Prima Pars
Lecture 69: God's Speculative and Practical Knowledge

Transcript
================================================================================

Well, you're sitting in the light when you see something for the first time, huh? Now, the last objection was taken from knowing about God to be, what, born and so on, right? Now, to the third, it should be said that the ancient nominalists said that the same, this is the same enunciable thing, that God was, what, yeah, because the same thing is signified to these three, namely the, what, birth of Christ. And according to this, it follows that God, whatever he, what, knows, right? Has known, he will know, because in the same way he knows God as, what, or Christ rather, as born, because it signifies the same thing as that Christ, what, will be born, right? But this opinion is false, he says. First, because the diversity of the parts of narration causes a diversity of the, what, enunciables. Also, because it would follow that a statement that was once true would be always true, right? Which is against the philosopher, who says, huh? This, again, is a reference to the categories, huh? That this statement, Socrates sits, is true when he's sitting, and false when he, what, rises, yeah. That's interesting, huh? Because, you know, when you study the statement, there's two ways of dividing the statement, huh? The way of dividing it is into affirmative and negative, huh? The other way of dividing the statement is into true or false, okay? Now, which is a division of a genus into species? Well, some might say, shouldn't this be the division into kinds? Isn't the distinction of true and false more important distinction, than the distinction of affirmative and negative? Which is more important, these distinctions? As Aristotle points out, a statement can remain the same, right? With exactly the same subject and predicate, copula. And due to the change of the thing, past and true to false, right? So, in the example we're given, Socrates is sitting, or breakfast is sitting, right? Well, that statement a minute ago was true, now it's become false. But has the statement really changed? No. No, it's the same statement, right? And has the same parts, right? But does an affirmative statement ever become a negative statement? No. This is really a different kind of statement, huh? The affirmative and the negative, huh? So, when Aristotle divides statement into affirmative and negative, he's divided into different kinds of statement, right? You know this distinction of true and false is, in some sense, more important, right? He talks about the opposition between false and so on in that book, you know? But this is the division of the different kinds, huh? So, we say breakfast is sitting, and breakfast is not sitting. Well, not the same statement, right? And one is joining together, breakfast and sitting, and the other is separating them, right? So, these are two different kinds of statements you might think about, breakfast and sitting. But either one of these could be, what, true at one time, and false at another time. So, what do we say about the true and false, if they're not different kinds? Yeah, now, you see, there are some statements that are always true, like two is half of four. Some statements that are always false, like two is half of five. And some statements, like purpose and sitting, that are sometimes true and sometimes false. So, he's going back to the philosopher there, and it's in the categories again, right? And therefore, he says, it ought to be conceded that this is, what, not true, that whatever God, what, he knows. If it refers to the, what, enunciables themselves, right? But from this it does not follow that the knowledge of God is variable. For just as it is without variation of the divine knowledge, that he knows one and the same thing, sometimes to be and sometimes not to be, right? So, without any variation of the divine knowledge, he knows that something enunciable, some statement, sometimes is true and sometimes is false. But the knowledge of God would be variable if he knew enunciable things by way of what? Enunciable things. By putting together and dividing, as happens in our understanding. When our knowledge is varied, either according to truth and falsity, if, for example, the thing changing, we retain the same opinion about that thing, right? Or, it changes according to diverse opinions, right? If we first opine that someone sits, and afterwards we think that he, what, does not sit, right? Which neither is able to be true in God, right? So, if I think that Burkist is sitting, or Socrates is sitting, and I don't realize he stood up, right? There's been a little change in me. I was thinking truly, and now I'm thinking falsely, right? Or, if I think that Socrates is sitting now, and then later on when I see him stand up, I think he's standing and not sitting. I avoid falsehood, but now I'm thinking something different than I thought before. God doesn't what? Know the statements by way of what? Statements, huh? I always say in logic, and after we take up statementality, but I do the statement. And we all, we all kind of freeze, you know? That God was the president, right? He'd say, I don't make statements. Although I know them, right? See how this runs through the whole of this, what Aristotle then first taught us? And I call it the central question of philosophy, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are, right? And you have to see that the answer to that question is what? Do you have to see it in our knowledge at first, right? And you have to see it maybe in particular things, you know, like when Aristotle first brings it up there in the books of natural hearing. And he's talking about how the mathematician talks about quantity in separation from matter, from ordinary matter. And he says that the mathematician is not false in knowing quantity in separation from matter, even though it doesn't exist. And he says that the mathematician is not false in terms of what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about what he's talking about, but he's talking about separation from matter. Quite, Plato thought that the mathematician would be false in knowing quantity and separation from matter if quantity didn't exist in reality and separation from matter. And so the universe, of all it is, in Plato, involves not only the sensible world, right, but also the mathematical world, that there are numbers and quantities and so on. Existing outside of our mind in separation from sensible things. Otherwise, he says, the mathematician would not be knowing things as they are, and therefore he would not be knowing truly, right? And Aristotle says, well, no. It's a question, he says, of, is quantity knowable without what? Sensible matter, right? And if it's knowable without sensible matter, then the mind is not false in knowing it without sensible matter, even though it doesn't exist without sensible matter. It would be false if it's said, like Plato said, that in fact it does exist in separation from sensible matter. But in explaining that, and also the same question arises about universal, right? Because when I know what a man is, man is a two-footed animal that has reason. Now, knowing what a man is, is any man in my definition of man? Is Socrates or you or me in the definition of man? No. So I'm knowing what a man is in separation from all men. Because no man appears in the definition of man. Now, is my mind false in knowing man in separation from all men? Does man exist in separation from all men? In the real world, aren't there just Socrates and you and me and the other? Well, Plato said that there's now another world, right? The world of the forms, right? Corresponding to the definitions that Socrates, his master, right? Had shown the importance of and so on. And of course, Socrates had argued that it's by definition that our mind really is eventually able to know things for sure, right? So if it's through definitions that we know the truth, I mean, if you take things that we're very sure about, like, you know, take no odd number is even, right? I'm very sure about that, right? But it's through the definition of odd and even that I know that no odd number is even. There are no prime numbers, I'm very sure about these things. But if it's through definitions that we know things truly, and through definitions we know the universal in separation from singulars, and truth requires that the way you know be the way things are, then truly the universals must exist in separation from, what? Singulars, huh? Again, Plato, I mean, Aristotle says, no. You can know what Socrates and Plato have in common in separation from their differences and so on, even though what they have in common doesn't exist in separation from them. And the mind is not false, unless it says that what they have in common outside of your mind exists in separation from them. Now, when Thomas comes to common in that passage, he, you know, there's two ways, right? That Plato thinks that the truth of mathematics and the truth through definitions requires us to say that mathematical things exist in separation from sensible things, and universals exist in separation from the singulars. But Thomas goes back to something easier, like the one, for example, I was given before, when I'm saying I'm both a philosopher and a grandfather, right? I'm both a philosopher and a father, right? Okay? And can you know these things that are found together in me, can you know one of them truly without knowing the other? Yeah. Now, if you know one of those without the other, you can say your knowledge of me is incomplete, but does incomplete mean false? See? Is it false to say I'm a philosopher, leading out that I'm white, that I'm an American, that I'm a father, I'm a grandfather? Twelve times? That doesn't count? Am I? Is it? If you say this philosopher is not an American, or this philosopher is not white, or this philosopher is not a grandfather, right? Then you'd be false, right? But people sometimes correspond with me by email, and they like something I've said, or they've read something I've said somewhere, and they don't know I'm white or black, you know? But they know I'm sometimes a philosopher. And, but are they false in leading out that I'm white? You know, talk about my grandchildren, you know? They need that out, you see? Well, for Aristotle and for Thomas Fowling, the master there, the question is, is my being a philosopher knowable without my being a grandfather? And in this case, both are knowable without the other. So, the principle Aristotle is saying, and Thomas is following here, is something is knowable without something else, then it's not false to know it without the other thing, even though it can't maybe be without the other thing, right? And then he applies it to more difficult cases. Even if man cannot be without Socrates or Plato and Aristotle, and so on, other individual men, but it's knowable, what? So the mind is not false in knowing something that is knowable, even though, it's kind of strange, right? That something is knowable that, in those cases, can't exist without the other, right? But Thomas takes a simple example of me being a philosopher or a grandfather, that kind of example, where it's accidental, right? And you can be a philosopher without being a grandfather, and you can be a grandfather without being a philosopher, right? And therefore it's easy to see. But in this individual, this individual, they're both found. So am I a philosopher without being a grandfather? No. But my being a philosopher is knowable without my being a grandfather being known. And there's no falsity in knowing my being a philosopher without knowing my being a grandfather. I don't tell everybody I'm a grandfather. You guys must know my now. Everybody who meets me knows that, right? I don't know who's in class, you know? Everything about me. I'm white now, and I feel like you're white, but if I had somebody blind in class, right, you know, they might know me to be a philosopher, but not know that I'm a white philosopher, right? You know, there's this poor blind man there, knowing me falsely, and he knows me to be a philosopher. He doesn't know me to be white. Those things are really knowable one without the other. So that was one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human thought that Aristotle made, right? And so, as I mentioned, you know, one of my teachers there, Boethius was his name, huh? 480, 25, something like that. Boethius begins that fifth book where he's going to go to talk about God's eternal knowledge of temporal things and the future contingents and so on. But he goes back and has Lady Wisdom introduce Aristotle as her true follower. And it's kind of interesting that he's introduced as her true follower because it's also about truth itself, right? And what's required for truth, right? And what's required for truth? And what's required for truth, right? And what's required for truth? And what's required for truth, right? And what's required for truth, right? And what's required for truth? And And does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? It comes up, going back to the question you asked earlier about science there, it goes back there, in modern science, the characteristic way of knowing is by the experiment, right? And so if you're accustomed to that way of knowing, you might think that's the only way of knowing. And you'll find this in modern scientists. And they'll say, we know by what? Making. And therefore, Karl Marx will conclude, right? That we only can know what we make. And we're the beginning and the end of what we make, therefore we must be God ourselves, right? But in a sense, they're saying that if we know by making, then all we can know is what we make. And maybe that isn't quite true, right? Because the way we know is not necessarily what, yeah. So, we might be able to discover the way things are, yet, by making. Although it may be complicated, as Heisenberg's pointing out, you get down to the student levels there, right? But in, what is it, love's labor is lost, huh? Who cannot be betrayed by a plot, right? We can sometimes set up a situation to reveal somebody's character, right? You know, in Loz, in, in, uh... Excuse me, all's well that ends well, yeah. Where the character, you know, claims to be a brave man and is dead in a soldier and so on. And what they do is, when he's out one night, they disguise themselves like the enemy and they grab him, like they've captured him, right? And then they bring him back and he's speaking a lot of foreign languages and so on and they threaten his life and he reveals all the battle plans, everything. He steals the whole beans. And then they, what, reveal themselves, right? They're completely disgraced, right? Of course, the name of the character is Paroles, huh? Paroles, which means, I suppose, in French, words, right? And he complains, who could not be betrayed by a clock, right? There's kind of a joke like that, where the guy's at the party, right? And he poses a hypothetical question, you know, to the ladies there. The ladies, would you sleep with a man tonight, you know, for a million dollars? Well, a million dollars? You know, I would sleep with a man for a million dollars. And so then later on, and he comes and offers the girl $20 for an evening. She says, what do you think I am? And he answers, you know, we already know what you are. We're just dickering about the price. The point is, there are some circumstances that would bring out your character, right? So in a beautiful play, there are a fellow there, right? Now when Desdemona's going to bed there, the night she's going to be killed by a fellow, right? You know, and she's talking to her maid there, you know, Yaku's wife. And Desdemona is so chaste, you know, truly chaste. She can't understand how a woman would, you know, for the whole world, you know, do this sort of a thing, right? And her maid, you know, being more of the world in real life says, well, for the whole world, I think I want, she says, but next morning I'd say I haven't done it. I mean, you get kind of the world in real life, you know? She kind of just doesn't want to do that, you know? It's the innocence that can't realize, you know, the evil in other people. And, but you see, in other words, if you're given an opportunity to have a million dollars, whatever it is, then your true character might come out, right? You know, the old proverb, every man has his price, right? You know, and I've heard over and over again, you know, you know, people change a job or something like that. It was an offer you couldn't refuse. So you can set up a, you can make a situation that might reveal somebody's, what, character, right? That ordinary circumstances would not, right? No, you know, you're not supposed to, you know, cause somebody to fall, you know? You won't, those by whom scandals come, you know? But you could set up a situation to reveal somebody's character, and in a way, you're knowing him as he is, you know, there's the expression, they call it the moment of truth, right? You see, moment of truth. Your signs and circumstances really reveal what your character is. So, but in a sense, if you made these circumstances to reveal the character, I remember seeing a movie one time where it was about the CIA, you know, and there's going to be people being interviewed to work for the CIA or some secret organization like that, right? And they were being invited to kind of a country place there in Virginia, wherever it is they do this stuff. And they were supposed to be there in a certain day, you know, to begin to be interviewed. And when they all had arrived, someone came and said that the investigators, you know, were called into something, you know, and we're going to have a week or two weeks delay here, you know, but just relax and enjoy yourself, right? Well, unbeknownst to them, that two weeks where they were waiting for the investigators, you know, the interviewers to arrive, right, was really when the thing was going on. And some people were falling in love with the woman there and so on, you know. That's not the guy you want on the spy team out there, people who are easily led astray, right? And so, in a sense, you're setting up the circumstances to what? See who is a good, you know, stable person, you know, or who's easily influenced by women, maybe we'll be spilling secrets and so on, right? And so, you're knowing somebody as he is, not as you made him, right? But you did make the circumstances that revealed him as he is, right? He's weak to women or he's weak to booze, drinking or something, right? Whatever his particular difficulty is, right? But you don't want somebody who's weak to booze and therefore will spill the thing there, or weak to women, right? You know, because booze and women are used to get secrets out of people all the time, right? So, you can make these things, but you're not making this man weak to booze by exposing him to booze, right? I mean, Plato has that in, I guess, the Republic, right? Where the young men are going to be, what? Given these drinking parties and so on, right? And unbeknownst to them, they're being observed by the others, right? And then they see who's weak in their character under the influence of these things, right? Some people are going to excess, you know, lose their self-control and so on. And so they're being, what? You're revealing what the character really is under these circumstances. So, you set up the thing, right? So, you haven't made this guy an alcoholic, but you're revealing he's an alcoholic by these, what, circumstances, huh? So, by making, you only know what you've made. You've made this party, right? But you've made known something by it, huh? As it is. So, but you find this, you know, it starts with Kant and then Marx draws the conclusion from it, right? But they see that in modern science, the way you know is by making. And then it's not too far for them to go from there to see that you know only what you think. Maybe that's a little bit of a jump in itself, right? But the first step, I mean, is something from custom. It's only accustomed to this kind of knowing. They're accustomed to knowing by experiment. And therefore, they think that's the only way of knowing. You only know by making. And then the next jump, which is, you know, if you only know by making, then you only know what you make. And then you only know that of what you are at the beginning and the end. Because that's all you could know. You only know yourself as God, right? Because we are the beginning and the end of all we make. You can only know yourself as God, right? And before you knew yourself as the maker, then you have this fantasy about a maker outside of yourself, and you call it God. That's really fundamental what Aristotle said, right? But, you know, I mean, the first time you go through theology, you're not going to understand everything, in fact. Every time you go through these things, you see something new in them, right? But the more you go through them, too, the more you realize, oh, these things depend upon things all the way back to the things we learn first in philosophy, right? And, you know, it's first in the second book of natural hearing, when Aristotle is distinguishing between natural philosophy and mathematics, he starts to make this point, you know, but then comes up in other parts of philosophy, and ultimately in the last books of wisdom, that's a surprise for me, you know, in geometry, in one theorem builds up another theorem, and all the way back, and you realize all these things finally develop. Okay, let's open this now here or not here? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Praise God. And help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. And we're up to the 16th and last article here of question 14. You know, we know God through material things, not very well through material things. And it came up in the Trinity, but it comes up before that, really. Material creatures are composed, and there's one kind of proposition, that we talk about in the first book of Natural Hearing. And there's a composition of matter and form. Like in us, the composition of what body and soul. And of course, you negate that kind of composition of God. There's no composition of matter and form of God. But then, in the categories, which is the first book of logic, we meet this composition of substance and accident. And again, there's no composition of substance and accident in God. So, when we say that God is not only good, but his goodness itself, which negation do we have in mind of these two? Yeah. No. The one of what? Matter and form, right? Okay? Okay? Because if God and his goodness are not the same thing, then his goodness would be as a form in some kind of subject, right? And there'd be a composition of matter and form. So, after you negate this composition of matter and form, then you realize that God and his goodness are the same thing, or God and his existence are the same thing. And sometimes, you know, because of our way of speaking, we'll say that God has something, right? But then, to understand that correctly, we say, God is whatever he has. So, if God has existence, he's existence itself. If he has goodness, he's goodness itself, right? But now, when we got to this question on, the first one on the operations of God, and we saw that God's, what, understanding, his ability to understand, but his actual understanding, is the same as the substance, right? That for God to be is to understand, which is definitely not the case for me. I can be for a long time without understanding something. So, it's not the same thing, right? It'd be wonderful for, you know, to be would be to understand everything, you know? Just for me to be would be to understand everything, you know? I'm so composed, you know, huh? Or discomposed, in one sense. So, when you say that they're the same in God, right? God's understanding and substance is very active understanding is the same as his existence and substance, which composition is negating in the creature. Yeah, yeah, substance is an accident, right? So, it's kind of interesting to see that the composition you get in the first book of natural philosophy, the first book of natural air, the composition of matter and form, and the composition you meet in the first book of logic, that's come down to us in the father of logic, the categories, the composition of substance and accident, and that those two are negated when we talk about God and the inter-inter, right? We've done that, right? Now, it's kind of struck by it because it comes up again in the Trinity. And when Thomas is talking about how God the Father and his father put it at the same thing, right? Well, that's like the negation of matter and form, right? When you say that these other things are sort of the father, the same and the same, it's more like the negation of the composition of the substance and accident. It's kind of striking to see it right together. You know, the two fundamental books, one in logic, the first book of logic, and the other in the first book of natural philosophy, they both teach us about two different kinds of composition found in the creature, both of which are negated back in our chapter, a question on the simplicity of God. So, let's go on here. But it's interesting that Thomas doesn't talk about God being alive until he gets to, what, God understanding himself and having an operation of understanding. He doesn't attach, in other words, the consideration of the life of God to his substance, but to his, what, operation, right? Which kind of agrees with the way we think about life at first in human, in material things, right? That the living thing moves itself and so on. So, we're down to the last article here now. To the 16th, one proceeds thus. It seems that God does not have about things a speculative knowledge. For the knowledge of God is a cause of things, as has been shown above. But speculative knowledge is not a cause of what? Yeah. Therefore, the science or knowledge of God is not speculative. I've got to be careful. I usually like to translate that by the English word of looking, right? Because speculative now has a sense of the stock market or something like that or guessing or something of that sort, right? But what you have in Greek, you see, it begins with the Greek philosophers. They'll speak of some knowledge, like wisdom, as being theoretical, right? And theoretical is merely the Greek word for what? Looking, yeah. Okay? And calling knowledge, looking knowledge, means as for the sake of seeing, for the sake of understanding, as opposed to practical knowledge or doing knowledge. Knowledge is for the sake of doing. Or the Latin word for theoretical is speculative. But when you translate these into English, or transliterate, I should say, into theoretical or practical, I mean, excuse me, theoretical or speculative, they don't have the same meaning now in English as exactly what they had. Okay? It'd be better, in a sense, to call it looking knowledge, although it'd be not what I'm accustomed to call it. Moreover, speculative or looking knowledge is by abstraction from things, at least ours is, which does not belong to the divine knowledge. It doesn't derive his knowledge from things. Because notice, if his knowledge is his very substance, his very existence, if it was derived from things, then God's being would be derived from things. Yeah. But against this, everything which is more noble or excellent ought to be attributed to God. But looking knowledge is more noble than practical knowledge, as is clear through the philosopher in the beginning of the metaphysics and the famous premium to wisdom, which I think we did one time, didn't we? So I'll let you go back to your notes on that right now. But notice, such knowledge would seem to be for its own sake, huh? But practical knowledge is for the sake of doing, so it's not as knowledge as desirable. So we're going to attribute to God the best of all things, right? So, therefore, God has, of things, a looking knowledge, huh? So, how they say, rarely affirm, seldomly not, always distinguish. So Thomas begins his reply and divide the article by making some distinction here. Of course, people have written doctoral thesis on these various ways that knowledge can be speculative and practical, huh? And Thomas will open into that. I answer, it should be said that some knowledge is looking only, some knowledge is practical only, right? And some, in one way, is looking, and in another way, what? Practical, right? Now, for the evidence of all this, it should be known that some knowledge can be called speculative, or looking, in three ways. I never make this kind of distinction anybody other than Aristotle or Thomas. First, from the side of things, what? Known, huh? Because they are not, what? Doable by the knower, huh? Just as is the knowledge of man about natural things, or about divine things, huh? So natural things are things whose cause is nature, right? Not man, huh? So, of natural things as such, you have only a looking knowledge, not because of the things you're studying. In a fortiori, this would be true about divine things, or knowledge of angels, for that matter, right? I can't make an angel or affect him very much. I hope he's enlightening me, but. Now, in a second way, as regards the way of knowing, and this could be even if the thing is something doable, but you don't consider it insofar as it's doable, huh? As if a builder should consider a house defining, huh? And dividing, and considering the universal predicates of it, huh? It's almost the way of speculative knowledge, defining, dividing, and demonstrating. And this is, what? To consider things that are doable, doable, but in a, what? Speculative way, huh? And not according as they are, what? Doable, right? So a little bit like, you know, if you take an art appreciation course, right? You get a certain knowledge of music, or painting, or whatever it might be, but you don't really learn how to make music, or how to, what? Draw or paint, and so on, right? But you learn something that, you know, never should appreciate these things, and know the difference between a portrait, and a landscape, and so on, right? And not look for the same things. Can't find that character in the landscape painting, well, it's the wrong thing to be looking for, right? For he says, something is operable or doable through the applying of form to matter, right? Not through the, what? Taking a part of the composed thing into the universal formal principles of it. And third, as regards its, what? End, huh? For the practical understanding differs by its end from the speculative one. As Aristotle says in the third book about the soul, right? For the practical understanding is ordered to the end of operation, but the end of the speculative is a consideration of what? Truth, right? And so in Thomas, you know, following Aristotle divides the virtues of reason, tries them a little differently than Aristotle does, but he divides them into the virtues of practical reason, which are art and foresight, right reason about making and right reason about doing, and then the virtues of looking reason, which are natural understanding, and reasoned out understanding, and wisdom itself, huh? Whence is some builder was considered how some house could come about, but he did not, what, order this knowledge to the end of operation, right? But to knowing only. And how did you make that? I'm kind of curious how you made that. Not that I'm going to intend to make that, but it's kind of curious how you make a computer or something, right? Okay. So not ordering it to the end of doing, but to knowing only, it will be, as far as the end is concerned, a speculative consideration, although it's about a thing that is, what, doable, right? Now a knowledge which is looking by reason of the thing known is looking only, right? But that which is looking either by its way of proceeding, right? Or by or according to its end is in some way speculative, right? By reason of its way of proceeding or by its end, but in some way practical because it is about something, what, doable, okay? But when it's something doable, and you consider how it's doable, and you intend to do something with it, when it's ordered to the end of doing, then it is simply and without, what, qualification, practical, right? Now, after all these distinctions, now you can answer the question, right, huh? Now, according to what has been said here, therefore, it should be said that the knowledge which God has of himself or about himself is a looking knowledge only. Can God change himself or do something with himself? There's no New Year's resolutions, right? He can't change himself, huh? For he is not doable. Now, about all other things, right? He has a knowledge that is both, what, speculative and what? Yeah. Speculative as regards the, what, mode, huh? For whatever in things we know, speculatively, by defining and dividing and distinguishing, I might add, right? So he did a lot of distinguishing here. The whole of this, God much more knows, much more perfectly knows, right? But about those things which he is able to make, but in no time is he going to make them, right? No time is he going to make them. He does not have a practical knowledge according as practical knowledge is so called from its in, right? So what do you call that? The shianci or what? Some tichis intelligentsia, I think he called it before. The knowledge of those things he's able to make, but tries not to make ever, right? Okay? As opposed to this knowledge of vision, where he knows these things that he has made or is making or will make, okay? So here you'd have what? These things are doable by God. He knows how to do them, but he doesn't intend to do them, right? So in one sense, it's not practical, right? But thus he has a practical knowledge about those things which he makes according to some, what? Time. We're in some time at some time. But bad things, I guess, mala, although they are not doable by him, right? Nevertheless, they come under, what? His practical knowledge, just as a good things, insofar as he either permits them or impedes them, right? Or orders them, right? I don't teach you, because you've got to say, you know, willy-nilly you're going to praise God, right? But if you behave yourself, you're going to be praising his mercy. If you misbehave, you will be glorified his justice. So willy-nilly, he's got to order that. It's good. Just as sicknesses come under the practical knowledge of the doctor, not that he's trying to make you sick, but insofar as through his art, he, what, cures them, right, huh? So he distinguishes, huh? Well, teacher Kasui said, in some way, in experimental science, where you learn kind of how to make things, right, huh? You have a knowledge which is more like God's knowledge of natural things, which is a knowledge of how to make them. Why natural philosophy is more purely speculative knowledge. So, he says, going back to the first objection now, the knowledge of how to make them. Now, the knowledge of how to make them. of God is a cause of things that has been said, right? And such a knowledge seems to be what? Practical. Well, Thomas says, first of all, the knowledge of God is a cause, but not of himself, right? You have to be very careful if you say God is cause of suing, because if you understand it in an affirmative sense, you've got a kind of contradiction, right? Contradict the axiom of before and after. Nothing is before or after itself, right? So God's knowledge of himself, as he said in the Bible, the article is entirely what? Looking knowledge, right? And you have a sign, too, that looking knowledge is the highest thing there is, right? Because obviously God's knowledge of himself is what's best in his knowledge, right? He knows himself. He knows himself as much as he's knowable. But that's not to know himself as doable, because he's not a doable sort of thing, right? He completely necessary, right? He's completely unchangeable. So he says, first of all, Thomas makes that distinction. The knowledge of God is a cause, but not of himself, right? But only of other things, right? Of which some are in act, as of those things which in some time come to be, right? And of some things only in his power, of those things which is able to make, is able to make, and nevertheless never makes, right? And the second things are not completely practical, right? They're not practical by their end, right? Even though he might, what? Know something doable and know how to do it, but not intend to do it. But some of those things are doable, and that he knows how to do, obviously, and that he intends to do, that are fully, what? Practical, right, huh? Okay. You know, the second objection was saying that looking knowledge is taken by, what? Abstraction from things, but they're thinking of the way we know. Our knowledge is derived from things. So the second should be said that for knowledge to be taken from the things known, does not, as such, belong to, what? Looking knowledge. But paratchitans, insofar as it's human, right? Because our knowledge begins, what? From our senses, and our senses are acted upon by things, huh? So things act upon our senses, and through our senses our reason begins to think about these things, and so on. And so, our knowledge is derived from things, right? But that doesn't belong to looking knowledge, what? Such fallacy of, per se, the paratchitans, right? First fallacy outside of what? The speech, yeah. You know, the fallacy that deceives even the wise, as Aristotle says in the book on Sistema Reputations. Now, to that which is objected in the conduit, it's going to reply to the second, right? That about doable things, perfect knowledge is not had, except if they are known insofar as they are doable. You have a perfect knowledge of doable things, unless you know them in the way in which they are known, doable, how they're doable. And therefore, since the knowledge of God isn't always perfect, it is necessary that he knows those things which are doable by himself as such, right? And not only as they are, what? Seeable. But, now this is an important distinction he makes, but nevertheless, he does not recede from the, what? Nobility of looking knowledge, because all other things beside himself, he sees in himself, right? He knows everything else he knows in himself, by knowing himself, right? And he knows himself only by, what? Looking knowledge, huh? And thus, in the speculative knowledge of himself, in the looking knowledge of himself, he has a knowledge, both looking and practical, of all other things. So, God's knowledge, you could say, is primarily, what? Looking knowledge. Now, if you go back to the first question, remember, that was raised about theology, right? And it's theology, looking knowledge, or practical knowledge, right? Well, in philosophy, there are two kinds of philosophy, huh? Looking philosophy and practical philosophy. And looking philosophy has three kinds, right? Mathematical philosophy, natural philosophy, and then first philosophy, or wisdom. And practical philosophy has three kinds of ethics, right? Ethics, domestics, and political philosophy, right? And then sometimes we add, logically, that's just a tool, you know, for kinds of things. And so, in Lady Wisdom is personified there, right, in the dialogue with Gwethius and the Consolation of Philosophy. philosophy, she has on her dress there, a theta, and a pi, right? And the theta represents theoretical philosophy, and the pi, what? Practical philosophy, the two kinds of philosophy. And the theta is put above the P, because Gwethius says it's higher. Okay? But God's knowledge, in a way, transcends that distinction, huh? You can say God's knowledge, though, is primarily looking knowledge, because it's primarily a knowledge of himself, right? And so, the same thing can be said, in a lesser way, of our theology, right? Because our theology here is sharing in the divine wisdom, huh? And therefore, our theology is primarily looking, because it's primarily a knowledge of God. That's why it's called theology. But it, what? Like God's knowledge, extends to practical. And so, moral theology, so-called, and dogmatic theology are not two different disciplines like looking philosophy and practical philosophy are. Now, in the history of Greek philosophy, the first philosophers are known mainly for their contributions to natural philosophy and to mathematical philosophy, right? So the first philosopher, Thales, was both a geometer and a natural philosopher. But then, Socrates is kind of associated with a certain turn towards practical philosophy. And the dialogues of Plato, which represent the conversations in a way of Socrates, huh? You might say that they are much more conversations about impractical philosophy than looking philosophy, huh? And then, of course, you come to Aristotle, it's kind of a, you know, perfect balance there, too, right? But the two, they're two different things, right? Aristotle's at the Nicomachean Ethics, he's looking forward to political philosophy, and the completion of the philosophy he says about human things, right? As opposed to the, you know, wisdom, which is about divine things. So, to some extent, we transcend that dichotomy of looking and practical knowledge, right? And having one science, theology, both dogmatic theology, right, which is looking knowledge, and then oral theology, which seems to be practical, right? And a lot of times, of course, when they talk about the theoretical and practical, they'll take the conversation there of Christ with Martha and Mary, right? And Martha is complaining that Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and drinking in his words and his wisdom, right? And so she wants Christ to say something so she'll help her with the practical things of dinner and whatever else to be done. And Christ says, you know, Mary hath chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken away from her. And so when they comment on that, they say, she's chosen looking knowledge rather than the practical knowledge. She's chosen the better part. And then when he adds that it shall not be taken away from her, well, practical knowledge will kind of seize at the end of this world. And in the next world, we just have looking knowledge. So what Mary has chosen will not be taken away from her, but it will be completed in the next world. But all this practical knowledge, playing the stock market and making houses and making dinner and making books and so on, none of that is going to be done in the next world, right? We won't be eating, or drinking, or giving in marriage, or being given in marriage. And we won't be, you know, clothing ourselves and putting gasoline into our automobiles and all that sort of nonsense, huh? It's going to be quite a different life, I think. I hope so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or worse life, I think you go to the other place, yeah. But you've got the chapter 26 there in Matthew, you know, where it's the beginning of the passion and so on getting into it. And of course, he says, God wants Christ to die out of mercy, right? To redeem us. The church father says, the Pharisees wanted to die out of envy. The Judas out of avarice. And he says, the devil out of fear that his kingdom is going to be destroyed by this guy going around teaching and making miracles, right? Not realizing that his kingdom would be even more overthrown by the death of Christ, huh? But they all got these people, you know, for a different reason, wanting to get rid of the guy, huh? Even the father in his sense wants to have him die too, but out of mercy for us, huh? Kind of an amazing thing. Yeah.