Prima Pars
Lecture 74: The Order of True and Good in Definition

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, common doctor and angelic doctor. Amen. And help us to understand what you've written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. So up to the fourth article in the 16th question. Yes. Whether good is before what? The true secundum rationum. That means like in definition. As I mentioned before, the most universal words, thoughts in a sense, some of these call them the transcendentals, right? I don't want a better name. But there's a certain order among them in definition. The most fundamental ones are being and something, right? And then one adds something to that, right? So one means undivided being, okay? And true and good are a couple of other transcendentals. And now he's asking about the order of those two in particular. It seems to the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that good secundum rationum, or by definition you could say, is before true. For what is more universal is before according to reason. Just like animals before dog, right? Because animals are in the definition of dog, but not vice versa, right? So animal before dog, secundum rationum. But good is more universal than true. For true is a particular good, namely the good of the understanding. Therefore the good is before, in definition, the true. It's nice of all arguing that, huh? Like just saying, well, true is just one particular good. That's the good of your understanding. But you've got health and you've got a lot of other goods, right? Second objection. Moreover, the good is in things. The true, however, is in the putting together and dividing of the understanding. So when I put man, let's say, and what? Animal together and say man is an animal. Or when I divide man and stone and say man is not a stone. Then I have something true, right? But what is in things are before what is in the understanding. So if the good is in things, and the things are before our understanding anyway, right? Then would it good be before true? Moreover, truth is a certain species or form of virtue. And Aristotle has one of those virtues called truth, huh? Where a man shows himself in his words and deeds as he is. And this is a virtue taken up in the fourth book of the Nicomachean Ethics. But virtue is contained under the good. For it is a good quality of the mind, as Augustine says. Therefore, good is before true. Now that objection is probably the easiest answer, right? Because the true that is a species of virtue wouldn't seem to be the true that is transcendental. And it's being said of all things in some way. But against this, this kind of reverse of the first argument, objection, what is in more things, right, is before by reason. But true is in something in which there is not the good, namely in mathematics. Therefore, the true is before the what? Good, huh? Can you explain how it's... Well, basically, the good is the same thing as the end or purpose, right? And you see sometimes the means are good, but the means are good because they lead to the end, right? Like medicine is good because it leads to hell. Well, end or purpose is not one of the kinds of causes you talk about in mathematics. What's the purpose of a circle or a triangle, right? The circle's not smooth so it can roll out of danger, and the triangle point so it can protect itself. So, okay, so you don't seem to have the end and therefore you don't have the, what, good in mathematics, huh? But yet you suddenly have things that are very true there, right? So isn't too broader than, you know, apply it to other things. I answer, it should be said, that although good and true are convertible with being in what? Subject, right? Remember what convertible means. A and B are convertible if every A is a B and every B is an A, right? Okay? So he's saying that being and good and being and true are convertible, right? Okay? And therefore convertible with each other, too, huh? Okay? But nevertheless, they differ in what? Definition, huh? And according to this, true, speaking absolutely, is before good, huh? Which appears from two things. It's going to give two arguments here, in a sense. First, from this fact, that true is closer to, what, being, which is the most fundamental one, which is before all of them, than the good. Why? Because the true regards being simply and immediately. But the notion of good falls upon being, according as it is in some way perfect, right? For thus it is good or desirable, huh? So in a sense, you might say that when we show that God, for example, was good, right? What did we show before we showed that God was good? At least perfect, yeah. Yeah. So perfect seems to add something, right, to the idea of just being, right? And, but just being is enough for what? Truth, huh? Truth is saying what is, is. So the truth seems to be closer to being and meaning than the good, huh? Another sign of that may have been the same argument that Thomas is giving there, the first argument. Is, um, we often distinguish between necessary being and contingent being, huh? It's kind of a per se division of being. And this actually enters into what are the arguments, is this of God? Um, but, uh, that seems to be more a division of the true than of the good, right? Necessary truth and a contingent truth, right? So two is half of four, is what? Necessarily true, huh? Always true. Um, uh, triangle is green, is contingent, could happen, right? It is necessarily so. So necessary and contingent seems to be more a division of true than of the good, huh? And that's why it's so important in logic to distinguish between the necessary and the contingent and so on. But that's just not a sign of what Thomas is saying here, right? That true seems to be closer to being and therefore, if that comes before all of the other transcendentals, then true is going to be, what? It can be before, um, good. Do you see that argument? Okay? Now, if you remember, before Thomas argued that one is before true, huh? He can't understand something unless it's one, in some way. Now, the second reason he gives, the second appears from this fact, that knowledge naturally comes before, what? Desire. Okay? So let me distinguish between the will and the emotions, huh? Well, the will follows upon reason and the emotions follow upon sensation. And that's why the animals have emotions. but they don't have will. Now, when we first talked about the good and the true, we tied them up with the reason and the will, right? And so, if the reason is naturally before the will, and true pertains to reason, and the good to will or desire, well then, the true is going to be before the good. When, since true regards knowledge, the good desire, true will be before the good by what? Reason, huh? Of course, that's going to be important for understanding the Trinity later on. Why does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Son, from the Father through the Son, or from the Father and the Son, rather than reverse, right? Okay? We have to understand that the good has to be what? Known before it can be love, right? Okay? So, it helps us to understand the order of origin there in the Trinity. So, you all convinced by Thomas' two reasons? Now, the first objection was saying, well, isn't good, wasn't true, just a particular kind of good, right? But Thomas' interesting thing that he points out here. To the first, therefore, it should be said, that will and understanding mutually include each other. For the understanding understands the will, and the will wills the understanding to understand. Thus, among those things which are ordered to the object of the will are contained those things which are the understanding and the reverse. So, you could say the good has some particular truths about the good, right? There's truths about the bad and other things, too. Whence in the order of desirables, good has itself as universal, and true as what? Particular. In the order of understandable things, true is what? Universal. Universal, and the truth about the good is particular, right? From this, therefore, that true, the true is a certain good, it follows that good is before in the order of what? Desirables. But not over that it is before what? Yeah. So, that objection, in a sense, if you want to say there's a mistake in the objection, it's a mistake of what? And not simply, yeah. Same kind of mistake that Forbach made, right? Forbach syllogizes, man's mind is infinite, the infinite is God, therefore man's mind is God, right? But God is simply infinite, right? And our mind is only infinite in some way. That's a hard distinction of people to get a hand on, huh? You know my famous examples I use in class to bring out that kind of mistake, huh? I always call upon a young lady, and I would say, you know, she's going to contradict herself. You all listen to her, contradict herself. And I begin by saying, do you know my brother Mark? And the poor little girl would reply, no. I said, no, what do you say? She doesn't know my brother Mark. And I said, do you know what a man is? And she says, yes. That's what my brother Mark is. So you do know him after all, don't you? You know who my brother is? Yes. That's who my brother Mark is. See? So is she really convincing herself? No. Because simply we'd say she doesn't know my brother Mark, right? But in some way, in knowing what a man is, knowing what a brother is, she knows my brother Mark and every other man in the world in some way. Do you see? Okay? My other favorite example was, you know, suppose somebody knocks on the door there, right? And you can't see who's at the door. And I say, do you know who's at the door? You say, I don't know who's at the door. You open the door to your mother. Hey, you know your own mother. See? And, well, in some way, you don't know your mother. You don't know your mother as a person knocking at the door now, right? But simply speaking, you do know your mother, I hope. Okay? Unless you've got Alzheimer's, right? Okay? But, that's a very common kind of, what? Mistake, right? That's exactly where Forabach, you know, in his perverse little book there, The Essence of Christianity, the way he reasons, right? He says, the theologians tell us the infinite is God, but man's mind is infinite. Therefore, man's mind is God. And that's a, you know, Karl Marx has in his, preface to his doctoral thesis, right? The highest divinity is the human mind. And, but it's a very common kind of, what? Mistake. You know, perhaps the key thing in wisdom there is whether act or ability comes first. And in the ninth book of wisdom, where Aristotle takes up act and ability and then their order, he says that, in some way, ability is before act. That is to say that the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's an act. But he says, since it goes from ability to act because it's something already in act, then simply, act is before ability. And therefore, the beginning of all things is pure act, like we've seen here about God earlier in the thing here. But someone who makes the mistake of thinking that what is in some way before is simply before, then he makes the beginning of all things be matter, but it's most in what? Ability and least in act. In a sense, that's really what's behind, you know, a lot of materialism, right? And a lot of, you know, evolutionists and so on, right? Because in a way, they're saying that this is the only way you can get this variety of animals and so on, and plants, if you begin by thinking that matter is the beginning of all things. It's going to have to be kind of this random gradualism that they try to explain the order of things by. So, what do you think pure act, God really, is the beginning of all things, or matter is the beginning of all things, right? Those who think matter is the beginning of all things are making this same kind of what? Mistake, right? So, Thomas is pointing out that simply true is before what? Good, right? But in some way, good is before true. So, that's a very important kind of distinction. When I teach logic, I wonder, you know, when should I teach that distinction, right? And you could teach it as one kind of distinction, right, in the beginning of logic, or you could wait until you get to the book on fallacies and point out there's one kind of mistake, you know, but it's a mistake from overlooking this distinction. It's a mistake from confusing what is so simply with what is so in some respect. Another thing or an example is, you know, if somebody annoys you, it would be good to murder them? Well, simply, you'd say no. But in some way, it would be good. You'd get rid of an annoyance in your life, see? So, there's nothing that isn't, you know, bad that isn't in some way good, right? You'd be tired on Sunday mornings, you'd just stay home and not go to church, huh? See? In some way, it would be good, right? You'd get a little more of a sleep. So, I tell them, you know, all day long what you're doing is doing something bad because it's good in some way or not doing something good like studying because in some way it's bad, right? Study's going to prevent you from going to the party or something, right? Or going to the game or something, right? So, there's nothing so good in this world that doesn't prevent you from doing something else that's good. So, in some way, you can say anything good is bad, in some way bad. So, you can always find a reason for not doing the good and always find a reason for doing the bad. But, you're making this kind of mistake all the time, huh? So, I said, it may sound like a strange distinction but you're looking at this distinction that is behind all your not doing what you should do and doing what you shouldn't do. Now, the second objection, huh? To the second it should be said that in this way something is bad. is before in definition, that it falls before in the understanding. But the understanding grasps before being itself, and then it grasps that it what? Understands being. And third, it grasps that it what? Desires being. Whence among these three things, the definition of the thought, you might say, of being, is first, right? Second, the thought of true. Third, the thought of what? The good, right? Even though the good is in what? Things, yeah. Now he doesn't talk about the one here, because that's something that he talked about earlier, when he talked about the one. But actually the one would come between being and the what? True. True. Can't understand the many. Do you know that? Unless you make them in some way one, huh? And then you understand them insofar as they're one. Okay? I mean, could you understand man and stone together? It's not one thing, right? But if you make one thing out of them, you make one statement out of them, man is not a stone. You can understand them together then, right? Okay, but they're one in some way in the statement, right? You make up one statement. If you're just understanding what a man is, understanding what a stone is, you can't understand the two at the same time. Okay. Now the third objection was the easiest answer. To the third, it should be said that the virtue which is called truth, by Aristotle in the fourth book of Nicomachean Ethics, is not the common truth we're talking about in this article, but the truth according to which man shows himself in what he says and does as he is. In virtue that Iago doesn't have, right? Because Iago pretends to be Othello's friend, right? And so on. And the truth of life, it said in particular, according as man in his life fulfills that to which is ordered by the divine understanding. These are all the particular meanings of truth, huh? The truth of justice is according as man observes it. The truth of justice is according as man observes it. There is what he owes to another according to the order of the laws. Whence from these particular meanings of truth, one ought not to proceed to what? Common truth. So we're up to the fifth article now, huh? Whether God is truth. To the fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that God is not true. For truth consists in the putting together and dividing the understanding. That's the way we kind of see it in our own mind, right? But in God, there's no putting together and dividing. God is completely simple. Therefore, there's no truth there. What they say about Voltaire, who's supposed to have gone through the Summa and getting objections to his Catholic friends. Most of you couldn't answer these things, huh? Moreover, truth, according to Augustine in the book on true religion, is a likeness to the beginning, right? Or of the beginning. But in God, there's no likeness to a, what? Beginning, right? Therefore, in God, there's no truth. Moreover, whatever is said of God is said of him as the first cause of all things. As the being of God is the cause of all being. And the goodness of God is the cause of every good. But if, therefore, in God there be truth, then every truth would be from him, huh? But someone to sin is true. Therefore, this would be from God, huh? God's the cause of sin, right? Which is, therefore, clearly false. But against this is what the Lord says in the Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter, the 6th verse. I am the, what? Road, huh? The hodas. And truth and, what? Life, huh? Now, if you look at the context of that in John there, I think it's when Philip asked, you know, we don't know where you're going and how to get there. And Christ answers both questions by saying, I am the way to get there. I am the road. And where you're going is to be as the truth itself and life itself, huh? So this is touching upon, in a certain way, Christ as man and Christ as what? God. So if you look at the third part of the Summa Theologiae, which is beginning from considering the incarnation and Christ as man, it said, Thomas in the beginning there says it's about Christ, who as man is the via, right? He's a road to God, huh? So via, who pertains to his human nature, veritas in vita to his, what? Divine nature. And now, our veritas in vita, though, are they personal or substantial in God? They pertain to him. Yeah. So, how is Christ speaking here? Is it truth and life or all? Yeah. No, truth and life now. Yeah. But sometimes, you'll see this when you go into the Treatise of the Trinity, what they call appropriation, right? Sometimes, something that is an attribute of the divine substance is appropriated, right? To the Father or to the Son or to the Holy Spirit for reason of a certain likeness, right? Between what's personal and that particular thing, right? So love, which is common to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, is sometimes appropriated to the Holy Spirit. Because he proceeds by way of what? Of love, right? Of will. Because the second person proceeds as the Word of God, right? Then to him is sometimes appropriated, what? Truth. And as we'll see here, in this discussion here, truth here, right after Thomas gets through with this, he talks about what? In question 18 there, the life of God, right? Okay? So, going back to philosophy, when you first distinguish the grades of life, you do so by what the plant has, and then what the animals have, and then understanding, right? Then, so it kind of attaches life here to the consideration of the divine understanding. And therefore, you go to Peter's perfection of faith, now that this is the day, at least in our church, he says, there art the, what? Christ, the Son of the living God, right? It's kind of appropriate that he says, the living God, right? Could you think of life here in terms of what? He being the Word of God, right? And proceeding by way of truth. So, I think, when he says, truth and life, he's appropriating, right? Those attributes of the divine substance, right? The divine substance is truth itself, as we're going to find out in this article. It's not talking about the Trinity yet. We're talking about the divine substance at this point. What's common to them, and the divine substance is life itself, right? So, he's appropriating that to himself, right? Sometimes, like in the Athanasian Creed, they'll divide the articles of faith according to the humanity and the divinity of Christ. Christ, and this kind of touches upon the distinction between the humanity of Christ and the divinity of Christ. But in Peter's profession of faith, he had the same thing. What do men say that I am? Well, some think you're alive, some think you're this, some think you're that. What do you say? I mean, he says, there art the Christ, the Son of the living God, right? So he's getting kind of complete profession of faith there. But as man, he's anointed. And so Christ is touching upon his human nature, and the Son of the living God is divine nature, he's a divine person. So if you say that's a complete profession of faith, a sign of which is that Christ now sort of going to build the church upon, which you said here, right? Then you can take that as the way of dividing the articles of faith and say, well, we're going to talk then about the humanity and the divinity of Christ. And in these little works of Thomas where he's asked by Bishop so-and-so, you know, to give a brief exposition of the articles of faith, he'll generally divide them into the six on the side of his divinity, the six on the side of his, what, humanity. Sometimes he'll divide them into seven and seven, but I think six and six is probably the best way of doing it. And this is the division that Thomas gives in the part on faith there in the compendium of theology. It's divided into those two. And that's the way the Athanasian Creed divides it. I think it's in the fourth letter too, I believe. But in the Apostles' Creed, you divide it according to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? And then with the Father, you talk about those things like creation that are appropriated to the Father, but not as if he alone is creating things. And to the Son, the things that pertain to incarnation, as he alone is in incarnation. And to the Holy Spirit, things like communion of saints and the church and so on, right? But again, they're being appropriated to him, right? But they say in this text of our Lord, veritas and vita are being appropriated to him. Do you understand a little bit? They'll come up in the tweet on the Trinity, on the biblical article and so on there, on whether it's appropriate or not, and Scripture does it, and then how you show how Augustine and Hillary and so on, right? Appropriate these things. It's kind of very subtle the way he does it too, huh? You know, why is power appropriated to the Father, right? Both by reason of likeness, because power is the beginning, he's the beginning of the Trinity in a sense, but also by way of opposition, right? That the Father is usually what? Weak as he declines in years. And to contrast the Father with that, he's not weak. He's powerful, right? And to the Son is attributed to wisdom, partly because he precedes the Word, but because the young are what? Foolish. Foolish, yeah. In English literature, there's a phrase, you know, to play the young man, which means to play the fool. And so, by way of opposition, wisdom is attributed to the Son, as well as, you know, he's not young and foolish. Yeah, but Ronald Reagan said when he was president, he commented on his age, he was, you know, over seven years old, as opposed to his opponent. Yeah. And he said, when a president said something about that, he said, well, I'm not going to take an unright, a legitimate advantage of the youthfulness of my opponent. Yeah, yeah. The youth in the experience, he said, yeah. Kind of destroyed his opposition there. Trying to make a point about his age, yeah. Because even the other guy had a laugh at that. Okay. I answer it should be said, that it has been said, truth is found in the understanding, according as it grasps the thing as it is, right? And it's also said to be in the thing, according as it has been, conformable, right? Right to the understanding. But this is most of all found in God. For his being not only is conformed to his, what? Understanding. But also it is his very, what? Active understanding. And how to be more conformed. And his understanding is the measure and the cause of every other being. And of every other, what? Understanding. And he is his very, what? Being and understanding, huh? Whence it files that not only is there truth in him, but that he himself is the highest and the, what? First truth, huh? And the Supacanjantilis, those are separate chapters, huh? That he's truth itself, huh? And then there's another chapter, and he's the pure truth, huh? And then that he's the summa primordiae, he does, huh? So it's much more developed, huh? Than in the summa theologiae. But for you beginners, this is enough, huh? But notice, huh? In God, because he's altogether simple, there's no distinction between the, what? Abstract and the concrete, huh? Okay? So when you say God is good, and good means has goodness, right? You don't mean there's a real distinction between God and his, what? Goodness, huh? A distinction between the have and the had. So in God, whatever God has, he is. So if you say God has knowledge, he is knowledge itself. Or if you say God has goodness, he is goodness itself, right? And that's not true about you and me, right? I have some geometry in me, but am I geometry? I have some logic in me, I am logic? That's why I was kind of puzzling, you know, with Bernadette there, right? Because, you know, she saw a beautiful lady and so on, and she didn't tell who she was, and the priest told her to go back and ask her who she is. And she said, I am the Immaculate Conception. So why did she use that way of speaking, you know? She couldn't have said that. The priest is saying, you know, who told you that? That's what the lady said. The, uh, uh, the Kahnik had the little thing, I don't know if you've ever seen it. I don't have a copy of it myself, but things he wrote in the Blessed Virgin there, you know, from the things that are attributed to the Blessed Virgin there in the sapiential books, huh? Ego sapientia, that's what it's called, right? I have wisdom, you know? And, uh, why is that abstract word said of Mary as well as of God? It's not for exactly the same reason. But I think it's related to, to, to, uh, Monsignor Dion's article there in the Volta de Gique there, where he's, it's entitled, The Grace of Mary is of the Hypostatic Order. Yeah. Okay? And this, you know, she's the Mediatrix of all grace, right? And who, one of the church fathers there, which one was it now? Just, you know, calling Mary the Neck, right? There's only one head, Christ, and only one neck, Mary, right? So, if all grace, in a sense, comes through Mary, right, then she's like, what? Grace itself, right? You see? So, it may be something related to that, but it's a special way of speaking, right? It's very striking, huh? That Mary should confirm this in the way she did. This is what? It's a few years after, uh, yeah, yeah. Who was it? Was it, I think it was, um, what was I reading? Was it the other mind that one of the church fathers back there had, had petitioned the Pope to declare the Macalconception? So, this is taking some time, you know, for it to, you know, to gradually, uh, develop. Okay, now, the first objection was saying, well, truth is found in, what? The putting together and dividing of the mind. To the first, therefore, it should be said that although in the divine understanding there is, what? Neither composition or division, right? Nevertheless, by his simple understanding, he judges... all things. And he knows all these complex things, right? And thus in his understanding there is what? Truth. So he knows the composite things in a what? Simple way. As opposed to us who know simple things in a what? Composite way, right? Not the way to go, is it? But that's the way we go. And the simpler something is, the more sometimes we have to have more negations, right? So you say a body has length, width, and depth, and then we say a surface has length and width, but no depth. A line has length, but neither width nor depth. And then the point has neither length, nor width, nor depth. So we're knowing the simple by the composed, huh? Just the reverse of God, huh? So God knows the statements without having to what? Put together a divide in his understanding. He knows composed things in a simple way. Material things in an immaterial way. So on. So as you said before, the way you know doesn't have to be the way things are. But in the way you know, you have to know the way things are. The second one is taken from this text of Augustine there, about truth being the likeness to the beginning. To the second it should be said that the true, in our understanding, is according as it is conformed to its what? Beginning, right? Namely, two things from which it takes its what? Knowledge, huh? But the truth of things, right, is as they are conformed to their beginning, which is the what? Divine understanding. But this, that Augustine had said, properly speaking, cannot be said in the divine truth, except perhaps according as truth is appropriated to the Son, right? Okay, that's kind of confirmation of what I was saying that in that thing up there. Truth is appropriated, right? Okay. Who has a beginning, right? Okay. But if about truth said essentially, right? Not as appropriation to the Son, it cannot be understood, what Augustine says, unless you resolve the affirmative into the what? Negative, huh? Okay, this is very important to see. As when it is said, the Father is what? From himself, huh? Well, is that to be understood affirmatively? No. It should be understood because he is not from another. Now, sometimes people would say about substance and accident. Accident is a thing that exists in another, it's in a subject, right? Then they say substance exists in itself. But should you understand that affirmatively? Can something affirmatively be in itself? So if you say that substance exists in itself, you mean substance exists not in another. So that way of speaking can be misunderstood, right? Sometimes you see this phrase here, you know, you know, I'll say about God, you'll see sometimes called God, how is a sui? Cause of himself, right? Must that be understood affirmatively? Because a cause is before its effect, right? So if God was a cause of himself, he'd be before himself. But nothing is before or after itself, right? So this has to be understood, what? Negativity, you know? Jean-Paul Sartre, you know, the French atheist, existentialist, right? At the end of his being in nothing of his major works there, you know? He's saying, you know, man is a useless, what? Passion. Kind of destroying his own philosophy. Because man is trying to be God, right? What is God? He says, God is cause of sui. But that's a contradiction. So if man is trying to be the cause of himself, he's trying to be something that's impossible, therefore man is in his suspicion. And that's not the way to understand this, if you say to God, right? To be careful to avoid that. Speaking, you're also to understand it properly, huh? Take another example here from philosophy, another kind of axiom where we say that the through itself is before the through another and the beginning or cause of it, huh? That's a very important thing. Now let's just put it on the board for a second here. The through itself is before the through another and is a beginning or cause of it, huh? Okay. Now, take a simple example of that. Let's say sugar is sweet through being sugar, right? And sugar is sweet through itself, right? And the coffee is not sweet through being coffee. So if the coffee is sweet, it's sweet through another, right? Now, you know the four senses of before, right? We all know that. So in the second sense of before, the sugar is sweet is before the coffee being sweet. Second sense of before is what can be without another being, but not vice versa. So the sugar can be sweet without the coffee being sweet, but the coffee can't be sweet without the sugar being sweet. So the through itself is before the through another in being, right? And why is the coffee sweet if it is? Well, because this is a very important thing, right? This is a very important thing, huh? And you can use that in talking about God, but without going into such a profound thing. In logic, right? When you're talking about statements in logic, and you say, well, some statements are known through another. It's like any statement that is known by some kind of reasoning, right? It's a conclusion. It's a conclusion that you come to know through other statements called the premises. So we ask in logic, are all statements known through other statements? So there must be before the statements that are known through other statements, some statement that is known, what? To itself, huh? And in Latin, and in Latin, you know, you see that in Thomas and Boethius. Perse nota, right? Okay? Known through itself, right? Okay? And you have the famous distinction of Boethius between the perse nota omnibus and the perse nota sapientibus, right? Okay? In fact, the whole is more than the part. It's known to itself by all, but let's say that spirits are not in place to the wise, right? Okay? And these are really the common beginnings of all reasoned out of knowledge, and these are the beginnings prior to some science. Okay, now, what does that mean, perse nota? How does you understand it? Through itself, right? Does it mean that a statement that is known through itself proves itself? Can you prove a statement by itself? So how do you understand that through itself, huh? Yeah, it's known, but not through what? Another, yeah. And the same thing with definition, right? Uh... Sometimes part of a definition is the need of being defined, right? Now something that is known by definition is known for something else, right? Well, does that go on forever, right? Then there must be something that you know what it is, but not do something else. Might be. And again, should that be understood ferratively, right? It makes known itself. If you don't know the meaning of a word, you can look it up in the dictionary, right? And then you learn the meaning of one word through other words, right? Well, are all words learned in that way? So there must be some words that are known, what? Yeah, what does that mean? Not to other words. Yeah, yeah. They're known, but not to other words, right? The first words are known through the senses, right? By associating a sound with something that you can sense. That's why you speak in the senses of a word, right? They go back to the senses ultimately, even though there are senses of the word that aren't sensible. You have to go there, there, right? So Thomas is pointing out an example of this, all kinds of examples of this, though, right? So if truth is said, essentially, it cannot be understood, what Augustine says, unless it's resolving the affirmative into the negative. And he gives an example of something like that. Like the Father is, what? From himself, right? So you say, the Son is from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son. But the Father is from himself. What does that mean? Yeah. And similarly, one can say, the divine truth is a likeness of the beginning, insofar as his being is not, what? But dissimilar to his understanding, huh? Okay, now the third objection was a little more amusing here, huh? It's true that you have sinned, and God is the cause of all truth, and he's the cause of your sinning, right? Okay. To the third it should be said, and this is very subtle now, that none being in privations do not have from themselves, what? True. But only from the, what? Grasping of the understanding. But all grasping by the understanding is from God. Whence, whatever there is of truth in this that I am saying, that this, when it's fornicating, right, is true, the whole is from God. But if he argues, therefore, him to fornicate is from God, there's a fallacy of what? Yeah. That's the first fallacy outside of language that Aristotle talks about. So the truth is primarily in the mind there, right? So is God the cause of the person fornicating, or is he the cause of the statement that he's fornicating being true? Yeah. Fortunately, he'll know the truth about our evil acts, right? And therefore punish us, huh? But notice, I'd go back to the first sentence there. That's a very interesting thing. None being and privation. Now, what's the distinction between none being and privation? Privation should have being, but it doesn't have it. It's not the same as none being. Yeah. Privation, the English word of privation is lack, right? So privation or lack is a none being of something you're able to have, but don't have, right? Yeah. Okay. So, the stark example is, what's the difference between saying that something is blind and doesn't see? If I could say this cup, it doesn't see, right? Yeah. But can I say, strictly speaking, the cup is blind? You bought me a, gave me a blind cup today? No. No. Because blindness is the none being of sight in a subject able to have sight and that should have sight, you know, in a strict sense, that's what a lack is. And what is bad? Yeah, but bad in general is always a lack of some sort, right? Okay. So, bad is not pure none being. Okay. It's an none being is something you're able to have and should have, right? But don't have, right? So, while in the case of pure none being, then you have what they call the contradictory, not the lack. In Aristotle, if you go back to the categories, one of the, the chapter, in fact, before, the chapter on before, a couple of chapters there actually, it takes up the four kinds of opposites. And so, you have relatives, which are the least opposed in a way, like father and son, double and half. Then you have contraries, like virtue and vice. Then you have, what, the lack and the having of something, like blindness and sight, ignorance and knowledge and so on. And then you have being and none being, right? Where the none being is merely the negation of the other. Well, in the case of the opposition of contradiction, of everything, you can either, what, affirm or deny something, right? So, everything either sees or does not see. But is everything either has sight or is blind? Only a thing which by nature is apt to have sight, right? Only such things either have sight or are blind, right? But everything, even the mathematical point, right? Either sees or doesn't see. There's a cup that sees or doesn't see, right? So, in the case of the contradictory opposition, there's no, what, middle ground. You're either a stone or you're not a stone. I can say everything, right? God included, right? Either God is a stone or he's not a stone. He's not a stone. Either you're a stone or you're not a stone. But, now, the lack and the having opposed to the lack, they have something in common. Namedly a common, what, subject, right? Okay. So, my knowledge of ignorance have a common subject, my mind. Now, in the case of contraries, you have not only a common subject, but you have a common, what, genus. So, virtue and vice are both a, what, habit, right? You may recall that we talked about that a little bit in the first book, An Actual Hearing, right? Bring out the difference there. Where Aesthetist says change is not always between contraries, but it's always between the having and the not having. And the lack, right? So, what's the difference, say, you know, between knowledge, let's say, and ignorance, and knowledge and mistake, or error? So, these are opposed in the same way. You see, knowledge and ignorance.