Prima Pars
Lecture 82: Life in God: Divine Life and Self-Motion

Transcript
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Okay, so these first two articles are kind of about life in general, right, like Thomas often does, or life as a creature and so on. Now we come to the question of whether life belongs to God. This is, I think, more divided up in the Summa Theologiae, Summa Contagentia, you know, because you say God is alive, and then later on you have another chapter, and God is life itself, right? Okay, but it's more. We're going to get here. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that life does not belong to God, right? For to live, some things are said to be alive according as they move themselves, as has been said. But doesn't belong to God to move, he's unmoving. Therefore he needed to live, right? That's a good objection, right? Moreover, in all things which live, right? One can take some source of their life, right? Some beginning of it. One said, it said in the second book about the soul, that the soul is the beginning and cause of the living body. Are we saying, say, that the soul is the cause of life within the living body? The first cause. But God doesn't have any beginning or cause. Therefore, it does not belong to him to be alive. Moreover, the beginning of life in the living things which are among us, and those are living bodies, right? So the beginning of life in the living bodies is the, what? Planned soul, you might say, right? Which is not except in bodily things. Therefore, it doesn't belong to bodiless things to be alive, huh? But again, it's all this nonsense. It's what is said in the 83rd Psalm, the third verse. It says, my heart and my flesh, and the two of them, yeah, right? Exult in the living God, huh? Okay? That's what I saw. It's very good. And of course, in the Confession of Faith of Peter, right? It says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, right? So he has the word living in there, right? Right. So St. John there, at the end of the Gospel, says, It's easily written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He doesn't have the word living in there. But Peter has that explicit in there. So I've got a nice little text. So Thomas says, I answer, it should be said that life most properly is in God, to the evidence for which it should be considered that some things are said to live according as they, what? Operate from themselves. And not, as it were, moved by another. Whence the more perfectly this belongs to some thing, then the more perfectly that thing is found like. But in movers and moved, three things are found in order. For first, the in moves the, what? Agent. And then the chief agent is what acts through its form. And this acts through some, what, tool. It does not act by virtue of its own form, but by reason of the principal agent, to which the instrument, to which instrument belongs only to the carrying out of the action. So an instrument is that, is a moved, what? Mover, right? It doesn't seem to be alive, right? Now, there are found some things, he says, which move themselves, having no respect to a form or end, which is in them by nature, but only as regards the carrying out of the motion. But the form through which they act, and the end on account of which they act, are determined in them by nature, right? And of this sort are the plants, which by the form innate in them by nature, move themselves according to growth and decrease. Now, he's going to argue, he's starting from the lowest kind of life, and showing how life is more and more found, as you go up to the scale, right? From the plants to the animals and eventually to man. Some things further move themselves, not only as regards the carrying out of the motion, but also as regards the form, which is the beginning of the motion, which they acquire through themselves. And of this sort are animals. The beginning of whose motion is a form not, what, innate by nature, but taken by, what, sense. I was talking to somebody on the phone there, and he was talking about the cat there, you know, the cat was looking out the window of the bird there. Like, he desired to go outside. So, the form of the bird, as in the senses of the cat, is what is moving him, right? So, in that sense, he's kind of responsible for the form that's moving him to go after that bird. Now, Thomas makes a little distinction here. Whence the more perfect sense they have, the more perfectly they, what, move themselves, right? He's going to make a distinction now between the second and third level there, the grades of life. For those that have only the sense of touch, like the oysters or something like that, huh? Or these kind of plant-like animals on the floor of the ocean. They move themselves only by the motion of what? Dilating and constriction, right? As the oysters, huh? Little exceeding the motion of plants, huh? So, some of these things, you know, people might think they're plants than, you know, than animals. But those which have a perfect sense power, not only to knowing things that are joined to them and touching them, but also to knowing distance things, right? And they move themselves to some distance by a, what, going forward motion, progressive motion. Of course, you know, imagine the way birds are going great distances, right? Even other animals do. And sometimes, you know, people leave a dog or a cat behind and they go over. I don't know how they find their way, but it's an amazing thing. Now, although animals of this sort take through sense the form which is the beginning of their emotion or the cause of their emotion, nevertheless, they do not, to themselves, set before themselves the end of their operation or their motion. But that's innate in them by nature, by the instinct of which they are moved to doing something through the form that they apprehend by the sense. Whence, above such animals are those things which move themselves, even having respect to the end which they, what, set before themselves. And this cannot be except through reason and understanding to whom it belongs to know the proportion of an end and of that which is to the end and to order one to the other, right? So, as Aristotle said, belongs to the wise to order. And Thomas says the reason for that is that wisdom is the highest perfection of reason in which it is proper to look before an actor, as Shakespeare told us. So, whence a more perfect way of living is of those that have understanding, right? For these more perfectly move themselves. And he gives a sign of this. And a sign of this is that in one and the same man, the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power of the power. of understanding who's the sense powers and the sense powers through their command move the organs which carry out motion so you're most of all alive by your what reason right even more than by your senses and by them more than by your you know that leg down there i'm temporarily unable to walk very much um i've not losing much life as if i became blind or deaf or something right and uh even less alive i lost my mind right and it makes another comparison to the person the ethics just as also in the arts we see that the art to which belongs the use of the ship right namely the art of the governor uh commands that which induces the form of the ship and this to the one who has carrying out only and disposing the what matter right okay so the chef is more alive than the guy who fills the the tables right now he says although our understanding moves itself to some things right nevertheless there are some things that are what set forth yeah by nature as are the first principles like the whole is more than a part right about which it cannot be otherwise and the last in which is like the beginning in the practical order which it is not able not to will right so i must want to be happy right nobody wants to be miserable even though we see this sometimes whence although as regards something it moves itself right nevertheless as regards uh others he is moved by another that therefore whose nature is its own what understanding and to which what it naturally has is not determined by another right this is what obtains the highest grade of life but such is god whence in god most of all is life whence the philosopher it's aristotle in the 12th book after the books of natural philosophy having shown there that god is understanding right then he concludes that he has life most perfect and eternal pretty good this old pagan greek right because his understanding is understanding is most perfect and always in what act let's start a second look at the text there from from the 12th book of metaphysics that's in the 12th book here lambda so it should be a little bit of air kai zoe that means life right okay kind of funny the county's wife was named zoe z-z-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z-o-e-z the same is the life of it. Ariste, the best life, he says. Kai ideas, eternal. For we say, ton-the-an, God, right? For we say, God, eni-zo-an, one living, right? Ide-an, eternal, arist-an, the best. So that zoe-e-life, and eternity, ion-sunikes, and ideas, belongs to God, right? Then he asks. Toot-to-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go- Who think that the gang of things is not the most perfect, right? Who think that the Callistan and the Ariston is not in the beginning. But we talked about that before, right? What is the basic mistake that is being made? What kind of mistake is it? Those who think that the beginning of things is not the most beautiful, the most perfect. Yes, it's a kind of mistake that we've talked about that's very common. the mistake of mixing up what is so simply with what is not so simply but in some imperfect way, right? Now, Aristotle, in the ninth book of Wisdom, takes up act and ability. And after he speaks of act and ability, then he takes up the order of act and ability. And he says, act is before ability and knowledge, because you know ability to act, right? Act is before ability and perfection and goodness, right? And then he says, in time, in one way it is, in one way it's not, right? And he says that in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act. But it goes from ability to act, he says, because of something already in that. So simply, act is before ability. And therefore the beginning of all things is going to be most actual and therefore most perfect, right? But those who think the beginning of all things is most potential and therefore most imperfect, right? Are thinking that what is before in some way is before what? Simply, yeah. So that's actually the mistake being made. And that's in a sense a mistake, you know, that's gone on to attack again. But I think one thing that's kind of interesting, also in terms of the end of our knowledge, you can reason out that the end of our knowledge is to know the first beginning, the first cause. You can also reason out that the end of our knowledge is to know the best thing. Now, if the best thing is the first cause, there's no problem, right? But if the first cause is most potential and therefore the least perfect of things, right, then you've got dichotomy here, right? You can't, you've got an insoluble problem. And that's what these people have, huh? So, but with Aristotle, it's very natural, you know, as he says in the ethics, with the truth, all things fit together. They harmonize, right? So it harmonizes with the fact that, simply speaking, act is before ability, and that the beginning of all things is pure act, and therefore most perfect. And therefore the best thing is also the first thing. And vice versa. By, you know, what his comrade Lennon says, you know, you know, mind is the highest product of matter. So you're making, you know, the most imperfect be the cause of the most perfect. It doesn't make too much sense. The basic reason is that those things that go for a bill to act, do so, because there's something already in act. So therefore simply act as before. Let me talk about Kenny's story. That's the second kind of mistake outside of speech that Aristotle gives in the Sophistical Refutations. But it's the kind of mistake that runs through the whole philosophy, right? You know, in the beginning of logic, in the dialogue with Plato, I think I mentioned that, in the Mino, right? Mino has the objection, how can we look for what we don't know? Because then we know what we're looking for, right? Yeah, yeah. And Socrates says he doesn't know what virtue is. Mino says he does know what virtue is. But after Socrates examines him, it's clear he doesn't know either. So Socrates then proposes us to put our head together and try to figure out what virtue is on the grounds that two heads are better than one. And then Mino objects, you know, to such a thing because we have to know what we're looking for. And if we already know what we're looking for, we don't have to be looking for it. And if we don't know what we're looking for, well, then we can't, you know, direct ourselves. Yeah, yeah. What's the solution to that? Yeah. We know something. Yeah. It's because you have to know what you don't know in some way before you can direct your thinking towards it, right? Now, I always give a very simple example in class. Let me give it again. I'd come into a class, you know, a bigger class than this, and I'd say, to tell you the honest truth, I don't know how many students are in class today. I really don't know. But I can direct myself to the greatest of these to coming to know what I don't know. And so then I start to count, and I tell them that I... Let's say I end up with 23, right? Okay? Now, did I know I was trying to get to 23? See? And yet I directed myself to 23 with the greatest of these. Amazing fellow, right? How did I do that? How did I know the road to 23 when I didn't know that that's what I was trying to get? You know, if you went to the casting station and you'd say, how'd he get there? Get where he's going, you know? You know? I can't tell you how to get there unless I know where he's trying to get. See? Well, how did I know exactly the road that led me right away to 23, right? Right down the line. When I didn't know I was trying to get to 23. I knew in some way what I was looking for, right? Because 23 is, in this example, the number of students in class, and I knew I was looking for the number of students in class. So 23 wasn't entirely known to me. And knowing that I was looking for the number of students in class was enough to tell me I should take the road of counting. And therefore, by counting, I came to know the number of students in class. Without knowing it to begin with, right? But knowing it in some way. You see? I try to bring home to students, you know, the universality and importance of this kind of mistake by saying that throughout life, we're often doing what we shouldn't do and not doing what we should do. But we do what we shouldn't do because the bad is in some way, what? Good. And we don't do what we should do because the good is in some way bad. There's nothing so good in this life that it doesn't prevent us from doing something else that is good. So in some way, you could see a badness. There's a problem. You see, our whole life is in a mess because of this thing, right? And if Muno's objection was good, there'd be no logic, right? And there'd be no art of calculating either. But then you see that at the end of philosophy, right, in wisdom, where, you know, usually the fundamental differences between materialists, right, who say matter or some kind of matter is the beginning of all things and those who think some kind of actual substances, right, something understands. and, again, people making that same kind of mistake. So it runs through the whole philosophy, right? Very, very common mistake. So Aristotle avoids a mistake, but he knows that kind of mistake, right? Mm-hmm. Of course, even if you know a particular kind of mistake, you might make that kind of mistake, but, you know, it's a help to know the kinds of mistakes and to exercise your mind in recognizing them, right? Okay, let's look at the first objection here. God doesn't, what, move himself, right? Okay, now let's review a little bit here of the word act, right? In the Ninth Book of Wisdom, where Aristotle takes up act and ability, he says act is, first of all, means motion, right? And you can see why that would be so for us because our knowledge begins with our senses. And Shakespeare says, and Odysseus says, and Odysseus says, and Taurus of Christa, things in motion, sooner catch the eye and what not stir, son. Okay? Now, in the middle part of the book on act and ability, Aristotle carries the word motion, or excuse me, the word act over from motion to what? Form, right? And there he seems to do it by a proportion, right? So you can say that the wood is to the table before it's been formed, right? Something like the man is able to walk is to the walking when he actually walks. So form is seen as a kind of act, but a different kind of act than what? Motion, huh? Okay? Now, Thomas, in one of the disputed questions also points out another way of moving the word act from here to form. And that is that form is the source of some motion or the end of some motion, right? Okay? So, the word act is not purely equivocal said of motion and of form. It can be said of form as well as motion either, like Aristotle does in the middle part of book nine, by a likeness of ratios, right? or, as Thomas says in one of the disputed questions, by the ratios of form to what? Motion. When you carry the word being over from, say, substance to quantity, that's carried over by the ratio of quantity to what? Substance. Quantity is the size of substance. Now, perhaps, you could later on carry the word act over to the being in the sense of the existence of that. But this is closer to motion. In fact, we kind of know matter in form by taking a piece of clay and molding it in different shapes, right? So, you probably see form as act before we see being in existence. But that would be the third extension. Now, I wanted a better word, what Thomas often calls operatio, right? What I call simply doing. Doing is most like what? Motion, right? More so than like these here, right? Okay? What's the difference between doing and motion? Okay? Partly a little problem here on these things, right? But Aristotle, when he defines motion, he points out that motion is, is nature an imperfect act, right? Okay? So, if you take walking home, right? Yeah? Well, so long as you're walking home, your walking home is not complete yet, is it? And if your walking home is complete, you're home now, your walking home doesn't exist. So it's the very nature of walking home to be incomplete. And when I'm growing to be, you know, 5'10", whatever my height is, probably shrinking now, I'm not yet that height, right? And when I have achieved that height, I'm not growing to be 5'10", right? And I'm becoming hot, I'm not yet hot, right? And when I'm hot, I'm not becoming hot. So motion is essentially an imperfect act. And Aristotle, in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, contrasts that with an activity, right, that is complete or perfect, like sensing or understanding, right? So when I'm seeing you, have I seen you yet? And of course our grammar kind of affects motion more, right? That's why you speak a perfect, you know, thought. But when I'm walking home, I haven't walked home yet. When I'm seeing you, I have seen you, right? And when I understand what a triangle is, I have understood what a triangle is. See? So it's a different kind of thing, right? But nevertheless, it's in some way like what? Motion, huh? And just as I can be sitting and then get up and walk home or something like that, right? So I can start, what, hearing Mozart's music or seeing the sunset or understanding something, right? So it's a kind of act, isn't it, right? But it differs from motion as being a kind of perfect act, right? Well, that's a kind of activity that God has, right? Now sometimes the word motion is given to that doing, right? Because of the proximity of this sense of act to motion. Why you wouldn't call form a motion further removed, right? And Thomas will be talking about this, right? So let's look at the reply to the first objection here. The first, therefore, it should be said that as is said in the ninth book after the books in natural philosophy, there is a two-fold, what, action or doing, right? One which carries over into exterior matter as to what? Eat something, to saw it, and so on, right? And another which remains in the doer, right? Has to understand, to sense, and to will. Of which there is this difference. That the first action is not a, what, perfection of the agent that moves. But it's a perfecting of the move, right? But the second action is a perfection of the agent, right? Whence, because motion is the act of the mobile, the second action, insofar as is an act of the one doing, is called as motion. From this likeness, it's just as motion is the act of the mobile, so this kind of action is the act of the agent, right? Although motion is the act of the imperfect, right? Maybe it's the act of what exists in potency, huh? Well, first of all, it's full definition in the third book of the natural hearing of physics, is that it's the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's able to be. I mean, that's imperfection, yeah. But this other action is the act of the perfect, right? That is as something existing in act, as is said in the third book about the soul. Now, in this way, in which to legere is emotion, it's kind of a difference of the word, what understands itself is said to what? Move itself, right? And this is the way Plato spoke, huh? Tom's at there, all certain points is out. And in this way, also Plato laid down God who's himself, because he what? Understands and loves himself, right? Now, notice, huh? To say that God understands himself, or loves himself, or even to say that I understand myself, or I love myself, understand and love are what? Grammatically speaking, verbs, right? And verbs signify with time. And time is the measure of the before and after, the number of the before and after in motion. So, grammatically, right, you can see a certain connection between saying, I moved the book and I understood myself. In both cases, you have a verb that signifies with time, and therefore, it's like emotion, right? But strictly speaking, the activity of understanding something might not be spread out in time, right? And therefore, you have this kind of an odd situation where you say, that when I'm understanding what a triangle is, I have understood already what a triangle is. When I'm loving somebody, I have already loved them, right? Why, the first is a more perfective verb, right? Because when I'm walking home, I haven't yet walked home. When I'm building a house, I haven't built a house yet, right? So, in this way, Plato lays down that God moves himself, not in that way in which motion is an act of the, what? Imperfect, right? You see, kind of, you know, in the fact that we do signify my, let's take me, my understanding myself or loving myself, that we signify the act of understanding and the act of loving by a verb, right? And a verb, as I was going to say earlier in the class, you know, in the periharmeneus, is a name that signifies with time. And time is a measure of motion. And see how you can speak sometimes of understanding and loving, therefore, as being, what? Yeah, like motion. But you're kind of extending the word, okay? And you wouldn't be apt to do that with form. You wouldn't signify the form with a verb so much, would you? You might speak of forming the matter, right? But then that's the motion, right? You see? I wouldn't speak of the form in the verb, huh? That kind of shows a proximity of understanding and loving and sensing to motion, right? But yet the difference that the motion is, say, what? In the strict sense, it's an imperfect act, right? And so there is a perfect act, but less known to us, right? So we're sitting there thinking about something deeply, you know? No, if you're not doing anything, could you give me a hand at this? I told you the joke about the one the professor was saying, you know? His wife kind of understands he's a professor, so I'm going to refer to this reading or thinking, you know? So as long as he's reading and going up, you know, like that. Then when he stops and he thinks about what he's read, you know, then he doesn't see any outward sign of activity. So now is the time to go through a small talk or something. It's kind of a funny situation, a parental situation, but it's hidden, right, you see? But he's doing maybe his most important stuff now, he's absorbing what he's read and thinking about it, right? So, you know, Thomas will say in other places, when Plato says that God moves himself, and what moves itself moves other things, right? He doesn't say something really different from Aristotle, who says that God is the unmoved mover, right? Because when Aristotle says God is the unmoved mover, he's using motion in the strict sense as the act of the imperfect, right? Well, when Plato says God moves himself, he means he, what, understands and loves himself, right? Now, the second thing here. Notice in the bodies that we know that are alive, there's a beginning or cause of their life, right? But God is his very, what, existence and his very act of understanding. And so it's his own, what, to live, right? And on account of this, he lives thus that he does not have a, what, source or cause of his life, right? Then he has a source or cause of himself. So, God's life is much different than our life, right? Our life, even our natural life, right? For sure, our supernatural life has a beginning or cause, right? Even the, even the beauty vision there, right? There's a light of glory, it's called, right, huh? He's the source of that. God doesn't have any source of himself, huh? No beginning of himself, no cause of himself. Now, life as we know it in living bodies always presupposes this fundamental life that even the plants have, right? Why doesn't God have this here? To the third, it should be said that life in these lower things, in these bodies, that we know, is received in a, what, corruptible nature, right? Which needs both, what, generation for the conservation of the species, huh? And food for the conservation of the individual. And on account of this, in these lower things, there is never found life without the, what? Yeah, living soul, right? But this does not have place, of course, in encryptable things. A little break here now? A little break here now? A little break here now? A little break here now? Yeah. A little break here now? A little break here now?