Prima Pars
Lecture 97: Divine Providence: Knowledge, Execution, and Secondary Causes

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So art is an ability for opposites, right? Reason to be able to do that. So that's the difference Sarah Stahl points out in the Ninth Book of Wisdom after he talks about the difference between an active ability and a passive ability. And Shakespeare talks about that too, huh? Nature not being able to be more than one thing, he says, in the Cordellanus. So you need that point there to get going. Okay, so he says, going back here, to the fourth it should be said that in this God is said to have left man to himself. He does not exclude man from divine providence, but he shows that there is not, what, given to him a power that is determined to one, as in actual things, which are led only, as it were, directed by another to the end, but do not lead themselves in their actions. As a word, directing themselves to the end. As rational creatures through free, what, judgment, free will. Who take counsel and choose, right? Whence, significantly, it says, in the hand of his, what, counsel. But because the act of free choice is reduced in God as in a cause, it is necessary that those things that come about from free judgment be subject to the divine providence. For the providence of man is contained under the providence of God as a particular cause under the universal cause. But God has providence over just men in a more excellent way than over the impious, insofar as he does not permit something to happen against them, right? Something that is to say they would finally impede their salvation. For to those loving God, that's the just, right? All things cooperate in the good, as is said in Romans 8, 28. But from this, that he does not withdraw the impious from the evil of guilt, he is said to dismiss them, right? Not over, that he totally excludes them from his providence, otherwise they would fall into nothing. Unless they were conserved through his, what, foresight. So the conservation, I can assume, Ante Gentiles, in the third book that he takes up divine providence, then conservation is taken up there. Pardon, divine. It's opposed to divine creation. And from this reason was moved none other than Tullius, that means the great Cicero, who subtracted from divine providence human things about which we take counsel. So as we said before, God's causality extends not only to all things that are, right? But to the way they are, right? Whether it be by chance or by luck or by free choice or by necessity, right? It extends, it's that powerful that God's causality, not only will things come about that he wants to come about, but in the way he wants them to come about. Some by necessity, some by chance, some contingently, some freely, right? So this plan will be quite interesting to see what you get to, the heaven that you get there, huh? And the role that this or that event or this or that person played in your life, right, huh? That's really something to be seen, huh? I was saying, Therese of Esil, you know, said there's some obscure person that's been praying for me, and I won't find out until I get to the side. That's why I'm having the luck I'm having in life, right? So all these people being mistaken about divine providence are an occasion for Thomas to understand divine providence better, right? In answering all these people, he sees much more profoundly how great divine providence is. There's always the St. Cathaliciana, right? The thing on divine providence, you know? You can see how Dominican she is, right? What about there being no care now for the oxen, was it? To the fifth, it should be said, because the rational creature has, through free will, dominion over his act, in a special way he is subject to divine providence, right? That there be not imputed to him something, oh, excuse me, that there be applied to him something for, what, guilt or merit, right? And that there be written to him something as a punishment or as a reward. And in this respect, the apostle, meaning St. Paul, removes from God care about the things. Not, however, that the individuals of, what, rational creatures do not retain the divine providence as Rabbi Moses, what? So that's the one coming in there to get whacked, you know? If a just man strikes a reproof, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you look at the third part of the Summa Conjentiles, it's got three parts of it. The first part is to show fully that God is the end of the whole universe. Of everything we have our son. But especially of us, right? Then the second part of the second, which is about chapter 64 to 110, something like that, is about divine providence in general, right? And then the last chapters are about these providence over rational creatures in particular, right? And how because of the mobility of their end, and the ability of their nature, they require special, what, providence, right? And that is what's denied of what the cat and the dog or the ox or even tree. Okay? So we have time to go on to article for you? Yes, we'll make so. Okay? More water on here? That's all. Don't go off and get some of it. You weren't getting it. You want to stop it. Oh, boy. What else you got in there? That's a lot. It's funny. We had this text last time about the wine of wisdom, and then I saw this one thing about the aqua sapientiae, you know, the water. So, I don't know. Does it come down or not? You heard that famous thing someone said that Thomas was deluding the wine of theology, that the water philosophy, you heard that? And Thomas says, no, I'm changing water into wine. No. The third one proceeds thus, it seems that God does not immediately provide for all, right? Now Thomas here is going to give the same distinction he gives in the Summa Contra Gentilas, right? He's going to distinguish between God's four knowledge of things, right? And all the way down to the details of singular ones, right? He's not like us, you know, where, you know, I'm the head of this department, so I kind of give some general direction and leave you guys filling out the details that I can't foresee everything, right? I was mentioning about the German army there, you know, they were better than the other army's part because they expected the subordinate officers to make decisions given the conditions right here and now on the battlefield that the generals themselves, the higher generals, couldn't foresee, right? But God is not in that position that he's got to, you know, leave some things to us because he can't take into account him. But as far as carrying out the divine providence, he's going to use, not because he needs them, but to share his, what, causality, and to give an order that wouldn't be that way. To the third, thus one proceeds. It seems that God does not immediately provide for all things. For whatever is of dignity and worth ought to be attributed to God. But to the dignity of some king, it pertains that he has, what, ministers, huh? By means of which he provides for those under him. Therefore, much more God does not immediately provide for all, right? Moreover, to providence it pertains to order things to the end. But the end of each thing is its perfection and good. For to each cause it belongs to lead its effect to the good. But each agent cause is in a cause of effect of providence. If, therefore, God provided for all immediately, there would be subtracted all second, what, causes. We can see how this is leading up to, what, pointing out that you're overlooking a distinction, right? Okay. It's one thing for God's knowledge to extend all the way down here, right? It's another thing for him to use or not to use, right? Other causes to carry out these things that he foresees, huh? Moreover, Augustine says in the Inchiridion that it is better not to know some things than to know them as vile things. And the philosophy says the same thing in the Twelfth Book of Wisdom, huh? But everything that is better ought to be attributed to God. Therefore, God does not have immediately providence of vile things and evil things, huh? That's the matter of his mind, right? Some people misunderstand that text of Aristotle, but in physics, he's talking about God's knowledge, right? And he's talking about what God knows, what, chiefly, right? And like Thomas teaches himself, what God knows, chiefly, is himself, right? And it's only by knowing himself he knows other things, huh? But some people think that Aristotle didn't think that God knew all these bad things, right? He's always arguing against Empedocles, right? The Empedocles position, you know, about how knowledge takes place would mean that we know some things God doesn't know, and that's observant for Aristotle. So, Empedocles position would say that, what, God doesn't know bad things. And Aristotle said, what? That's an impossibility to which the position of Empedocles leads, right? And he does it in more than one place, you know. So, Thomas, being a wicta, understands what Aristotle is saying. He's talking about what God knows chiefly, right? But knowing himself, who is the cause of all things, he knows all the things. But against this is what is said in Job 34. Who constituted one over the earth, right? Or who placed him over the earth, who made him? About which Gregory says, he rules the universe of the world through himself, who constituted it through himself. Now, what does it mean to be mixed up? You're mixed up. It's a state of your mind if you're mixed up. You don't know the word. Hmm? Not out of word. Not me. Yeah, yeah. By knowing the truth when you're mixed up, are you mistaken? Yeah. If you're mixed up, you're either mistaken or close to being mistaken, right? Yeah. Okay? So, very often, those very words, mixed up, suggest that you're mixed up because you don't see a distinction. And I know a lot of times it's very hard to understand a distinction. And there's something very amusing that I noticed as a college professor. You're trying to explain a difficult distinction. And invariably, students will say, this is very confusing. And I say, this is a little bit like this, and against the Holy Spirit. Because the only way out of your confusion is to see the distinction. So, if the distinction itself is confusing, you've really got problems. Well, Thomas is going to solve this by a distinction, which these objections do not take into account, right? And they're mixed up or mistaken in the objections because they don't see a, what, a distinction. I answer, it should be said, that two things pertain to providence. One is the reason or knowledge of the order of the things foreseen towards their end, right? And secondly, the execution, the carrying out of this order, which is sometimes called gubernazio, governing, right? Now, having seen that distinction, as regards the first of these, God immediately provides for all things. His plan goes all the way down to the hair I lost this morning, combing my hair, right? All the way down to the singular, individual things. Because in his understanding, there is the reason and knowledge of all things, even the least of these, many more. And whatever causes he sets before some effects, he gives to them the power of producing those effects. Whence is necessary that he have beforehand the order of those effects in his reason, huh? But as regards the second thing, there are some media, something in the middle, right? Because he governs the lower through the higher. Not because of the defect of his power, but an account of the abundance of his goodness, that he might communicate the dignity of causality to what? Creatures. So the end of God's providence is that creatures become like him, right? And part of this becoming like him is to become like him even as being a cause. So he's giving a full participation of his goodness by having these secondary causes. Now, in the more complete Subkanah Gentiles, Thomas will point out also that this enables him to have an order among causes, and not just an order among effects. And since a cause is better than the effect, the order among causes is better than the order among effects. And so there's a higher and greater order in the natural world than he would otherwise. And according to this is excluded the opinion of Plato, right? Which Gregory Nissen narrates, right? Laying down a three-fold providence, right? This is opinion of Plato. Which the first is of the highest God, right? Who first and chiefly provides for spiritual things, and consequently to the whole world as regards the genera, species, and universal causes. The second providence is by which is provided for the individuals of a generable and corruptible kind. And this attributes to the gods who run around the heavens, right? That is to the separated substances which move the celestial bodies in a circular way. The third providence is of human things, which he attributes to the, what? Demons, huh? Doesn't have necessarily the bad sense it has for us. Which Plato lays down as being middle between us and the gods, as Augustine narrates in the Ninth Book of the City of God. You know, Socrates speaks of his daimon, right? And in the, this is a common thing about Socrates. And in the Phaedo, you know, he's consulting his friends, right? Because the daimon would warn him that he was in some danger or something bad, right? They got no warning from the daimon when he went into court. And yet he was, what? This is an apology, I should say. And yet he was going to be sentenced to death, right? So maybe death is not the evil we think it is, huh? He didn't get the warning from the daimon. I remember seeing a speech by Paul VI, right? Where he refers to Socrates, right? The daimon, right? And it doesn't go into a lot, but he speaks out respectfully of it, right? But it's something a little bit like our idea of the guardian angel, right? And it's interesting that the Greek word, you know, if you look at the Nicomarckian Ethics, in English they'll say happiness, right? In Latin they'll say philicitas, and in Greek they'll say eudaimonia. You get a good demon, huh? And philicitas, I mean, happiness comes from hap or luck, as if happiness is a result of luck, good luck. You're fortunate in life. We say that sometimes, right? While Felicitas has got the idea of being fruitful, but Eudaimonia maybe depends upon a higher cause, right? What's interesting, Aristotle uses that word, right? He used the word eutuchia in the book on the poetic art. There you emphasize good luck, right? It, of course, is unlucky. But in the book on happiness, the Nicomachean Ethics and Virtues, Eudaimonia uses that word. Now, sometimes he understood the word diamond was referring to the soul, right? Good soul. That's very interesting, huh? Because that's what ethics is about, having a good soul. You need to be a medical doctor and a good body, I guess, or somebody else, right? Like a stock market and killing, you give that to somebody else. If you're concerned about having a good soul, then you need the Nicomachean Ethics. Okay, now, the first objection was talking about the dignity of God. He's got to have the ministers, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that to have ministers carrying out one's providence pertains to the dignity, right, of the king. But that he does not have the reason of those things which are going to be done by them, right, is from the defect of him, is from his knowledge, right? For every operative science is to that extent more perfect, as it more considers, what, particular things in which there is act, right? So, Rastal says in the Ukrainian wisdom that the man of experience may succeed better than the man of art or science in healing somebody, right? Because you don't heal man, you heal this man with his peculiar things, huh? I always tell the story when I was a freshman in college, I was taking that kind of general psychology course, and the professor used to work at the mental home, right? And he would come in and talk kind of honestly about this work, and he says that there's not enough psychologists to get to know the patients well. So what happens is when somebody comes in, he's classified a certain type. He's sitting around there, he's classified a certain type, and then he gets the stereotype treatment for that type. And he says it often makes them worse, see? So you've got to, in a sense, know the individual and what would work with him, and then this is more perfect to your knowledge, huh? So as they say, you might know more how to get your little boy or girl or your friend out of a depression than the psychologist would, huh? Because you know what kind of turns them on or what gets them excited or something, you know? And so this is the point he's making, huh? So to not have any reason of those things that are going to be done by them is from its defect. For every operative science is more perfect, the more it considers particulars in which there is act. Aristotle talks about this in politics. He's going to be talking about human virtue, about the virtue of a woman, the virtue of a man, he says. I'm going to just talk about both, maybe, but he better talk about the particular than the general. I'm going to talk about one of them. And the second objection was saying that, yeah, it's eliminated, yeah. The second should be said that through the fact that God has immediately providence about all things does not exclude second causes, which are ones that carry out his order. So again, that is confusing in saying that the, not seeing the distinction between the two, right? And thinking that the one is the same as the other and therefore one eliminates the other, right? That if God immediately foresees everything in particular, that he must immediately, not through any secondary causes, carry out what he foresees. That is so. Now the third argument is, what about God getting down here and ripping his nose at the... To the third, it should be said that for us it is better not to know bad things and vile things, insofar as through them we are impeded from the consideration of better things because we are not able to, at the same time, understand many things, right? And secondly, insofar as the knowledge of bad things sometimes perverts the will to the bad, but neither of these has place in God, who at once knows all things by one insight and whose will cannot be bent to the bad, right? Okay? So, you know, Aristotle points out there in the beginning of the Dianima that all knowledge as such is good, right? Now sometimes I'd say to students, which is better, knowledge or love? And a lot of them, especially girls, would say love is better than knowledge, right? Okay? But, there's an interesting difference between knowledge and love, that all knowledge as such is good. So not only the knowledge of the good is good, right? But even the knowledge of the bad is good as such, right? It's a perfection of the mind to know what sickness is as well as to know what health is, right? But, not all love is good, right? The love of the good is good, but the love of the bad is bad, right? So, isn't knowledge better than that? For one time, somebody in the question period, you know, bringing up sex education, right? And, you know, it's hard for them to see sometimes a distinction, right? The reason why sex education is bad is because of the second thing he says here, right? It makes them get thinking about things they shouldn't be thinking about this time, and therefore makes them want to experiment and go on things they shouldn't do. So, it's not the knowledge of such that it's bad, but it's because their will is, as he says, converted sometimes to the evil by the sum. Okay? So, to say you're opposed to sex education, at least what they call sex education now, is in no way contrary to saying that all knowledge is such as good. someone wants to shoot his wife and he doesn't know where his gun is, would you tell him where his gun is? He's not because his knowledge is good. Yeah, all knowledge is such as good, right? Therefore, I should tell him where his gun is and then I'm going to shoot his wife. That's ridiculous, right? You see? But, still, the knowledge is such as good, right? like St. Alphonsus and the 6th and 9th virtue of Mary. If they had translated everything else into English, they would leave that in Latin because it would prevent the force of it. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious what the priam is. It's too tough, it's not worth it. It's a funny thing, you know, when I was at the College of St. Thomas there in St. Paul, Minnesota, not they call themselves the University of England at the University of Colorado College, and we had gotten some works of Albert the Great right? And there was the De Predicability books, right? They've done Porphy's work and the De Predicamentes on the categories of Aristotle. And then I guess Gilbert, you know, wrote something on the last six categories that Aristotle didn't talk about too much. So the last six beginnings, right? Well, Chris, in the Latin it says De Sex Pichipis. So, I'm rocking around with a book called De Sex Pichipis and this is still when people, you know, are familiar with the idea that things about sex were kept in Latin so the young would not be exposed to this stuff before they're mature, you know, and what's Perkins got to these things? It was just a joke where else, you know, but they found out there would be where, when, now. It shows you the importance of Zimbabwe's knowledge, the way the minds work, yeah. Okay, so we'll start with Article 4 next time, huh? Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, the guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. The right moment. Help us to understand all that you've written. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. So in the Lectura, in the 11th chapter of John, where our Lord says that he's asleep, right? Lazarus, huh? This is the occasion for Thomas to distinguish a number of ways that sleep can be taken. So he says, it should be known that sleep is taken in many ways. And he distinguishes about six different ways. Sometimes for the sleep of nature. He quotes the Book of Kings there. Samuel slept until morning, right? He went to sleep. Sometimes for the sleep of death. And that's a quote from the Thessalonians. We do not want you to be ignorant about those sleeping, and that you do not be sad as the others who have no hope. Of course, there they explain the use of the word sleep for death because of our belief in the resurrection, right? And it's as easy for God to raise us from the dead as it is for us to wake somebody up who's asleep. So it's kind of a Christian way of speaking that someone has fallen asleep in the Lord. Now, the third one he says, I don't think it's necessary to be taken in the negative sense here because he quotes the one in Psalm 120, that God never sleeps, the one who guards his room. So it's kind of at least the inactivity of the soul, right? That's a kind of sleep. Sometimes for the sleep of guilt. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 14. Rise up who sleep and rise up from the dead. It's a sleep. Then the fifth sense. Sometimes for the rest of contemplation. He quotes the Canical Song of Songs, chapter 5. I slept and my heart was vigilant. That's kind of sleep, huh? So when they say you're not doing anything, they say, well, I've got to play it. And then sometimes for the rest of future glory. Psalm 4, verse 9. In peace I sleep in him and I rest. So now if you go back, it seems to me, you could take this text and go back to that favorite psalm, that was at 126, where it says, Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain and build it. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does it guard keep vigil. It is vain for you to rise early, to put up your rest. You need heart and bread. For he gives to his beloved in sleep. Just that one sentence. For he gives to his beloved in sleep. Could take on perhaps all these six meanings, huh? If he takes sleep in the ordinary sense, well, Joseph was sleeping and he, what? When he told him, you know, get him out of the country, right? Okay, so he may speak to the prophets in the dream, huh? Okay, that's that. In death, huh? He gives his beloved in sleep. In death, he gives you the vision of the bitted vision after your death, right? So you don't get it in this life, but you get it in the next, huh? Then the sleep in the sense of inactivity. Well, I think there is the important truth that God is always before us, huh? Whatever we do, huh? Whatever we do is good, huh? So he gives to us in our sleep before we act, right? Moving us to act well, huh? Then obviously for the sleep of guilt, God has to come first, huh? And to, because he loves us nevertheless, he might give us out of our guilt, huh? Then he gives you, and what? When you contemplate on him. That's the time he gives you to you. And then, of course, the last one, of course, that says back to death one, right? The rest of future glory, huh? He gives to his beloved in most at that time, huh? That's a beautiful text there, huh? But you find no text like that that would, you know, illuminate another text like that. Psalm I'm kind of familiar with. The Psalm 126. What's that again? That's on John? Yeah, it's Alexio 3 on the 11th chapter. That's the one where Lazarus has fallen asleep. And they think, well, he's going to be better than, you know, he's resting, you know. And then he tells them plainly, you know, that then Jesus says to them, manifestly, Lazarus is dead. He gives us understanding what sense of sleep. So that's the occasion for Thomas to distinguish those six different senses of sleep. That's kind of a beautiful text, huh? I was looking at the 12th chapter of John now, I am on it right now, but in the 12th chapter of John, Cordus bonds in a way to the 21st and the 22nd and the 23rd chapters of Matthew. When Thomas is commenting on Matthew, he says in the 21st and the 22nd and the 23rd chapters, Matthew is giving us the reasons why they wanted to put Christ to death. And in the 21st chapter, they were envious of his glory. That's the chapter where he comes into Jerusalem and hell was on and so on. And then in the 22nd chapter, they're bothered by his wisdom. That's the one where he says, whose son is David? Or is Christ rather than they say, David, but how can David call him Lord and so on? So he shows their ignorance, right? So he overcomes them by his wisdom. And then in the 23rd chapter, it's his justice where he's reprimanding them for being white and supplicers and so on, being very tough, you know? So in a sense, what you have is three reasons why they wanted to put Christ to death, right? The envy of his glory, and then I suppose they're angry with his showing them that they don't know what they claim to know, and then angry at his correcting them for their bad morals and so on, a bad way of behaving. Well, now in the 12th chapter of John, Thomas has that same matter, but he just gives two things now. John gives two things. And the first, of course, is their envy of his glory, the same thing that you have in the first thing in Matthew. But then rather than the second or third thing in Matthew, the rest of the chapter there later on is about their having no belief in Christ, despite all the miracles that he had worked and so on and done. So one of the things in Matthew is found again in John, but two of the things in Matthew are not made explicit there. But then you have this other one, which is the lack of belief. So all together between the two Gospels, you have four things singled out. Now, in a way, you could say all three of those things in Matthew come from pride. Because pride is a source of envy. The reason why the devil envies us is we saw this pride first and we pulled in from God. Then he envies us as still being able to be capable of happiness. But in a sense, you're being angry to be shown not to know what you claim to know comes from pride, right? As Socrates says, what difference does it make whether I'm refuted or you're refuted? In the case, it's true. But you have to have the humility of the slave boy in the middle, right? And usually people like Proteggius who has a reputation get angry at Socrates because he's leading them into contradictions. But it's because of their own false claims. And likewise, I suppose, no one likes to have his faults pointed out to him. But this doesn't, in a sense, come from pride, right? That you don't want to be corrected or you don't like to be these things pointed out. And in a way, this failure to believe comes from a kind of what? Pride, right? There's one of the little side here. I was reading a biography. I can't keep you in this book, by the way. This is a library of book. A biography of the Tuckful, right? The reason when it came out, I just happened to see it, because I liked the Tuckful a lot. But the Tuckful, as you know, was kind of, for a lot of his life, was kind of agnostic. You might say something like that. And he's quoting a letter from one of the Tuckful's friends to him, from Kergulai. Of course, Kergulai has doubt about anything, more or less. Unlike you, he says, I don't feel it impossible to live with doubt. I don't know if this is because of my own nature or the consequence of my reasoning on the subject. I don't know if this is because I don't know if this is because But what does seem clear to me is that no man can have complete certainty on any subject. Does that include the tegumon theorem? Does that include the whole is more than a part? It's just his statement. Yeah. And I don't see how that point can seem dubious to you or to any other man who knows how to think. All our faculties are limited. Well, I agree with that. All our very imperfect instruments, I agree with that. How then could they arrive at some results, right? So he's kind of generalizing this. And probably most of what we say and think are we not sure about, right? Yeah. But you can't go and say it. No certain to know. I believe that life should be passed in discerning and classifying the different degrees of probability in our various branches of knowledge. And that our actions should be the same as they would be if the most probable contentions had been entirely proved. Now, he goes on to write a panegyric on a full cycle of doubt. I believe, mon cher ami, that it is necessary to live with our lack of certainty. You know, and they're always accusing us of not to go to live with uncertainty, right? As if with guests who simply won't leave. And we must be patient with the drawbacks. We will never get back to blind belief. It's interesting to use that phrase, blind belief. Because if you remember from Vatican I there, talking about the ascent of faith, it's not a checkus sensus, right? It's not a blind ascent, right? But in a sense, he's saying you've got to live with this kind of complete doubt. Or, go back to an impossible thing, which only is Buddha, unthinking man can do, to blind belief, right? But it's very doubtful that we have lost by the change, yeah. So, de Tocqueville married a woman who was not a, what, Catholic, right? Protestant. But she eventually became a Catholic, right? And so, de Tocqueville, you know, he died fairly young. He was in his middle 50s, about, huh? He was born in 1805 and died in 59. He'd had bad health, but he died from tuberculosis, which I suppose is a fairly common thing, you know? Of course, there's a lot of questions. I remember when I was first at Assumption there, one of my colleagues here in history showed me this, an account of Shakespeare, of Tocqueville's last days, you know? He'd written in a Catholic historical journal or something, back in 64. No, it's in this guy's appendix here. But anyway, he gives a little account of it here. And of course, this question of, she wanted him to reconcile, right, to the church at the end there. Marie is that same, to Tocqueville's wife. Marie had for some time been trying to induce Tocqueville to make his confession. At first, he refused on the grounds that there were too many dogmas in the Catholic church in which he did not believe. But before Beaumont, that's his agnostic friend, you know, another friend that kind of made Tocqueville didn't go back to church, you know? But before Beaumont left Cannes, that's where he was at the end there, he had consented and made his confession to Abbe Gabriel, right? Which the curé deemed quite sufficient. He looked forward to receiving communion at Easter. But it was exceptionally late that year, and Gabriel doubted he would last that long. At this point, Edouard, according to himself, his brother, took a hand, suggesting to the curé that in view of his brother's increasingly rapid decline, the time would come for a final push. Perhaps this was why Marie asked if Mass might be celebrated at the villa, as she was too unwell to get to the church. The curé turned to Alexis, and you, Monsieur LeCoultre, when will it be your turn? He said he was not yet ready and asked to be confessed again. He has a little bit of a chance in his background. By the next day, 6th of April, as the ceremony went forward in his presence and Marie communicated, he accepted Gabriel at the priest's assurance that he was ready and received communion lying on his chair's lawn. Edouard, and then some sisters taking care of him, Sarah Valerie and Sarah Hertford were also present. And according to the nuns, Alexis insisted to them he was acting of his own accord with full conviction, not just to, you know, please his wife. It has been difficult for many scholars and controversialists to accept this turn of event, given Tocqueville's lifelong skepticism and the mild anti-clericalism of his later years. Nevertheless, the story which they tell is clear and certain. One point in which Beaumont, Gabriel, and the nuns all agree should perhaps be emphasized. The Tocqueville did not and was not required to give his express consent to any of the church doctrines that he rejected for so long. It was enough that he now accepted the church's authority and discipline. He repented, he confessed, he received absolution and communion. Interesting, huh? That's kind of a common opinion of what Tocqueville has in the modern world, right? That you're a thinking man, you doubt everything. And the only alternative to that is, is it blind dissent, huh? Father Belay, you know, when he talked about it, he, of course, we're showing that dissent is not blind, you know? There are various reasons why it's not, but that's another lecture in itself, you know? But it also comes up in the Gospel of St. John, in that 12th chapter, that they were envious of his glory and they were, couldn't believe him, right? And that's practically comes from pride, too. Okay, we're up to question 20. Thank you.