Prima Pars
Lecture 106: Divine Power: Absolute and Ordered Capacity

Transcript
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Article 1. Whether God can do those things which he what? Has not done, right? To the fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that God cannot do anything besides what he's done, right? For God is not able to do what he has not foreseen and foreordered to be done. But he does not foreknow or foreorder, order beforehand, himself to make, except those things which he has made. Therefore he can't make except what he's made. Moreover, God is not able to make except what he ought and what is just to come about. But God ought not to make what he has not made. Nor is it just that he make what he's not made. Therefore God cannot make except what he made. Moreover, God cannot make except what is good and suitable to the things made. But to things made by God that is not good or suitable other than they are. Therefore God cannot make except what he made. But again, this is what is said in Matthew 26. Could I not ask my father and he would show me more than twelve legions of angels, huh? Of angels, huh? Not to Peter, I guess, huh? But neither did he ask, nor did the father show this to, what? Impudating the Jews, huh? Therefore God can make what he did not make. Thomas says, As I answered, it should be said that about this some have erred in two ways, huh? For some lay down that God acts as a work of necessity of nature. Spinoza. Everything follows from God like it follows from a triangle that it has. It's interior angles like it's right angles. That's where Einstein speaks of his determinism coming from Spinoza, right? For some lay down that God acts as a work of necessity of nature. And just as from the action of natural things, other things do not come about except what come about. As from the seed of man, man. And from the seed of the olive, the olive. So from the divine operation, things do not come about. Or another order of things to flow except what is now. But as we have shown above, God does not act by necessity of nature. But his will is the cause of what? All things, huh? Nor is his will naturally in a necessity determined to what? These things, huh? Whence in no way is this course of things coming from God a necessity. That nothing else could come about, huh? Others say, huh? That the divine power is determined to this course of things. On account of the order of his wisdom and of the divine justice, huh? Without which God can what? For since the power of God, which is his essence, is not other than the divine wisdom, it can be said to suitably that nothing is in the power of God that is not in the order of divine wisdom. For the divine wisdom comprehends the whole ability of his power. But nevertheless, the order in things from the divine wisdom, in which the notion of justice consists, as has been said above, does not equal the divine wisdom, so that the divine wisdom is limited to what? This order. For it is manifest that the whole reason of the order which the wise man, the wise one, places upon things made by himself is taken from the end. When, therefore, the end is proportioned to the things done in account of the end, the wisdom of the, what? Maker is limited to this determined order. But the divine goodness is an end without proportion exceeding created things. Whence and willing that end, which is himself, right? God is not limited to this one order of things. Whence the divine wisdom is not determined to some certain order of things, that is not possible for another course of things to flow from him. Whence it should be said, simpliciter, that God is able to, what? Make other things in the things which he has made. So the second position of Erius is saying that God's wisdom says, well, this is the only just thing that could be, right? This is the only wise way that the world could be, right? Therefore, I've got to make it this way, right? Well, there's more than one way that the world could be, what? Wise and just and God is made, right? And that's because there's no proportion, right? No definite ratio between the order of creatures and the divine, what? Goodness, right? So there's many ways that the divine goodness could be served, right? In different orders. Now, if you apply to the first objection, God cannot make those things which he does not foreknow and for. To the first, therefore, it should be said that in us, in which is something other, power and essence, right? From the will and the what? Understanding. And also the understanding, something other from its wisdom. And the will, something other from its justice. There can be something in the power, right? That is not able to be in a just will, right? Or in a wise understanding. But in God, it is the same thing. The power and the essence or substance or nature and the will and the understanding and the wisdom and the justice, huh? Whence nothing is able to be in the divine power that is not able to be in his just will and in his wise understanding. Nevertheless, because the will is not determined of necessity to this or that, right? Except perhaps as supposites the only, right? But if he's willed this, then he must have willed it. Nor is the divine wisdom and the divine justice determined to this order, as has been said, huh? Nothing prevents something from being in the power of God that he does not will, right? And that is not contained under the order which he has established in things. And because the will or the power, rather, is understood as carrying out, right? The will, however, as commanding and the understanding and the wisdom as directing. What is attributed to the ability or power considered by itself, God is said to be able according to an absolute what? And this is everything in which can be saved the ratio of what? Of being. As has been said above. What, however, is attributed to the divine power according as it carries out the command of the just will, this God is said to be able to do with an ordered power. According to this, therefore, it should be said that God is able to do other things of his absolute power than what he has, what, foreknown and foreordered for himself to do. But he is not able to do other things of his absolute power. It's not possible that he makes some things which he has not foreknown, right? And foreordered that he's going to make. Because his making is subject to his foreknowledge and his foreordering. Not over his what? Ability, which is what? Natural. Therefore God is able to make something because what? But, excuse me, therefore God makes something because he wills to make it. But not, however, is he able to do it because he wills it. But because such it is in his what? Nature. Clear or not? He's saying God is able to do things that he didn't do, right? But he doesn't actually do something that he doesn't foreorder and foresee, right? And that he wills, right? But he doesn't will everything that he's able to do, right? In fact, he doesn't will everything that he's able to will. But once having willed, right, then that's determined. But that's, again, kind of a necessity from supposition, right? Having willed this kind of universe, right? Then he can only make this kind of universe, right? But he could have willed some other universe, right? He could have made some other universe. Is that what this question is asking, basically, Article 5? Yeah, could he make something other than he's made, huh? Like a completely different nature of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, he's attacking these two mistakes, right? The one that says God's ability to make, he makes it with a suspect nature, right? Okay? And therefore, it can't be another to make, right? Because of what he is, he had to make this. Okay? And then the second error is to say that what? God has to make something that's wise and just and so on, right? He can't make a foolish world. A fool is these Barthol's beings, as Puck says in Mitzvall's Dream, right? But God can make a foolish world. He can make an unjust world, right? But is this the only wise and just world he could have made, huh? But ultimately, a world is wise and just because it's ordered to God. And no world is adequately ordered to God, right? This is the only way, the what? The only kind of world that could have been ordered to the divine goodness. And then this world would be kind of what? Equals the divine goodness, huh? Or it would fit it in kind of like two is definitely related to three, right? This world would be like that to the divine goodness. But the divine goodness being infinite, right? There can be no world that could be adequate to the divine goodness, huh? So he could make more than one kind of world that was a wise world, a wise plan and a just one, right? But any world that he's made, he has foreseen and foreordered, you could say, and will, right? And that's only one of those that he could have made. The second argument here, God cannot make except what he ought, right? What is just to come about, and so on. To the second, it should be said that God does not owe something to anyone except to himself, huh? Whence when it's said that God cannot make except what he ought, nothing other is signified except that God cannot make except what is suitable and just. But this that I call, what, suitable and just can be understood in two ways. In one way, thus, that this that I call suitable and just is before understood to be joined, but this verb is, so that it'd be, what, restricted to standing for the present things, right? And thus it refers to the present, and thus it refers to the power. And thus it is false what is said. For the sense would be that God is not able to make except what now is suitable and just. If our before it is joined with this word or verb, able, is able, which has the, what, force of amplifying, and afterwards with this verb est, it signifies something, what, present in a confused way. And then the speech will be true in this sense. God cannot make something except that which, if he were to make it right, would be suitable and just, huh? A complicated word, yeah. Hence the objection, huh? It goes back again, I mean, to the idea that nothing that God makes can be what equal to it, right? So not only one way the universe could be suitable and just. A third objection. God cannot make except what is good and suitable to things made and so on. To the third, it should be said that although this course of things is determined to those things which are now, nevertheless, to this course of things is not limited, the divine wisdom, the divine power. For although to those things which are now, the other course would be good and suitable, nevertheless, God can make other things and impose upon them a, what? Another order, right? So people, you know, say, you know, that God had to make the best possible world. There's only one best possible world, it seems, because best is, what? Unique. Yeah. I forgot how to make this universe because of goodness and so on. What's wrong with that? Just what you said about. Yeah. Could God make a creature who is the most like God that a creature could be? In other words, can there be a creature in which no one is more like God? Or can there be a creature that is most like God? There could be a creature most like God among those that he's made. But could there be a creature that is most like God? Period. There could be a creature more like God than he could make. Make that rock. Yeah. But he can do that too. Does that involve really kind of a contradiction to say that there is a creature that God could make would be the creature most like God and no creature could be made more like God than this creature? Some people think that the devil was the highest of all the angels, right? And Thomas said, well, there's some probability of that. Unless he was very magnificent, he maybe would not have fallen, right? But consider, you know, just the natural gifts of these things. Could God make someone more like himself than the highest angel? Could God make someone more like him? Could God make someone more like him? Could God make someone more like him? Could God make someone more like him? Could God make someone more like him? Could God make someone more like him? Is there some creature that could be the most like God that a creature could be? Is there something possible to God? There's an infinite distance between God and the creature. Between all creation as a whole. Which is even greater in a sense than one member. How can there be one which is closest, right? It's like saying, you know, did you write a number that is the number closest to infinity? There's always a number that is closest to infinity than any given number, right? And there's really a contradiction in saying that I'm going to write down the number that is most like infinity. There's always been a number which is closer. So because of that, what Aristotle says in the book of natural hearing there, I mean of wisdom, rather, that the natures of things are like numbers, right? God made all things in numbers and so on. But is the creature to God like a lesser number to a greater number? It's like a number raised to something that is infinite, right? God is not as immense as we saw. He's not measurable, right? So if God is infinite and every number is measured, right? There can't be a number that is closest or most like infinity, can there? That's really like a contradiction. So it seems to me that it's really a contradiction to say that God could make a creature that is most like him, right? In the sense, could be most like him in the sense that the ones that he's made is most like him, yeah. But he could make a creature that is in which he could not make one more like him. So of all creatures, Our Lady is the most closest to God, the most like him. But you're saying that she wouldn't be able to be considered the most possible, the most like him as possible, absolutely. Because that's impossible to do. She might be the most perfect among all of us, but she's not the most perfect imaginable. Well, could there be one most perfect? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. I think there's an infinite distance, you know, maybe for this universe she's the closest it's going to be, you know, after Christ's nature. In terms of what was defined, say, with the American conception, the Pope referred there as something that she's holier than we can think of. Nothing holier can be thought. Okay. I mean, nothing holier can be made by God. Okay. We can't think of it as holy, but God might be able to think of something holier. I'm trying to reason that. Yeah. So, he's able to make something but we can't think of it. We're not able to see it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Let's look at this sixth article here now. Whether God could make better things than those that she has made. And he's on to another thing. It seems that God could not make better things than those that she has made. For whatever God has made, he has made most powerfully and most wisely. But the better something is, the more potent and wise is it. Therefore, God could not make something better than he has made. However, Augustine says against Maximus, another contra here, argues thus. If God was able and did not will, did not want it, to generate a son equal to himself, he would be what? Envious, right? For the same reason, if God was able to make what? Better things than he made and did not will them, he would be envious. Aristotle, of course, rejects that in the envy of God, right? In the first book of wisdom there. But envy is altogether to be what? Put aside from God. Therefore, God makes each thing best, right? Therefore, God can't make something better than he made, right? The best that belongs to the best to make the best, right? You know, argument, right? Moreover, that which is most and greatly good cannot come about better. For nothing is greater than the maximum, right? The greatest. But as Augustine says in the ingredient, I guess that's the ingredient of faith, hope, and charity, each of the individual things that God has made are good, right? But the universe of things is very good. All of them are extremely good. Because from all of them consists the admirable beauty of the, what? Universe, huh? Therefore, the good universe cannot be, what? Better than the universe. Now, if I get down to Homo Christus, right? Moreover, the man Christ is full of grace and truth. And he had the spirit, not admin serum, huh? Not limited way. And thus, there can be nothing, what? Better than the universe. And created beatitude is said to be the highest good, sumum bonum. And thus, it cannot be, what? Better than the universe. And the Blessed Virgin Mary is exalted above all the choirs of the angels. And thus, there cannot be none. Therefore, not all things that God has made can he make some. But against all this is what is said by St. Paul in Ephesians, chapter 3. That God is potent, right? To make all things abundancios, more abundantly, than we ask or we can understand. Oh, the answer should be said that the goodness of some thing is twofold. One which is of the essence of the thing, just as to be reasonable or to have reason, is of the essence of man. And as regards this good, God cannot make something better than it is, huh? Although he's able to make some other thing, right? Better than it. Just as he's not able to make four more, right? Because if it were more, it would no longer be four. But another number, right? For thus has itself the addition of a substantial difference, huh? An axilla difference. In definitions, has addition of a unit in numbers, as is said in the Eighth Book of Wisdom, the Eighth Book, after the books of natural philosophy. But there is another goodness which is outside the essence or nature of a thing, just as the good of man is to be virtuous or to be wise, huh? And according to such good, God can make what? Things that are made by him better, right? But simply speaking, right, God is able to make something better than anything that has been made by him, right? Now, the first objection, whatever God makes, he makes most potently and wisely. But to that extent, something is better as it is made by more power and more wisely. Therefore, God cannot make something better than he may. To the first, therefore, it should be said that when it is said that God is able to make something better than he makes it, if better is a name, it is what? True. True. For than anything, he's able to make something better. Now, the same thing is able to make better in one way, and another way not, as has been said. It's just in the Bible article. But if melius is taken to be an adverb, right, and implies the mode on the side of the, what? Maker. Thus, God is not able to make something better than he made it, because he cannot make something from greater wisdom and goodness than he did, huh? If, however, it implies the mode on the side of the thing made it, thus he's able to make something, what? To make better. Because he's able to give to things made by him a better way of being as you guard accidental things, although not as you guard, what? So, could God make things with more wisdom than he did? Could have made me as wise as Thomas Aquinas? Could have made me with more wisdom? Or call upon God our enlightenment, right? He can enlighten the little boys to say, Hosanna, right? So, he can enlighten us to see more than we see, right? But if you're talking the side of God himself, would he make the universe with more wisdom? You know, because God's wisdom can't be more than it is, right? Okay? Now, the second objection, although often, in a sense, is taken from the Trinity, right? To the second, it should be said that it's of the notion of the Son that he'd be in some way equal to the, what? Father, right? When he comes to perfection, right? But it is not of the notion of any creature that he'd be better than what? He'd be better than he'd been made by God, right? Whence there is not a similar, what? Reason for both, right? Now, the third objection, talking about the excellence of the universe, right? It's all de bona, right? To the third, it should be said that the universe, supposing these things, right? Could not be better, huh? An account of the most suitable order attributed to these things by God, in which the good universe consists. Of which, if one were, what? Better, it would corrupt the, what? Ratio of the order. Just as if one chord was, what? Struck more than suitable. It would corrupt the melody of the, what? But God could make other things, right? Or he could add other things to the things made, and thus there would be a, what? Better, what? Better, what? Better, what? Universe, huh? So he makes the universe, what? The best it could be, given these things, right? But he could have made other things. Yeah, see, now, then the order. Thomas, you know, Thomas Deconic and Diyanid, right? I'm saying Diyanid is to compare the order among human teachers, you know, a little bit, to the order among ancient. It's not as fixed, right? It's very fixed, right? And one is illumined by the one directly above him, right? On the way down to the bottom, huh? And so, me and Diyanid alone understood Thomas, and I alone understood Diyanid. It's the hallway down the line, right? But that's the way it would be if the angel is right, huh? Each one is proportioned to the one right above him. Now, what about, it's a difficult objection here from Christ and Mary, right? I don't see what Thomas can say to that. To the fourth, it should be said that the human nature of Christ, huh? From the fact that it is united to God and created Beatitude, right? From this, that it is the enjoyment of God, huh? And the Blessed Virgin, from this, that she is the Mother of God. You all have a certain, what? Infinite dignity, right? From the infinite good that is God, right? And from this part, right, or on this side, there cannot come about something better than them, right? Just as there cannot be something better than what? God, huh? So we do that, right, huh? Yet, one person might see God more perfectly than another person sees God, right? In my Father's house, there are many, what, mansions, right? And somewhere there's an infinity about these, huh? Infinite about her dignity, right? But St. Thomas is basically saying that he's just on Christ and Mary? Yeah, and so it doesn't really relate to our other question before, or that other question was... What he's doing here, I think, is simply explaining in what way there's something infinite about not only the human nature of Christ, right, and the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, but also even Beatitudo Criata, right, huh? Yeah. Okay? Now, if you ask the question, could a human being have more grace than Christ had, right? We'll leave that to the tertia part, right? Um, but if you're talking about Beatitudo Criata, right, it's clear that there can be what? One person can see God more clearly than another, right? Okay? Even though there's something infinite, right, about seeing God as he is, right? Because God himself is, like, infinite, right? You see? Okay? See. Hmm? The difference is in seeing. Yeah, yeah. You know, when you go back to the, to, uh, criteria that Aristotle gives in the beginning of the Dianna, one knowledge is better than another because of the thing known or because of the way you know it, right? So, um, do I know better the triangle or God? What would you say? Yeah. I know better what the triangle is than I know what God is. Well, I had to put to my mind what the triangle of God is, right? But it's better to know God than to know the triangle. Now, Thomas, when he talks about that, if I remember rightly, um, he'll say that the criterion from the object makes this knowledge simply better than that, right? So he would say that my knowledge of God is better than my knowledge of the triangle. Like, no qualification, right? Now, is my knowledge of the triangle in some imperfect way, in some qualified way, better than my knowledge of God? I could say, I know more clearly what a triangle is, or I know more fully what a triangle is than I know what God is, right? But that's, he couldn't have quit, right? I always say, you know, it's better to hear Mozart in an imperfect machine, right, than to hear rock and roll on a perfect, you know, consistent, you know? Even though you're hearing it better than you're hearing Mozart. It's still better hearing Mozart, you know? Mozart. I don't think I know what you know. Talking about the earlier performances are not so good, you know? But even the, what triple down to us on these imperfect performances, right? I'd rather hear somebody, you know, play Mozart perfectly, than maybe bring somebody in something else. Perfectly, right? Because of what's being, this new pope there, huh? He actually likes to, he plays Mozart, right? That's what I say, you know? He has his piano sent in. I like these little confirmations, you know? Years ago, a friend of mine was reading a biography of Pius XII, maybe still pope at the time, but they're describing, maybe the biography was talking about when he first moved into the Vatican, he became pope there, and making sure that his books were put in there, you know? And especially his Shakespeare set, right? So that was a good sign for me, right? Because I'm not a very rectified man morally, but Pius XII, he was rectified and morally. And then when I heard that all the sections of his favorite poets were adopted in Shakespeare, right? Well, that's more confirmation, right? Okay. Well, now I guess when the 16th is going to his place, he makes sure his piano is there so he can play Mozart, honestly. I don't know, a very rectified man, but it's this man who's poked now, and so I can see a very rectified man, and he plays Mozart, I guess. Not too frivolous of me to... It's very strong in that thing in Eucharist about the Gregorian chant, huh? This is the appropriate thing for the Roman Liturgy, he said, in the writing. He was talking about the Roman Liturgy. Oh, the little moth there from the college area, he has this Gregorian chant group that he works in. Oh, yeah. I guess he goes up to the Benedictine monastery, no, the one in Harvard, not Harvard. Oh, oh, uh... No, the one that's near here, near here, that one. Right here? Oh, still where? You see Benedict's? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think he goes up there and was striking the monks there and, you know, singing about the glory chant and doing it now, so. They go to some of the parishes, too, so. This is a nice thing that people would read it, you know. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Because I'm thinking there about the politicians, you know, about marriage and man-woman and all the rest of it. I was thinking, should we produce that thing and take it over to the Congressmen? Yeah. Claiming to be, you know, Catholic and basically not being the same. Yeah. But we see, you say, and you say to me, that's what I always want to tell them. They claim, well, we know that. Well, then you're guilty. Yeah. You say you see. If you were blind, it wouldn't be enough. Yeah. It's the thing that you see. Yeah.