Prima Pars
Lecture 108: Divine Beatitude and the Trinity: Object and Act

Transcript
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It's so delightful to see this, you know. You shouldn't take too much of this. You're like, two-inch candy or something, you know. But really, is my goal here substantially the joy I have in understanding this, or is it the understanding of it? It's substantially the understanding of it, right? And this joy is perfecting it in the same way that beauty perfects youth, as Aristotle says. It's kind of an added thing, right? Now, sometimes Thomas will speak at the end as understanding and loving God, and that's particularly good to say, too, right? But do you want to see God as he is, so that you might love him more than you do in this life? Well, I'm just saying that that would be, I wouldn't say it would be a bad will, right? You say, God, I know I should love you more than I do, right? I want to love you more worthily. How can I do that? Well, give me the basic vision and I'll love you more as I do. But the point is, you don't want to see God as he is just to love him more, right? You want to see him as he is for its own sake, yeah. It's the perfection of your mind. I used to go back, this is a little different point here, but it kept me some light upon it. Which is better, knowledge or love, I used to say, in a general way, right? Without getting into the more subtle parts of his speaking in general. Which is better, knowledge or love? Well, it's kind of interesting, that all knowledge as such is good. It's even good to know how to make a bomb, right? As such. Because if you've got a bad will, it's actually going to be bad, right? But all knowledge as such is good, huh? Even the knowledge of the bad is good, right? It's all love good. Because love of the good is good, and love of the bad is bad, right? But knowledge of the good is good, and knowledge of the bad is bad, right? It's good, yeah. And in fact, as Plato and Aristotle point out first, there's the same knowledge of opposites, right? So if knowledge of the bad were bad, then all knowledge would be bad. But as it is, all knowledge is good, right? So in that sense, knowledge is better than love, right? Or love depends upon knowledge for being better. And that's why, you know, it says in the book of Proverbs, right? And in Aristotle, that the man who does bad is mistaken. Maybe more than that, but he's mistaken. Because he's thinking here and now that this is the thing to do, right? And it's not the thing to do. So he's mistaken. So if the knowledge were perfected, then the love would be perfected. The knowledge was never fully perfected until you see God as he is. Right? And make any more mistakes. Thomas gives a reason there. He says, you see God as he is, you cannot love him. You can't help but love him. But when people love each other, they want to do each other's will. Therefore, you can't do the will of God. And that's the measure of all good. So you're all set. I remember reading, you know, sometimes about a sinner's death quest. You know, ah, in a few moments I was no longer said. Now, the third article, with your God is the Beatitude. You know, the third article, with your God is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one of everyone who is blessed, right? Well, God is the highest good, as has been shown above. That's way, way back there in the treatise on the substance of God. But it's impossible for there to be many summa bona, highest goods. Since therefore it is of the notion of beatitude that it would be the highest good, it seems that beatitude is not other than God. Moreover, beatitude is the end, is the last end of the reasonable nature, right? But to be the last end of a reasonable nature, or something that has a reasonable nature, belongs to God alone. Therefore, the beatitude of anyone blessed is God alone. Why isn't that going to agree with that? Or is he going to distinguish, right? And see, well, in one way that's true, in another way it isn't. But against this is that the beatitude of one is greater than the beatitude of another, according to that of 1 Corinthians 15. Star differs from star in clarity. Remember, Paul VI, they're quoting that, right? I think it's when he made, he was talking about St. Francis de Sales, right? But think about the saints. Star differs from star in clarity. How can this be God, though, right? One is more than the other, right? But nothing is greater than God, right? Therefore, God would be greater and lesser than himself, right? God was the beatitude of all of us, right? Therefore, the beatitude is something other than God. Now, Thomas, what's the old saying there, the old Dominican, you know? Never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish. Well, I used to know him about those things, but I mean, God affirms some things. But there's some truth in what he's saying, right? But you can say that in the idea of being mistaken, you're mixed up, right? You're confused. It seems to imply that you're mixed up or confused because you don't see some, what, distinction. I answer it should be said that the beatitude of an understanding nature, something that it has nature to understand, consists in the act of its understanding, in which there are two things that could be considered. One is the object of the act, which is the understandable, and the other is the act itself, which is to understand. So an understand what a triangle is, what a triangle is one thing, and my understanding is another thing, right? And what a triangle is, is the object, right? And the other thing there is my act of understanding. Am I hearing the music of Mozart, right? The music of Mozart is the object there, right? And it's not the same thing as my hearing. If, therefore, beatitude is considered on the side of the object itself, thus God alone is, what, beatitude. Because from this alone is someone blessed that he understands God, according to that of Augustine in the fifth book of Confessions. He's quoting in part what I quoted more fully. Blessed is the one who knows you, right? Even if he, what, is ignorant of other things, right? But on the side of the act of understanding, right, beatitude is a created thing, right? It's something created in those creatures that are blessed. In God order, by this according to something, what, uncreated in his own understanding. Now, so you apply it to the first objection there about being the highest good. To the first, therefore, it should be said that beatitude, as regards the object of beatitude, what is it your understanding we're saying, right, is the highest good, simpliciter. Now, I've got that little distinction coming up again, right? What would these guys do without that distinction, huh? But, as it guards the act, in creatures that are blessed, is the highest good, nonzopichiter, but in the genus of the goods that can be partaken of by the, what, creatures. That's clear enough, right? I ran into interesting text that Thomas said the other day there. I don't remember the context, now it came up, but, will anybody in heaven be imperfect? Will anybody in heaven lack something that he or she should have? That's what he said. No, no, no. Thomas says no. No one will be imperfect, right? But now, how do you reconcile that with, you know, star difference and star in clarity, right? Well, the point is, a lack in the strict definition of lack, then, is not having something only that you're able to have, right? That you should have, right? So God is calling you to this place in heaven, right? Which may be higher or lower than someone else's place in heaven, right? But since he's called you to this place, right? If you get to that place, right? You're not lacking in something that you should have, right? You have everything that God intends you to have for all eternity, right? That's a famous remark of Zini, right? You know, someone said to her, he's a famous composer, Zini, huh? Someone said to him, and he says he listened to Mozart at least twice a day, right? Something like that. He says, why don't you write more like Mozart? And you know what Zini's reply was? He says, well, he says, I'd be a very poor Mozart. But as it is, I'm a very good one of Zini. So in heaven, in fact, in heaven, they'd say, well, why don't you write Thomas or more like St. Paul or somebody? I'd be a very poor St. Paul or a very poor St. Thomas. That's my very good one purpose, right? You see? So once you've been purged in purgatory and so on, right, you won't be lacking anything that you should have according to the plan of God. That's kind of interesting. I never heard him say that in some other, you know. Yeah. The Rez talked about the cots in heaven. You all have different sized cots, but they're full. Yeah. So you can't say that this one is lacking anything, right? Yeah. But you know, if I give you a little glass of beer and him a big mug of beer, you know, you might be complaining, you know. I say, well, yours is full too, yeah. Bottoms up. Yeah. The second, huh? Objection. Something like that. The end is twofold. Kuyus and quo to the sophist teaching, right? To wit, the thing itself and the use of the thing, right? Just as to the avaricious man, right? The end is what? Money and the acquisition of money, right? That's what the distinction you can make, right? So for the rational creature, the end, God is the ultimate end, but res, huh? It's the thing. But the attitude which is created is the use or more of the enjoyment of that thing, huh? It's your famous extinction that custom gives, right? The use of some fruition, right? That everything we do that's wrong is what? Enjoying things we should use and using things we should enjoy. So is God the beatitude of everyone blessed? Well, if you're thinking of the object of blessedness, right? He is the beatitude of everyone, right? If you're thinking of your seeing God or even your loving God, right? Then that's something created, right? That's not God himself, right? But that's nevertheless seeing God and loving God, right? That's not God. Now, whether in the blessedness of God, every blessedness is what? Included, huh? The fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that the divine beatitude does not, what, contain or bring together, right? All beatitudes, huh? Why? Because there are some false beatitudes, huh? That's one reason why Thomas says that beatitude cannot consist in love, essentially, because you can love the bad as well as the good, right? So if you love something bad or something other than God as you're in, you are mistaken, right, huh? But you might enjoy what you're doing, right? And this is not what true blessedness does, is it? Nope. That big back mind, right, huh? Which knows what's truly blessed. So there are some beatitudes that are false, but in God there cannot be anything false. Therefore, the divine beatitude does not, what, complexitore, huh? Huh? Yeah, embrace it by one way of putting it, yeah. Complexion. Amazing. Moreover, some beatitude, according to some, consists in bodily things, as in pleasures, wealth, and so on, right? Which cannot belong to God, since he's not, he's not a body, he's bodiless. Hence, therefore, his beatitude does not, what, embrace every beatitude, huh? I mentioned how Poethe is in the Consolation of Philosophy, he takes up false happiness first, right? And then he takes up true happiness, huh? And the reason he kills is that false happiness is more known to us. It is more known to us than true happiness, huh? You know, broad is the road that leads to false happiness. Neither are they into it, but few find the way to true happiness. What's that thing by Zachary, is it? What was he talking about, John the Baptist, you know, he's going to lead us, I'm talking about Christ, you know, lead us on the way to peace, right? Sometimes peace, properly understood, is the end of man, right? So he's showing us the road to that true happiness. But against this is that beatitude is a certain, what? Perfection, right? But the divine perfection includes every, what? Perfection, right? Therefore, the divine beatitude takes in every place of this. Thomas says, I answer it should be said that whatever is desirable in any beatitude, whether it be true or false, he says, huh? The whole exists in a superior way, more eminently, in the divine beatitude. For of contemplative happiness, which is the highest according to me, he has a continual and most certain contemplation of himself and of all other things, right? So he has a perfection of contemplative life. For the active life, he's got the governance of the whole universe. Well, it's even better than Alexander the Great. To an extent, part of the world, right? There's no more worlds for God to conquer, right? He covers the whole universe. Is there any significance to his use of felicitas? What? Is there any significance to his use of felicitas instead of... Next line there? Yeah. Actually, all of these are... Yeah, I used the word here in the contemplative, in the felicitas, right? Okay. So, I think I mentioned before how, when I first read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, in the English translation, they used the word happiness, which is the English word that we have there. But, in the Latin text, they would use the word felicitas. And in the Greek text, the verse out, it's eudaimonia. And, you could say that happiness is named from hat. And, if you read Shakespeare's play there, in the Two Gentlemen of the Rona, you can see the word hat there in the original sense. You meet good hat, you know, with your particular happiness. And, in Latin and in Greek, you had a word corresponding to that. In Greek, it would be eutuchia. And, in Latin, maybe they have two words, bona fortuna. But, good luck, right? But, then, in Latin, you have this other word, felicitas, which comes from felix, which means fruitful, right? And, a fruit seems to be the last thing that a plant produces, right? And, it's sweet and desirable, and so on. So, there you're kind of saying that happiness is not the result of hat, of love. But, happiness is the result, is a natural result of doing good deeds, right? Just like misery, in a sense, is a natural result of what? Yeah. Like Shakespeare says, huh? In Macbeth, huh? Unnatural deeds to breed unnatural troubles, right? And, notice the word breed, though, right? It's birthed, right? It's kind of the natural result, huh? So, felicitas names better what Aristotle's talking about, Nicomachean Ethics, because he's talking about something to be achieved primarily by virtue, or by virtuous deeds, huh? And so, when Shakespeare describes the Nicomachean Ethics, he says, is that part of philosophy that treats of happiness, by virtue especially to be achieved? It doesn't say by half or by luck, but by virtue, right? So, felicitas names it better, right, huh? Now, the Greek word eudaimonia, right, comes from the Greek word for daimon, which didn't have the pejorative sense, it didn't have a bit of a superior being, right, huh? And, sort of, kind of being well-directed by a superior being, right? Well, in a sense, those three names touch upon three opinions men might have, that happiness depends upon your being left in life, huh? And the average person might kind of think that, huh? Being in the right place at the right time, okay? And misery is just all to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so, and something terrible happens to you, you know? But there's some truth that you make your own happiness or misery, right? And felicitas, etymologically, right, it brings it out more. But maybe our happiness really depends upon some superior being, right, huh? And perhaps the word beatitude or blessed, right, has the idea of something superior, right? You're blessed by someone, right? So someone, we say, has been blessed by God, right? Good things that have happened to him, right, and so on. So, you've got to be kind of sensitive to those words, right? Now, you see, yeah, something like that with the word love, you know, where the word love in English kind of corresponds almost to amor in Latin, right? Maybe even to eros in Greek, you know? But the Greeks and the Latins have other words, like galaxio for a more spiritual kind of love, and you've maybe seen C.S. Lewis's book on the, what's it called, the four loves, right? But you have this word agape that you find St. Paul using for charity and caritas in Latin. But I think this word charity has kind of, you know, reduced the meaning, right? But there's a problem when you talk about love, right? I know I taught love and friendship, you know, especially teaching that course, you know, people like love and sex, you know? Well, it could mean that, maybe, but, you know, I'm obviously not taking that narrow view of what love was. So, you've got a little problem sometimes with these things, right? Okay. So, the word happiness, as far as the etymology of the word is concerned, right? It fits more of those lower things that depend more upon my proportion, but it could be used, you know, nevertheless for this higher thing, right? Just like the word perfect. Remember that question about, can you speak of God as being perfect, or perfect comes from the word factum, right? Well, when something has been made, then it's been perfected, right? Well, the etymology doesn't fit God, but the meaning does, right? God is perfect without being made perfect, as opposed to us. God is perfect. in the table, it's on there, perfect, but being made perfect, right? And so you've got to be sensitive to those words and see what you can do, you know? Okay? But here he uses fichitas almost as a synonym, you know? But beatitude means more, specifically, you know, the rational nature, right? He'd probably use beatitude more for the angels than for the other word, right? Property, but to man also. So God is talking about the essence of God's gratitude, of contemplative happiness or felicity, right? He has the continual and most certain contemplation of himself and of all other things, of the active, the governing of the whole universe. He has the highest perfection of both lives, right? Aristotle in the 10th book of Nicomachean Ethics, he distinguishes two happinesses, right? One is more human happiness, right? And the perfection of that is to rule the city. So when Churchill said he was happy, right, he'd gotten to where he did, right? Well, that's the happiness that Aristotle calls more human. And then the other happiness he calls more divine, the happiness of philosophy, of understanding ultimately God, of wisdom itself. But God is perfection of both of these, right? Not just the rule of the city, like this country, like Churchill, but of the whole universe. But now, of the terina, the earthly happiness, felicity. And this is the five parts of this false happiness that Poethius talks about, and he's referring to now in the third book of the consolation, which consists in pleasure, right, wealth, power, dignity, or glory, is what the brief he says, and fame. He has joy about himself and all other things for pleasure, right? For wealth, he has all sufficiency, which wealth seems to promise, right? For power, he has what? Commipotence. For dignity, the rule of all. For fame, he says, the admiration of every creature. Now, he does this in the Summa Contra Gentilis, too, where at the end there he shows that God has perfection of happiness, and he shows true happiness, right? And then he shows that even when we pursue false happiness, God has these, right? But he says it even more beautifully than here, you know. He says the same thing. He has the wonder of every creature, understanding him to an extent, right? Now, the more you understand God, the more you admire him, right? But if you understand him, it's a little bit, you start to admire him, right? Like my mother would say, you know, there's no finger, he can move the whole sun in the moon in the stars, you know? So, even this kind of metaphorical understanding of God, right, arouses a certain wonder. So, you want to be admired, and so on. God has got this, so I just need you. It's kind of beautiful the way they begin that false happiness, huh? And show that even there, what you're seeking is false happiness. God has more. The first objection was saying, well, how can there be any false happiness being contained in God's happiness, right? We have to then distinguish. To the first effort should be said, that some beatitude, by this is false, according as it, what, falls short from the reason of true beatitude. And thus it is not in God, right? But whatever it has of likeness to true happiness, however, what, tenuous, however, a beatitude, the whole pre-exists in the divine beatitude, right? As I mentioned, Aristotle, a lesser saying there, says that those who seek happiness and sense pleasure are not entirely mistaken, right? Because there is some kind of pleasure that follows upon happiness, right? But it's a much higher pleasure, a different pleasure. And they mistake the higher for the lower, right? So there's some likeness there, right? And the second objection was saying, well, some of these goods that are being sought in false happiness are in bodies, right? Because not bodily. But the goods which are in bodies, in a bodily way, are in God in a, what, spiritual way. And these things said suffice, huh? About those things which pertain to the unity by an essence, huh? We'll take a little break here, and then we'll make a peek at the premium, you know. We'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here, and then we'll take a little break here. Let's look at the premium here to what we're going to do when we come back, I guess, in the fall. The first thing I have to point out is the mnemonic device here, right? My mnemonic device here, memory device here, is the 27 is the cube of what? Three. So we're going to have the treatise on the trinity, the three persons, beginning with question 27. Now this is of no great significance, but remember me, right? Just like the third part of the fourth book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, it begins with chapter 79, and it brings the book to a close at 97. Well, 79, 97 is the first time, right? I don't think that's intentional, right? But once I remember that, in fact, remember that it starts in 79, I remember it ends in 97, or if I remember it ends in 97, it begins in 79. Okay, but we know how to follow those peculiarities of purpose, you know, trying to keep remembering these things, right? And you'll find out that there's, I think, 17 questions, right? It's going to be a number, right? Now all of that is just mnemonic. Now we come to Thomas' division, right? Having considered those things which pertain to the unity of the divine essence, so you might say everything he said about God up to this point is divided against what he's going to say now, right? So that's a division into what? Two. The Deo Uno and Etuino, you see it sometimes. It remains to consider about those things which pertain to the Trinity of the persons in divine things. Now as I mentioned before in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the consideration of the Trinity doesn't come up until you get to the fourth book. And the consideration of the existence and the substance of God and the operation of God is all in the first book. But what's the reason for that? Well, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the four books are divided into two parts. And the first three books are what can be known about God by reason alone as well as by faith. And Thomas makes the point, you know, she's both, right? In the fourth book, the Summa Contra Gentiles, he talks about those things that can be known about God only by faith. Now he follows the subdivision of both of those parts. It's exactly the same. He considers God in himself or by himself. Then God is the maker in what he's made. And then God is the end and is directing everything to this end. But in the first three books, there are divided into three books. And he has those same three parts in the third book, right? And he first takes up the Trinity, and then he takes up the Incarnation and attaches to that sacraments and so on. And then finally the Eschatology, the last things, in 79 through 97, the last chapters. Now he doesn't do that in Summa Theologiae, right? He doesn't divide it according to those things. The work as a whole, right? Those things that can be known about God by reason alone as well as by faith, right? By the philosophers as well as the Christians. And then those things. He might say it's all together, right? So at this point, he's still considering what is found between the first book and the beginning of the fourth book, right? In the Summa Contra Gentiles. Those things that pertain to God himself, right? And here they're put together, right? So one falls immediately upon the other. Now there's something to be seen, right? In both of those, right? Because in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you make more explicit the distinction between what reason can know, right? And what the philosophers could know, at least the greatest of them, with great difficulty and maybe even some mistakes. And what could be known only by faith, right? And that's an important distinction, right? He'll touch upon that distinction in here, of course. But it's not as marked, right? But in some ways, the order to assume that theologiae is more like God's knowledge, right? Because God knows everything by knowing himself. And so we know everything we can know about God and himself first, including the Trinity, right? And then we go from there to his other parts, yeah. So, but notice you still have a division here into two, right? But now, the consideration of the Trinity is divided into exactly what? Two or three parts. Three. Three. And because the divine persons are distinguished by relations of origin. That's quite a sentence if you stop and think about it, right? Because you've got the persone divine, beginning of that sentence. Secundum relaciones, right? And then originis, origin. They're distinguished, right? Then secundum ordinem doctrina. That's very important, right? If you keep one finger in there and go back to the gramium here at the beginning of the whole work, in the second paragraph there, I think it's a paragraph there, but we have considered that beginners in this teaching, and those things which are written down by many, right, are impeded much, okay? Partly an account of the multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, right? Partly because those things which are necessary for knowing such things, right, are not treated secundum ordinem discipline, right? But according as requires the exposition of books, according as the occasion of disputing comes up. Now, notice, he used a different word here. He said secundum ordinem doctrinae. But doctrinae means what? Well, inside the teacher, doctrine of teaching, and discipire means learning, right? But they're really in the same order, right? The order in which I teach is the order in which you should learn. Okay? So Thomas is saying they don't learn things in the order that they need to learn that, right? But according to what's required translation of a book, right? And that includes even the books of the Bible, right? Okay? And occasion of disputation, right? Now, if you look at the disputed questions on power there, you see that the order is not the same as here. That's disputatio, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what is the order in which these things should be taught, or the order in which they should be learned, right? Those being the same. First, we're not to consider about what? Origin. That refers to what? The proceeding of one from the other, right? So he adds cv de pocesione, right? Secondly, about the relations of the origin, right? So because the son is born of the father, right? Or born from the father, he proceeds from the father. Then as a result of this proceeding, you say, well, then he's the father and he's the son, right? And then because they breathe the Holy Spirit, right? He's the holy breath, right? He's the son. And then third, we'll consider about the what? Persons, huh? Now, if you look at the division here, you see that the first question is about the perceptions, right? The second question is about the relations. And then there's 15 questions about the persons. And we'll see how he divides it next to the fall, right? Mm-hmm. Okay?