Prima Pars
Lecture 96: Divine Providence and Its Extension to All Things

Transcript
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The question 22, article 2, we've seen the first article last time and that's showing that providence belongs to God, right? Now I'll just tie in with your question about the poets, right? Where does the word providence come from? What's the English word for providence? Foresight. Foresight, yeah. Now, if you look at the treatise on prudence in the Secundi Secundi, where Thomas takes up the composing parts, integral parts of prudence, right? There's an objection because providencia is said to be part, right, of prudence. And one of the objections to saying providence is a part of prudence is the same thing. And I guess this is not an Isidorean etymology, this is a true etymology. Well, it has St. Thomas' court, Isidore, yeah. Yeah, but if you go to the latter, right, prudencia does come from providencia, the contraction of it. So the proper name for this virtue in English is not prudence, but foresight, which is the word you find in church or people like that using, you know, people who have foresight. And now, what's interesting about foresight is that it's a perfection of reason, right? And what's reason? Shakespeare tells us in Hamlet, it's the ability for a large discourse looking before and after. So foresight is related to what reason is, looking before and after. Now, that's something to learn from the poet, right? But one of the great editors of Shakespeare, back in the 18th century, said, a phrase almost to America that Shakespeare has, looking before and after. And if you go back to the Iliad, you'll see this is exactly what Homer has almost, huh? But you'll see looking before and behind yourself, right? So now, if you know that these are two greatest poets of ancient and modern times, but they both see reason as characterized as looking before and after, it helps you to understand the word foresight, doesn't it? See? So you don't read Homer and Shakespeare, you're not going to be able to understand what the appropriateness of speaking of foresight in God, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay? So for your penance, read, three books of Homer. Okay, but now we come to the second article. It seems that not all things are subject to the divine providence, huh? Some things escape his providence, it seems. For nothing foreseen is fortuitous, huh? If therefore all things are foreseen by God, nothing will be fortuitous. And thus they will disappear or perish from the world, chance and fortune, which is against the common opinion, against the truth, you might say, too. Moreover, everyone who is wise, everyone who is a wise provider, excludes defect and evil so far as he can from those things of which he has care. But we see many bad things to be in things. Either, therefore, God is not able to impede them, and thus he is not omnipotent, or he must not have care about all things, huh? Moreover, those things that happen from necessity do not require providence or what? So there he is using them as kind of synonymous, huh? I mentioned that, as I say, in the question on the integral parts of prudence in the secundi secundi, right? Providencia is one of the integral parts that memory is, and so on. But as I say, the words are basically the same word. Whence, according to the philosopher, and that's the figure of speech called what? The Dominicans. What's the figure of speech? He's being used here. Instead of calling him Aristotle, he calls him the philosopher, the capital P. The philosopher? No. What's the name? It's got a terrible word. What? Antono Masia. Yeah, yeah. That's a very common figure of speech in the Bible, right? Because the Bible is named by Antono Masia. The Bible means the book. That's Antono Masia. The Gospel is named by Antono Masia. Good news, right? Can you parse that word down for it? What's Antono Masia? Well, actually, you see, the names of these figures of speech were invented by the rhetoricians, not by the philosophers, right? And so, you can go and examine the words, but in most cases, they don't really illuminate that particular figure of speech. Oh, right. Okay? You see what I mean? I've done that, but you find that, right? Oh, okay, yes. But you'll find this, like, in the big Oxford Dictionary, you'll find the word Antono Masia, and so on. But Antono Masia is giving the name of the general to the particular or the reverse, right? Okay. Yeah. So instead of calling somebody a lover, I might call him a Romeo, right? Yeah. Okay? Instead of calling this guy Aristotle, he calls him the philosopher, right? Yeah. Aristotle calls Homer the poet, okay? In our forefathers, they refer to Shakespeare sometimes, say, as the poet says. They expect you to know who the poet is, huh? So he calls him the philosopher, huh? And our soldiers are. Well, it's all done. Whence, according to the philosopher in the Sixth Book of the Ethics, prudence or foresight is right reason about contingent things, huh? About such things as there is counsel and choice. Whence, since many things happen in things for necessity, not all things are subject to, what? Providence, huh? And that's kind of understanding the divine providence like our providence, right? The necessary thing, well, what's going to be, is going to be, you know? You can't do anything about that. It's something that can be or not be that you're going to take counsel about. Moreover, whoever leaves something to somebody, dismisses something to somebody, is not under the providence of the one governing. But God leads men to themselves, right? According to the text of Ecclesiasticus, 15, God from the beginning constituted man and left him in the hand of his counsel. Well, I'm actually speaking in the hand of his counsel. And especially the bad, he lets them go according to the desires of their heart, right? Therefore, not all things are subject to the divine providence. Moreover, the apostle says, 1 Corinthians, that God has no care about the loxia. And the same reason about other irrational creatures. Therefore, not all are under the, what, divine providence, huh? So this is an unusual number of objections, huh? I usually don't get, in the Summa, five, huh? In the question, it'll just be taught to you, you might have 15, but Summa usually, you know, there are three is usually enough, but occasionally you get, you know, kind of a sign of the difficulty of the matter. But against this is what is said in Wisdom, the 8th chapter, verse 1, about divine wisdom. That he reaches from end to end strongly and disposes all things, what? Sweetly. And we get the word spavus again, huh? Thomas explains sapientia is coming from, what? Sapida scientia? Savory knowledge, huh? Savory. So, let's go to Thomas's body of the article here. I am sure it should be said that some totally deny providence, right? Like Democritus and the Epicureans, huh? I guess the Epicureans follow Democritus in his atomic theories, right? Although you think of the Epicureans as mainly working in... In ethics, right? But they have a presuppose a certain doctrine about the world. Laying down the world to be made by what? Chance, huh? And some moderns do that too. But some lay down that incorruptible things only are subject to divine providence. But corruptible things, not at least according to the individuals, right? But maybe according to species. For thus they have a kind of incorruptibility. From whose person it is said in the book of Job, he hides behind the clouds. And he walks around the poles of the heavens. Nor does he consider our things. Now from this generality of corruptible things, Rabbi Moses accepts a man on account of the splendor of understanding which they partake. I don't know how splendid it is, but... But in other corruptible individuals, he followed the opinion of others, right? So Thomas is mentioning how some entirely take away divine providence, right? Others take it away more or less from corruptible things, at least as far as individuals are concerned, but maybe not men or something, right? But Thomas is going to say divine providence extends and everyone. But it's necessary to say that all things are subject to the divine providence, not in general only, but also in the very, what? Singular. The very hairs of your head. How many have you got left? Are a number, right? Which, in this way, can become clear. For since every agent acts on account of an end, kind of says this to what in summa kind of gentiles at the beginning of the third book, he has a whole chapter on that, right? Since every agent acts on account of an end, so far extends the ordering of effects to the end as extends the causality of the first agent, the first mover, the first maker. Now from this it happens in the works of some agent that something comes about not in order to the end because the effect, that effect follows from some other cause apart from the intention of the agent. It's causality doesn't extend everything. But the causality of God, who is the first agent, extends itself to all beings. So, he's a cause of being as such. And not only as regards the principles of the species, but also as regards the individual principles. Not only of incorruptible things, but also of what? Corruptible things. So he's arguing from the universal causality of God extending all the way down to his providence extending down to all because every agent acts for an end, right? So this causality extends to all things the order to the end from him extends to all things. Whence it is necessary that all things which have in any way existence are ordered by God to an end. And according to that of the apostle, now that's a figure of speech. And it's a for St. Paul, right? I guess if you read even the canonical epistles and so on, it's St. Paul and St. Peter who call themselves the apostles, right? The others don't, right? So by Antonia they are called the apostles, right? You know how John Paul II would call Peter and Paul the princes of the apostles, right? So not the only apostles, but the apostles by Antonia, right? And so on my wedding day there June 29th, right? We had the feast of Peter and Paul, right? We had a feast in Rome, you know, where these two guys are the foundation of the church of Rome there. Since therefore the divine providence is nothing other than the reason of the order of things to their end, it is necessary that all things insofar as they partake of existence or of being, so far they are subject to the what? Divine providence, right? So that's his basic argument. Now in the next paragraph he's going to give kind of another argument, right? Of the way of seeing it. Likewise, it has been shown above that God knows all things, not only in universals, but also the particulars. And his knowledge is compared to things as the knowledge of the artist to the artificial things, as has been said. is necessary that all things come under his order just as all artificial things are ordered under the, or subject to the order of the art. Thomas says, it's clear now, you follow me here in the body of the article, that the divine providence extends to everything even in particular, right? All the way down to the contingent things. So there must be an answer to these five objections, right? So let's see if he can answer them, huh? Marlis, you know, getting all these objections from Thomas because when I was just teaching college in St. Mary's College in California, he had one class a very good student, right? Almost every class he committed some objection, right? And, you know, he posed an objection like that, and he answered, no problem. He said, I've heard the objection before, and he answers, you know, and I can see him now. He's finding him now. He's relaxing. I see his whole body, you know, kind of relaxing. He saw it when he answered his objection, right? So one time when the course was over, I happened to be talking to him, and I said, I always came in thinking I was going to get you today, you know? He doesn't realize how common these objections are and how many times I've heard them and how many times I've read Thomas and replied to them, and not just in this text, but some other text, right? And so, I mean, it's not like, you know, it's out of the blue this objection, you know, that I've never heard it before, you know? To him, it's amazing. He's got an answer to every... You've heard by famous division of human thinkers following the great Hesiod poet. Hesiod divides us into three kinds, huh? And Aristotle follows that, in the Nicomachean Ethics, right? Thomas Aquinas follows it. Basil gives it one time, follows it, right? Even Machiavelli follows it, right? But there's three minds, huh? There's minds that can make by themselves great discoveries, huh? And there are very few and far between. And there's a second group of minds that can't make by themselves great discoveries, but they can learn them from the great minds, and then there's a third group which can neither discover the great things by themselves, nor learn them from the great minds. And those are useless whites, as the English translation said, of the Hesiod thing. And Thomas' commentary is moderates of those, useless as far as the acquisition of knowledge is concerned. Not useless, period. It might be good to cook or to wash the floor or something. So, kind of playfully, I decided to give a name to these three. And so I called those who can make the great discoveries by themselves the wits, in the older sense of wit, It is a soul wit, instance. And those who can't make the great discoveries, but can learn them from the great minds, I called them the dimwits. And then finally, those who can neither make the great discoveries themselves, nor learn them from those I classified as the nitwits. And so I classified myself as a dimwit. But, I remember, it doesn't think it's easier to probably talk and say that. Some of you don't like when I'm quoted out of context. But subsequently, I made a distinction among the dimwits, between the lower and the upper dimwits. dimwits, and the distinction is that the upper dimwits know who the wits are. They know that Thomas is one of the wits. The lower dimwits don't know who the wits are. So they don't get very far. So I classified myself as an upper dimwit. I need to be perfectly exact about myself. Could you then be upgraded to half-wit? Half-full or half-in-team? Okay. Now, the first objection was the one drawn from fortune or from chance, right? Incidentally, what is the fundamental text in chance and fortune? The first one you should learn. Yeah, yeah, the second book there, yeah. So, after he's taken up the four kinds of causes, then he takes up these obscure ones, and how they reduce to the four kinds of causes and picks them up. So, to the first, therefore, it should be said that it's otherwise for the universal cause and the particular cause. For something can go outside of the order of the particular cause. Things are always going outside of my control, but that's fine with you. Not, however, the order of the universal cause. For something is not subtracted from the order of the particular cause, except through some other particular cause impeding it, as the wood is impeded from being burnt up through the action of the water. So, the body gets in the way of the wood being burnt up. Whence, since all particular causes are contained in the universal cause, it is impossible that some effect escape the order of the universal cause. But, insofar, therefore, as some effect escapes the order of some particular cause, it is said to be, what, chance or fortuitous, with respect to a particular cause. And that's truly fortuitous respect to that cause. But, with respect to universal cause, from whose order it cannot be subtracted, it is said to be foreseen. And then Thomas is a common example here. As they're running together, or coming together, two servants, although it is by chance to encourage them, it is nevertheless foreseen by the Lord, who knowingly sends them to one place, so that one does not know about the, what? The other, yeah. So, my wife was teaching after we were married there, and there was another woman teaching there, single, a woman. And someone, you know, knew her, and he knew some guy who thought they'd be just right for each other. So, he arranged a party at which everybody was a married couple there, except for these two. So, it's fortuitous that they met, huh? And, you know, on a week, it's what he knew they were going to get married, and they did it, they used to get married, and put children, and so on, right? So, he was, what, by chance that they met? As far as they're concerned, right? They didn't go there for the sake of being as a person, huh? And years ago, there was an interesting thing in the Worcester paper there, huh? And I guess a guy ran into some woman's car. This is before he had all this no-fault insurance and so on. So, he's coming up in the court, huh? She's going to sue him, you know, for the damage to her car and so on. But it takes so long to go to the court, they had to be going down the court all the time, and they got to meet each other many times, and they got to like each other, you know? So, by the time the suit came up, they decided to get married, and he's dismissed, huh? Yeah, yeah. Now, I say to the kids, you know, if you want to, you can see a nice girl, you know, in a car, you should run into a car, is that the way to make friends and fool people? No, no. But in this case, it did, right? So, it's by chance as far as they're concerned, right? But God's foresight extends all the way down to these events that happen by chance. Because God's causality is so strong that what he foresees takes place, but it also takes place in the way that he foresaw, some by necessity and some by chance, some by contingency of some sort, huh? Now, the second objection was taken from the bad that we find in the preachers, huh? And, of course, in other contexts, this is sometimes considered the strongest objection against God's providence that there's evil in the world, huh? So, when Thomas is explaining the division of the books of the Bible and the sapiential books, right? Well, the book of Job, which is kind of the first book there, is ordered, in a way, to the defense of the theological virtue of faith by replying to the main objection against faith, which is the one drawn from the evil in the world, right? And, of course, you see this, like, you know, Jews who lost their faith after the Holocaust, right? Because it's a horrible thing, right? And every one time, they called me down to BC there, and they had one of these atheists down there who was arguing for the Holocaust, right? And, of course, it's kind of hard to argue with these people, but I said, it seems to me your position is, if I can't see why God allowed the Holocaust, then there can't be any reason for it. He didn't want to admit that, but that's what he was saying, right? Yeah. But the book of Job is, in that sense, ordered to the virtue of faith, right? Like the book of Psalms is ordered primarily to hope, prayer, and then the song of songs, and so on, and the one statement of the precepts is ordered to charity, right? Faith over charity, the sequential books. Okay, but this is a little simpler here. To the second, it should be said that it is otherwise in the one who has the care of something particular and about the universal provider, because the particular provider excludes defect from that which is subject to his, what? Care. So far as he's able to do so, right? But the universal forseer permits some defect to happen in something particular, lest the good of the whole be, what? Impedded. Whence the corruptions and defects in natural things are said to be against the particular nature, but nevertheless they are the intention of the universal nature, insofar as the defect or failure of one cedes to the good of the other, his way to the good of the other, or to the good of the whole, what? Universe, huh? For the corruption of one is the generation of another to which the species is, what? Conserved, huh? Since therefore God is the universal forseer of the whole being, to his providence it pertains that he permits or allows certain defects to be in some particular things, lest there be impeded the perfect good of the, what? Universe. For if all bad things were impeded, many goods would be lacking to the, what? Universe, huh? For there would not be the life of a lion, huh? If there was not the killing of, what? Animals, huh? No dinner for the lion, huh? Does this imply that they were eating meat in paradise? That's a state. But it's the same way. There'd be no cows without the, you know, killing of the grass, right? Nor would there be the patience of the martyrs if there was not the persecution of the tyrants, huh? Reminds a little bit of Heraclitus saying it's not good for men to get all that they want, right? Because hunger makes food pleasant and does all like that, huh? And even Augustine said, right, huh? You know, quoting St. Paul there, it's necessary that there be heresies, right? You see? And this was the, when the heretic denied this article of the faith and sometimes reasoned from misunderstandings of scripture or reasoned from bad philosophy and so on, the Church Fathers were forced, right, to consider that article of the faith and to answer to those objections, right? And therefore, they came to understand that article of the faith much better than they did before, and that's very important, right? The same way in philosophy, you know, huh? Sometimes somebody's mistake is, what? The refutation of that mistake is the way that the human mind goes forward very much, huh? I remember when I first heard Deconic lecturing on the first reading there, the premium there to me. Max, we'll hear you. Thank you. in explaining, you know, making asides to Descartes and his problem, right? Because Descartes thinks that the, what, distinct is more certain for us than the confused, huh? And when you realize Descartes' error, you understand much better of Stoutman's text, huh? When you refute Descartes' mistake, huh? Whence Augustine says in the Enchiridion, that's the Enchiridion on faith, hope, and what, charity, huh? And incidentally, that's a third way that they divide sacred doctrine. One way you divide sacred doctrine in the Summas, there's some differences between the two Summas, but there's some basic order in which you consider these things. And there's an order in Scripture, right? But then in the Enchiridion of Augustine, you follow faith, hope, and charity. In the same way in Thomas' Naples' sermons, huh? And in the incomplete work there, Compendium of Theology, right? But that's very appropriate to us, huh? That's coming down there with God's justice and mercy down to hope and fear, right, huh? Down to us. So Augustine was asked by an educated layman, you know, for a brief exposition of the faith, you know, and he chose this, what, order, right, huh? And Thomas follows him in the Naples' sermons, huh? And then when Reginald asked him to give him kind of a thing he'd carry around and consult frequently, he was following the same order, huh? He only got up to the beginning of the Our Father, right, huh? Same order. Once Augustine says in Enchiridion, that the omnipotent God in no way would allow there to be something bad in his works unless he was so omnipotent and good that he could make good even out of what? Evil. So Thomas is then talking about these Christian objections. From these two reasons, which now we saw, were seen to be moved those who subtracted divine providence from corruptible things. Because in them there are found things that are by luck or by chance, and there are found bad things, right? So he's answering in particular the difficulties of those who maybe don't deny providence entirely, but who deny providence over corruptible things, huh? Because of the evil or the chance character of these things, huh? Now the third objection was a little different. I was talking about necessity, right? The things that happen to necessity don't require, what, foresight. Because it seems that foresight, as Aristotle speaks about it at least in the sixth book of the Ethics, is about contingent things, huh? Things that can be or not be, right? I can have steak tonight or not have steak tonight, right? I can get up at six o'clock tomorrow or not get up at six o'clock tomorrow, right? Well, what should I do? No, it's Thursday. It's Thursday. We can have meal. You can eat or not eat, see? That's your choice. Okay. Now Thomas here is going to see a difference. God, huh? To the third it should be said that man is not the institutor of nature, right? But he uses in the works of art and of virtue, for his own use, natural things, right? Whence human foresight does not extend to necessary things which come about by nature, huh? But to these nevertheless extends the foresight of God, who is the author of nature, huh? Okay? Now notice his third objection, as he's going to see in a little footnote here, kind of, is eliminating the other part from divine providence, right? The objection is, right? The first two objections are eliminating corruptible things from divine providence, right? Because of the evil in them, and because of the chance, fortuitous events. This one here is taking away the incorruptible, unnecessary things, but it's based upon misunderstanding, the difference between God's providence and ours, yeah. Remember that beautiful difference you have between God's love and our love, right? My love of others is aroused by the goodness I find in them, or I think I find in them, you know? Why God's love is the cause of the goodness in that, right? You know? So God doesn't love me because I'm good, but if I'm good, it's because he loves me. And it's about time you realize that. As they say, you thank God for the good that is in you, and you ask forgiveness for the bad that's in you. You're responsible for the bad of you, not the good. It sounds unfair to a democratic mind. If I have to take responsibility for the bad in me, you know, can I take responsibility for the good in me, too? That's a big mistake, right? Some people don't think they're responsible for the bad either, right? They're really lost. But I know I'm responsible for the bad in me, right? I take full responsibility for all the bad things about me, huh? Of being overweight, or being much worse things than me. But I shouldn't take any credit for the good in me. So, and from this reason, he says, would seem to be moved those who subtracted the, what? Course of natural things from divine providence. Attributing them to the necessity of, what? Matter. As Demarchatists and other ancient natural philosophers, right? Demarchatists, among other things, said that where there's necessity, he says, don't look for a cause. Correct or not? Something must be, don't look for a cause for it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And one way they sometimes approach it, Aristotle does, is to point out the logic in a demonstration, right? In a demonstration, this took sense, that concludes it's necessary. But there's a cause that's necessity. So there's a necessary that has a cause. And so, that's another mistake of Demarchatists that's pointed out. But it might seem at first that if something's necessary, that's at the end, right? That's kind of marvelous that Aristotle saw that. What about when God is necessary? He's per se necessary, right? Right. Necessary to himself. But other things are necessary to another. So that's, you know, developed a lot, even more so in the first book of the Summa Kandijen, because that was done in the first book of the Summa Kandijen, but it's there too, right? If you go back to the argument from the tendency of necessity, right? If you just go back for a second here. Question 2, Article 3, right? The third way is taken from the possible and the necessary, right? Which is such. We find in things, there's a third argument, third argument, third way here in Article 3. For we find in things some things that are able to be and not be right, since some things are found to be generated and corrupted. And consequently, they're able to be and not be right. But it's impossible that all things are such, and so on, and so on. It's impossible, however, for all things to be such, to always be. Because what is possible to be, not be, at some time is not. If, therefore, all things were able not to be, at some time nothing would be in things. But if this is true, even now nothing would be. Because what is not could not begin to be except for something that already is. If, therefore, nothing was being, it would be impossible that something began to be. And this nothing would be now. Which is. false. Therefore not all beings are possible. It is necessary that there be something necessary in things. And then he makes a distinction. Everything necessary either has a cause of its necessity, right, elsewhere, or it does not. And then it's not possible to proceed forever in necessaries which have a cause and necessity, either any more than in efficient causes as has been shown before. Therefore it is necessary to lay down something that is per se, it is necessary, right? Not having a cause of its necessity elsewhere, but which is the cause of necessity to other things, which all call God, right? But that goes back to Aristotle. It's there in this room in Aristotle too, right? But Aristotle saw that some necessary things have a cause of necessity, right? And as I say, you know, the first example for that is in demonstration, right? Where the conclusion is necessary, but there's a cause, right? Thomas is a cause of conclusion being true, right? So it's nice the way Thomas has got this on. The first two objections are trying to take away divine providence from corruptible things, the third one from incorruptible things, right? And then eventually from everything, yeah? But the response to the second objection doesn't ever mean for Thomas to prove that the goods that are brought about by committing evil outweigh the goods that would have obtained had not evil existed. Well, you can't take it up in the sense of going down to everything in particular, right? You know, this comes out in the book of Job, I think. But you can't possibly see all the the reasons why God allows this or that evil, right? Okay? What do you mean? You can't say, I'm going to consider all the evils in the world and show that the world is better off with those evils than without them, you know? Our mind can't do that, right? But we can see that that must be the way things are, right? Okay? And the reasons why it must be this way, right? When Jehovah somebody wants to penetrate more, you know, he's put down, right? But by God, they're in the book of Job. But how does that satisfy, say, a Jew? Or, you know, a modern atheist who's arguing very extensively through the problem of evil? Yeah, yeah. As I said, I was saying to this atheist one time, the Boston Thoultist said, your argument is based upon this if-then statement, huh? If I can't see the reason for the Holocaust, right? These prime examples, right? Then there is no reason for it, right? Well, and it's since his vision was based upon that. And yet, once it was put that boldly to him, he didn't want to quite agree that that's what he was doing. But in a sense, he's doing that, right? He couldn't see why God would allow the Holocaust, therefore the camping music. Does that follow? When Heisenberg and Niels Bohr were trying to understand quantum theory, and I've never read the accounts of this. They said, we'd go have conversations all day, you know, and still couldn't understand it. And I'd go for a walk afterwards, and they'd say, can nature be as absurd as it seems to us in these experiments? And the experiments seem to be countering each other, right? Now, did Heisenberg say, or Boris say, well, if we can't understand quantum theory, then it can't be understood. Is that what they said? No. What happened was, they got on each other's nerves. And Niels Bohr said, okay, he said, I'm going to go off and go ski. And Heisenberg stayed in Copenhagen, and Niels Bohr went off to Norway, thinking it was to go skiing. And both, independently of the other guy, worked out a kind of solution to it. And when they came back, of course, they saw the compatibility of their solutions. But Heisenberg's account of his own thing there, right? He was thinking about it. And then he recalled his conversation with Einstein, right? He put two and two together, right? And he thought he had the solution. He got so excited, he came back to the lab, and he started to, what, calculate, and he was making all kinds of stupid mistakes. He was so thinking that finally he calmed down. He started, the memories came out just perfectly. That's it. But I mean, you could have given up and said, what? This could not be, what, understood, you know? Remember somebody saying years ago, you know, talking about the church, especially in the early days, where the mysteries of the faith were not understood very well, right? And there's something commendable in the fathers and so on, holding on to the articles of faith, even though they don't understand, understand them, right? You know? Or he didn't say, this could not be understood, because I don't understand. And you'd have a kind of attitude, right? In anything, right? I always tell you a little funny story when I was in high school, in a French class, right? This one kid was having a heck of a time learning French, huh? One day in class, he said, how did the French kids ever learn this? Well, we all broke, everybody broke out laughing, you know, huh? There's probably some little French boy there trying to learn English, right? Same thing, right? You see? But it seems like, you know, it can't be, what, learn French, right? At least to this guy, right? But it would be ridiculous to say, if I can't learn French, right, then nobody can learn French, right? Because many things in life, you know, it's, you kind of think that, I'll never do, you know, I'll never be able to dance, right, or something, or well, or something, you know, or I'll never be able to, to parachute, or something, you know. I never script the courage to parachute. Yeah, but no one can script it, you know, to be foul, does it? So, I mean, you can't argue to say, because if I don't understand why God allows us evil, right, therefore there can't be any reason why he does so, right? So a lot of times when bad things happen to people, you know, they sometimes, you know, had said to me, right, then, why did God let this happen to me, or to my family, or to my child, or, you know, but it is, right? But you can't say that, because I can't understand why he allows us, therefore you can't have a good reason. Because then you're trying to measure God by your, and that's something that that Job will find out that he can't do it. So, somebody wrote a book, I'll just say his name is Joe Smith, or something, Joe Smith wrote a book entitled, You Know, What I Think About God, and Chester came wrote a little response to it, and said, I think it'd be much more interesting to have to read a book called, What I Think of Joe Smith by God. Now, the fourth objection was taken from the fact that God has left man in the hand of his own, what, counsel, right? Now, to the fourth, it should be said that in this, that God is said to leave man to himself, man is not to be excluded from divine providence, but it is shown that there's not, what, fixed ahead of time, right? For him, a operating power that is determined to one, as is in the case of natural things. This is the distinction that Aristotle points out in the ninth book of wisdom, right? He says that the natural power is determined to one, right? And the rational power is open to, what, opposites, right? So you put the paper in the fire, and the fire, what, can't cool the paper as well as heat it, and only heat it and burn it, right? But you put a patient before the doctor, he can heal him, or make him, what, sick, right? He can deliver the baby or abort him, right? I'm saying you should do both, but his art enables him to do both, right? If you give me a steak, I can cook you a nice pink steak, or I can burn it for you, too, if you want me to. And my art, you know, I know how to do it, right? You know, you want a nice mug of tea, I'll make you a nice mug of tea. But I know when to remove the, what, tea from the leaves, the leaves in the tea. But I know how to oon a cup of tea, too. How long to leave the leaves in there to oon a cup of tea. You know why it's ooned? Not because it gets too strong, but I guess there are different chemicals released after, say, seven minutes, especially. So you get undesirable ones, not the same things. If it's just, you know, stronger, you can dilute it and it'll be okay, right? But it's actually different chemicals that are released in the first four or five minutes and then, you know, ten minutes, especially, seven, ten minutes, you start to get other chemicals released. So, I know how to make a good cup of tea and a bad cup of tea. I know how to make a nice steak and, you know.