know singular things, huh? You see, both of these are based upon the fact that our mind gets its knowledge of things from what? From things, yeah. And these things in their material conditions, as such, cannot be perceived in our mind, because our mind or our understanding is, what? Immaterial. And so they have to be separated from their material conditions, and therefore they're separated from what makes them singular, one differing from another, right? That's true even in math. If I imagine a square, right, but understand what this is, I'm understanding what a square is, and it's something now universal. Okay. Moreover, all knowledge is through some likeness. But the likeness of singulars, insofar as they are singulars, does not seem to be in God, because the beginning of singularity is matter, which, since it is being and potency only, is altogether unlike God, who is pure act. That's what Aristotle says in the, what, first book of natural hearing, that form is something God-like, right? Because form is act, and God is pure act, huh? Why matter doesn't seem to be like God. But against all this nonsense is what is said in Proverbs 16, verse 2, that all the ways of men are clear to his eyes, right? Now he says, I answer. It should be said that God knows singular things, huh? Now he's going in this first paragraph, the way it got set up, he's going to conclude that God does know singular, but then he'll go into the question, well, how is it that God can know singulars? But we can't know them directly by our understanding, right? But let's look at the first part here. I answer, it should be said that God knows singular things. For all perfections found in creatures, right, pre-exist in God in some higher way, huh? But to know singulars pertains to our perfection, right? Especially perfection of our, what, practical knowledge, huh? Whence it is necessary that God know, what, singulars, huh? You followed the argument there? Okay, I think he's assigned there from what the philosopher, meaning Aristotle says. For the philosopher has it for something, what, inconvenient, something that doesn't fit, right? That something be known by us that is not known by, what, God. Whence he argues against Empedocles, and there are at least two places where he does this, in the first book about the soul, and in the third book of wisdom, or first philosophy, the third book after the book's of natural philosophy, that it would happen for God to be most, what, foolish if he was ignorant of discord, huh? Now, going back to the position of Empedocles, huh? Empedocles thought that there were four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, right? The longest lasting chemical theory in history, huh? Because it lasted about 2,000 years, huh? And there's even allusions to it in Shakespeare, right? So, Empedocles around 500 BC to Shakespeare, if you don't know it later. This is a theory. But then you have two movers, huh? Love that brings these things together, and hate or discord that's what separates them, right? A little bit like our idea of attraction and, what, repulsion, huh? But, like a good Greek, of course, he thought of God as something that was, what, immortal, huh? So, in the composition of God, you could have earth, air, fire, and water, and love, right? But you couldn't have any hate in God, because then he would be destructible, huh? Corruptible, huh? See, there's a good reason to exclude hate from God, huh? And you have to admire him for seeing that, in a way, right? Now, he also thought that, what, we know things by having them in us. So, I know earth, air, fire, and water, and even love and hate, because I have these things inside of me, right? Okay? Which makes some sense, right? You know, I picked up a cat when the cat's afraid of the dog, and you can feel them kind of shaking me in your hands. But you kind of know what fear is, because you have fear within yourself sometimes, right? And then you know, kind of, for the animal to have fear, or for the animal to have anger, or hunger, or something like that, huh? So, if that were true, then since there's earth, air, fire, and water, and love and hate in us, we know all these six things. But since in God there's earth, air, fire, and water, and love, but no hate, he doesn't know hate, right? So, a consequence of Pedicly's position is that we know something God doesn't know. Whereas, that's how it's ridiculous. So, there must be something wrong with the position of what? Pedicly's, even though there's some reason why he thought what he did, huh? But the perfections which are divided in lower things, huh? Like in this example of knowing, right? Where we know the, what? Universal by our reason, and the singular by our senses, right? And these are different, what? Powers in us, right? But the, um, uh, remember the definition there of reason by Shakespeare there, that's ability for large discourse, huh? Looking before and after. And part of the meaning of large, there you say large discourse, is discourse about the universal. Universal can be said of an infinity of things. So, it covers a large area, right? So, that's kind of what reason is able to discourse about. But you have to go back to the senses to know the, what? Singular, right? To know this man, or this dog, or this, this cat, you know? Uh, this mug, huh? This, this book here, right? Okay? And understanding to know directly what a book is, that's something universal. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's why Osterly says, well, they're in the thing on music, they're talking about fiction and so on. Fiction is not the highest thing that man can attain to, but it's what's most kind of pleasingly proportioned to man. Because, in a way, what the writer of great fiction is doing is kind of trying to singularize universal or universalize the singular, right? And so it appeals to both our reason and to our what? Our senses, okay? Our philosophy just kind of addresses itself to our reason, to the universal. And history just to the what? To the singular, huh? But you see Romeo and Juliet, you know, you don't say, well, that's a pair of lovers in 15th century, whatever century it was, 14th century. Verona, huh? Where they show you the house and so on, you know, which they're still building again. And, you know, you say, these are young lovers, right? And when Oedipus falls, the chorus comes in, like with kind of their commentary, right? But the chorus doesn't say, oh, Oedipus. It says, oh, you generations of men. They see something universal in the downfall, right, of this man, huh? So, I remember one time I was sitting in the restaurant there, and I was a bachelor there, and these two guys were there talking, and they were ex-Navy guys, right? And they just seen some movie about the Navy, you know? And they were laughing about it. You can see the type, oh, you know? They're talking about the type, you know, the type that you need in the Navy, and they had to capture that type. So, there's something kind of universal there, right, huh? Okay. So, that's why we were talking before there about the conversion and so on, you know? People sometimes are converted more through fiction, let's say, than through philosophy, right? Because fiction, as I say, appeals to both the singular and universal, right? And, you know, they talked about Shakespeare, you know, I've seen many of the best critics and so on, you know, this combination of universal and the singular and Shakespeare, huh? So, people can, you know, go to Shakespeare and find Shakespeare expressing their emotion in some way better than they can express it themselves. So, you see something universal in this expression of emotions. They get this kind of concretized in this or that character. So, we're divided there, right? But in God, these things are what? Simpliciter et uniteum. They're one and simple. Whence, and the same thing is true about the angels, right? They're more unified than we are. Whence, although we, through one ability or power, know universals and immaterial things, and through another power, the immaterial senses, know singular things and material things. But God, through his what? Simple understanding knows what? Both, huh? Now, in the next paragraph, he starts to talk about how some people try to understand this, and they don't quite fully understand it, huh? But in what way this is able to be? Some wishing to make known, say that God knows singular things through universal causes. It should not be to fully know the singular as singular, right? For there is nothing in any of the singulars that does not arise from some universal cause. And they lay down an example, as if some astronomer were to know all the, what, universal motions of the heaven, they would be able to, what, pronounce future eclipses, huh? Predict them. But this, he says, doesn't suffice for understanding what God is. Because the singulars obtain certain forms and powers from universal causes. But no matter how you join these things together, they are not, what, individuated through some kind of individual matter, right? And we've talked about that before. How is it possible you can have many chairs, let's say, in this room of exactly the same kind? Yeah, you have enough wood. And how can you have many window panes exactly the same there, right? Well, it's because you have enough glass, right? So it's matter, wood, glass, or some other kind of matter, as subject to extension, right? And there's a reason why you can have, what, many, huh? Why is it that your grandma can make many Christmas tree cookies at Christmastime, right? It's got them out of the door, right? And she can stamp them, right? Okay. Okay. Now he says, others, this is another, two things, but others say God knows singulars by applying universal causes, right, to particular effects. But this is nothing. Thomas is very, said, hope you'll ask. If he was at the university today, he'd be saying that almost all the time. He said, hope you'll ask. But this is nothing. Because no one is able to apply something to another unless he already foreknows another, right? Hence, the foresaid application cannot be the reason for knowing particulars, but it presupposes a knowledge of the, what, singulars, huh? Now, the real solution is to realize that God's knowledge is just the opposite of what our knowledge is, huh? Our knowledge of the things around us is derived from them, right? Right, God's knowledge is, what, causing them, yeah. And his knowledge is a cause of the matter as well as of the, what, form, right? And in some way, God is like all beings, right? Because he's to be itself. And even potency is one kind of being, right? So even though it's not like the one who is pure act, we just consider that he's pure act. If you consider the fact that he is I am who am, then whatever it is in any way whatsoever is in some way like God, and therefore is knowable through God's knowing what? Himself. In every way in which he can be, things we may like him. And therefore, it has to be said otherwise, that since God is the cause of things through his knowledge, as has been said, as far extends the knowledge of God as extends the causality of God. Whence, since the act of power of God extends itself not only to forms, which is in a way what our act of power does in human art, right? We get the wood from nature or something like that, right? And then we act upon and give the matter a, what? A form. But the matter is not really produced by the art originally. Whence, since the act of power of God extends itself not only to the forms from which is taken the, what, universal thought, but also extends all the way down to matter, because he creates even the matter. It is necessary that the knowledge of God extends itself all the way down to the, what, singulars, which are individuated through matter, in the case of the terrible singulars. For since he knows things other than himself through his own, what, nature, his own essence, insofar as he is, what, a likeness of all things as the act of, what, beginning of them. This goes back to the idea that, what, every agent makes what is like itself, huh? Okay? And I can't, you know, when Grandma makes the Christmas cookie, right? She already has actually the shape of the Christmas tree and the little, what, metal thing, right? And so you make something like yourself, huh? So all these things exist in their likeness in God, but in a simple one, huh? So since he knows things other than himself through his own nature, essence, insofar as the likeness of things, as the act of principle of them, right? It is necessary that his essence, his nature, his substance, be a sufficient principle or beginning of knowing all things which come to be through him. Amen. Amen. Not only in the universal, right, but also the singular, because they come to be in the singular. And it would be similar in the knowledge of the artist if it were productive of the whole thing and not just of the, what, form. Now the first objection was trying to transpose our way of knowing into God, and that's putting it back to the horse. To the first, therefore, it should be said that our understanding separates the understandable form from the individuating principles. Okay, so our knowledge is derived from things, huh? And it has to be separated from matter to get it into our, what, mind, because our mind is, what, immaterial. It was kind of actually a gradual kind of immaterial to go from the, what, senses to the imagination, the images of the images to what thoughts are getting, they're going more and more abstract further from matter. So we leave aside the individuating matter. And, you know, but the way we should show that in some ways, just take the example there, just take the example of the definition of square, right? Okay, now one understands distinctly what a square is by the definition of square. The definition of square is, what? Yeah. Equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. And does the definition have parts, right? Okay. But now, do those parts meet at a common boundary? See, in a continuous thing, this part and this part meet at a point, right? In a surface, let's say, this part and this part meet at a line, right? And in a body, parts meet at a surface. Do these meet at a point? If they met at a point, it's going to be a line. This is a line, isn't it? So this is not really continuous, is it? Aristoteles says it's more like what? Numbers, huh? Okay? Because, you know, when you first distinguish between a continuous quantity and numbers, we say a continuous quantity is a quantity whose parts meet at a common boundary, right? But in the case of discrete quantity, a number, the parts don't meet at a common boundary. So in a number of seven, for example, whether you take a two and five, or three and four, which you're going to take, that the two and the five meet somewhere, or the three and the four, right? Okay? And there's a little way you can show that these things are like numbers, huh? And that is that thoughts are like numbers, they're not divisible forever. So I can't divide five forever. I can divide five into three and two. I can divide three into two and one. I can divide two into one and one, and that's it. But a straight line is divisible always into shorter lines, huh? For our thoughts, like lines are divisible forever. Now, when you study definition and logic, you see that if every part of the definition was in need of being defined, there would be an infinity of definitions before any definitions, and you would never learn what anything is, like what a square is, but a definition, huh? You've got to define the parts, and define the parts of the parts, and the parts of the parts, and so on forever, right? And when you show in logic that there are highest jammes, right, then you see that the definition doesn't go on forever. And therefore it's like numbers rather than like the, what, continuous. Or another way of showing that is the fact that, what's the next longest line? You see? Well, if you take a longer line, you could always take a line in between that longer line and this line, and between that and this because it's divisible forever, right? But in logic, in thoughts, there is a mixed thought, right? And if you add the quadrilateral, equilateral, and the right angle, where are you? You're at square. Okay, is there anything in between that? It's like numbers, right? Just like when you go from three to four, what's in between three and four? Nothing. Unless you're a mixed-up model. And the same like the soldiers, right? They say every mother is a woman. No man is a woman. What's the next thought? Yeah, see? But there isn't a mixed longer line. There isn't a mixed bigger number, right? So thoughts are like numbers, right? Now, I was thinking about how, you know, when Aristotle distinguishes the categories there, the four central senses of before, right? And after. And the first sense of before and after that he gives is in time, right? But in general, to that first sense, you could reduce the before and after in the continuous. And then the second sense of before and after that he gives is before and being, right? But the example he gives is one is before two. And it's kind of significant that he takes the example from arithmetic. Because these sciences are most proportioned to us geometry and arithmetic. But geometry is about the continuous and arithmetic about the discrete. And if you look at Euclid's elements, you know, the first six books are about the continuous geometry and then books seven, eight, and nine are about number. So he follows it the same order, right? But it's also interesting that the next meaning of before will be before the discourse of reason. And that's like numbers, huh? So, you know, it seems like, you know, one reason, but he chose as an example one before two. You can see the bridge there to before and after in our thinking. And the before and after in numbers is closer to the before and after in our thinking, more like. Or vice versa. The before and after in our thinking is more like the before and after in numbers than it is like the before and after in the continuous. So even though we sometimes borrow these things and we say, you know, a line of thinking, right? A line of argument, right? You're closer to what thinking is like when you say put two and two together. That's close to what thinking is. It's more like numbers than it is like the lines, huh? So. That line of reasoning refers to the discourse from this to that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, even the Greeks in Aristology, they all use the word road, right? And road is taken from the continuous. But when you carry the word road over to the mind, you drop the idea of the continuous, you drop the idea of the, first of all, you drop matter out, you know, the cement or the asphalt or whatever the road is made out of. And, but you drop that out even if you went and went to the mathematical line, say, but in the mathematical line, you at least keep the continuous, right? But then when you go from there to the mind, you drop even the continuous, but you keep the before and after, but in a different meaning from the original meaning, which is, which is a continuous, I think that was interesting how I was struck by, I was going to write a paper, a little article from one time called Tragedy and Geometry. Did I tell you that? Yeah. But I mean, they, I chose the word geometry there because it rhymes with tragedy, but, or tragedy rather, because it rhymes with geometry, but, they both have a connection with the imagination, but a little different connection in the way the imagination is used in geometry and used in fiction. And, but it shows how fundamental those things are for us because we never think without images and those have a special connection with the imagination. Okay. So, so he says, our understanding, abstract, abstracts or separates the understandable form of the imagination. from the individual beginnings or principles. Hence, the form of our, the intelligible form of our understanding cannot be a likeness of the individual, what, principles. An account of this understanding does not know singulars. And you can say it doesn't know singulars, what, directly, right? I've got to come back to my senses to know you. Okay? I can think about what a man is all day long, and it won't know you. Right? Go back to my senses. But the understandable form of the divine understanding, which is the divine essence, is not immaterial by abstraction. Now, this is the important difference, huh? That the objection is overlooking, right? But through itself, right, it is the, what, beginning or source or cause of all the principles, right, which enter into the composition of the thing. Whether they be principles of the species these are principles of the individual. He's the source of all of them. Whence through it, divine essence, God knows not only universals, but also what? Singulars, huh? But then Thomas talks about God's practical knowledge, huh? And he says, well, in man, if your practical knowledge doesn't descend to the singular, it's imperfect, huh? So if God's practical knowledge doesn't descend to the singular, it'd be very, it'd be very, what? Imperfect. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, you know how, you know, as a parent say, you know, each child is different, and you've got to descend, right, to be singular, right? And, you know, what they say in the military art, you know, they fight the next war, the last war, but each war is in a way different, huh? And so the perfection of knowledge requires you to know the, what, singular, huh? And I was kind of struck by the fact that, you know, MacArthur, you know, is admired for the Inchon Landing, right? And I was meeting someplace that, you know, MacArthur was an observant of the 1905 war between Russia and Japan, and he saw the Japs carry out the Inchon Landing. So yeah, in particular now, it's that singular place, and the dangerous tides there, but also the possibilities of what you could do there, right? So, you have to know the singular, right? They landed in Inchon Landing? Yeah, during the Korean War, yeah. No, no, I mean the Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. So someone knows that. In fact, you might remember that from the, during the war, right? Yeah. But that's the perfected practical knowledge to know the, what, singular, huh? And you read about all these different battles, you know, and somebody, you know, placing his troops on a higher ground, let's say, and you know, we have to turn up a hill, or the sun shining their face, or something. But just individual things like that can make the difference in the battle, huh? And so the perfection of practical knowledge is in the, what, singular, right? If you're going to get married, which I guess you guys are not going to, but you've got to know, what, this individual, right? You can't marry a woman, or a man. You marry this man, this woman, right? Man, depending. My brother Mark and I, we were bachelors there in California, you know, in an apartment. As soon as we'd invite a couple out for dinner or something, you know? And these two couples, we got to know pretty well, because they both were teaching philosophy, that men were. And they seem to be, you know, well-matched with the husband and wife, you know, husband A and his wife, and husband B. But if they were married to that woman, we would start by, we would have chaos, right? You know, this man needed this kind of a woman, and that man needed that kind of a woman, and there's some defects, you know, that one person, you know, substitutes for, not substitutes, but compliments, you know? And, but the other way would have been just incredible. Incredible. It's really strong. So if God's knowledge is practically now to descend to the singular, it would be very imperfect, huh? You see? You see, you should marry somebody, you don't know what their defects are. You talk about singular knowledge. Well, I saw one of these stupid science fiction movies years ago, you know, and the day before the wedding is kind of a bachelor party, you know, and the guy's driving home, and there's a body laying in the road he stops, you know, and one of these extraterrestrial guys who comes in and takes over his body, right? So the next day shows up and gets married to the woman, right? Oh. And then the next scene, you know, kind of passing, and she's writing her mother, you know, John doesn't seem at all like the man I married. That's an extraterrestrial. You see, type of knowledge, I mean, the singular. Yeah. He's from our end, he's from me. Now, the second objection, huh? So he says, to the second it should be said, this is about the immateriality of them. To the second it should be said that although the form of the divine understanding, according to its being, does not have material conditions as the species received in the, what, imagination and sense. Now, that's the word species in Latin and the word eidos in Greek, right? You know, when Porphy writes the five principles, right, eidos is the name of what is being defined, right, by the genus and the difference. Well, they translate eidos in the Latin by species. And eidos and species both are similar in the etymology because they're the form that you can see, they're related to the word to see, speculation and the word eidos, you know, identi, to see. But in English, we just tend to translate them if we do in English by the word, what, form, right? So instead of saying democracy is one eidos, a government, or one species of government, they might say that sometimes. We say it's one form of government, huh? So sometimes I translate species here as form because it's more like this. But they badly translate when Plato talks about the ideas, right? So ideas have a different meaning in English now. It means more the thought of the image sometimes. But it should be translated more into forms, like a capital F if you want to write. It'd be a better translation than ideas given what idea means in English today, right? You know, you could try to do something in English with the looks of somebody, right? There you're talking about the shape and so on in the person but they have reference to the eye that sees this, huh? So though the form of the divine understanding, which is the divine understanding, the substance itself, right? According to its being does not have any material conditions as do the, what, forms received in the imagination and the sense. Nevertheless, by its power it extends to both, what, material and immaterial things, huh? Now, the third objection is saying, well, to quote Aristotle again there, Aristotle and Plato agree that form is something godlike, right? In the first book of natural hearing. You may recall the argument there, right? Because Aristotle's argument against Plato, so he takes something he and Plato have in common. And when Thomas explains, why does he call form godlike rather than matter? It's because matter is ability or potency, form is act, and God is what? Pure act. There's no passive potency of God. So in that respect, form seems godlike rather than matter, right? But if you think that God is not just pure act, but he is I am, who am, right? That is very nature is to be, then any kind of being, right? Even being in potency has some distant, right, likeness to God. It's much more distant in his likeness to God than form, right? But still it's like him in some way because it's a kind of being, yeah? So he says, to the third it should be said that matter, although it recedes from the likeness of God according to its, what? Potentiality, yeah? Nevertheless, insofar as, what? Such being. Yeah. It retains some likeness of the divine being, right? If God created matter, is is