Prima Pars
Lecture 93: Divine Justice and Mercy in God's Works

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

Appearing to God's mercy, aren't we? And in the August of the day, repeating to God's mercy. Other places too, but especially in those two prayers. You don't really have a prayer repeating to God's justice to you. Oh God, do me justice? I was used to cringe when you get social justice types up there. Yeah. Petitions, and they always go crying about for justice. I always say, no, no. We don't want mercy. We don't want justice. This is the way Portia argues with the Charlotte guy. If we all demand justice, but where would we be? So it's kind of interesting, right? If we pray at all about his justice is to avoid his justice, so to speak. And the justice hurts of what we've done and haven't done that we should have done. Now the second paragraph of the second paragraph is in my body, in my article here. Thomas gets very interesting. The goodness of the goodness of the teaching. He gives a nice little distinction there among four things. But it should be considered that to what? Bestow perfections on things pertains to the divine goodness and to the divine justice and to the divine liberality, which he hasn't mentioned in this thing, and the divine mercy. All four of these, right? But for another and another reason. For different reasons, we'd say. It's kind of colloquial in Latin there, right? For different reasons, we'd say. For the communication of perfections, considered simply as such, right? Absolutely considered. Pertains to what? Goodness, huh? Good, this is diffusive of itself. But insofar as perfections are given by God to things according to their ratio, their proportion, it pertains to justice, to that distributive justice, right? So he doesn't give the dog and you the same thing, does he? But it's just that you get what you get and it's just that the dog gets what he gets. The skill gets what he deserves. Insofar as he does not attribute to things, perfections, on account of his usefulness, right? But on account of his goodness, it pertains to what? Liberality. We mentioned before how the great Avicenna says what? But God alone is liberal, right? He gets nothing out of what he gives us, huh? But when he gives somebody out of the abundance of our heart, we get something out of it. At least the good deed is throwing something upon them, huh? But insofar as perfections given to things by God expel every defect, right? It pertains to what? Let's see. That's a very interesting distinction, right? So those four things are not, what? Synonyms, right? Even though in God, the goodness of God and the justice of God and the liberality of God and the mercy of God are not four different things. They're one and the same thing, right? But we have four different thoughts and we attribute the giving or restoring perfections upon things to each of these in a somewhat different way, right? That's actually kind of beautiful text, huh? In the Summa Contra Gentiles, I remember correctly in the first book there, he talks about the justice of God and about the liberality of God, not so much about the mercy of God, right? He kind of begins in Nicomachean Ethics and there's no virtue of mercy in there, right? But there is a virtue of liberality, which Aristotle talks about in the fourth book and obviously virtue of justice, right? So how are these applied then to God, right? And then he always will tend to bring in what the great Avicenna said. He doesn't always have a great Avicenna about everything, but some beautiful things that Avicenna says and you have to admire him for what he understood. Now he applies to the first objection, which is based upon the original meaning of mercy or pity as a species of what? Sadness, right? That's why, you know, in the tragic and comic mask, you know, the tragic mask has got the sad, right? And then the comic mask has got the smile and the warmth and so on. They tell the story of one of these terrible tyrants there who went to the theater, you know, and there was a great, great tragedy on and he's starting to get tears and he had it quickly, you know? None of the people see that he was moved. Pity in the fiction when he's not in real misery with people around him, huh? Kind of a funny story, though, in a sense, huh? That's what Augustine criticizes about theater. Yeah. It does you no good if you don't practice it in virtue. But people say, oh, what a good-hearted man because he wept at the theater. Yeah, yeah. What did he do for his life? Nothing. He doesn't have pity on his neighbor when he has tears in the air. Yeah. So, it doesn't dispose you necessarily too strongly, right? The second objection was saying, isn't mercy yeah, relaxation of justice. It was in their conflict there, right? Thomas will say some things about that here and then, you know, this is relevant to the fourth article which is going to say that both of the things are found in everything God does, right? So, he says, God acts mercifully not by acting against his justice, right? But by doing something above his justice. Just as if to someone are owed a hundred denarii, right? Someone gives two hundred of this. Nevertheless, he does not act against justice but he acts either liberally or mercifully, right? And similarly, if someone remits a offense committed against him, right? Or who remits something in a way gives it, right? When the apostle calls your mission a what? Giving, right? Ephesians 5. Now, in English, we'd say what? Forgive one another, right? But it comes from the word give, right? That's kind of interesting. I think it's a German word that means forgive. It means give completely. Yeah. So, both in the word forgive and the word thanksgiving, you have the word give but they're a little different meaning, right? Because thanksgiving is for some good you receive from somebody, right? And forgive is someone's done something bad to you and you're, what? Forgiving it. From which it is clear that mercy does not take away justice, right? But is a certain fullness of justice, huh? That's a very subtle thing, right? This came out in Shakespeare's, you know, thing there when Portia's speaking, right? About perfecting justice by mercy. Went to the decision, this old James, James isn't it? Jacob? Mm-hmm. That mercy, what? Exalts highly judgment, right? It's interesting how that Mary is called, what? Mother of mercy and mirror of justice. Yeah. But she never called me the mother of justice, right? Mm-hmm. And I suppose this is partly due to the nature of woman, right? The woman, as Shakespeare says, is more merciful by nature than men, right? And so it's more appropriate that Mary be the mother of mercy than of justice, right? But it's interesting, if you take the two comings of Christ, the first coming of Christ is in mercy, right? And the first coming of Christ, that is through Mary. And so we go through Mary to get the mercy of God, right? But, you know, does Scripture speak of the second coming of Christ as being through Mary? Did Mary come in the clouds and Christ behind you or something? Huh? No, he's going to come there with the angels and so on, right? And the second time he's coming is coming in, what? Justice, yeah. I remember one time when I was serving on one of these disciplinary committees and there was a series of letters that were threatening a young lady, you know, and so on. And they're trying to determine who the victim was, and they actually used the FBI handwriting specimens they got. They got specimens from all the students in the class, right? I've known to them and so I guess you have... The guy is pretty careful. They don't say this is so-and-so's thing unless they're rather sure about it. And so they identified this guy as being the writer of these letters. Of course, there's a very serious case. So the father and mother came to the thing. Of course, the father thought the son was guilty, right? Mother wouldn't admit that your boy could do this, you know. But I thought that was kind of interesting, and it's the difference between the father and the mother, right? Yeah, in terms of... But I wonder, you know, this thing about this controversy about the death penalty and so on, whether more men or more women would be in favor of the death penalty, huh? I would suspect it. I don't know. I don't go around making surveys, but I would kind of think that, you know. But, you know, it's just in Shakespeare's plays, these mercy and forgiveness plays, is it's the woman, and most of them, right, who's forgiving the man for some terrible thing he's done to her. It's kind of beautiful, but it's done, you know. Shakespeare's plays. But I've seen in some of the commentaries there, Mary, you know, the mother of mercy, Nio hobbins in regno justitzie. That's kind of strong, having nothing in the kingdom of justice, right? And, I mean, Mary at the cross there is not calling down the justice of God upon these men who are putting her son to death, you know, you don't have anything like that at all, no. Yeah, because in the human life, I mean, basically, women, they are stronger than men. In living life, I'm thinking, man is very weak. In the human life, we live, like, not as a spiritual to God. Yeah, so that's why men always sin more than a woman, and more they always forgive men. I mean, that is, like, a spiritual to life. Yeah, yeah. Of Christ himself, of Christ as man, might be the exception. So we are like the other one with us, so we get all the... He's influenced by his mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Joseph would have been so. Understand me. Okay, now we're up to Article 4 here, right? To the fourth... Incidentally, the other thing he was talking about, too, before some of you came in, but I was looking at a text of Thomas there in the Lectura, they called it, on the Gospel of St. John, but he was talking about the wine of justice, right? And he referred to the Good Samaritan who poured in wine and oil into the wounds of the man who had fallen. Well, sometimes the Good Samaritan is said, not just to be an example for us, but to represent Christ, huh? And the man going down to Jerusalem, Jericho, was the human race, right? And we fell among. He's like the devil and so on, and we are deprived of our natural goods and so on. And then Christ comes along, and through justice and mercy, he heals us, right? But tempering the severity of justice, he says, with the mercy of the oil. There you see mercy and justice in the same work of healing mankind, right? Now Thomas is going to talk about this universally, not just in reference to us. To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that there is not, in all the works of God, mercy and justice, huh? I guess he's going to take the opposite side. You always conjure it, right? You always just take the opposite side. He always tries to mislead you, as far as I can see, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For he says, some of the works of God are attributed to mercy, as the making just of the impious person, huh? By some are attributed to justice, as the damnation of the impious. Whence it is said in James chapter 2, judgment without mercy, to the one who has acted, who has not done mercy, right? So what is the, let's say the merciful for what? Yeah. So here's judgment without mercy, to the one who has not done mercy, huh? So therefore, in every work of God, there does not appear mercy and justice, huh? Yeah, that's a good objection. Moreover, the apostle, in the epistle to the Romans, attributes the conversion of the Jews to justice and truth. There's two words there. Joined again, right? I guess that's why he had this second article, huh? That must be more than one place in scripture. But the conversion of the Gentiles, that means you and I, I guess, to mercy, right? So one is, do the justice, the other to mercy. Therefore, not in every work of God is there both justice and what? Mercy, huh? Third objection. And also, those first two objections are similar, aren't they, right? Because they're pointing out things that God does, where one seems to be attributed to justice and the other to mercy, right? And there's two different examples of that, huh? Moreover, many just men in this world are afflicted, but this is unjust. Therefore, not in every work of God is there justice and mercy. So is it just that Christ died on the cross? He served today? It might seem to, you know, not to, you know, kind of a great example of a just man being afflicted, right? How is that justice? Now, this fourth objection is more, dealing with a more universal way of considering this question. Moreover, it belongs to justice to render what is owed to someone, right? The debt. And it belongs to mercy to relieve misery, right? And thus, both justice and mercy presuppose something in their work, right? But creation presupposes nothing. So you can't even want to owe something when you create, or anyone who's miserable out there that's going to relieve, okay? Therefore, in creation, there's neither mercy nor justice. So not in every work of God, huh? It's pretty fun to check, isn't it? But again, this is what is said in Psalm 24. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. You see why Ted and I go on truth and justice, right? It's a very common expression, in this case, many times are linked together. It's interesting. You know, is it by chance, or is it a reason why the word just can mean equal, as well as just in the sense of the virtue, right? If the two go together, right? We have courts of equity, which comes in the word decoy. Now, even now, you know, we say, you know, we're making a financial deal, right? As if equality and justice kind of go together, right? But then truth in the sense of the mind, huh? All my reports go with the modest truth, nor mourn or clip but soul. If they say more or less in the truth, they're villains in the sons of darkness, as Ted says. So the truth is kind of like an equality of the mind with things. So there's kind of a reason why truth and justice go together, right? Why mercy seems to kind of go over the top, right? And not observe equality, huh? You know? I didn't expect all this, you know? It's more than I deserve. You know, we say someone's generous, right? And liberal, the reality, and the reality seems to be as closer to mercy than to justice, huh? I answer, it should be said, that it is necessary that in every doing of God, every work of God, there be found mercy and, what? Truth. Hmm, he's even using the word truth himself, not Thomas. If, nevertheless, we take mercy, right? For the removal of any defect, right? And not just, what? Misery in the strict sense, huh? So, speaking of stone, can't be miserable. And a tree can't be miserable. Even a dog or a cat can't be miserable. But just a human being or an angel, right? Although not every defect properly can be called, what? Yeah. But only the defect of the rational creature. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know For whom it is possible to be, what? Happy. As I mentioned before, the word for miseria is opposed to phrychitati, right? They say phrychitas comes in the word for what? Fruitful, right? So in some ways phrychitas is a very good word for Nicomachean Ethics to name the end of man, because at least in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is primarily talking about how this end is achieved by doing virtuous things. And so you could say that happiness is a natural fruit of good deeds, just as in a way misery is a natural fruit of bad deeds. What does it do the doctors say there in Macbeth? Something like that. Natural deeds do breed on natural troubles. What breed is another word for to give birth, right? So it kind of indicates that it's kind of the natural result of what you've done, right? That you're happy and you're miserable, right? Even though you don't want to say there's no truth to chance having some influence on this and you want to deny something about it, but those things are more quite hidden to us, right? So he says you've got to understand misericordia in kind of a, what, generalization there of misery, right? That's kind of the defect of the, what, rational creature. There's a passage in the book on the poetic art of Aristotle where he says that change is going to be represented in a play and basically the change is either from happiness to misery or from misery to happiness, right? It's kind of the ultimate thing. And tragedy is more representation of a man falling from happiness to misery, right? And comedy is more the reverse, right? So comedy moves us to hope, right? And it might turn out okay after all. I was reading a book one time by a classical scholar talking about, you know, Roman comedy and so on. And he quotes kind of St. Paul, you know, about faith, hope, and charity, which is the greatest. But comedy says hope is the greatest of all. Well, he just doesn't understand it in a theological sense, you know, but just simply the idea that hope has arised by seeing things, you know, suddenly, you know, things disappearing, you know, and the good turning out. But tragedy kind of, you know, causes fear, right? The woman of Traki says a beautiful thing in the play that kind of hints at what Aristotle's going to say later on. Because you pity somebody for something that could happen to you, you know? And Hercules' wife there, you know, she sees the slave girl now who was the daughter of a king, you know, and now she's a slave and there's a servant, a son. And she's had this feel of fear, you know, just a short time ago she was living, you know, the daughter of the king and now she's a slave. What could happen to me, you know? That's horrible things happened to her before. Before the tragedy is out, right? Yeah. But as I say, he's saying that you have to take misere courtier is not just relieving the defect of human misery, but any kind of defect, huh? Okay, to understand this in a, you know, universal sense, right? So having a rain when you need, the crops need rain, right? And not just getting us wine and we need wine or something. So he says, you've got to take mercy then to mean the removal of any defect and not just of this misery, right? Now the reason of this necessity is because the debt or the owed that is rendered from divine justice is owed either to God, right? Or owed to some, what, creature. And neither can be, what, any work of God, right? Okay? So any work of God, he renders what is owed to himself, right? And also what is owed to the creature, okay? Because of his nature. For God is not able to make or do something that is not suitable to his wisdom and to his, what? Goodness, huh? In which way we say something is owed to God, right? Likewise, whatever he does in created things, he does according to a, what? Suitable order and ratio to these things. In which consists the ratio of distributed justice, he could say, right? Okay? And thus it is necessary that in every work of God there be, what? Yeah. Now he says something very interesting here in the next sentence, huh? He doesn't make these two, as it were, simply parallel, the mercy and the justice, huh? Because he says the work of the divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy and is, what, founded on it, huh? For to the creature is not owed anything except on account of something already existing in it or considered beforehand by God, right? And if that is owed to the creature, this will be an account of something before that. And since this does not go on forever, it is necessary to arrive at something that depends only on the, what, goodness of the divine will. It shows you to be. Is you more deserving to be than these countless others it could have been? Hmm? Is that what? It's important. I was driving up and I turned the radio on and I had Rush Limbaugh on, you know. Some guy was calling in and he says, you know, how much I admire your program, and all this stuff. And he says, my dad was going to call her first child, Regan, right? You know, he's his boy, Regan. And Rush says, well, why not Rush? I'm just kidding, he says. We say, well, we made the next one, he says. We made the next one. So you don't see the justice and the mercy kind of proceeding equally from God, but the work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy and is founded in it, huh? That's a very interesting thing to say. I think there's a reason for it, right? But what you don't owe something to the creature except the reason is something already in the creature. Was that owed to him? Well, if it was, it was because of something before that. And so the beginning of it is going to have to be pure mercy, right? The gratuitous divine will, the freedom. And that's how it fits in with what we saw before, that God doesn't will anything other than himself except freely, right? He naturally and necessarily wills his own goodness and loves that. But he doesn't naturally and necessarily choose you to be. But he did choose you freely to be. I'm very thankful for that. And there's no justice there at all. It's besupposed, right? Having chosen you to be, he's going to give you a mind and will and other things that are owed to a human being, right? And so on. And it gives an example. If it be said that to have a hand is owed to man in account of his, what? Rational soul, right? Now there, Thomas Heser, he's agreeing with Aristotle and Anaxagoras, right? Because Anaxagoras said that man is the most intelligent of the animal because he has a hand. Aristotle says, no, it's just a reverse. Because he's the most intelligent of animals. He has a hand instead of a paw or a hoof or something. But you can't do much of a hoof, couldn't you? But a hand can do all kinds of things with a hand. And it kind of fits, you know, the infinity of the mind. See, two of tools. See, two of the tools. See, two of the tools. See, two of the tools. See, two of the tools. So you can say to have a hand is owed to man in account of his rational soul. But to have a rational soul is owed to him. You know, he might be a man, right? How can I be a man? I don't have an understanding soul, as Shakespeare says. But to be a man in account of the what? Divine goodness. And thus, in every work of God, there appears mercy as regards the first root. That's a beautiful fundamental word there, concrete word. As regards its first root, huh? Have you studied Sister Faustina in writings at all? Yeah. Did this come out at all in there or not? No, I'm not aware. I mean, the idea that the divine mercy is the foundation, you know? That justice, as he says, presupposes always the work of mercy, huh? Yes, it would. And then he goes on, and this is something that is very clear if you know a lot about these things. You have, you know, it's like two causes, one of which is moving the other, right? Okay? So he says, whose power is saved in all the things that follow? The power of the mercy, right? And this is the other thing that's commonly said, going back to the liber de causis. And even more vehemently operates in them. Just as the primary cause, more vehemently flows in than the, what? The second cause, huh? Okay? So who acts more vehemently on the marble, the hammer and the chisel or Michelangelo? Yeah. And then he kind of brings it to perfection, right? So he's saying mercy is to justice, a bit like Michelangelo is to the hammer and, you know, both Michelangelo and the hammer, we saw, are involved in the pietas, but primarily it's Michelangelo. And more vehemently, Michelangelo, right? The hammer's not moving him around, right? You know, perfecting it simply as a hammer. In account of this, also those things which are owed to some creature, God from the abundance of his goodness dispenses more, what? More generously, large use, right? Okay, interesting that word there, you know, going back to Shakespeare's definition of reason, huh? Large discourse. You have it in Thomas' prayer. Have you ever seen Thomas' prayer before communion, you know? He's talking about how he's approaching God, you know? You know, unclean, yeah? And then he says, Lajitata math, your abundance in your... Yeah, yeah. Then you might get more suitable to receive this. So he more abundantly dispenses than the ratio of the thing requires. For it is less that would suffice for conserving the order of justice than that the divine goodness confers, huh? Okay? Which exceeds every proportion of the creature, right? That's very well said. Now, how do you solve these objections? The first two objections, as we said, were similar. And they take things that God does, one of which is attributed to justice and the other to mercy, right? Well, it's a little bit like the great, what? Anxagoras, the Anxagorean way of naming things. Anxagoras said everything is inside of everything. Inside of everything, there's an infinity of little pieces of everything else. Then why call this a dog, and this a cat, and this a tree, and this a stone? Well, we call it what it is most of. And I call that the, what? Anxagorean way of naming things. And the, I think there's a lot of examples of that, as I would say, right? So when they talk about economies, they talk about the market economy, and now they talk about the command economy, right? I remember years ago, reading about the command economy of the Incas, and at a certain interval of time, everybody would get a new pair of shoes. Everybody would get a new pair of pants. Okay? And I sit all the time reading, so I wear out my pants. You're walking around all the time, so you wear out your shoes. So I'm getting a new pair of shoes I don't really need, and you're getting a new pair of pants you don't really need. But I do need another pair of shoes. And you do need another pair of shoes, because you've been walking around, right? So what do we do? Yeah. That's market, you see? So you had to would call this a market economy, would you? Where it's at least controlled from the center like that, huh? You know, the Russian economy under the Communists, everything was so-called planned by Gaza plan, right? Which was a thousand engineers and a thousand economists in Moscow. And they're planning, or really misplanning, the whole economy, right? You see? But there's a market, you know, in our economy, we call it a market economy, but is there no interference in the economy by the government? I mean, the government, by its monetary policy and so on, is going to influence things, right? Sometimes choking off the economy, and sometimes it'll let things go too far and so on. So, but we call something by what it has most of all, right? You know, we call comedy of errors a comedy, right? But there's a very serious scene in there, right? Where the father's going to be put to death, right? For being in the wrong city and so on, but so, you know. Or in Macbeth, you know, there's a little bit of humor stuck in there to relieve the audience a bit. And, but then we call it one a tragedy, one a comedy, because of what it is most of all, right? And when Thomas divides the books of the Bible, you know, we say, well, what is a psalm? It's a book of what? Prayer, right? And then other books are history books, right? But in the history books, it might be a prayer. And in the psalms, there's some history, and there's some prophecy and so on, right? But we call it more prayer, because it's more of that than else, right? So that's not an unheard of way of speaking, right? This is artificial to say that you never speak this way, right? And I would say, maybe we're reading the Gospels again. And how do the Gospels proceed? Well, I suppose you'd say it's the modus narrativus, narrating the words and deeds of Christ, right? But yet, inside there, there will be commands, there will be prayers, there will be, you know, a lot of other things besides, you know? But it's a whole, I probably see it, modus narrativus. Okay? So Thomas is going to solve that in a somewhat similar way, these first two objections, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that some works or doings of God are attributed to justice and some to mercy. Not as if they're due to that alone, now he says, right? Because in some of them, more vehemently appears justice, right? And in others, what? Mercy. But nevertheless, in the damnation of the reprobate, right, there appears mercy, not entirely relaxing and justice, but in some way, what? Leaving any of it. When he punishes them, less than they deserve. So there's some mercy there, right? And in the justification of the impious, which we attribute to, what? The mercy of God. There appears some justice when he relaxes the guilt and so on on account of love, huh? Which nevertheless, he has poured in most specifically. As we read about Magdalene, right? Her sins are dismissed her, her many sins, because she loves much, right? That's kind of a justice there, right? Mm-hmm. So we find that someone who's offended us is very sad that he's done this. We tend to forgive him more easily, right? Mm-hmm. If he deserves to be forgiven, I think. Because he's so sad about all these things. Depending on what they feel, then they will have to leave somebody at the sentence because he's repentant. Yeah. Because he's done, you know, he's really reformed, really changed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He actually deserves it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not that the second should be said. This is, as I say, a similar objection that said that Paul seems to attribute the conversion of the Jews to justice, right? And the conversion of the Gentiles to what? Mercy, right? But he's going to solve it in a somewhat similar way as the first objection. To the second, it should be said that justice and the mercy of God appear in the conversion of the Jews and of the Gentiles. But there is some reason of justice that appears in the conversion of the Jews, which does not appear in the conversion of the Gentiles. As that they are what? Saved on account of the promises made to the fathers. That's kind of an obligation there, you might say, right? That you don't have towards the Gentiles, right? So when I explain the Max-Goran way of naming things, I say, we call a thing by what it has most of all either absolutely right or in comparison to another, right? And the same thing here. Even if there might be more mercy in the conversion of the Jews than justice, still there's an element of justice there that is not found in the conversion of the what? Gentiles, right? Because they are not the promised people, right? And so we're not fulfilling a promise that you have kind of an obligation to fulfill. Okay? Is that so? I mean, the next growing way of naming things is because that's not an unusual thing, you know, or it's similar to the solution to these here. Is that clear? Now, the third objection, huh? Many just are afflicted in this world, huh? Okay. He says that in this also, that the just are punished in this world, there appears justice and mercy. In so far as through these afflictions, some light things in them, right, are purged away. And they are, what? Raised up from the affection of earthly things towards God, right? According to that of Gregory. For the bad things which are in this world so press us that they compel us to go to God, right? That's me to know. You didn't get the right text there, you know, huh? I was kind of, you know, looking at Weishapel's life of Thomas there, you know, during the centennial there, the seventh thing. And I guess Thomas had a pretty good memory, right? You know, one of those things. But he also mentions, you know, Thomas was a servant. Sometimes he'd speak in Latin, sometimes in the vernacular. But in the Italian, let's just say. By those having spent ten years in Paris, he never learned French. That's how I feel so bad about things that allows you to French, you know. A little bit of French. More than ten years in Quebec. But, kind of interesting. Okay. Now the fourth objection is from creation, right? Okay. You've got to kind of stretch again what you mean, right? To the fourth it should be said, that although to creation there's not to presuppose something in the nature of things, huh? It's the name of that phrase, in rerum natura. I'm not sure. Some of you have the Latin or some English. In rerum natura, as I could probably say, in the real world, right? That's kind of the Latin way of saying it. So there's no creature out there to whom something can be owed, right? There's no creature there suffering defect to whom, you know. But nevertheless, he says, it presupposes something in the knowledge of God, right? And according to this, also, is saved there the ratio of justice. In so far as things are produced in being, according as is suitable to the divine, what? Wisdom and goodness, right? Well, you remember how he said back in the explanation of why this is found in everything, he used the word debit to him both, what? Sometimes it's debit to him to the creature, but sometimes it's debit to him to God. And here he seems to have something debit to him to, what? God. Because there's nothing in the creature yet. So he keeps the idea of justice here, right? Even in creation, God is acting in a way that he fits his, what? Wisdom, huh? And his goodness, huh? And is also saved in some way the idea of mercy, right? Insofar as thing is changed from non-being to being, huh? So he took pity on my not being. Right? That's quite a defect, not being. Yeah. He's very merciful. He chose me to be, right? Bringing me out of non-being into being. Okay?