Prima Pars
Lecture 68: God's Knowledge of Statements and Immutability

Transcript
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Now he's going to give another light this year. This is another light that he gives besides the one in the circle. Just as the one who goes through the road, along the road, does not see those who come, what? After him. But the one who's up on the top of the mountain, let's say. The one who from some altitude sees the whole road. He sees at once all those passing through the road. They're all present to him. And therefore that which is known by us, it is necessary that it, what? Be necessary, even according as it is in itself. Because those things which in themselves are future contingents are not able to be known by us. But those things which are known by God must be necessary according to that way in which they are under the divine knowledge, as has been said. Not, however, absolutely, according as they are considered in their, what? Proper causes, right? Whence this statement, everything known by God is necessary to be. We're accustomed to distinguish, huh? Because if it is said about the, what? Thing. Or it can be said about the said. If it is understood about the thing, it is divided and, what? False. And the sense is that everything which God knows is necessary. Or it is able to be understood about what is being said, and thus it is composed and true. And thus the sense is this thing said, known by God to be, it is what? Necessary. Okay. Now that maybe touches upon what kind of mistake when the fallacies in speech, on the fallacy of composition and division, right? Let me take a simple example of that fallacy of composition and division. Can a man sit when he's standing? I'm sitting now, right? Can I be standing now when I'm sitting? Well, if you're taking this in a composed sense, can I be standing when I'm sitting? No. But if you divide and say, you say, that time when I'm sitting, I could be standing, then in that sense it's true, right? Okay. That's kind of a subtle thing, right? In one sense it is, in one sense it isn't, right? So if something is foreknown by God, must it be? Yeah. If you take it as a whole, right? Yeah. If you take it in itself or by itself, right? It did not be, right? If God knows I'm going to sin, must I sin? It might seem like if I must sin, then I must, what? Am I really free? Can't be held responsible for what I've done. Yeah. Yeah. But, so in one sense, if you say, if God foresees that I'm going to sin, then I must sin, right? In this composed sense, it's what? True, right? But, in the right sense, by itself, it isn't what? True, right? Okay. That's a very, very difficult thing, huh? To not get caught up on that. Now, some object saying that that distinction has place in forms separable from a subject. As if I say that, what? White is able to be, what? Black, huh? Which of the things said is false, and about the thing is, what? True, okay? For the thing which is, what? White is able to be, what? Black, right? But this thing that we have said that the white is black can never be true, right? In forms over inseparable from a subject, they say that the foreseed distinction does not have place. As if I say that a, what? Yeah. That it's a necessity of this being, what? Because in both senses, it's false. But to be known by God is inseparable from the thing. Because what is known by God is not able to be, what? Not known, huh? It says this instance, or objection, would have place if this that I say known implied some disposition inhering in the subject. But since it implies the act of the one knowing to the thing known, although it is always known, right? it can be attributed to it, what? By itself, what is not attributed to it except insofar as it stands under the, what? Act of being known. Just as to be material is attributed to the stone by itself, which is not attributed to it according as it is, what? Understandable. Okay? Before you can really fully understand those objections and apply to them, we've got to go to the book on submissive refutations and understand the kind of what? Mistakes, huh? That people make, huh? So, let me take a little break here, huh? break here, huh? Let me take a little be a little easier. To the fourteenth, one proceeds thus. It seems that God does not know, what? Enunciabilia, statable things, right? Or statements, huh? Now, you may recall in our study of logic, right? You know that Thomas there, following Aristotle, divides the acts of reason that logic directs into three, and it's in an order, right? And the first act of reason is understanding what something is, huh? Like understanding what a man is, or what a dog is, or what an animal is, and so on. And then the second act he calls, following Aristotle, composing or dividing, where you compose or put together an affirmative statement, let's say man and animal, and say man is an animal, right? That's the Enunciabilia, one of them. Or you divide them, and say man is not a dog, or something like that, forming another statement, right? Well, does God know statements? Well, the simplicity of God might seem to be opposed to the putting together and dividing of these statements. It says, To know enunciable things belongs to our understanding, according as it puts together or divides, huh? But in the divine understanding, there's no putting together, huh? Because he's altogether simple as himself. Therefore, God doesn't know enunciable things. But it's only showing he doesn't know them, if he does, in the way we know them, right? He doesn't know them by putting them together and so on. Moreover, all knowledge is through some likeness. But in God, there's no likeness of enunciable things, since he is, what? Or to get it simple, and they're composed. And noun and verb in there, right? Subject, predicate, topula. Yes, there is not. Therefore, God does not know enunciable things, huh? Now, again, this is what is said in Psalm 93. God knows the thoughts of men. And some of these thoughts are what? Statements, right? But enunciable things are contained in the thoughts of men. So he knows that I think that man is an animal, and man is not a dog, and so on, right? So you must know these statements, huh? Therefore, God knows enunciable things, right? I answer it should be said that to form enunciable or statable things, you might say, huh? Is in the power of our understanding, right? To form statable things, to form statements. God, however, knows whatever is in the ability of himself, his own ability, or the ability of the creature, as has been said above. Therefore, it is necessary that God knows all of the statable things which are able to be formed. But again, the way he knows is not the way the thing is. There's no falsehood there. But you have to really see that in human knowing first, huh? Like I was mentioning before. We can know things in separation that don't exist in separation, right? So you can know me to be a philosopher without knowing me to be a grandfather. But the nurses in the hospital might know me to be a grandfather without knowing me to be a philosopher. But one of these is noble without the other, even though they don't exist without the other, right? And you can know things in even the reverse order that they come in reality without being false. So you have to start to gradually see that the way we know doesn't have to be the way things are. And then, it's not so strange that the way God knows is not the way things are, but yet he knows these things truly. What? He created. Yeah. But yet he knows these things truly, right? Everything is known because it's been created. Yeah, he knows them as his effects, yeah. Like even Satan, devil he knows, everybody. But now nobody knows before one is created. Only God. Yeah. And God knew them before they were created, too. Right. Okay. But just as he knows material things in a material way and composed things simply. So he knows statable things but not by making statements. As if in his understanding there was a composition, right? Or a division of things that could be enunciated. But he knows each thing through a simple understanding by understanding the essence or nature of each thing. Just as if in us, right? If we, in this, that we understand what a man is, if we were able to understand everything that could be said of what? Man. Which does not take place in our understanding which runs from one thing to another. What did Shakespeare say? Built for a large discourse, looking before and after. An account of the fact that the understandable form of us thus represents one thing that does not represent the what? The other, right? So when I get this understandable form whereby I understand what a triangle is, I don't see the Pythagorean theorem in that thought. I've got to run the reason out that the interior angle is equal to two right angles. Whence in understanding what is a man, we do not understand from this other things which can be what? Present. but in a divided way according to a certain succession we come to know these things. And therefore on account of this those things which you know apart from each other is necessary for us to put them together by way of some what? Composition or division by forming a enunciation I like to call it a statement. But the understandable form of the divine understanding which is his very essence suffices to showing all things. Whence by understanding his own essence he knows the essence of all things and whatever things can what? Happen to them right? Now the first objection says that argument proceeds if God knew non-sepal things in the manner of non-sepal things right? If his way of knowing was the way the thing was. But he knows composed things in a simple way. Just as he knows material things in an immaterial way. The second objection was saying how can he bear likeness here right? But the second should be said that the composition of a statement signifies some being of the thing and thus God through his very being which is his very nature or essence is a likeness of all those things which are signified through what? Statements. Every affirmative statement is saying that something is something right? So since God is itself being itself his nature right? Which is the form which he understands is like everything that is said by any statement whatsoever. Okay? So by knowing being itself he knows the what? Partaking of being in every statement signify it by every statement. Marvelous mind there, huh? Kind of might, huh? We're practically dead, huh? I was quoting Shakespeare earlier there where Macbeth speaks of life as a walking shadow, right? But I found the golden chain there, huh? You know, he's saying that, when the church fathers are saying that this life is a shadow of life, umrah, a shadow of life, this life in our mortal bodies is a shadow of life, huh? So it's not too far from saying life is a walking shadow. This is part of the, you know, the despair there of Macbeth at the end, but there is a certain aspect to that. So God knows statements, huh? But not the making statements. And by knowing his own being, he knows that to be that is in every statement. that they all partake of that being that he is. But he knows his being perfectly and therefore he knows in every way that it can be partaken of. He wouldn't know himself perfectly, right? He didn't know he could be partaken of it. You know, you know, Thomas will go back to what Aristotle teaches in the Eighth Book of Wisdom there, that the natures of things are like numbers, right? And you can kind of see what that is. Even Shakespeare is saying, that in the exhortation, right? He says, what is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast no more. So, body plus life equals plant. Body plus life plus sensation equals animal. Body plus reason equals man, right? It's like man is four and beast is three and plant is two. And so you can play a little bit with that in Shakespeare's words and say, you know, what is a beast if his chief good and market of his time be but to grow? Well, plant no more, right? But then you could transfer the numbers and say, what is three if it be half of four? Two no more, right? But now, in a way, two is contained in three, isn't it? And three is contained in four. So if four knew itself completely, in a way it would know three and two and one, right? And even to some extent, in knowing myself, I kind of know what a cat is. Because he has something of what I have, but not all that I have. He has a sensation like I have and he has some of these emotions, right? And when the cat was afraid of the dog and I took up the cat, you know, you could feel the shaking there in the cat. And I had some cats really afraid of dogs. And I kind of know this fear because that's something I have too sometimes, fear, right? Okay? So if four knew itself completely, he would know three and two, right? Well, God would be like a what? Kind of like an is a number in a sense, huh? And therefore, knowing himself fully, he knows but everything that could partake of him more or less perfectly, right? So knowing being himself, because he is being himself, I am who am, he knows everything that could be in any way whatsoever, as it could more or less share in that being that he has. Now look at article. 15, whether the knowledge of God is variable, right? Has he ever changed his mind, you know, or is he pretty stubborn, what do you think? To the 15th, one proceeds thus, it seems that the knowledge of God is variable. For the knowledge, science, is said relatively to the what? No, right? But those things which imply a relation to creatures are said of God from time. So God is said to what? Be a creator, right? In time, right? And therefore they're varied according to the variation of what? Creatures. Therefore the knowledge of God is variable according to the variation of creatures. Moreover, whatever God is able to make or do, he is able to know. But God is able to what? Make many things than the ones he has made. Therefore he could know more things than he knows, right? And thus his knowledge is able to vary according to growth and diminution. Moreover, God knows that Christ has been born, right? Yeah. Now he, what? Does not know that Christ is to be born, right? Because Christ is not, what? Therefore now whatever God knows, does he know. Not everything that God has known, right? Does he know. And therefore the knowledge of God seems to be variable. But against all this nonsense is what is said in James, Jacob, chapter 1, verse 17. That before God there is what? No change, right? Or even the what? Shadow of a change, huh? A variation. Not even the significant of a change in God, huh? Doesn't he get bored? It's always the same. It's always the same, huh? That's a hard thing to understand, you know, a bit of a vision, right? You know, is it ever going to change? No, it's always going to be the same. You realize that God must be infinite, right? For us never to get bored, huh? But you know, as an origin, you know, thoughts, you know, eventually you'll get kind of restless, you know. You know, and I want to go back into this kind of life we have now. That's the reason why she is inappropriate for God. I don't even know who they are. I answer it should be said that since the knowledge of God is his very substance, huh? This is clear from what has been said already. And his substance is altogether, what? Unchangeable. Therefore, it is necessary that his knowledge be, what? Altogether invariable, right? So that's what they call soldierism, I guess, huh? The minor premise is the knowledge of God is his, what? Substance, right? The major premise is his substance is unchangeable. Never varies, right? Therefore. Okay, now the first objection was taken from, what? The relation that God has, what? To creatures, right? Now you may eventually realize that those relations are not real. And it's kind of interesting because Aristotle was the first thinker to realize not only that there are relations that are not real, only in the mind, right? But also it's possible to have this mixed case where you have a relation that's real from one end and not from the other end, huh? That something can have a real relation to something else and that other thing has no relation to you, but you understand it by a kind of return relation, huh? And the example Aristotle especially brought out was that if I know something, right, huh? I have a certain relation to the thing I know, but does that thing have relation to me because it's known by me? And that thing in itself doesn't really have the kind of being that something has in knowing that's inside me, right? So I'm really affected by that object and I have a real relation to it, but it's not really related to me. Okay, to the first therefore it should be said that Lord and Creator, in names of this sort, imply relations to creatures according as they are in themselves, right? Okay, but the knowledge of God implies relation to creatures according as they are, what? In God, right? I know, so what's the difference between that, right? Well, when you talk about creation, you're talking about an activity that has an external, what? Product, yeah. When you talk about knowing or loving, right, you're talking about an activity that is not transitive like that, that remains within the doer, right? So Thomas is making use of that distinction, right? So we don't say that God is creator before there are things that are created, right? So God is not a creator before those things exist, because creator names an activity that has an exterior product, right? So when you have that activity, you have an exterior product. But knowing as such doesn't involve an exterior product. And so God can know something even when it doesn't, what, exist, right? And it's still in his knowledge, right? But he can't create a thing if it doesn't exist in itself, because we're not creating anything. Okay? There's no difference between those two kinds of operations. And Aristotle, of course, has, you know, first brought out that distinction. So the first, therefore, it should be said that Lord and creator, and names of this sort, imply relations to creatures according as they are in themselves. But the knowledge of God implies a relation to creatures according as they are in God. Because by this is something understood in act that is in the one understanding. Of course, even in pedophiles, it's seen the thing known, lest it be in some way in the knower, right? But things created are in God in an invariable or unchangeable way. In themselves, they are what? Yeah, they are unchangeable. That's one way of finance objection. Or, another way it can be said, that Lord and creator, and names of this sort, imply relations which follow upon acts which are understood to what? End up with creatures that end up with creatures that end up with creatures that end up with creatures that end up with creatures. themselves according as they are, what? In themselves. Yeah. And therefore these relations are said variously of God according to the variation of creatures, right? But knowledge and love and things of this sort imply relations which follow upon acts, which understood to be only in God, right? And therefore they are what? Predicated without variation of God, okay? It doesn't go into the business about Lord and Creator. It's not involving a real relation to creatures, right? But we say God begins to be a creator when he has a creature, right? But he doesn't begin to know when the thing he knows exists in itself, right? Okay? But he doesn't begin to be a creator when he doesn't have something that is, what, created. Because creation means an activity that is transitive, that has an exterior product. You know, in the very beginning of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes that distinction between those two acts, huh? The transitive act that has an exterior product and the one that doesn't. You know, in English sometimes we, they'll use the term doing, right? And then they'll divide doing into doing and making, huh? Now, that might first sighted seem to be, what, irrational, right? Because you've got that you're dividing and yeah. But you know this way of speaking, right? Okay? Just like sometimes we divide the animal. Instead of dividing animal into man, let's say, and beast, we might divide man against the animals, right? And so they always say to students, if the biology professor says man is an animal, he's perhaps not insulting you. He's to be seen. But if your girlfriend calls you an animal, she's probably insulting you. Right. But it's used the word animal in a different sentence. Now, why does one of these keep the common name and the other get a new name? Yeah. Because man adds something significant, right? Okay? Now, I'm going back to comparison to the numbers, right? I'm going to divide two into what? Two and two plus one. Okay? Now, the number that is just two will keep the name two. And a number that is not just two, but two plus one will get a new name. Name me three. Well, it's like that, right? Because animal means a living body that has senses. And the beast has nothing significant or nobody beyond that. But man is something very important, so he gets a new name, man, and they keep the word animal, right? Okay? Now, my stock example there, to use Aristotle's, you know, they're not his example, but anyone like that. I say, how many fingers do I have? Four fingers and a thumb would sometimes say, right? Okay? So one of the five fingers now gets its own name, and the other four keep the name finger, right? But something about this opposable thumb, as the biologist calls it, it's very important for holding your bottle of beer or whatever it is, something about it stands out, you know? Even without being a sore thumb, it stands out, right? Like these other four, right? So it gets a new name, thumb, right? And suddenly these other four are called the what? Fingers, yeah. Well, that's what you have in these examples. Well, and the case here, making is not really more perfect than this duet, but making has, besides the doing, a product, so it has something noteworthy, right? It doesn't make a more perfect doing, but it has something that is noticeable, right? In addition to the doing, right? And that's why we kind of joke, you know, huh? The philosopher doesn't seem to be doing anything, he gets through doing what he's doing and he's got nothing to show for it, right? But the carpenter and he gets through with his doing, he's got, there's a house there or a chair or a table or something, right? So making gets a new name and doing keeps the what? Common name, right? So creation is like making and understanding and what? Loving is like what? Doing, right? And if I understand you or love you and you don't know that I understand and love you, right? It doesn't affect you at all, does it? And it's really accidental to my understanding and loving you that you know that I understand and love you, right? So, you know what the girl says, you don't even know I exist, right? So you might know somebody and love them and they don't even know that you know them and love them. So, but it's not accidental to making that you affect something outside of you. You better, you know, you make anything. anything. So, Lord and Creator and names of this sort imply relations which follow upon acts which are understood to what? In, in some exterior thing, right? In this case, to the creatures themselves, according as they are in themselves. And therefore, relations of this sort are said of God, even though the relations are reason, right? They're said variously of God, right? According to variation of creatures, but knowledge and love and names of this sort or activities of this sort imply relations which follow upon acts which are understood to be in the doer, right? In this case, in God himself. And therefore, they are what? There isn't to make any variation when these things are said. The second thing is, can't God make things that he hasn't made, right? The second should be said that God knows also those things which he is able to make and has not made, right? Whence from the fact that he is able to do more things or to make more things than he has made, it does not follow that he is able to what? Know more things that he knows unless this be referred to as the knowledge of vision, right? The knowledge of those things that are or were or will be, right? I mean, excuse me, that knowledge of, yeah, that's what that knowledge of vision is, as opposed to the knowledge of simple intelligence, right? Knowledge of things that he could make or we could do, but neither he nor we will ever make, right? According as he is said to know those things in act according to some time, but from this, that he knows those things which are able to be, which are not, or not to be, which are, it does not follow that his knowledge is variable, but that he knows the variability of things. If over there was something that God before did not know and afterwards knew, right? Then his knowledge would be what? Variable, But this is not able to be, because whatever is, or is able to be according to some time, God knows in his, what? Eternity all at once. And therefore from this, that something is laid down to be in some time, it follows that eternally it has been known by God. And therefore we're not not to concede that God is able to know more things than he knows, because this statement implies that before he did not know and afterwards he did know, right? So he has no joy of discovery God, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.