Prima Pars
Lecture 70: Divine Ideas: Nature and Multiplicity

Transcript
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Okay, so we're up to question, what, 15 here, huh? Now, you've got to be careful with this word idea, huh? It's a transliteration, not a translation, okay? And you hear people referring sometimes to the ideas of Plato, right, huh? And, of course, the word idea in English doesn't mean what the Greek word means. And it's kind of a mistranslation almost, right? The Greek word is aidas, huh? Species, huh? And maybe it would be better translated, you know, forms with a capital F. It would be a better translation, huh? Now, Plato, huh? You probably heard about what Plato did, right? A couple ways you could explain this a bit, but one way of explaining it a bit is that Plato had answered what? Yes to the famous question, right? Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are? Now, as I say, there's two answers you can give that question. My students, you know, I'd scratch their heads, you know, and some breakers say, yes and no. Yes or no. Either truth does require that the way we know be the way things are, or it doesn't. And so, the chief philosophers, as Albert the Great and Thomas called them, Plato and Aristotle, seem to be giving different answers to this fundamental question. And Plato seems to be answering, at least implicitly, yes, and Aristotle is saying no. Well, and we might see a little bit of that in the second book of Natural Hearing, where Aristotle first brings it up, right? When he's distinguishing between the, what, natural philosophy and mathematical philosophy. But there he starts to make this point that truth does not require that the way we know be the way things are. But I think if you went down the history of philosophy, at least a cursory going down the history of philosophy, you'd seem to have more people agreeing with Plato than Aristotle, right? And I think that in kind of a confused understanding of this, confused understanding of what truth is, you might tend to agree with Plato. Plato, because we all know that truth means somehow the conformity of the mind with things, right? The agreement of the mind with things. That seems to be what truth is, huh? And so, if the way we know is not the way things are, they don't seem to agree. Our mind with things, and therefore, our mind seems to be what? False. Well, what our mind says about things has to be with them, right? But the way in which we know them doesn't have to be the way in which they exist. And that's kind of a subtle thing to see. And you shouldn't try to understand that all at once, but bit by bit, huh? Now, to recall a little bit, when Aristotle first takes it up, in the second book of Natural Hearing, because he doesn't fully resolve this until the last two books of Wisdom, right? But he starts, you know, saying a little bit about it there in the second book of Natural Hearing. And Thomason's commentary will kind of expand on it. But there, Aristotle makes the point that you can consider truly, in separation, things that don't exist in separation. So, you can consider sphere, let's say, in geometry, without the rubber, or the rubber sphere, right? Without the steel, right? It isn't a steel bearing or something, right? Without the wood of a wooden ball or something, right? Snowball, and so on. You can leave out snow and wood and, you know, even though in the real world, there doesn't seem to be any sphere except the earth or rubber ball or the thing, you see. So, Aristotle would say, that shape is knowable without wood. It's knowable without snow. It's knowable without steel. It's knowable without earth. It's knowable without any kind of sensible matter, right? So, you're not false in knowing it without it. The false, Aristotle, would come if you say that because I know it without these other things, right? Because I know sphere without sensible matter, therefore that there are spheres outside my mind without sensible matter. Now, Plato, you know, he left Athens in disgust after they put Socrates to death, right? Like, here's a guy who advires more than anybody else in the world, his teacher, right? And like you guys are hoping with these, you know, Worcester in disgust that they put purpose to death, you know. And he traveled to, what, the Greek cities in Italy, huh? In southern Italy where the Pythagoreans had established their places. And he viewed, you know, the Pythagorean teachings and so on. And he made some contributions, they say, to, there's some theorems attributed to Plato, right? You know, between any two, what, square numbers, there's one mean proportional between any two cube numbers, two mean proportionals. These are some theorems attributed to Plato. And so there's a heavily mathematical bent theorem, Plato, right? But anyway, he was convinced that the Pythagoreans are knowing the truth, right? But of course, the Pythagoreans are knowing sphere and separation from sensible matter. So if truth requires that the way we know be the way things are, then there must really be geometrical spheres and cubes and so on and numbers. And the other thing studied in mathematics, or pure mathematics, truly in separation from sensible matter. So alongside the sensible world, there's this mathematical world, which corresponds to pure mathematics, right? Just like the sensible world corresponds to our senses and so on. And Aristotle says, no, no. They're separated in thought, but not in things. Nor is our mind false in so doing that, right? Because our mind, in knowing sphere and separation from any sensible matter, is not saying that it exists in separation, right? But it's knowing what is knowable without something else, right? Now Thomas, in his commentary there, will lead you into this by something even easier to see than that, where he talks about how in an individual, right, you can have a number of things together as individual, and nevertheless, you can truly know one without the other, right? So my... The stock example you've heard before is that I'm both a philosopher and a grandfather, right? But the nurses at the hospital have known me as a grandfather and leave out that I'm a philosopher. And the students in my class, if I know me to be a philosopher, I don't know that I'm a grandfather, right? So, but the same man here is both a father and a grandfather, right? I mean a philosopher and a grandfather. Okay, I'm a father too. I'm a husband, so. Okay. Is the mind false in knowing me to be a philosopher, leaving out that I'm a grandfather or vice versa? Well, by the way, I'm both of these things, right? Now, if you say this philosopher is not a grandfather, then your mind would be false. But in knowing this man to be a philosopher, leaving out that he's a grandfather, you can say your knowledge of me is imperfect. You wouldn't know I'm going to do this Friday, where I'm going to go. But would your mind be false? And vice versa, the other person, right, who knows me to be a grandfather, leaving out that I'm a philosopher, is your knowledge of me, is your knowledge of me, is your knowledge of me, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false, false. So, the reason for this is, you see, my being a philosopher is something about me that is knowable, apart from my being a grandfather, and vice versa, right? But now, maybe I couldn't be a philosopher without having reason or something like that, right? So, that's not really knowable without that, right? But my being a philosopher is knowable without my being a grandfather, and vice versa. Now, in the case of mathematics, it's a little different there, because maybe the earth is not knowable without a sphere. But the reverse is true. Sphere is knowable without earth, right? Without rubber, without wood, whatever else you might make in this material world, is sphere out of them. Now, the other big influence upon Socrates, or I mean Plato, apart from Pythagoreans, was Socrates, right? And Socrates, if you read the conversations, the dialogues, so-called, which is the Greek word for conversation, he's always trying to get somebody to define something, right? And define something that maybe he talks about every day. And so, Socrates was seeing that the way to really know things was through, what? Definition. And you can see that in a way, huh? Even in math, you know, if I say, no odd number is even, I'm very sure about that. Or no prime number is composite, composite number. I'm very sure of that, two definitions, right? So, Plato, or not Plato, yeah, Plato, was convinced that two definitions we were getting to know, truly. And what, in the definition, the universal is what? Separated, right? From the singular, right? So, in the definition of man, say, is an animal that has reason. You and I, and Socrates, and Winston Churchill, and so on, are not a part of the definition of man, are we? So, the universal is being known by the definition, in separation from all individual men, right? Now, is our mind false in doing that? Well, if you say, the way we know must be the way things are, then we wouldn't be truly knowing through definitions, unless, truly, in things, there is universals separated from. So, Plato speaks of a world of forms, they call them, right? Man himself to himself, right? Dog himself to himself. And you and I partake, in some hard-to-explain way, of this form of man, right? And this dog and that dog partake of the form of dog, and this cat and that cat and that, right? Okay? And in another way, the material dog, right, partakes of the form, right? Now, there's something like this, in a way, in the angels, right, and the material world. Because God made the material world, but he also made the angels with thoughts about material things. So, they both, in a sense, go back to God, right? Now, Augustine knew much more Plato than Aristotle. I don't think he had much access to the works of Aristotle. And he kind of regarded Plato as the greatest philosophers around, right? And as Thomas says, in some places, Augustine is always trying to bring in and use Plato so far as he can in being compatible, right, with Christianity, right? That's part of the reason why this idea of ideas comes in, right? But Augustine is not going to follow Plato in making these forms exist by themselves. And then we'll go to forms, right? But somehow these forms are in God, right? But how do you understand this exactly, right? So, I think probably Augustine is the great influence upon this whole question, right? And the very fact that it comes up, you know? If you look at the Sid Contras there, which are the clear things in the first article and the second article just on the page of Emory Night now, they're both taken from Augustine's famous work on the 83 questions, right? Right, huh? Right, huh? Right, huh? Okay? And so... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So... So he says, after the consideration of the knowledge of God, you may consider about the ideas, because it's Augustine, right? And about this, three things are sought. First of all, whether there are ideas. Secondly, whether there are many of them, or just one. There's one or more than one. And third, whether there are ideas of all the things which are known by God. As you go through the treatise on the Trinity, I just imagine how I was kind of finished rereading it. You wonder if there's anything in there that Thomas says about the Trinity that Augustine hasn't said first, you know? It's really like, you know, Cajetan says that Thomas seems to have inherited the mind of all the Church Fathers, because he so reverenced them, right? So I happen to be reading that at the same time, you know, the same day, not the same time, exactly. You know, reading the golden chain there in Matthew, you know, where he's always quoting Chrysostom and other people, too, Hillary and Ambrose and Jerome and so on, you know. But he seems to have, what, inherited the mind of all of them. He so reverenced them, huh? I think you could say something like that about Aristotle, that he seems to have inherited the mind of all the Greek philosophers before him, because he, you know, that's something of all of them. So the first article. To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that the ideas are not, huh? For the great Dionysius says in the seventh chapter about the divine names, that God does not know things by an idea. But ideas are not laid down towards something, except that through them we might know things, right? Therefore, there's no such thing as these ideas. Moreover, God knows all things in himself, as it has been said above. But he doesn't know himself to an idea. Therefore, neither does he know other things, huh? Sounds very good, huh? How's he going to defend poor Augustine? I don't know. Moreover, the idea is laid down as a beginning for knowing and doing, huh? But the divine substance, essence, nature, is a sufficient beginning for knowing and doing all things, huh? Therefore, why not not to, what? Positive ideas, huh? But again, this is what Augustine says in the book of the 83 questions, huh? So much, what? Force is constant in the ideas that unless these be understood, no one can be wise, huh? It's really stretching to defend Plato in some way, right? Okay. I answer it should be said that it is necessary to lay down in the divine, what? Mind, ideas, right? You've got to be very careful because you don't have any composition in God's mind, right? You don't have any accents in God's mind, right? Okay. But of course, what does this mean? Now, he talks about the word. So, idea inum grece, right? Doesn't mean idea. Latine would mean what? Form, huh? Okay. Now, just to go a little bit more into the word there. You may recall in logic there, huh? When you distinguish between genus, difference, species, property, and accident. And species, this can be considered, you know, names or what the names signify, but species is a name, the thing being defined, right? Genus is a name that begins a definition. Difference is a name that's used to, what, complete the definition, right? Okay. Now, in Greek, the word species is aidas, huh? In Latin, the word is species, huh? Now, we've done these in English, right? We sometimes, we, in logic especially, we tend to borrow the Latin word species, right? And so, porphyry's, you know, text would say genus, diophora, right? Aidas, we'd say genus, difference, species, right? Okay. Now, perhaps the nearest thing in English would be the word, what, form, right, huh? Okay. If you're interested in Thomas, it takes form of there rather than species, right, huh? Okay. Now, the difference, etymologically, between these two words and forma, or form, is that there's kind of a reference to the I, the Greek word to see is identi, right? And species is like the word we saw before, speculativa, right? So, it's more like the looks of a thing, right? So, it's the seen form, right, huh? But the basic word, again, is the idea of form, so you could translate it as form, right? And so, in English, huh, if I'm talking about genus and species, I might say government, for example, is a genus, and under government are species like democracy and oligarchy and monarchy and so on, right? So, democracy is one species of government, right? But it might be more colloquial or more idiomatic in English to say democracy is one form of government, right? Monarchy or kingship or something is another form of government, right? But I'm in the philosophy of fiction, right? I like to say, you know, that epic is one form of fiction, right? Or the drama is another form of fiction, right? Okay? So, it would be better in English to refer to Plato's theory of forms, right? Rather than his theory of ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas of lore. In English, idea can mean, what? Thought or it can mean image, right? Of course, English philosophers can't distinguish between the two, right? We mentioned how John Locke confuses the two, right? Okay? But that's not really so good a translation, then. It's a kind of a transliteration. It's going to grow the letters, right? Okay? Into English, more or less. Making words that seem to be the same letters in English as the original. But the... When you do that, you get something that doesn't really have as much the meaning. Form would be more, right? What the meaning was. Idea inum grece latine forma, he said, whence through ideas are understood the forms of other things existing apart from those things, the things themselves. For the form of some thing existing apart from it, right, is able to be two things, right? Either there'd be an exemplar of that of which is said to be the form. So an exemplar is a, what, a model that you can imitate, right? Make something like that. Or as a beginning, a source of the knowledge of the thing, right? According as the forms of things knowable are said to be in the, what, knower. And as regards both of these things, is necessary to, what, yeah, to lay down that there are ideas. Now, this can be made clear in this way. In all things which are generated, not by chance, right, is necessary that some form be the end of the, what, generation of something. For the agent does not act on account of some form except insofar as a likeness of the form is in the agent itself, right? Now, this, as Aristotle pointed out in the Seventh Book of Wisdom, right? It can be in there in an actual way, right? Or in an noble way, right? Which happens in two ways, right? In some agents, the form of the thing that's going to come to be pre-exists according to its natural being. So when the father generates the son, right, when a dog generates a dog, or a cat generates a cat, right, it makes something like its own form, right? But the form of the son is pre-existing in the father, right? According to what? Its natural being. Just as in those things which are done by nature, as a man generates a man, a cat, a cat, or a dog, a dog, or a tree, a tree. And fire, fire, right? In some, however, it exists according to understandable being, as in those things which are done through the understanding. For a likeness of the house you're going to build, right, pre-exists in the mind of the house builder. So when he's going to make it be something, not by chance, but by art, he has already a likeness of the form of the house or chair, whatever it is he's going to make, already in mind. And this can be called the, what, idea of the house, right? Now he's starting to get a little closer to what we call idea, right? Because the artist intends the house to be like the form which he has conceived by his, what, mind, huh? Because, therefore, the world was not made by chance, but was made by God acting through his understanding, as will be clear below, right, when you take up the making of the world. It is necessary that in the divine mind there be a form to the likeness of which the world is, what, made. And in this consists the ratio of, what? Yeah. Now Plato is something like that in the, in the, um, tomatoes, right, where he has the, uh, demi-ergos, right, the worker, right, who looks at the forms and he makes something like them, right? So, um, God made the world, right? Um, he made them according to, what, a form that he had already, what, conceived, right, huh? Okay? Now you've got to be very careful of how that is, right? Because you're not going to introduce now the multiplicity of thoughts or something in God, right, you know? Okay? But he's got to have an exemplar according to which he makes things, right? Okay? As we'll find out, um, in understanding his substance, his nature's essence, he understands every way in which his substance can be, what, imitated more and less perfectly, right? Okay? And that's the way the ideas are, right? Okay? It's not like he has, in addition to his substance, a bunch of thoughts, right, of chair and dog and horse and ant and so on, but he knows every way in which his substance can be, what, imitated. Okay? And those would be said to be the ideas of God, right? Okay? So it's not like there's a multiplicity of thoughts in him but in perfectly understanding his own substance, he realizes every way it can be imitated. I've made this come up until you get into the other articles. Now, the first objection came from the great Dionysius. To the first, therefore, it should be said that God does not understand things according to a form existing outside of himself, right, the way Plato has it in the Timaeus, as I mentioned. And thus, also, Aristotle disproves the opinion of Plato, right, about the forms, according as Plato laid down that they existed by themselves, not in the understanding, right? That's what Dionysius maybe has in mind. Now, what about God knowing himself, not knowing himself to an idea, right? To the second, therefore, it should be said that although God, through his essence, knows himself and other things, nevertheless, his essence is a principle of doing other things, right? Not, however, a principle of doing something with himself. And therefore, his essence has the, what, notion of an idea, according as it is compared to other things, huh? Not, however, as it is compared to, what, God himself, right? So, like I was saying, God knows himself as imitable, as able to be imitated in this way, right? And also in this way, and this way, this way, right? And that's where he speaks of the ideas, right? And now he says in the third thing there, which is saying that the divine essence is the efficient principle of knowing all things. We're not denying that, right? The third should be said that God, according to his very essence, is a likeness of all things. All things that God made are in some way like him, right? Although very imperfectly. I mention that text always that Paul VI called to my attention, you know, from the fourth Latin council, right? Where it says you can never know the likeness of the creature to God without a greater what? Unlikeness, that's the text I brought up to the Mohamedan, right? Objected to Shakespeare calling reason godlike, right? You know? And so I tried to explain what our position was, you know, it wasn't far away from it. But there's got to be some kind of likeness, right? Because every agent makes something like itself because it's acting to, what, its own form, the form it has in itself. So what it makes has got to be in somebody like that form. And so the divine substance is, as he says, a likeness of all things. Whence the idea in God is nothing other than his essence, it's not something added to it, right? But it's part, you might say, of his knowing perfectly his own nature, right? To know in every way it can be, what, imitated, right? You know, if Mozart knows himself, right? What did somebody describe, you know, J.C. Bach, the son of John's Sebastian, he's Mozart with something missing? But Mozart might realize that others can imitate him, right? In some imperfect way, right? And so in knowing himself, he knows the way that some more and some less can imitate him. Charles DeConnick came down the first time I saw my lecture to her. And even his physical gestures of the hands and so on, we, who had studied with his students, right, could see, you know, that our own professors, you know, who stayed under him, had picked up these little gestures of his. I'd come back, you know, from one of these sessions with Monsignor Dion, you know, very intense things, you know, and I'd have all these little quirks, you know, and I'm on the back of myself because I find myself, you know, getting very very tense like Dion would be, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, it's hard to get his collection, you know, it's a little point, you know, he's so excited that he sees something, you know, he wants to see it, you know, he'd have all these little things when he came back. But no, you still, you know, see a distinction, there between God's knowing himself, what he is, right, and knowing how he is, what, able to be imitated, right, okay, but that's involved in his knowing perfectly himself, right? Just like a very good ball player might, you know, go and watch these little kids playing and, you know, seeing that they have something of what he has, right, they can hit the ball and they can take somebody out, but, you know, they're not doing it too well, you know, and they fall short, right? Can you hit a little break now? Okay, so we're up to Article 2 here, whether there are many ideas or forms, huh? It seems that there are not many ideas, right? For, as we said in the reply to the third objection, right? The idea in God is his very, what, essence or substance, huh? But the essence of God is one only, therefore, there's only one idea. The second article, right? Okay. Okay. That's it. It's just that objection. So although the idea is a divine essence, the divine essence is understood as imitable in many ways, right? And that's why there's many ideas. Anyway, we'll let Thomas answer the question. Moreover, just as the idea is a beginning of knowing and doing, so also art and wisdom. But in God there are not many arts and, what, many wisdoms. Therefore, neither are there many, what, ideas. That makes sense, huh? Now, if it be said that the ideas are multiplied, I prickly say, according to the respect to diverse creatures, against it is this, that the plurality of ideas is from eternity. If, therefore, the ideas are many, but the, what, creatures are temporal, therefore the temporal will be a cause of the, what, eternal. Moreover, these, what, respecters, that's kind of a word for relation, right? Okay. If these relations are either, secundum rem, in creatures only, or also in God. If they are in creatures only, since the creatures are not from eternity, the plurality of ideas will not be from eternity. If they're multiplied only according to, what, their relations to these things. If, however, they are really in God, it would follow that there is a, what, a real plurality in God, in addition to the plurality of persons, of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Which is against what Damascene says, in John Damascene, saying that in divine things, everything is one, except for in generazione, which is the Father, in generation, the Son, and the procession, the Holy Spirit. Thus, therefore, there are not, what, many ideas, huh? But against this is what Augustine says, again, in the book of the 83 questions. I wonder what all those questions are. But the ideas are certain chief forms, right, or reasons for things, stable, right, and unchangeable. Because they are not formed, right? And through them, right, being eternal and always having themselves in the same way, which are contained by the divine intelligence. But since they neither, what, come to be, nor, what, cease, nevertheless by them are formed everything that comes to be, and everything that is able to perish. Everything that is able to come to be or perish, and everything that arises or is, what, lost. I answer it should be said, Thomas, huh, that it is necessary to lay down many ideas or forms, to the evidence of which it should be considered, that in each effect, that which is the last end is properly intended by the chief agent, just as the order of the army from the, what, leader. That's Aristotle's example in the 12th book of the metaphysics, right? But that which is best in existing things is the good of the order of the universe, as is clear through the philosopher, which is Antonia Messia, right, for Aristotle, in the 12th book of Wisdom, the 12th book after the books of natural philosophy. But the order of the universe is properly intended by God, and it doesn't happen by accident, according to the succession of agents. Like in those who say that God created, what, the first thing only, which then created the second thing, and so on, the multitude of things came about, as if it was not intended by any one agent. According to which opinion, God would not have an idea except for the first thing, what created him. But if the very order of the universe is per se, as such, created by him, and intended by him, right, it is necessary that he have the idea of the whole universe. But the reason or the thought of some whole cannot be had unless one has the proper thoughts of those things from which the whole is constituted. Just as the builder cannot conceive the form of the house unless he has within himself the proper thought of each of its parts. Thus it is necessary that in the divine mind are the proper reasons of all things. Whence Augustine says in the book of the 83 questions that each thing, by its own reason, right, or by its own thought, is created by God. Whence it follows that in the divine mind there are many ideas. But now, why does this affect any simplicity of God, right? Okay. But this, in what way, it is not repugnant to the divine simplicity. It's easy to see if one considers that the form of the thing to be done, right, is in the mind of the one doing as it is what? As what is understood. Not, however, as the form, the species by which is understood, right? Which is the form making the understanding to be an act. Now, the form making the divine understanding to be an act is the very divine substance, right? Okay. It's not these many thoughts in there, right? Okay. Now, the form of the house in the mind of the builder is something understood by him, right? To the likeness of which he forms a house in matter. Now, it is not against the simplicity of the divine understanding that he understands many things. But it would be against the simplicity of God if through many forms his understanding was formed. Whence the many ideas are in the mind, the divine mind, not as many forms which he understands, but as what? understood by him, right? That God, in perfectly understanding himself, understands the infinity of ways, right? In which he could be imitated. Infinity of ways in which other things could be made more or less like him. Okay? So these many forms are not like many forms by which he understands, but many things that he does understand. By one thing, namely his own, what? Substance, right? Which in this way is able to be seen, as Thomas says. For he knows his essence, his substance, his nature. Perfectly, right? Whence he knows his substance, his essence, in every way in which it is, what? Knowable. Now, it is able to be known, not only as it is in itself, but as it is able to be practicen of, by some way of likeness by creatures. That's what I was saying in other words there, but the way in which it can be imitated, right? Okay? So that's part of knowing perfectly his nature, to know how it can be imitated in various ways. Now, each creature has its own what form? Now, each creature has its own what form? by which in some way it partakes of a likeness of the divine essence. And so what Aristotle says in the first book of natural hearing, he says the form is something, what, godlike, right? And Plato said the same thing, right? Because God is pure act and every form is a kind of act. Thus, therefore, insofar as God knows his, what, essence, as in this way able to be imitated by such a creature. There he's using the word I was using. Must have got it from me, yeah. A lot of times you go around saying things and you say, gee whiz, I got the way of speaking, you know. I got from Thomas somewhere. Maybe not this text, another text. So, thus, therefore, insofar as God knows his own, what, essence, as in this way, imitable, right, able to be imitated by such a creature. He knows it as the proper reason and idea of that creature. And likewise about all the other creatures. And thus it is clear that God understands the many private reasons of many things, right, which are, therefore, the many, what, ideas, huh? That's clear enough, isn't it? So, let's go back to objections here now. It says, the idea in God is his essence, but the essence of God is one only. Therefore, there is only, what, one idea, right? Well, Thomas says, to the first, therefore, it should be said that idea does not name the divine essence insofar as it is, what, his essence, but insofar as it is the likeness and the reason of this or that thing. Hence, according as there are many likenesses or many reasons, right, understood from the one essence, in this way there are said to be many, what, ideas, right? In other words, God knows the many ways he can be imitated, the many ways in which other things can be made more or less like him, and more or less like him than more like him. Well, there's always that infinite distance, right? Okay? So, if he knows the many ways he can be imitated, that's why we say there are many ideas in him, right? But he knows those many ways in knowing one thing, his own essence. That's the reply to the first objection. Now, the second objection, huh? The idea is a beginning of knowing and doing. So, also, art and wisdom. We don't speak of many arts of God or many wisdoms, therefore not many ideas. Now, to the second, it should be said that wisdom and art signify as that by which God understands, right? So, God is said to have made the universe by his, what, his wisdom, right? Or he made the universe by his art, huh? But the idea signifies that which God understands, right? I see the difference between that by which you understand, what you understand, yeah. Now, God understands many things by something one. That refers now to that by which he understands, right? And not only according as they are in themselves, but also according as they are understood, which is to understand the many reasons of things. But the artist, when he understands the form of the house and matter, is said to understand the house. When he understands the form of the house as something looked upon by himself, right, from that he understands himself to understand that thing, right? He understands, in that case, the idea or the reason of the house. Now, God not only understands many things through his essence, but also understands himself to understand many things through his essence. And this is to understand the many reasons for things, or the many ideas to be in his understanding as, what, understood, right? Not as that by which he understands. So, you've got to confuse what he understands with that by which he understands. He understands, what, many things. Affinity of things, in fact, we've seen before, right? But that by which he understands is one, huh? Brevity is the soul of what? Yeah, yeah. Once in a while, you can hear that the commentators on the radio, you know, quote that, huh? That brevity is the soul of what? Say so. I used to read it in Cucadian students, you know, and I'd walk by the dorms. Brevity is the soul of what? And some smart guy would yell at one of the dorm windows. Thomas begins, compends the compendium of theology, you know, quoting scripture that God made a verbum abbreviatum on the earth. Now, the third objection, huh? If it be said that the ideas are multiplied according to their relations to diverse creatures, against this, the plurality of ideas is from eternity. If, therefore, there are many ideas, but creatures are temporal, then the temporal will be a cause of the eternal. Now, to the third, it should be said that these relations or respects by which the ideas are multiplied are not caused by things, but by the divine understanding comparing its essence to things, right? It's not like you have to have those things out there to make that comparison. He's comparing its essence to the various ways in which it can be imitated. Now, what about these respects? Are they in secundum rem, and therefore in God, and you have multiplication in God, or real distinctions? To the fourth, it should be said that the respects, huh? Some multiplying ideas are not in created things, but in God, but they are not real, what, relations, as those by which the persons are distinguished, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as we'll find out when we get to the Trinity, but they are respects understood by God, right? So, we'll come.