Prima Pars
Lecture 107: Divine Beatitude and God's Perfect Understanding

Transcript
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And now we come to the last question here on the unity of God, right? So, Ab is going to cut us off here next week? Okay, so we've got to get through 26 here next week, huh? Because then there'd be a nice place to break for the Trinity. Back to the Trinity. Let's just start to look at this divine beatitude here. I'll make sure we get through this then. Last, huh? Ultimo, right? After the consideration of those things which pertain to the, what, unity of the divine essence, huh? Not to consider about the divine, what, beatitude. That's the word for the happiness of the intellectual person, huh? And about this, four things are asked. First, whether the beatitude belongs to God, huh? Secondly, by what God is said to be blessed, whether it be according to the activist understanding, huh? Whether he is essentially the beatitude of everyone who is, what, blessed. And fourth, whether in his beatitude every beatitude is included, huh? Incidentally, that's the way Thomas is up the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, with the consideration of the divine beatitude, huh? So, first, whether the beatitude belongs to God. It seems, the first one precedes us, it seems that beatitude does not belong to God. For beatitude, according to Boethius, in the third book of the Consolation of Philosophy, and that's in the first books of the Consolation of Philosophy, it takes up happiness, right? It takes up first false happiness, because he says that's more known to us. And then for that, if you see, it's the true happiness, huh? So, beatitude, according to Boethius, in the third book on the Consolation of Philosophy, is a state made perfect, right? By the bringing together of all goods, huh? But the bringing together, the aggregatio, gathering together of all good things, does not have place in God, just as neither composition. It's altogether simple, right? Therefore, to God there does not belong beatitude, huh? Moreover, beatitude, or happiness, felicity, is the reward of virtue, according to the philosopher in the first book of Nicomachian Ethics. But to God there does not belong reward, just as neither merit, huh? He doesn't deserve beatitude. Therefore, neither beatitude, right? But against all this is what the apostle says in the first epistle to Timothy, in the last chapter, 15th verse, which in his times God will show, God the blessed one, Beatrice, and the only what? The king of kings, and the lord of lords. Now, I answer it should be said that beatitude most of all belongs to God, huh? For nothing other is understood under the name of beatitude, huh? That's the latin there. For nothing else is understood under the name of beatitude. The meaning of a word is said to be what? Under, yeah. That's kind of beautiful, the English word, understand, right? Because to understand means to know what stands under something, right? So to understand a word means to know what is said to stand under it. And of course, we all say, in all languages, we all spoke about putting a label upon something, putting a name upon something, so that's under the name, right? In latin they have the expression impositio nomines, right? The placing upon the name. Of course, the word understanding also fits the word substance very well too. It's got the same etymology, it's substance. So nothing other is understood under the name of the attitude, except the perfect good of a understanding nature, right? Of whom it belongs to know his sufficiency, right? In the good that he has. To whom it belongs to happen something good or bad, right? And to whom it belongs to be the lord of his own operations. But both of these belong to God most excellently. That is to be perfect and to be what? Understanding, right? Whence the attitude most of all belongs to what? So if this is the perfect good of the understanding nature and God is altogether perfect and he's got an understanding nature, right? Understand? Then the attitude must belong to God most of all, right? Because of course it was fully developed and some kind gentiles, huh? We'll just have to cover that. Yes. Unto the first, therefore, it should be said that the bringing together, the flocking together, aggregatio, of good, is in God not by way of what? Composition, but by way of simplicity. Because what are multiple in the creatures exist in God simply in a united way, right? So, weight is his definition there, is kind of talking about what takes place in the creatures, right? Where all good things are brought together. Blessed, huh? All this in heaven too, huh? You know what I'm saying, right? Thomas sometimes quotes that thing, you know, what God says to Moses, Abraham, I will show you every good. And Thomas says, that is myself. But he knows the way of speaking though, I will show you every good, huh? And since every good is in God, but in a simple way, right? But you don't use the expression every good, right? So you kind of go from that. Now, the second thing is taken from what? Aristotle says, the second objection, from Aristotle saying that the attitude or happiness is the reward of virtue, right? And Thomas sometimes says virtue is the road to happiness, vice is the road to misery, right? Okay. But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he takes up the virtues of God more explicitly, right? And here, before he takes up the attitude of God. Because from the ethics, we know that the attitude is activity according to virtue and according to the act of virtues. Now, to the second it should be said that to be the reward of virtue happens to beatitude or felicity, insofar as someone acquires the attitude, just as to be the end or limited generation happens to being insofar as it goes forth from the ability to act. Just therefore as God has being, although he is not generated, so he has beatitude, although he is not merited it. So he is beatitude itself. We learn in the super contingent deal. He'll say he's blessed and then he's beatitude itself, right? You can be closer to beatitude than that, as Thomas says. There's a number of reasons why God's beatitude is the best. So let's leave this treat here for the next, in my square, so, for the summer. man. He's a He's He's He's He's He's The Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, drink from the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen. Help us to understand all the true written. Our Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. I started reading again the question is disputate the potencia, right? Right? And the first question, as I mentioned, there's ten questions, but the first question has about seven articles and almost the same thing as the ones of the De Potencia. But I can't be interested in comparison here that Thomas makes. Now, we would say that God is all-powerful, and we also say that God is all-knowing. And you know the point we're making that God's being all-powerful doesn't mean you can make a square circle, right? He can make anything that is makeable. Well, Thomas is making kind of a similar point about the knowable. You see, God is all-knowing, right? Now, does that mean that God knows that two is half of five? Does he know that? Well, then he doesn't know everything, right? Yeah. In other words, maybe someone could think, some creature could think, that two is half of five, right? But no creature could know in a strict sense that two is half of five. He can't know that. It's not a knowable. So, if God doesn't know the unknowable, that's not a what? All-knowing. He's not all-knowing. I mean, you'd have to say he's all-knowing with respect to, what, everything is knowable. And two is half of five, he's not knowable. Maybe thinkable, but he's not knowable. Yeah. It's kind of interesting comparison, right? God doesn't know modern philosophy then, so you're saying. Right, right. There's an article on, who's the guy, Rorty, I guess, died recently, you know? Kind of a big shot in American philosophy, but for him there was no truth, huh? And the pursuit of wisdom, of course, is ridiculous. It's just a conversation. A conversation won't go on, that's what they say. Okay, we're up to the second article here, in the 26th question. The question on the divine blessedness. Good place to end the consideration of God, right, here. The opportunity. Now, it seems that God is not said to be blessed by his, what, understanding. For blessedness, or beatitude, is the highest, huh? Good. But good is said in God by his essence. Because the good regards being, which is according to his essence or nature. According to the Boethius in the book de Hebdo Madibus, which Thomas has a commentary on, by the way. Therefore, blessedness is said in God by his essence and not by his, what, understanding. Moreover, blessedness has the definition and the notion of an end. It's the end of everything. But the end is the object of the will, just as the good. We've talked many times about those two. Maybe the definition. The first definition of the good is, the good is what all want. And the definition of the end is that for the sake of which, as Aristotle points out, those two go together, right? Because if something is good, then people aim at it, right? And they aim mainly at the end, right? Because the means is aimed at for the sake of the end. So Aristotle, when he talks about the four kinds of causes, matter, form, mover, and end, he comes to talk about end there. And even in the physics, the natural hearing, he says the end is the same as the good, right? And in the second book of wisdom, if you recall, he's saying that if you do away with the end, you do away with the good, which helps to explain why the modern philosophers don't talk about the good anymore, really. They talk about value or something, right? But you hear me talk about the good if you don't talk about the end, and they've given up talking about the end, and therefore they can't talk about the good anymore. Reminds me of a quote from the Rorty, this article about his death. He says, there's no difference between saying it works because it's true, and it's true because it works. He's just a man looking before and after. But against this is what Gregory says in the 32nd book of the Morals. He is what? Glorious, right? Who, when he enjoys himself, has no need of any what? Praise coming in from outside. But to be glorious signifies to be blessed, right? Since therefore we enjoy God by understanding, because the vision is the whole reward. It's a pretty strong statement from Augustine. It seems that blessedness is said in God by his, what? Understanding, huh? So Thomas now is going to respond to the question here. I answer, he says, it should be said that Beatitude, this has been said before in the first question, article, signifies the perfect good of a understanding nature, intellectual nature. And hence it is that just as each thing desires its own perfection, so the intellectual understanding nature naturally desires to be blessed. That's why once you see God as he is, you can't change, huh? In case you realize that this is blessedness to see God, and therefore, since your natural desire to be blessed, no possibility for you to change. But that which is most perfect, huh? In each intellectual nature is its operation of understanding, huh? By which, in some way, it, what? Takes in all things, huh? You may recall there in the third book about the soul, that Aristotle, after he's taken up the senses in book two, and the internal senses have been in the beginning of book three, and after he's taken up the understanding, then he makes the famous statement that the soul is in some way all things. Because when I grasp the nature of the dog, I've got the nature of the dog in me, right? When I grasp the nature of the cat, I've got the cat in my head, right? When I grasp the nature of the circle, I've got the circle in my head, right? And so through my senses, and with my senses, right? When I hear the, what, music of Mozart, I've got the music of Mozart in my ear. And I see the painting of Tish in there, then I've got a painting in my eye, and so on. And so, since the senses are open to seeing all sensible things, and the understanding of all things that are understandable, in some way through my senses and my reason, I am all things. Whencey says the beatitude of any understanding nature consists in its, what, understanding, huh? In God order, to be and to understand are not other, secundum ram, right? Reality, huh? But only according to the, what, way of understanding these things, huh? We're not to attribute, therefore, to God, beatitude, according to his understanding, just as to others who are blessed, who, by being made like to the beatitude of him, are called, what? Blessed, huh? Are you convinced of this or not? To the first, therefore, it should be said, that by that reason it is proved that God is blessed by his very, what, essence or nature. Not, however, that blessedness belongs to him according to the, what, definition of the essence, but more by reason of the, what, understanding. Although these are the same thing in God, in God to be and to, what, to understand and to be blessed are all the same thing, right? Nevertheless, we understand him to be blessed by understanding that he understands, and by understanding, you know, that he understands himself. We don't understand him to be blessed by his, what, substance, right? Even though he is, okay? That's kind of a subtle thing, right? Going through those, the second question there, the di potencia there, talking about the God's ability to create and the ability to generate. Are they the same, right? As far as the act which is said to be the ability, they're different. In that sense, you can distinguish between them, right? But in reality, they're really one and the same thing, right? But then the question is, why doesn't the sun have the ability to generate? And Thomas says, well, the ability to generate, insofar as it's the same as, what? Or insofar as it's found in the Father, or the ability of God, right? Insofar as it's found in the Father, it's the ability to generate. That's kind of a subtle thing, but you have to think twice about what you're saying there. So you can see from what Thomas is saying here, why the beatitude of God is taken up after you've taken up the understanding of God, right? The operation of God, what he does, and not attach it to his being, what? Perfect and good, okay? Well, there's a good reason for that, right? In the sense, whatever is in God is the divine essence, and the divine essence is goodness itself. Therefore, he must have, in his essence, right? His, what? Perfection, right? Of beatitude, right? But yet, when you try to understand what it means to say God is blessed, you have to understand it by understanding the fact that God has this perfect understanding of himself primarily, right? He understands other things by understanding himself, but primarily because he understands himself. There's nothing more worthwhile understanding. You always quote those words of Augustine, you know, he says, Blessed is the man who understands God, even if he understands nothing else. Miserable the man who understands other things, he doesn't understand God. Blessed also the man who understands God and other things, he says, but not for understanding other things, but for understanding God alone, huh? I often wonder, you know, if I get there, huh? You know, all these people that you knew in life, or these people you never knew in life, but have read, you know, like Thomas Aquinas, you know? I understand, you're right, Thomas, about that, or something. But, you know, you want to go meet St. Augustine, you know, and go and meet all these people, these saints that you read about, and so on. Talk to St. Peter, you know, and St. Paul, and so on. But maybe I'll be preoccupied. Maybe preoccupied. God will be all in all. And there's going to be some, you know, some contact between us and the other ones, yeah. See you tomorrow, I'll get more important than to think about. There's going to be some little thing, you know. A lot of my friends think, you know, that there's a certain defect in friendship in this life, right? Partly because we're defective, but also partly because, you know, we're separated from each other, this sort of thing, you know. So then having a better get recompensed, you know, and have more perfect friendship, you know, even between your meetings, right? But still, you know, can't be living a solitary life there, but we're going to be so absorbed in God. You know, it's kind of hard to see, but we're going to come back and talk about, you know. Did Brooklyn do Spanish property, by the way, at that time, back then, you know? Well, he was off here, he was off there, he was off there. You know, I can't imagine if we had a conversation like that. I mean, it would be clear, our ignorance, you know, that we had in this life, our own mistakes, we won't have any new mistakes. Thomas was talking about why you can't, once you see God, why you can't want anything else for your happiness. He says the only way you can want something else for your happiness, once you've seen God, would be by mistake. And he has this two quotes he always used, one is from the book of Proverbs, right? That those who do bad are early, making a mistake. And he quotes Aristotle, it's the same thing in the third book, in the ethics, right? The man who does bad is mistaken. Once you see God, your mind is so clear, you're no longer capable of being mistaken. If you're capable of being mistaken, you can't make the mistake of thinking something else is your happiness, once you see God. Thomas says, of course, you're completely satisfied with you, so you've got it. So how could you possibly do anything else? There's no more room, right? Your heart is filled. How do you relate that to the bad angels, like the same Michael? Or what's the Michael? Well, you know, going back to this thing here about the man naturally desiring the attitude, right? Thomas has an interesting explanation of this, at least as far as we're concerned. And that is that although we naturally want to be happy, right, we don't at first see exactly in what happiness consists, right? Now, if we could see clearly and without any mistake in what happiness consists, then just as we naturally want to be happy, we naturally want to see God, right? And he quotes an interesting thing from Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle says, such as a man is, so does the end appear to him, right? So in the kind of tragedy of Don Giovanni, right, huh? When Don Giovanni has got his hand in the hand of the statue, right, huh? And he's getting the last opportunity to repent, right? But Don Giovanni cannot change, right? Because he's habituated to pursuing woman as his end in life, right? And that habit is, well, very hard to remove, right? If you're attached to something as an end falsely because of some emotion, that emotion can pass very quickly, right? And then you maybe see things more clearly, right? But if you're attached to something as an end by having them, then it's not easy to not see that as the end. And, of course, once the soul dies, I don't know, once the man dies, I should say, then you're no longer in this changeable state that you were in this life. And so every disposition your soul is in when you die, where the tree falls there, it's a lie. It says in Scripture, right? So you can't really see anything other than this as your end, right? And that's why you can't change anymore, right? But in the case of the angels, they didn't have to go through time like we do, right? Because their mind is fully formed. form in the moment of their creation. And so they make their choice, right? Whatever choice they make, it's like the habit, it's an habit, we'd say. And therefore they can't really change anymore, right? But we're in that same state once we die, and then we're in this unchangeable state. And whatever way our will falls, there we are. That's why we really, really, the wisdom of the church there is seen in the second part there at the Hail Mary, right? Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now, okay, and at the hour of our death, right? You specify among all moments of life the hour of death, right? Because that's where your will is going to fall in one way, either towards God or away from God, and wherever it falls, no lie. And it's kind of a metaphor there with the tree, right? So as long as the tree's up in the air, you can, you know, not chopping on the street in our backyard, our wife's and friends, go to the house or something, you know? Oh, no, no, no, I'm doing, you know, this, I've got to go this way, you know? But so long as the tree is still standing, it can fall, you know, towards the house or fall away from the house, right? But once it falls, it's going to lie to the other. And there's an interesting metaphor in Scripture there. What is the happiness that has to do with the rational future? What's the comparison to, like, for instance, a dog, so a dog can't be happy, but what is it, I don't know, just that it's satisfied? What's the comparison? Well, you can talk about the, you know, pleasure in the dog, right? Yeah. Okay. But, you know, in Aristotle, in the 10th book of Nicomachean Ethics, he takes up pleasure, right, before he gives his final consideration of happiness, right? Okay, I know. So you have to see how pleasure is related to happiness, right? Mm-hmm. And Aristotle says, you know, that most men are mistaken, right, about what the end of life is. Yeah. But in seeking it in sense pleasure, let's say, right, there's some element of truth, right, because whatever happiness is, it's going to be pleasant, right? Yeah. But they mistake the lower pleasures, right? Mm-hmm. For the higher ones, huh? Thomas Aquinas says in one place, you know, that no man can live without pleasure, right? Mm-hmm. And therefore, if he doesn't acquire a taste for the higher pleasures, he's going to seek his pleasure in the lower things. Mm-hmm. And that's what most men do, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. And therefore, you know, for people like ourselves who have some understanding and so on, to fall into, you know, sensual sins, right, is much more grievous than for the average man to do this, huh? Because we can more taste the higher things, huh? Mm-hmm. And people have checked and said, well, this is a philosophy for beasts, huh? For animals, huh? And John Stuart Mill tries to say, no, you're the beast, right? If you think that man has no pleasures that the beast doesn't have, right? Okay? Now, he's not fully answering the objection to his position, but he's making a point, right? But I'd take him one step further and say, there are three kinds of pleasures, right? There are the pleasures that we share with the beast, huh? Although there may be more refined in us, like we have a wine sauce or something, that's still basically the pleasure of food, right? Then there's the pleasures that we share with the angels and God, and those are the pleasures of understanding, right? And we have those pleasures in a way inferior to, like, the angels that we don't understand much or understand very well, right? But then in between those pleasures that we share with the angels, imperfectly, and then we share with the beasts of the other hand, the better be the name of it, then the pleasures that are, what, private to man, right? And these are the pleasures of the fine arts, right? So I could never get the cat to appreciate Mozart, although I tried to, you know? But if I went out to the kitchen, I was getting some sandwich meat out of the thing, and being as quiet as I could be, I turned around and the other cat was waiting for a little handball to sandwich meat, huh? To share your tongue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And finally, I got to say that if I was going to, you know, do steak or something nice on the grill that night, you know, I'd say to Tabitha, I'm going to have steak to make, you and I, and Tabitha seemed to, seemed to understand, I don't think really, but there's something that's all going on, you know, because I have a great friend in the store. So the pleasures of the fine arts are, they kind of mix the, what, the senses with reason, right? So you can't appreciate the music of Mozart without ears, but the cat's got ears that you can't appreciate it. So you've got to have reason as well as emotion, right? And you can't appreciate, you know, the plays of Shakespeare without imagination, but you've got to have reason too. And the same way you can't appreciate the painting without some reason, huh? So, as Austerly said in that essay there, Towards an Evaluation of Music, it says it's a mistake to think that the pleasures of the fine arts are the highest pleasures or not, but they're the pleasures that are most pleasingly proportionate to man, huh? And so I can enjoy the music of Mozart for two or three hours, I guess, at Mozart opera. Well, I can't really enjoy eating any smell for two or three hours, you know? I'm not turned on by the signs, you know, of course, that's all you can eat, you know? They give me more than I want to eat anyway. But I mean, I just, but my body goes out, right? Yeah. Okay? Like people on Thanksgiving Day, you know, they go, oh, oh, I'm comfortable when they walk around, yeah. But I mean, your body's limited, right? But vice versa, you know, with the higher places of understanding, your body gets in the way too. You get tired, you're trying to think about what Thomas is saying, something like that. And then once you start to feel, you know, to not concentrate on what he's saying, then the pleasures go on, right? Then you kind of, just words, words, words, as Hamlet says, right? So, but you'd say the pleasures of the fine arts are the ones that we have to pass through in a way, normally speaking, right? To go from the pleasures we have with the beast, right? To the pleasures that we have in common with the angels, right? And of course, the pleasure, the joy of seeing God as he is, right? Is in a sense, sharing in God's pleasure, right? So that's, we've become the ultimate thing, right? But Neurostyle takes up pleasure and operation there. He doesn't say that the end of man is the pleasure of understanding, right? But he says that pleasure of understanding is a kind of perfection of understanding in the way that beauty is a perfection of youth, he says. It's a beautiful comparison because beauty is not the definition of youth, but it tends to go with it, right? So you have understanding the best things to understand, then that's naturally appropriate with the delight in that, huh? And it's what you love or want most of all, right? Now this word that I was speaking earlier, you know, the love of wisdom, right? I kind of see that, you know, most philosophers you run into, I mean, professional so-called philosophers, whatever they are, wisdom is no longer their goal, right? I don't know what their goal is, but the conversation. Yeah. Okay, so we saw a reply to the first objection, right, which was saying that the attitude is the highest good, right? Incidentally, Boethius there in the Consolation of Philosophy, he argues that the attitude is a sumum bonum, a sumum bonum is God, therefore blessedness is God, right? And therefore, if we have any blessedness at all, it's only insofar as we, what, partake of God and God's life in some way, right? It's beautiful the way he argues there. It's kind of a platonic way of arguing, you know, but it makes a lot of sense. The middle term there in the syllogism would be sumum bonum. Look at the first sentence in the objection one, beattitudo es sumum bonum, and then you go back to what we saw before, maybe that the sumum bonum is God, therefore beattitude is God. But in the Bible, the article, and in the reply to the first objection, Thomas is saying, well, that's all true, right? But nevertheless, understanding what it means to say God is a blessing involves understanding that God, what, understands himself, right? That God has the most perfect of operations that there could be, right? And that's important to see, right, that distinction. The second objection here. Beatitude has the notion of an end. The end is the object of the will because it's the same thing as a good. And the good is the object of that. Therefore, beatitude is said in God by the will and not by the understanding. To the second, it should be said that beatitude, since it is good, is the object of the will, of course. But the object is understood before the act of the what? Ability. Whence, according to the way of understanding, before is the divine beatitude, then the act of the will, resting in it, and this other thing, right, then the act of the will, is not able to be except the act of the understanding. Whence, in the act of the understanding, is to be noted beatitude, huh? Now, something Thomas Sundys points out, starting more from man there, but what's the first thing you understand? Is it your own understanding? You've got to understand something else, right? And then you can understand your understanding. So you have to understand what a cup is, or what a book is, or what a triangle is, or what a dog is, before I can understand that I understand something, right? And sometimes when trying to bring that out, you know, I don't know if I've heard this before, but I'd say my mother used to be the common source of information between me and my brothers, right? Because we felt obligated to write my mother from time to time, right? When we were away, not obligated to write each other. But everything would come in to my mother, and then she would, what, say what Dwayne said in his letter, or Richard said in his letter, or Marcus said in his letter, right? And so we'd get this information around, right? Now, notice what's going on there. She's writing a letter about what was in some other letter. But can the first letter ever be ever written on the face of this earth, could that be a letter about what's in a letter? The first letter has got to be about something that's not in a letter. And now there's something in a letter, because someone's written a letter about something that's not in a letter. Now there's something in a letter, and now someone else can write about what's in, you know? I mean, I picked up the speech and biography of Einstein, right? And they're talking about his letters, right? And some of them have come to, you know, see in the light of day just the last two years, right? Locked up here and there and so on. So people are writing abouts in these letters, right? Okay. So you can write abouts in somebody's letter, but that can't be the first letter. And likewise, is the first thing you love, love? Or do you have to love something, and then you can love your love again? So I'm a philosopher, I think. That's a lover of wisdom, right, huh? Okay. Now I actually love the fact that I love wisdom. Some things you shouldn't love, right? Some things you should love. But I think it's very good to love wisdom, right? But could I love wisdom? I love a wisdom before I love wisdom. So, what's the first thing you love? Is it the means or the end? So the first thing you love is the end. And the first thing you love cannot be the act of the will itself, right? So the end cannot be love or joy, right? It's got to be something other than that, right? And of course, the only other thing to understand the creature is the act of understanding itself. And you can see the perfection of that act, because by it, you're in some way, all things, huh? Okay? It sounds like when you watch a movie. You know, it's like the end of the movie. Now, of course, obviously the love of God and the love of your neighbor is very important, right? Without the love of God and your neighbor, you're not going to see God as he is, right? But notice the interesting thing about love. When you talk about the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, right? And these are very important for loving the end, right? At least we are disposed to that, huh? But when you come to see God as he is, what happens to faith, hope, and charity? The charity remains and becomes even more perfect, right? But the faith and the hope disappear, right? Now, it says in Scripture, man doesn't know whether he's worthy of love or hate, right? Because he can't be sure that he loves God as he should, right? But unless you love God as you should, you're not going to get to see God as he is. Now, the saints, I can't say it for myself, but the saints we know, even in this life, they love God as they should, right? So they already had the love of God, didn't they? But had they reached their end yet? So if the end consisted in loving God, they would have reached their end already, right? Now, when they come to see God as he is, their love of God is going to be even greater, right? But that's a difference in what? A degree, right? And there may even be some saints, for all I know, who love God more on this earth than I will love God in heaven, right? That they're so much more perfect than I am, right? So if you already love God as he is in himself, that can't be the end, can it? But by faith, you don't see God as he is. You see him in a mirror, darkly, as Paul says. That's kind of confirmation that the end isn't seeing God, right? But sometimes, you know, he quotes Augustine there, the vision is a holy war, right, in the sin contra there, right? But sometimes Augustine will say, you know, that the end is Gaudium de Veritata, right? Sometimes he'll speak of the act of the will, right? Because it's connected with that. And as a philosopher, I might say, you know, well, I want to understand the Thagorean theorem, right? And I might speak of my end as enjoying the Thagorean theorem, but I just happened to be on the 30th, I think it is, theorem of the sixth book of Euclid this morning. And this is the one where Euclid shows that in a right-angled triangle, not only is the square on the side opposite, the right angle equal to the two, but any figures that are equally angular, right, and in the same arrangement, it will be equal to those two, right? It's kind of an amazing thing, right? So there will be a triangle in there or a square, I mean, an oblong or a pentagon or a hexagon, right? But anyway, in his note on that, he says that Proclus, right, in his commentary on Euclid says that Euclid himself discovered this extension, right? And so that's in the sixth book, Euclid. So the Thagorean theorem is, you know, obviously goes back to Pythagoras, it seems. So it's named. And that's the way he ends up the first book. But in the sixth book, he gets his own advance. That's really, really beautiful. Beautiful discovery, you know? So my brother Mark used to, I used to joke about, you know?