Prima Pars
Lecture 120: The Name and Meaning of Person in Divine Things

Transcript
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Is this someone here? Well, it's some one thing, isn't it? Huh? So if you look at the etymology, there's someone, right? Some is kind of, you know, like something particular, one, and one is saying it's something one, right? This is one glass, right? It's someone glass, right? Isn't it? So it's someone, right? See what I mean? So you say, you know, you might say, like, you use the etymesis, expropria significati nominis, right? Someone could be applied to this one. This is someone, right? That's not the way we speak in English, right? Ex-usiloquendi, someone is always a what? Yeah, I don't think, we even probably wouldn't think of a cat as someone, would we? See? See what I mean? So you can see something like that with words, right? Like my French teacher used to explain sometimes the way he'd say it in French. Don't fight it, he says. Just accept it. That's what they say, you know? So you have to realize, you know, those things, huh? I mean, you know how no sound signifies by nature, right? It's by human custom agreement. And it's interesting that we have as much agreement, you know, that we generally, you know, I mean, if one of these cats around here comes around, I call him a cat, and you call him a cat, and this guy calls him a cat, you know, and the other one we call a dog. It's amazing to have as much agreement as we do, you know. You expect to be much more chaos given the irrationality of human beings and their willfulness and so on, you know. It's surprising we have anything wrong. Well, you know, the Greeks, what's a Greek word for nothing? Yeah, a Greek word for nothing. No, ute, ute, ute, or something. Yeah, ute, ute, yeah. Now, that comes from the negative, ute and hen, what? It means no one. Now, in English, we say, what? No thing, nothing. You see? So those are peculiar things, you know. So how do you translate ute into English, huh? If you said no one, you wouldn't get the sense, right? So we'd oppose something and nothing, right? Not something and no one. We'd oppose no one to someone, right? With that peculiar use. So you've got to, you know, be aware of these things. Well, it's a cause problem, right? But the main problem that came with hypostasis was not it's being used for a person, but it was translated as substantia, right? And then you say, well, we're professing in their faith that there are three substances of God. And then you see that the Latinus, I mean, the Greeks don't use hypostasis to name the nature of the thing, but we use the word substance to name the nature of the thing, what it is. So there's three what it is, you know? Then you're into heresy, right? So you've got to, it takes a while, you know, to clear these things up. Now to the second objection, huh? Don't we speak of three persons and three subsistences, huh? But to the second, it should be said that just as we say that in divine things, in a plural way, there are three persons, right? And three subsistences. So the Greeks speak of three, what? Hypostasis. But because the name of substance, which according to the propriety, properness and signification, responds to hypostasis, they're etymologically the same, right? Hupo is sub under, right? And stasis is like standing, right? Stand under. But because substantia is what? Equivocatra, I would know, right? Because substance can mean not only hypostasis, but the nature, the essence of the thing. Since it sometimes signifies the essence, sometimes hypostasis, right? Lest it be an occasion of error, right? We would rather transfer, right? Subsistence than substance for hypothesis, hypostasis, right? We'd rather speak of three subsistences than three substances, right? Because you're going to think of it as other sense of substance. It's so common, right? So we tend to use it even daily speech somewhat. The substance of the thing means what's essential, right? So it's so much in our mind, you know, that we... So what would be the difference between the Latin persona versus what you're saying there? Well, subsistence could be applied to any individual substance, right? Okay. Because it exists not in another, right? But person is such a thing, you know, with a rational nature, right? So it's more particular, right? Now, the third one, Boethius said... Go back to the objection here. Boethius says in the commentary and the predicaments that usia, which is the same as essensa... Now, I see usia in Greek has as one meaning, the essence, what the thing is. Like I was saying, Plato and Aristotle refer to the definition as a logos teisusias, right? Now, it signifies, at least in material things, something composed from matter and form. But that which is composed of matter and form is the individual substance, which is called epistasis in person. Therefore, all of the four said names signify, or seem to signify the same thing. Okay, Tom's going to clear this up now. To the third, it should be said that essence properly is that which is signified through the definition, right? But the definition contains or brings together the principles of the species, the particular kind of thing it is, in material things, but not the individual principles, huh? So the definition of man is an animal that has reason, right? Brings together the principles of this kind of thing called a man, but doesn't bring out what makes me to be me, as opposed to being you, right? Okay. Whence in things composed from matter and form, essence signifies not only form, nor only matter, but something put together from matter and form, but in common, right? So when I say that man is an animal that has reason, animal is more material nature, and reason is formal nature, but in general, insofar as they are beginnings of the species, a particular kind of thing it is. But what is put together from this matter, right? This flesh right here, you know, that's falling apart here, huh? And this form, this soul of mine, huh? Has the notion of an hypostasis or what? Person, right? Because this person is made up of my individual body, this flesh, you know? And this soul, right? Individual soul, huh? For soul and flesh and bone are of the notion or the definition of man, but this soul and this flesh and this bone are of the definition of man, if the individual had a definition, right? It's of the notion of this man, right? Okay. And therefore, hypostasis and person add above the notion of essence, the individualizing principles of the thing, huh? Nor are they the same with the essence of things composed of matter and form, as has been said above, when one treated of the divine simplicity, right? This goes back, you know, to what we say, that matter is subject to quantity, is a source of the individuation of us, huh? And so the matter has divided up, this flesh is my flesh and that flesh is your flesh, right? This is tied up with our individuality, right? And that's individual, my flesh or your flesh, not in the definition of man, right? But we keep the definition of man in general, that there is flesh and bone and so on, huh? But not my flesh and your flesh. So are you in the definition of man? But you're not a part of the definition of man, right? And my flesh and my bones are not in the definition of man, right? But flesh and bone in general are in the definition of man, right? And therefore, in the essence of man, right? But this person, you or me... has something in addition to that that makes us individual, right? And this is signified when you talk about the hypostasis of a person, right? Now notice he's going to apply it to the said contour, right? I just don't think to be cleared up. This is a question here about, Boethius says in the book about the two names, or two natures. The genera and species subsist only. Individuals not only subsist, but in truth they also stand under, right? But from subsisting are said subsistences, just as from standing under, substances are hypostasis. Since therefore to be a hypostasis or a person does not belong to genera species, hypostasis or persons are not the same as subsistence. To the fourth, it should be said that Boethius says that genera and species subsist insofar as it belongs to some individuals to subsist from this fact that they are, what, under genera and species in the predicament of substance, huh? Not that the species of the genera themselves subsist, right? Except according to the opinion of Plato, who has these up in the world of forms, right? Who laid down the species of things to subsist separately from singulars. But it's going back, in a sense, to the sense they'll say over here, that right column, right? Okay? You can say, well, man, even though man in general doesn't subsist, it's only individual men that subsist, man is a kind of thing that doesn't exist in another's subject, right? And because you and I belong to that genus, and the dog and the cat too, then we subsist, right? And that way he attributes subsist to them, not that he's a platonist and thinks that there are, you know, world of forms out there. Remember how we talked about one of the reasons why Plato made that mistake was because he thought that truth required that the way we understand things be the way they are. And you can see how a person could think that truth does require that, huh? But Aristotle says, no, you can understand things truly in separation that don't exist in separation. When Thomas explains this, he starts off with the accidental, right? So like I'm a philosopher, and my grandfather again, now I've got a 13th grandchild. And Thomas. Purposed. Okay? But you can, I'm both a grandfather and a philosopher, right? See? So the nurse at the hospital could know me truly to be the grandfather, right? One of the grandfathers. Without, what? Knowing that I'm a philosopher. Leaving that out. And my students could know that I'm a philosopher. Leaving out that I'm a grandfather and knowing nothing about that, right? I don't think so. Not outside. What can I do? Yeah. Now, if the nurse said, this grandfather is not a philosopher, she'd be false, right? But if she knows that I'm a, what? Grandfather without knowing that I'm a philosopher, she'd be mine false. You could say her analogy would be it's incomplete. But is it false? Because one of these things is knowable about me, right? Without the other, right? So Aristotle discovered that, right? That you could know sometimes something without another, even though it can't exist without the other. And the other example of that would be in mathematics, right? So I can know sphere or I can know cube without ice cube, right? Without wooden cube, any other kind of material cube. Not that there exist maybe cubes that aren't either ice cubes or wooden cubes or some other kind of material cube. But cube is knowable without ice, without wood, and so on. And sphere is knowable without rubber, like a rubber ball or glass sphere or whatever it might be made of, right? And so the mind is not false in knowing sphere and separation from these things, even though it doesn't exist in separation from these things. But Plato is thinking, hey, your mind would be false if it knows things in a way other than they are, right? What you say about things has to be with them. But does the way you know them have to be with them? Can we talk about the past now? Can we know the past truly now? Our knowledge is in the present. And therefore, don't we know what's in the present? Lady Macbeth says, you've transported me out of the ignorant present. Dickens picks up, you know, in David Copperfield. He gets engaged there, right? He's in the ignorant present, right? Let's see before or after, right? So, so when we speak of substance then as what? A subsisting thing, we don't mean it in the sense that what? Yeah, by itself, apart from the individuals, right? But that man and dog is the kind of thing, right? That individuals of that kind subsist, right? It's said to be subsistent in a different way than individuals, right? Well, quality or quantity is not the kind of thing whose individuals, it's not the kind of thing which individuals belong as species of genera that subsists, but exists only in another, right? Health and things of this sort. So he says to the fourth, it should be said that Boethius says that genera and species subsist insofar as to subsist belongs to some individuals from this that they are under those genera and species in the category of substance, right? Not that the species or the genera themselves subsist, right? Except according to the opinion of Plato, right? who laid down that the species of things separately subsisted from the, what? Sincroners, right? He first down the books of wisdom is a little bit of fun, you know, it compares Plato a bit to the poets, right? Where the poets, you know, think of Zeus and the other gods as kind of superhuman beings, right? And Plato thinks of the forms as being, you know, you know, this kind of purified nature of the animal, the man, the dog, the cat, and so on, huh? Not really knowing what these separated substances are really like. But substari, to stand under, belongs to these same individuals in order to accidents, which are something outside the notion of what? Genera and species, huh? Okay? So I'm a, what? Individual in the genus of substance because I'm in that genus, I'm the kind of thing that subsists, right? That exists not in another. But I'm also standing under my health and my knowledge of geometry and so on, which are outside the genus of substance, huh? I can have a lot of accidental being, right? I can be a philosophical grandfather. Accidental being, huh? Now this other comparison that Moetheus makes, you have to be careful about this. He connects hypostasis with matter, usiosis, that is subsistence, with form, right? Neither of these are called a person. He says, to the fifth, it should be said that the individual composed of matter and form has that it, what? Stands under accident from the, what? It's proper demand. That's right. because matter is like the subject, right? What he sees. Quence Boethius says in the book about the Trinity that a simple form cannot be a subject like God. Divina substantia former est, Boethius says. But what subsists by itself has this from the, what? Propriety of its own form, which does not come to a subsisting thing, but gives actual being to matter so that it's able to subsist. So it's through the form that something has existence, right? And therefore, existence not in another, right? Subsistence. An account of this, therefore, hypostasis is attributed to matter by Boethius and subsistence to form. Not because it's exactly identical, but because matter is the source of standing under and form is the, what? Source of subsisting, right? Okay. Perfectly clear? So notice, those first two articles are really, what? More general than the ones coming up now, right? Because we're understanding what a person is, an individual substance of a reasonable nature, and we're clarifying, you know, the difference in meaning, right? Between the word person and the word, what? Yeah. And so on, right? Okay. But now the next two articles are going to be more particular, right? And we'll have to see them for next time, right? Okay. But now should you use this name, person, in divine things, huh? It does, you know? Thomas is going to take it up now, kind of formally, right? Now this came from fiction and so on, right? So, Thomas, when he talks about the poetic art, huh? Premium to the logic there, he says that, It belongs to the poet to lead us into something virtuous through a suitable representation, right? But now, is the way the poet is to do that the same as the way the preacher does when he gives a sermon and exhorts the people, right? He preaches them and exhorts them to be, you know, is it going to be the same way? I'm seeing this bell, right? You see? It's not preaching to the poet, right? You see? And it's more effective for not being that way, right? This is moving people to what is virtuous in a way different than the man preaching a sermon to do. So, right? Okay. Now, I've often been struck by the likeness between the Mary Wiser Windsor by Shakespeare. You know that play? It's one of Shakespeare's good-natured comedies, huh? And the last of the good-natured comedies in time, he wrote. I'm often struck by the likeness between the Mary Wiser Windsor and the notes of the figure of Mozart, right? And they both, I think, have a moral effect upon the audience, huh? They do what Thomas says the poets do, right? To lead us into something virtuous to the super-representation. But without preaching, you know, right? You see? And of course, the way in which Shakespeare does it in the Mary Wiser Windsor is more by making the lustful person and the false staff who's making proposals to Mary Wiser Windsor, right? And they pretend to accept and they play a joke at the very time he comes, right? And of course, the husband, one of the men, you know, otherwise thinks that, you know, thinks it's really going on, right? And he's gathering all his friends to go up there, you know, to expose, you know, and he's making a fool of himself all the time because there's nothing going on. And so after the first way which they do with false staff is that they put him in a huge bucket, you know, of dirty clothes, you know, and so on and have the servants carry it out and dump it in the water. So he's made ridiculous to the lustful man, right? Of course, he's not attractive or, you know, he's gross in size and so on. And the second time they dress him up like an old witch woman, you know, there's no neighborhood and he gets, you know, beaten, you know, like the husband hates this witch woman and so on. And finally, of course, they let the husband sit on the joke, you know, and then the, you know, three is enough. And the third time, the final time is they're going to meet, have false staff, meet the woman in the woods, you know, and then they have all the children out there, you know, and little things to burn them with and so on. Five, five, simple fantasy. And, but, you find the lustful man that is ridiculous, right? You see? So you're not being preached to, you know, and of course, there's something like that in the notes of the figuro, right? Because the, the right to the seniors is for the, the maidenhood of the, is, is, lady servants, right? And of course, he's, he's trying to get, uh, Susanna, right? and Mary, Barbara Seville, to this. But of course, the, the, the wife of, of the, of the, uh, county is, you know, but finally, there's a, um, uh, Susanna, who tends to agree to, to meet the count in the, in the, in the garden, right? It's nighttime. And, uh, of course, what happens is that, uh, count just takes the place of Susanna. And of course, of course, she's holding her kind of, you know, withered hand, what a sweet, soft hand, you know, and so on. Everybody's kind of, you know, surrounded them, you know, kind of singing, you know, where it's fine, you know, he's, the truth comes to life, right? And so finally, he's down on his knees, you know, asking forgiveness to his wife. Well, in a sense, but also, if you listen to the music, you see, you, you want, uh, the barber, and Susanna, you know, to succeed in getting married without the, the right to the senior, so-called, getting in there. And, uh, so you're emotionally attacked to this thing, you see. So there's no preaching there, right? So I'm struck by the light, in the way Mozart did it, in the way that, uh, that Shakespeare did it, you know, in the same way, you see, the bell, right? You know, my wife has remarked me about that, which, you know, it didn't, you know, take a preachy or kind of moralistic, you know, thing, but it moved you to the virtuous in a way that's proper to, to fiction to do, huh? That's a difficult thing to do, you know? Paul VI, he had an allocution about that, about the artist, and he spoke with that exactly, and he said, you have an advantage over the preacher, because you can present virtue in a way that, people are moved to admire the antagonist, the protagonist, whoever it is, if he's virtuous, and to make people love virtue because they love this man, and they move on the surface, whereas a preacher's more of an antagonist, he's preaching at the people, and they're not as, unless they're really spiritual, they're not as inclined to like that, they're not as inclined to move to virtue in the same way by a preacher's up there yelling at them, as when they admire a hero. And it's probably, you know, if you represent these people as they really are, and well, then the virtue is more attractive than the vice, huh? I was going to kick out of that thing, the, the short-lived pope there, yeah, yeah, did you ever read his illustrious and they're written, you know, letters to famous people in history, right? And there's one written to, to Greta, the German poet, talking about the recent movie festival, as it was in Europe, you know? And it's talking about the moral responsibility to the artist to do these things. And I guess what happened in real life, you know, with Greta, he wrote The Sars of Young Bertha, which is a story about a happy love affair, right? And when people read it, you know, so I'm that same thing and they commit suicide to a real life. So, I mean, Greta, you know, was, you know, wondering, you know, seeing someone's responsibility, you know? So it's appropriate he writes the letter to Greta, you know, about this thing, you know? And he says it's got to be, you know, arising actually from the play of this moral effect. It can be something attached on at the end and I'm a little bit moral to tell. As my old teacher Kassir used to say, you know, you can tell a man's mind by the examples he chooses where they're well chosen, right? And so to illustrate the point there, Paul. He said, he says, after seeing or reading Oedipus, one is anything but enthusiastic about incest. I mean, he said, I understand, you know, one is anything but enthusiastic about incest. I mean, you know, contemporary things, you would have even incest, you know, I mean, represented as a kind of a normal thing or something, I don't know. But, see, the thing, too, about Shakespeare's play in Mary's of Windsor is you've got other plots going off, right? And those who, the two married wives of Windsor were playing these jokes on Falstaff, and there are two husbands, right? Now, one husband, of course, is the one who thinks his wife is bald somehow, and he gets, you know, all his neighbors up to go up there to march up, you know, to catch him in the ax of his face. He doesn't catch him in the ax. And then there's people, you know, he's a guy who's got a jealous streak in his nature, you know, and people are ridiculous. And I don't know anybody who's really jealous, you know? I used to work with a guy who had a wife who was insanely jealous, right? And he would sit at the boss's house one time, and the boss's wife, not the boss's wife, the boss's sister wanted to show him something in the bedroom, right? She just went to the bedroom. You think I'm going to try? You've got trouble doing that, right? And I was working with them one day at the package store, and the woman that worked in the bank there, you know, around the corner, you know, in the same shopping mall, they would come in to get maybe a Coca-Cola or something, and they would break from the working. And so, we'd be friendly with these people, and he's talking, and they'd come in, and they'd come in like, you're rather dear, it's my dad. And one day, they were talking, in the summer, you know, going into Kesha, you know, and she's a woman from the bank, she's talking much, man, she had to be willing to some place, you know? It was the same place as Charlie and his wife were going. And his sister, for heaven's sake, he says, if you see me on the, you know, on the warlock, don't beat me because, you know, who's that, you know? So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so the, the one man is, is, you know, is, is, is, oh, you know, you know, like, like, like, like, he's absurd, you know, in his suspicions of his wife, right? See? And then, the other man, though, and his wife have a, have a daughter they're going to marry off, and they want to marry off a particular, you know, man, like in those days, right? And instead, she runs off with the young man. And so, they're deceived, too, you know, huh? So, there isn't this horrible pressure upon Falstaff, right? Because other people are ridiculous in some ways, too, right? And at the end, they say, let's all go down and let's have a nice meal, you know? Come to Falstaff, you know? When he goes down, he's kind of, you know? So, I mean, there's nothing preachy about, you know, but you certainly can't go in, you know, without having some kind of a more effective one, whatever it is, guys. Let's say our little prayer, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. God, our knight and knight, our guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to bloom in our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly, St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, and help us to understand all its liberty. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Now, as you know, the treatise on the Trinity is divided into, what, three parts, huh? According to the order of teaching, as Thomas says, huh? And that's because the divine persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are distinguished by relations, huh? Of origin, huh? Of origin or procession, one person from another. And therefore, he divides the treatise on the Trinity into consideration of those three things, huh? So we had a question on procession, right? Where you learn that there is a proceeding or going forward that remains within God, right? And that one of these going forwards is a generation. And there's another more mysterious going forward that doesn't really have a name. But its name is not generation, huh? Okay. And then, in the present, we had a question on the, what, relations, right? Okay. And now we've come to the, what, 15 questions. 15 of the 17 questions in total are on the persons, right? And those 15 questions are divided into, what, two parts, huh? And one is a kind of absolute consideration of the persons, the first 10 questions. And then the last five questions will be a comparative consideration of the persons, huh? We'll find out whether they're equal or not, et cetera. Okay? Now, the first 10 questions is also divided into, what, two parts, right? And we have four questions on the persons in general. And this will be followed by six questions on the persons in particular, right? There will be one question, I think, on the father, two questions on the son, and three on the, what, Holy Spirit, right? The Pythagorean way of the things. Okay? Now, this first question, as you notice, is divided into four articles. Look back at the premium there, the 29. But if you look at the four questions, you can see it obviously falls into three parts. Because the first question, the one that we're in right now, is the meaning of the name person, right? And then the second and third article questions kind of go together, because the second question is the number of persons, and the third one is those things that follow upon the number of persons, huh? And then the fourth article is like a third part, which, those things that belong to, what, a knowledge of persons, right? Okay? So you're going to find out, first of all, what a person is, right? In general, and in God, what does it mean to speak of a person? And then he's going to talk about the number of persons, and what falls upon the number of them, and then something about our knowledge of persons, huh? Okay? So it really falls into three, but he divides it into four, and subdivided the second one. Now, we looked at the first two articles before my qualification, my qualification of those being grandchildren, and notice the first two articles were really about, what, person in general, right? The definition of person going back to the way this is a great definition, and then the comparison of person to things that are close to it, right? Distinction. And now the last two ones, kind of the second part, right? And the first one, of course, is whether the name of person belongs at all in divine things. And then what does it mean there? What does it signify there, right? Okay? So obviously these four fall into two parts, right? The general consideration of person, and then talking about person and divine things. So let's look now at the third article of question 29. 29, where the name of person should be placed in divine things. To the third, he says, one proceeds thus. It seems that the name of person ought not to be laid down in divine things. For Dionysius, who was a very great authority in the Middle Ages, huh? It was thought to be the Dionysius, maybe converted by Paul in Areopagus. I guess there was a Dionysius converted by you. So kind of, you're getting out with some horse's mouth when you're getting out from Dionysius, right? And I think really, really great, brought Dionysius back from Constantinople made him somewhat known at that time, right? For Dionysius says, in the beginning of the divine names, in general, it is not, what? One should not dare to say something, right? Or to think something about the, what? Super substantial it and divinity, apart from those things which are, what? Divinely expressed for us from the, what? Sacred writings, huh? But the name of person is not expressed for us in sacred scripture of either the New or the Old Testament. Therefore, the name of person should not be used in divine things, huh? I suppose Thomas would say that although the name person is not, what, used there, what is signified by the name person is found, right? A rose being the other name would still smell as sweet as the Pope says. Moreover, Boethius says in the book about the two names, that the name of person seems to be drawn from those persons which are presented, or which represent men in comedies and, what? Tragedies, I guess it's the mask or something, where the person is said from, what? Personando, I guess it's the idea of what? Sound there, right? It helped to, didn't have microphones in those days, so it helped to magnify the voice. Because by its, what? Concavity, right? Just the sound might be put forth more, right? The Greeks call these persons prosopah, when the fact that they're placed in the face, right? Or before the eyes, and they hide the thing. So it made it somewhat easier for an actor, right? I didn't have to put all these facial expressions. It's just the tone of voice, right? But this cannot belong in divine things, except perhaps, what? By metaphor, right? Therefore, the name person is not said of God, except metaphor. Now, this is more an argument taken from what the word is taken from, right? Rather than its meaning, right? Of course, we've seen things like this even before, like the word perfect, remember? Perfect comes from the word factum, made, right? How can God be perfect when he's not made, huh? Although it's taken from that, huh? It signifies the actuality, right? That a thing has after it's been made, right? Not necessarily made in making. So a name can be taken from something other than what it means, yeah? So it's necessary to distinguish those two, huh? Moreover, every person is in hypostasis, right? But the name hypostasis does not seem to belong to God, huh? For, according to Boethius, it signifies that which is subject to accidents, huh? So it's a little bit like the word substance, too, right? Which means to stand under, right? Well, nothing really stands under anything else in God. So how can you speak of substance, huh? And St. Jerome, though, one less than St. Jerome, says that in the name hypostasis, uh, poison, right, huh, is hidden under the, what, honey, huh? I think this goes back to the fact, as we've seen before, that the, uh, etymologically speaking, hypostasis is the same in Latin as in Greek, what, or in English, rather, Latin, better. Substantia, right? People under and stands, huh? But unlike the Greek, huh, the Latin word substantia also means, what, the nature of a thing, what it is. And hypostasis in Greek doesn't mean that, right? So if we translate hypostasis by substance, and you say there are three hypostasis in the God, then you say there are three substances, and that might indicate that there are three, what, natures, and this, of course, would be, um, reticode, and so there's something, uh, there's some poison hidden under that, yeah. Therefore, this name, person, should not be said of God. There's a problem in translations. I'll show you how man is tied to words, though. Christoph says in the book on Sistema Reputation that the most common mistake is for mixing up the senses of a word. And it gives us problems in theology, obviously, as well as in philosophy. Moreover, from whoever is removed, the definition also the, what, defined. But the definition of person laid down above does not seem to belong to God. First, because reason. Now remember how reason is put into the definition. Because reason implies discursive knowledge, which does not belong to God, as has been shown above, right? In the treatise on the operations of God, right? God does not know things discursively, right? But that's the very definition of reason I can see in Shakespeare's definition of reason. It's ability for large discourse, right? Looking before and after. And discourse means, in one meaning, simply going from one thing to another, right? But that God doesn't do, right? And then the other sense of discourse is coming to know what you don't know for what you do know, right? But neither one of these is true about God. There's no emotion in God. And he doesn't know one thing, or come to know one thing to know another. All things are open and naked, as his eyes, the scripture says, at once. It kind of confirms what the way the great Shakespeare defines reason. And thus, God cannot be said to be of a rational nature, right? Now, Thomas will just kind of pass it over and say, well, he's using rationalism for intellectual nature. So it's not going to be a kicking way towards the great Boethius' definition. Also, because God cannot be said to be a, what, individual substance, that's the other part of the definition, because the beginning of individuation is matter. That's only true in the material things, huh? So it's because your flesh and blood and bones is not my flesh and blood and bones, right? That we're different individuals, huh? And God doesn't have that. God's immaterial. And again, the word substantia, like to stand under, right, is taken from it standing under, what, accidents, right? Notice he's standing under accident, so that he can be called a, what, substance, right? Therefore, the name of person ought not to be attributed to God, right? Now, if all you ever heard was these four objections. You didn't know if they were objections that Thomas was going to answer. Pretty convincing, right? But I would have thought, right? Hearing these objections, right? If you tally on the false side, right? But against all this is what is said in the symbol, oh, now. Symbolo means what? Yeah. It actually means thrown together, the Greek word, logically, right? But the creeds are called symbols sometimes, because things are thrown together, put together. And one of them is called the Athanasian creed, huh? It's a very important creed, huh? And it may not have been composed in its present form by Athanasius, but it goes back to his teaching, right? And some things in the Athanasian creed, they're explicit there. They're not in the other creeds. But if you get official documents of the church, you'll find the Athanasian creed is up there. Authority, right? Put up there at the Nicene, Constantinople creed, and the Apostles' creed, and so on. So that's a pretty great authority in the Athanasian creed. There, in that creed, too, that we have the statement that there's no before and after in God, huh? There's no sense as God the Father before the Son. Basically, as it may seem, right? But they're not together, right? If you don't know that creed, you have to look at it sometime. If you remember right there, I think that creed has got the division, too, of the things you have to look at. The divinity and the manly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, in the Nicene Constantinople creed, all the articles of faith are divided according to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So certain other articles are attached, like, you know, creation to the Father, right? Or, you know, sanctification of the Holy Spirit, right? But in the Athanasian creed, I guess, in the creed of the Fourth Adam Council, you have the divinity of God, or Christ, and then humanity. And that's a division used more in theology, right? So in the Prima Parish, we'll get things referring to the divinity of God, and so on. The Trinity, and then you get the incarnation of the third part, two different parts. And then the compendium of theology of Thomas, you have that same thing. You have the divinity of Christ, and then the humanity of Christ. They correspond roughly to the Prima Parish and the Tertia Parish. So you can divide the articles of faith into two or three, right? This is part of Purpose's Principle, right? You divide into two or three, or both, for the most part, at least, right? And when you divide into more than three, usually you have to combine or divide and subdivide to see that, right? Now, Thomas' response here reminds me a lot of, you know, way John Paul II is always talking about the importance of person. But Thomas gives more clearly the exact reason for that, right? I answer, it should be said, that person signifies that which is most perfect in the whole of what? Nature. To wit, something subsisting, okay, in a rational nature, right? Now, something subsisting means, what? As opposed to an accident, right? Something that exists by itself, right? Not in another, right? And those things that exist by themselves and not in another are superior to those things that exist only in another, right? And among all natures, the rational nature, meaning the nature that understands, right, is higher, right? So the plants are higher than the stones, but the animals who sense are higher than the, what, plants, and the nature that understands are even higher, right? Whence, since everything that is of perfection ought to be attributed to God, in that his, what, essence or nature contains in itself every, what, perfection. It is suitable that this named person be said of God. That's a very beautiful, what, middle term, right? So the, what is the middle term between person and God, right? Well, because person signifies what is most perfect, right? Something subsisting in a, what, understanding nature, right? And whatever pertains to, what, perfection should be attributed to God, maybe in a higher way, right? It's attributed to creatures, but if you borrow any name, right? From God, from creatures, it's got to be a name signifying affection, right? And this seems to signify something most perfect, huh? So it's most suitable that this name be carried over, huh? That's beautiful the way it tells us. There's a reason, right? Not over in the same way in which it is said of creatures, right? But always in a more excellent way, right? So you can never note, as the fourth letter in Consul says, a likeness of the creature to God without at the same time a greater unlikeness, huh? So everything that's perfect or signifies the perfection of the creature is found in God, but in a more excellent way than we understand or can express, right? Just as the other names, which are imposed from creatures by us, are attributed to God. This has been shown above in the, what, 13th question we've talked about, the names. When we tweeted about the divine names, that was the 12th and the 13th, actually, question. The 12th question is how we know God and then name God, the 13th question. So you convinced now that the name of a person should be used in talking about God? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So every time I read an article, Thomas had to change my mind. I know in some ways I've used an article, Thomas, you know, not these ones, but these other articles. I'll give the students, you know, a paper.