Prima Pars
Lecture 103: Immanent and Transitive Operations; The Nature of Power

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

But now if a man is making different kinds of things, he might be, what, improving his art, but that's still accidental. Making as such is a perfecting of the thing made. In the same way for teaching, right? And, you know, unless you're teaching something very rudimentary, right, the teacher seems to always be learning something as he teaches. And some of those teachers will say, yeah, I understood the subject better every time I teach it. But, again, that's still accidental to teaching, right? Because in a sense, one is a teacher as such through one's knowledge, right? What you know. You're trying to communicate what you know. So if you're learning what you're trying to teach, I think I'm staying ahead of the students as they say when they first start out. It's kind of a common joke, right? Yeah. You see? But to the extent you don't know what you're teaching, in other words. You're not teaching, right? Okay? So it doesn't belong to the teacher as such to be ignorant of what he's teaching. No, it belongs to the teacher as such that nobody's teaching, and therefore the teacher as such is not learning anything in teaching. But the student is learning something, huh? So teaching belongs to practical order in that sense, huh? Now, I mentioned before how Karl Marx tries to see man's perfection to be found in this activity of acting upon things outside of you. And he gives that some plausibility because the man who doesn't just do the same thing over and over again, like in the production line or something, you know, turns a screw and he's trying to go by. But he is improving himself, right? And so, you know, or like, you know, John Dewey said we learn by doing, right? Well, Marx said something like that. We learn by making, right? But he's still, it's all accidental, right? So the perfection of this transit activity is not a perfection of the one that's making or doing it, but of the thing made or done. But the other kind of activity, the one that remains in the doer, is a perfecting of the, what, doer himself. So my hearing the music of Mozart is not a perfection of the music of Mozart at all. But it's a perfecting of my ear, right? And my understanding, beautiful theorem that I came across the other day that you put on, you know, is very simple. I'm not going to go through the whole proof here, but I was talking in the sixth book here. If you have two lines and you want to find the line that's the mean proportional between those two, what does that mean? It means a line such as the longer line is to it as it is to the shorter. How do you find that line? Do you have any idea? Or for that matter, is there always a mean proportional between two lines? Haven't I do a double indicator? Well, let's call this line A, we'll call this line C, right? Yeah. And A is a longer line C, the shorter line. Is there always a third line you can find such that A would be to B, as B is to C. That would be called the mean in the middle, proportional, right? Just like the numbers that we have. Let's say nine is to six is what? Six is to what? Four, right? I don't know. That is six is to four. That's great. You couldn't always find between two numbers that mean proportional, could you? Between, let's say, nine and seven, is that mean proportional? Is there some number that nine is to, in the same way that it is to seven? No. But how about in straight lines, is that possible? And more generally, how do you find a mean proportional, right, between those two lines? Well, very simple. You just take the two lines, the A here, and C and make what? One line of them, right? Then take it here and construct the semicircle, right? And this line right there would be proportional. That was it? Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah. What is that now? I mean, this line here would be the mean proportional between these two lines, huh? I can go back to the earlier theorem, where... Oh, yeah. The right angle. The right angle triangle is, what? The sides are proportional, you know? You've got to go back to that theorem, and you go back to another theorem where equiangular triangles are proportional to sides, right? But it's a beautiful thing, you know? Absolutely. You know, this... Oh, man. Cut it. That's a reflection of my understanding, right? Yeah. Yeah. And by seeing Titian's painting of the Assumption, right? That's perfection of my eye, right? My seeing that beautiful painting, you know, it's a perfect painting, right? It's a perfection of my eye, right? But seeing God as he is, face to face, right? Loving God, that's a perfection of the knower and the lover, right? And it doesn't change God at all. It doesn't affect him at all. Because you know and love him, right? But your knowing God as he is, and your loving God is a perfection of you, the knower and lover, right? God gets absolutely nothing out of my loving him. No, but he's really pleased, but he enjoys it. Yeah, I don't know. But it doesn't add anything to his joy. It's like you said before about adding a point to a line. That's the way with us and God. We're not adding a very small line to a large line. We're not adding a point to a line. It's no longer than what? I'm sorry, can you just explain how that related then to what you're saying? Is it because... Oh, no, I'm just saying, I was saying the activity that remains in the doer, right? Yes. Like sensing, right? Okay. Understanding, loving, right? That is a perfection of the doer, right? Yes. By the activity that goes out to exterior effect, a kind of making, right? That activity, that's a perfection of the thing made, not of the, what? Maker, right? Yes. Now, some people, just like Karl Marx and other people, John Doohy and so on, they see making as a perfecting of the maker, right? And it's as great as perfection for Marx, right? But in a sense, they're making the mistake of the accidental. It's accidental that the maker is perfected by his making. God in no way was perfected by his creating the world. And so our beatitude is going to consist in the activity, and that kind of activity remains in the doer, right? But it's going to be the most perfect of those activities that remain in the doer, right? The most perfect object we can have and so on. And that's why our Lord says to Martha and Mary, right, you know, Mary has chosen the better part and will not be taken away from her. She's chosen the contemplative part, right, rather than the practical part, and will not be taken away from her because practical will cease with this life, right? And that the contemplative part will continue to be perfected in the next life, right? Okay? Now, so he's making a distinction in God between these two things, right? But we'll find out they're not as distinct in God as they are or not, right? For first, he says, he calls a distinction. And because the operation, there is a certain operation which remains in the doer, right? A certain one which goes forward to an outside effect, right? First, we will consider the knowledge and the will, for to understand is in the one understanding, and to will is in the one willing, right? And afterwards, we'll consider about the power of God, which we're about to come to, right? Which is considered as the beginning of the operation of God, proceeding to some exterior, what, effect, right? Now, again, comparing this to the other summa, right? In the first book of the Summa Gargentiles, he considers the understanding and willing of God. But in the second book, he considers God as the beginning of all things, right? He takes up the power of God, right? But here in the Summa, they're taken up together, right? One after the other, right? Okay, then he goes on to, we won't read the rest of the premium, but the things he attached to the consideration of the divine understanding, right? Name it to be alive, right? And truth and falsity, which is tied up with that and so on. Okay? So this is kind of a major, what, division, right? Now, again, to relieve the weary here, we should have a little... Yeah, okay, okay. Then I was going to give you a little bit of symbolic theology, but I'll give you symbolic theology when you come back, okay? Get to his blood in his seat. You want symbolic theology now? Yes. Okay, okay. Now, I think it's marvelous when you talk about the metaphor, which is the main kind of symbolic theology. It's very interesting to take the two metaphors of water and fire, right? You say God is water and God is fire. And both things are said in what? Scripture, right? In many places, huh? The reason why I take these two metaphors is because of the contrariety of water and fire. Water is what? Wet and cold, huh? And fire is hot and dry, right? If both of these are said of God, they can't be said of God properly, right? Because that would be a contradiction. He'd be both cold and hot, and therefore hot and not hot. Cold and not cold. Dry and wet. Dry and not dry. Wet and not wet. So when you consider those two metaphors together, then you see clearly that it's being said metaphorically. Now, metaphor is based upon what? Lightness, right? And so, in what way is God like water? Remember, one of my students there got interested in this metaphor of water, right? So we're looking at these psalms, you know? And it seems that there's just three psalms of thirst for God in the psalms. There's a high and longs, the high and waters, you know? Oh, God, you are my God, whom I seek from you my flesh, binds and my soul thirsts, that there are parts. Life is without water. And there's one in each of the three parts of the book of the psalms, huh? So, why is God metaphorically said to be water? Well, one reason is in terms of what? Of life, right? Of life giving, right? So, that's very clear in that psalm 62. Oh, God, you are my God, whom I seek from you my flesh, and my soul thirsts, that there are parts. Life is without water. And of course, you know, the first philosopher, David, right? He said that water is the beginning of all things. And so, I consider that statement philosophically first, but then I usually have a theological footnote. I say, well, is water the beginning of all things? Well, not properly speaking, no. But the beginning of all things, which is God, right? Is called water metaphorically, right? And Sarah Stavich says, what influenced Thales to guess that water's beginning of all things was its importance for life. And the sea tap and moisten before they germinate, and so on. So, one reason why God is said to be watered is because water is what? Life gives, right? Okay? Now, another reason why God might be said to be watered is because He washes us, right? Washes our sins, right? So, sins. Maybe another reason why God is called watered would be, going back to that 60-second psalm there, because He satisfies the thirst of the soul. He satisfies the desire. Now, it's made as for thyself. Okay? So, He satisfies the thirst, not so much of the body, but the soul that satisfies the body, too. In this case, it's very satisfying. There's something infinite about the thirst of the soul. And what Thomas will argue, you know, one of the reasons for saying that God is infinite, right, is that the thirst of our soul could not be satisfied except by something infinite. And therefore, that our soul would be invaded, right, and the natural desire would be invaded. I think I mentioned Heisenberg's student, you know what I said about this? In the physicist's conception of fiction, right, he pointed out that it was at the time of the Renaissance when they gave up the study of theology, that they gave up also the idea that the universe was finite. And therefore, that the universe was, well, I guess that it was going to be infinite, right? And so it became kind of a substitute for God. And then he gives the example of when he was giving a lecture one time on modern physics. And of course, what characterized in the physics of the 20th century is discovered all these limits. And finally, it turned out that even the universe appeared to be limited according to Einstein. and in size and maybe even in time. He talked about how he gave a lecture this one time, and the physicist got very angry about it. So he went to see him afterwards privately to see what his complaint was. And he said, do you have any objections, any arguments against what you're saying? No, I don't have any. I just can't stand the idea that this universe didn't find that. So you get to wonder about this, right? You know, that somehow a universe that was limited could not satisfy the scientific mind, right? And then he went back and he realized that, of course, you know, the very early philosophers thought of the universe and being infinite, right? Then Aristotle, in his influence, he had to get the universe to find it. And that was kind of a standard thing with them. Some, not any much reason, huh? They went back to the idea that the universe was infinite, but at the same time they grew up to study the theology, which is already to knowing something infinite, huh? Okay? But there are probably many other reasons here, but just be reasoned by God might be said metaphorically to be water, right? He's the source of light. He washes us in our sins. He alone satisfies the thirst of the soul, right? Now, why is God metaphorically called, what, fire, right? Well, you could actually apply fire to God, maybe even more so than water, but you could apply it to the substance of God, to the operation of God and to the, what, distinction of the three persons, huh? You might see this done in the Church of the Psalms and so on. Well, if you go back even to the early Greeks there, when they had the four elements, Earth, air, fire, and life. And Pentecostal said there were four elements, huh? Earth, air, fire, and life. As Aristotle points out in the first book of Wisdom, he kind of contrasted fire with the other three, right? Fire was the active thing, right? And the others were more the passive, being active on it. And you find that in Parmenides we, you know, descend to talk about the sensible world, okay? Well, God is, what, pure act, that dominated the whole consideration, the divine substance, and he's pure act. So fire, because of its active nature, right, is a metaphor for the divine substance, which is pure act. Now the operation of God, you have understanding, the willing, and then you've got the power, right? Well fire, by its light represents the divine understanding, by its warmth, the divine love, and by its ability to transform things, to move things, the divine what? The power, right? So those three things come up. Now when they apply it to the Trinity, they say, well, from fire, the fire that precedes what? Light, and then warmth, right? And so from God the Father precedes the light, and then the fire which is the what? Holy Spirit, right? Sometimes they point out too, when they compare this to faith, and charity, right? That the sun enlightens the world before it warms it. And so God enlightens our mind with faith before he warms our heart with charity, right? That kind of fits the Trinity too, because the Holy Spirit receives knowledge from the Father, but from the Father through the Son. So it's a beautiful metaphor, right? But here it corresponds to the three parts here, the divine understanding first, and then the divine will and power. Beautiful. This comes up too, you know, the two trials when they talk about the burning bush, right? The fire represents, the burning bush represents what? The word made flesh, right? But the fire represents the divine nature of Christ, and the bush is human nature, like I am the vine and so on, right? But the fact that the fire does not consume the bush, which arouses the wonder, right? That's the wonderful thing about the incarnation, that the human nature is intact and not swallowed up in the divine nature, and the two natures coexist, it seems impossible for them to coexist, like Aristotle says, you know, in the theory of the four elements, if fire was infinite, right, it would destroy dead elements, right? So I think the divine nature would swallow up the human nature and like a drop of water in the fire or something, you know, and no, and the burning bush represents that, right? And that wonder that Moses has, right, is a wonder about the, so let's take a little break here and then we'll go into the divine power, powerful talk, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. After the consideration of the divine knowledge and the divine will, and those things which pertain to them, like truth and falsity and life and so on, it remains to be considered about the divine power. And about this six things are asked. First of all, whether in God there is power. Secondly, whether his power is infinite. Third, whether it be omnipotent. Omni means all, right? He's all powerful. Whether he can make those things which are past to not what? Not again. Whether five, whether God is able to what? Make those things which he does make. Or to what? Make past the way of him. Yeah, those things that he has done. And six, whether those things he's made, he could have made what? Better, huh? Okay? Very interesting questions, huh? Now, let's talk a little bit about the word potencia there a bit, huh? First of all, awesome. So in Greek you have the word, and in Latin you have a potencia. Now in English, how do you translate these words? Well, sometimes you translate it by the word, what? Power, right? Sometimes we translate it by the word ability, huh? Now, in the ninth book of wisdom, when Aristotle takes up ability, or potency, or dunamis, in Greek it would be dunamis, and act, then, he begins by distinguishing two meanings of the word dunamis, then. And sometimes in English, I'll translate them as the ability to act upon something, right? And then the ability to undergo, or to be acted upon. But Aristotle will point out that the first meaning of dunamis is the ability to act upon another, the ability to act upon another, right? This would be the first meaning of dunamis, then. And then the second meaning of dunamis is the ability to be acted upon another, this ability to undergo. This is the second meaning, refers back to the first, right? So, in a sense, my ability to kick you is answered by the ability to be kicked by you, right, huh? But your ability to be kicked is by you, in a way, it goes back to my ability to kick you, okay? Now, you can kind of see that in the Greek and in the Latin, what, words, right? Because dunamis is where, in English, you get the word dynamo, the word dynamite, right? And that's obviously the act of sense, right? But the word in Greek was then moved to the second meaning, right? Okay? Now, the same way with the word potencia, right? In Latin, the first meaning of potencia would be this active sense of potencia, this ability to act upon, this ability to move another, right? This ability to transform another, but then it was moved to the second meaning here, right? Passive sense of potencia, right? And as Thompson pointed out, when you contrast potencia with actus, you're thinking of the second sense, because this first sense is based upon actuality, right? So, if I distinguish between the ability of the teacher to teach, right, it's because he actually knows something, zoom, zoom, right? That's why the student is able to know, right, that it is second sense, right? Now, you can translate dunamis in Greek or potencia in Latin by the word power in English, right? Although sometimes they translate it kind of more transliteration, like potency, right? But now, when you hear the word power in English, or the word powerful, you obviously think of that first sense, don't you, right? But has the word power been moved to the second sense in English? In other words, it's stuck in the first sense, right? This is something that happens when we learned our philosophy from the Greeks or from the Latins. Sometimes, sometimes the native word was not, what, moved, then. Now we've got a problem, right? Because how do we translate that, then? These two uses of the word dunamis or potencia in English, when the English word hasn't moved from the first meaning to the second meaning? We've got a problem, right? This happens in other words, huh? You go back to the fifth book of Wisdom, and Aristotle takes up the very important word phusis, huh? This is the Greek word for nature, right, huh? He points out that the first meaning of phusis is birth. And then the second meaning of phusis was the source of the baby within the mother. And then the third meaning of phusis was the generalization second meaning. The source within not only of birth, but of any change. And this is the sense of nature that we have in mind when we speak of natural philosophy. The natural things are things that have within themselves a cause of their own, what, change, right? And then it's carried over to matter and form, which are the active in the past as sources of change in the living body. And last of all, it's carried over to the nature of a thing in the sense of what it is, right? And of course, that sense would be found in these things. We speak of the nature of God, the nature of government, the nature of the triangle, right? The nature of the syllogism, right? That's too broad to characterize natural philosophy. The first meanings, birth and the source of the baby within the mother, are property of natural science. We talk about those things, but it's too narrow to characterize natural science as a whole, right? Okay? So it's that third meaning, the intrinsic cause of motion rest. Our style defines it more fully in the book two of natural hearing, as the beginning and cause of motion and the rest of that, which it is, first, as such, and not by happening. Okay. Now, the Latin word nature is like that, right? And the original root meaning of nature was, again, what? Birth, right? Okay? And it was carried over to these other meanings. Now, if you take the native English word here, has it been moved through all those meanings? So you've got a problem here about how should you translate fuses, right? You can translate it by fuses, but that doesn't help you very much. You can translate it by birth, which is the native English word, but then you don't have all those other meanings thrown out. Usually, we translate it by the word nature, because even in English, you can see in other words in English, like prenatal, postnatal, nativity, native, things of this sort, the root meaning of birth, right? And then you get a problem, you see, because when you hear the word nature in English, though, we usually think of nature in the sense of what a thing is. The last meaning of nature. We've lost the Greek meanings, right? So either you go back to the Latin or the Greek and go back and follow the meanings up, or else you try to extend the English word. Now, in some cases, it seems to me that one should make the attempt to really extend the English word, right? And one example of that is the word in Greek there, the word hodas, via, ron. Okay? And the first meaning of road is what you walk on or drive on, right? But then all the Greek philosophers spoke of a road in the mind, even the early first guys, Hermenides and so on. And it doesn't seem to be too far of a stretch in English to speak of a road in our knowledge, right? But you may have a difficulty, you know, using the word birth, given its multiplicity of meanings, the fact that it hasn't moved in English, right? Now, Shakespeare, right, in Roman and Juliet, when Friar Lawrence is talking about it, right? He says, For not so vile on earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give, right? Not so good, but strange in that fair use, revolts from true birth, stumbling on a beast. What sense is he using that? He says, Revolts from true birth, then, stumbling on a beast. When you're revolting from your, what? Nature. Nature, yeah. And nature is the sense of what you are, right? So it says Shakespeare's moved the word. See? But it's a little bit of prudence, you might say, to say, well, should we try to, you know, extend the English word, or should we just... Well, this is the problem here with the word power, right? See? The word power is stuck on the first meaning, and how do we do that, right? So, in fact, my own solution is to adopt the word ability, right? I point to the word power to bring out the fact that the first meaning is the active sense, right? But it seems to me, in English, we do use the word ability in both of these senses, and we use the word able in both of these senses, right? You probably heard from the time we did a little bit of the ninth Book of Wizards, some of you, I think, how my stock example is that a brick was getting into the ring with cashless clay or some other box, you're like that, and before they stop the fight, I hope they stop it, you'd say, well, you know, all the ability is in the, what? Cashless clay, right? Berkwist doesn't have any ability, right? And you're thinking of the first meaning of the ability, right? He's able to act upon Berkwist, Berkwist hasn't got anything in on him, so that's the first meaning of the ability, right? But then if you stop and you think, yeah, but Berkwist is beatable, he's breakable, he's bustable, and so on, you use the word able, aren't you, right? So by what kind of ability is Berkwist beatable, or breakable? Yeah. In the same way you speak of the paper as being burnable, right? And now you're speaking of an ability that's in the paper, right? There's an ability to act upon the fire? No. It's the ability to be acted upon by the fire in this way that will consume the thing, right? So, or another example you used to always give was, you know, the grand pianist sits down to play the piano and he plays pretty, you know, this piece of Mozart, remember this? I heard, I was at a concert at the time the great Walter Giese King played the piano, you know, you could have heard a pin drop that the audience was that respectful, you know. Played Mozart first through the whole thing at 12 encores. He had to stop it, you know, so he tried to take care of the room and sing them to the audience and say, this is the last one. But, you see the ability of the pianist, right? You wouldn't think that the pianist had the ability, would you? No. But the piano was able to be played, right? The keys weren't sticking. You may want to use the keys, right? So there's some kind of ability but, you know, in a sense, it looks back to the ability of Giese King, right? He's able to play the piano but in some sense you'd say the piano is able to be played, right? He couldn't play this table here, but this table in front of him is not much like a concert, you know, he'd make it all finger marks, but he couldn't play, you know? Okay? So, you can see in those examples there, of the boxer and so on, right? Or again, the cook, right? So the cook is able to prepare this meal, right? But the vegetables, you know, give way to the knife and so on, right? So, you see these two different senses, right? And so the English word ability, I think, moves, huh? The English word power is stuck in the first meaning, right? So I refer to power to being out as kind of a sign that this is the first meaning, right? But the fact it isn't moved, I mean, I have to kind of use this other one, huh? Some people want to use the word to see, but that's kind of important. So, one of my friends says, we should use the word to see. I said, you can't move the word, that's your problem. Once you're down and say about some people they can't move the word, you know? So this is important to have in mind in this first distinction, right? Because God would have the ability or power to move other things but not this passive one, right? you can't move To the first one proceeds thus, it seems that in God there is no tensia, right? No ability, eh? For just as first matter has itself to ability, right? So God, who is the first agent, has himself to act. But the first matter, considered by itself, is without any act. It's pure ability, right? Therefore, the first agent, which is God, is pure act, without any, what? Without any ability. Yeah. Of course, the first matter is ability to undergo form, right? It goes back to the first book of actual hearing. So when Thomas is discussing the opinion, remember David Inant, who said that God is the first matter? He says he most stupidly taught, right? It's not a gratuitous insult, the part of Thomas, you know, that he's fed up with the guy. But you couldn't get anything further away from God. He said God was a rock. There'd be some actuality there, right? So in taking saying there's pure ability in the passive sense, you couldn't get anything further away from pure act. So he most stupidly taught. He said God was a tree that would have been closer to the truth. At least you have something alive in some way. There's first objection in saying, I mean, the first matter is pure ability. How can you have ability in God, huh? But here you have the mistake, you know, in a sense of, what, equivocation, right? Mistake from mixing up different senses of the same word, which in this case is the word, what, ability, right? Moreover, according to the philosopher in the ninth book of wisdom, that's the book on ability and act, the act of any ability, right? For form is better than what, matter, right? And action than the act of what, ability. This is a little more difficult, right? For it is the end of the act of ability. But nothing is better than what is in God, right? Nothing is better than God. Because whatever is in God is God himself, right? Therefore, no ability is in God. So Aristotle's saying act is better than ability, huh? Because ability is for the sake of act. So if God was ability, and whatever is in God is God, then there would be something better than God. Obviously, it's zero, right? Moreover, ability is the beginning or the source of an operation, right? For the doing. But the doing of God is his very essence, huh? Since in God there is no accident, huh? But of the divine essence, the divine nature, the divine substance, there is no beginning, huh? Therefore, the definition of ability does not belong to God, right? Aristotle defines his ability. He first says the act of ability is the beginning or source of motion in another as other, right? And then the passive one is an ability of motion from another, right? So the idea of being a beginning of something is in the idea of ability, huh? So how can there be ability in God, right? Thompson makes some very interesting distinctions, right? But there's more the idea of ability in God, not with respect to his operation, unless you want to just say it in the way of speaking, right? But it really is the beginning of the thing he, what? The exterior thing, yeah. So you can say I'm the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. But he can't say that there is a real distinction between God's ability and what he does and the doing itself, huh? Moreover, it has been shown above that the knowledge of God and his will are the, what? Cause of things, huh? But cause and beginning are the same thing, right? Therefore, it's not necessary to assign to God some ability, but only knowledge and will. That's a very interesting objection. But against all this is what is said in Psalm 88, potenzes, domine, you are powerful. There is truth in your heart. Thomas begins, I am sure it should be said that there is a two-fold potency or ability, as we've been explaining here before. Namely the passive, right? The ability to undergo or to be acted upon. Which in no way is in God, right? And then the active ability, huh? Which is necessary to place in God in the highest or fullest way, huh? For is manifested each thing according as it is an act and perfect, huh? By this it is the active beginning of something, huh? But something undergoes or suffers, huh? That's an interesting example there because in Greek and Latin, the original meaning here is to suffer. But suffer always has in English, like the original words in Greek, the meaning of, what, something bad, right? And in English, suffer is stuck on the bad meaning, huh? Why in Greek, it's, in Latin, it's moved from the bad sense to a good sense to a sense of undergoing the perfection. And in, in the, in the second and third book about the soul, right? Verstappen says that sensing is a suffering, right? But the Greek word is moved from suffering to what? Undergoing, right? That the senses know as a result of being acted upon by the exterior object, huh? And then when he talks about the understanding, our understanding, he's saying that understanding is an undergoing, right? And, but the English word suffering is, what, stuck in the first meaning. And, uh, so, in trying to capture the Greek and Latin word, I use the word undergoing, huh? Because undergoing perhaps keeps something of the original sense, right? Of something bad, right? So I'm under the weather. What does that mean? I've been acted upon by the weather and the way that harms me. But then, undergoing is more, you're able to be moved, right? You can see that the wood under goes, activity of the carpenter. And it's really being perfected, right? Not being destroyed. So something suffers undergo, right? According as is, as lacking and imperfect. Now it has been shown above, in the consideration of divine substance and so on, in the question on the simplicity of God, that God is pure act, right? And simply and universally, what? Perfect. Now, so there's, again, that idea of simply perfect, huh? Now, incidentally, in the chapter on perfect, in the fifth book of wisdom, Sarah Stoudel distinguishes between the thing that is some picitia perfectus, which is God, as even a very way says there, commentary, and the way which all the things are said to be perfect, so he couldn't have quit. Because God is, what? They called him simply perfect, but he's lacking nothing. Why, Homer is the perfect, what? Poet. He lacks nothing that a poet should have. But that's not everything. Mozart is the perfect musician, right? And you have to, you know, consider, you know, what a poet does, right? But mainly, what the poet does is to make his plot, make his characters, and then make the words in which they speak, right? And everybody, Aristotle says that Homer taught all the other Greek poets how to make a plot. And then... Hegel is good when he talks about Homer's characters, and he compares them to the characters in the French tragedies, one-dimensional flacquation of some facts, why he says the characters of Homer are like a diamond, all these facets to their characters, and all that, you know? So, and then both Homer and both Aristotle and Hegel, you know, praise the words of Homer, right? You know? There was a lance, you know, a lance striving to get into your heart, you know, and you know? He really comes alive, you know, and so on. Beautiful language. And Hegel is very good on the great similes of Homer, you know? These terrible battle scenes, you know, when these similes reduce attention, you know? He has that expansiveness to it, huh? And when the great warrior comes into battle, you know, and he's knocking people down, and so on. The further he gets into the enemy lands, the more he slows down. Of course, he compares it, Homer, to a rock that comes down the hill, you know? Roaring and knocking the trees down, you know? And then finding it rolls down, finding it slows down. It's all. Beautiful comparison. It's destiny. So, he's got everything a poet should have, right? He is, as Aristotle can call him by a ton of the sea, huh? The poet! Oh, my God. In the same way that our forefathers, in the Federalist papers, you know, quote Shakespeare, but don't call him Shakespeare, as the poet says. He's the poet for us, right? Beautiful thing. So, anyway, Aristotle says that God is, what? Simpliciter perfectus, right? Other things are perfect in their kind, you know? Okay? It's a perfect woman, right? It's everything a woman should have, right? But that's everything. Tell that to a woman. I used to rush him on the way up sometimes, you know, and you get a woman calling in, right? Oh. And, uh, sometimes he remarked, you know, well, it's one of my ten favorite names for a woman, right? But if it's not one of his ten favorite names, he'll say that too, you know? He'll get himself in trouble. And he's kind of kidding with that woman. The woman's name is Janet. He doesn't like that name, you know? Yeah. Particularly, you know. And, uh, so he's kind of joking about it with the woman in the line, and she says, uh, yeah, he says, you better get off the line because we're in trouble. They say, what's I'm trying to do to get off the line? He says. It's kind of remarkable. He'll get himself into those positions. You think he'd know better, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, somebody, I remember asking a girl to dance years ago in, you know, in high school or something. And, uh, it was a nice girl. Her name was Maxine. I said, oh. I never said totally what I thought of, but I think an awful name for a girl, Maxine, you know? Yeah. Somebody just had a baby there my wife knows. Naming her Morgan Rose, right? Yeah. Morgan, why did you name her? I didn't think of it. Literature, right? Morgan. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Um. So, it's been shown above that God is pure act in the tweet is on the simplicity of God. And he's simply, right, universally perfect, right? Lacking in nothing. Nor, in him, can any imperfection have a place, right? Mm-hmm. That's why God is good and nothing bad in God. Whence to him, most of all, does it belong to be an active beginning of things, huh? And in no way to want him to go, right? So, when God says in the book of Revelation there, I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, huh? Well, in a sense, that's by Antonio Messiah, right? Because he's not the only beginning, but he is the beginning, right, huh? Because it maximizes, most of all, belongs to him to be the active. Now, the definition or notion of an active beginning belongs to the active, what? Ability, right? For the active ability is the beginning of acting another. But the passive ability is the beginning of undergoing the suffering of another. As the philosopher says in the fifth book of wisdom, he says again in the ninth book or the fifth book, he's distinguishing the meanings of the words, right? It remains, therefore, that in God, most of all, is there the active ability, huh? But now, the objections here are very important to see, you know, exactly how these words are used and should be used. The first one is saying, well, first matter is pure ability, right? God is pure act. Well, let's not mix up the two. Let's not be followers of David or Benat. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that the active ability is not divided against act. We divide ability against act. We're thinking of the, what, passive ability, huh? So the active ability is not divided against act, but it's founded in it, huh? It's because it has some kind of actuality. It has something to give another, right, huh? It's because the fire is actually hot that it can give the air somewhat, yeah. For each thing acts according as it is in act, huh? But it's the passive ability that is divided against what? That's the very important distinction then, right? So we divide ability and act. We're thinking that the passive ability is divided against act. And when we're saying that act is better than ability, we're thinking that it's more than passive ability. Mm-hmm. But the active ability is not divided against act, but it's founded in it, okay? Each thing acts as far as it's an act. Whence this ability is not excluded from God. Whence this ability is excluded from God, the passive one, but not the, what, active one. Is that all clear to everybody? Now, the second objection is saying, well, doesn't Aristotle teach there in the ninth book of wisdom that act is better than ability? Okay. The second, it should be said, Thomas says, that whenever act is other from ability, and that means what? In things, right? Is necessary that act be more noble than what? Ability. Ability. But the action of God is not other from his ability. We've pointed that out before, right? The divine substance, the divine ability to understand is not something other than his understanding itself. But both is the divine essence, right? Divine nature. Because neither is his being, his existence, other from his essence, right? Because if there are other than God's essence, then his essence in some way be, you know, in a possibility, right? Be able to be perfected, not be altogether perfect altogether, but good, right? Whence is not necessary that there be something more, what, noble than the, what, ability or power of God, right? Now, the third objection, this comes out, well, Thomas says, in the question is disputate, the potencia, right? There's about ten questions, each one's got, you know, in the article or something. And in the Marietta edition, that's in the second volume of the question is disputate. There's two volumes in the Marietta, the first one has got the question is disputate, and then the second volume has the potencia, and the demavo, you know, and a lot of other ones, you know, on hope and so on, right? It's the one on hope, incidentally, where, you know, it's that question that I first raised in my mind, you know? You know, St. Paul says that there remains these three, faith, hope, and charity, but the grace of Jesus is charity. And then I ask the next question, you know, which is greater, faith, or hope, which is second, right? And then one of my friends, by now, did this text in the, to read this on, in the street question of hope, where he says that hope is greater than faith, yeah. But sometimes when Thomas gives us some explanation of faith, hope, and charity, you can kind of see this, right? He says, by faith, we know the end. By hope, we tend towards the end. By charity, we're already, in a way, joined to the end. Thank you. So obviously to be joined to the end in some ways is the best of all. The next best is to be tending towards the end, right? And at least it's important to know what the end is, right? You can't tend towards the end. But it's best of all to be in some way joined to the end. There's a beautiful thing there at the end, striking down. Where St. Teresa of Assou, you know, says, I don't know what more I can have in heaven than I have now. Our union's already complete. It's kind of beautiful. It's kind of contrasting the custom, you know. The division is the whole reward. It's kind of an emphasis upon love there in the woman, you know. Well, it's said in a sense, huh? So by charity, you're already in some way joined to the end. And that's why when the end comes, which is to see God as he is, charity will remain, although it exists even more perfectly in the end of this life. But hope will go away. Because it won't be tending towards the end anymore. You're there. And faith will be, of course, replaced by seeing God as he is, huh? Another Carmelite, blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, she says, you know, heaven is in my soul. Well, if heaven is where God is, God is in my soul. Yeah. It's nice to explain those words, you know, the greatness of John the Baptist, but he was least in the kingdom of heaven and is greater, you know, than John. And what does this mean, you know? Well, it means that the one who's least in the kingdom of heaven already sees God face to face, as John doesn't yet see face to face. And once you see God face to face, you've got to love him more than you could in his life. So maybe the lowest person in heaven loves God actually more, although John could, you know, in the end, be more than that person. Now, the third objection here is very important, because this is something that comes up in the De Potentia, too, the question I was just about that. The third objection is saying that ability is a beginning of what operation are doing. Well, the operation of God is his essence. There's no beginning of God's essence, right? But Thomas says, to the third, it should be said that potency or ability or power in created things is not only a beginning of action, but also some effect. So it's going to be able to be said of God more by reason of being a beginning of an effect than a beginning of operation. Thus, therefore, in God is saved the notion of ability or power, as he guards this, that it is a beginning of the effect. Not, however, as he guards this, that it is a beginning of what? Action. Because that action is a very divine essence, right? Then he qualifies that just a little bit, right? Except perhaps according to the way of understanding, right? In so far as the divine essence, which in itself, right, has beforehand, right, simply, whatever of perfection there is in the created things, right? And therefore can be understood under the notion of action and under the notion of what? Power, right, huh? Just as it is understood under the notion of a, what? Supposite, having the nature, and under the notion of nature, right, huh? Okay. So what we say sometimes, and we say, does God have any goodness? Well, isn't there a distinction there between the have and the had? Why do we say God has goodness? We say, well, that's only secundum modem intelligente, right? You see? And we went back and talked about that, especially when we talked about the names, right? But if we said that God is goodness itself, since goodness signifies that by which something is good, we wouldn't be saying that God is good, would you? We'd be saying he's that by which something is good. And we don't want to say just that about God. No, we want to say that God is good, right? Once you say God is good, you seem to be saying that he has goodness. And therefore there's some, what, composition in God, between God and his goodness, and that's also wrong, right? So in one sense, as Dionysius says, and Thomas follows in there, any name is inadequate to God, right? So if we say that God is good to bring out the fact that he really is good, we seem to be at the same time admitting some kind of composition of God. If we say God is goodness himself to bring out his simplicity, right, that's good. But then we seem to be saying that by which things are good rather than good himself. So neither way, we have these both ways, right? But one to emphasize his goodness, his being good, and the other to emphasize his simplicity, right? So, but that's kind of in our way of understanding, right? Yeah. I guess that it would be wrong to say that God is that by which things are good? Well, it wouldn't be wrong, but that's not to admit that he's good, though. Okay. But if you say he's good, then you say he has goodness, right? And you seem to be implying some distinction between the have and the have, right? It's kind of hard to say you have yourself. Right. I suppose you do have yourself in some sense. Some of us. Yeah, yeah. But you see, the reason that Thomas gives is because we know God in all things from sensible things, right? And sensible things form in perfection. And what has that form of perfection, there's some distinction between them, right? So our concrete names name what has a perfection, or has a goodness, or has the knowledge of what it is. And the abstract names signify the perfection of goodness itself. And so we have those two ways of naming things, and we have to use them. We're talking about what we have, but we realize either one exactly fits them, huh? But in the other case, there's a real distinction, right? Except, he says, according, perhaps, to the way of understanding, right? Insofar as the divine essence, which in itself simply has beforehand, whatever perfection there is in created things, can be understood both under the notion of action, right? And under the notion of, what, power. Just as he's understood both under the notion of the, what, individual, you might say, having nature, and under the notion of nature, right? You see, with all these things, you know, you say, is God wise, or is he wisdom itself? Well, wisdom doesn't signify in the same way that wise does, right? And, you know, in me, is my wisdom, if I have any, or my knowledge, does my knowledge know anything? No, I'm the one who knows, and knowledge is not what knows, but that by which I know. And if I have some wisdom, then I'm wise, right? But is my wisdom wise, or is it highly wise? What's my reason that is wise, through its wisdom, right? Now, what is it in God, right? Is he wise, or is he wisdom itself? Well, we're going to say both, but for different reasons, right? We're almost back to, almost like those two metaphors, right? We're going to call him fire and water, but it's not quite as bad as that. But we're going to call him wisdom itself, because there's no composition in God between God and his wisdom, right? There's no composition between the have and the have, right? Like there isn't, in you and I, we have some wisdom, right? If we have some wisdom, it's not us. But whatever wisdom God has, is himself. And so the beautiful way of speaking there, you know, whatever God has, is God. Is that true of me?