Prima Pars
Lecture 121: Etymology Versus Meaning: The Name 'Person' in Theology

Transcript
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Objections, right? I let them stew at those for a while, and the next day I'll come back and go to the next stage, you know, because I don't know if they're too lazy or stupid to look after the text and solve it. You don't give them the whole thing, you know, huh? I suppose, you know, when Thomas was teaching, of course, the students didn't have a text in front of them, so they let them look down, and then they had a text like me, you know, they printed bold, you know, the answer to the question, right? He's trying to get the answer without thinking about it. They look at the bold there and skip the whole reasoning for it, huh? But when the students were kind of making their own book as they go along, in fact, teachers, then they're in suspense here at this point until they get to the, I think it's probably going to dictate, huh? It's funny, some of these English books we have, I don't know, some of them are like, after each question, yes, no. Skip that first part doesn't mean to me that. Those are the answers to the test. Come here's an impression of God, yes. I'm going to say something there, all this business about catechisms, you know. I says, there's nothing wrong with the answers, I said, in the Baltimore catechism. We didn't understand them too well, you know, but at least you kind of knew them by heart, and later on if you study theology, you know, remember those things and start to understand them better, right? Now they don't even give you the answers. They'll only understand them. There's a mass there, and one of the little grandchildren, you know, the Sophia wisdom there. There's a little brother. God, God, I was playing to the altars. To the first, therefore, it should be said, this is the one that says, what, this name of person is not found in the Old Testament, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that although the name of person is not found in the scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be said about God, right, nevertheless, that which the name signifies, right, is found in many ways in sacred scripture assertive about God, and these two things, that he is most of all, right, per se ends, right? And that means what? Something of being by itself, right? To itself. And he is most perfectly understanding, right? There's many references to that. So, the two things involved there in the person, per se ends, and perfectissime intelligence, the two parts of the definition that are later on in the fourth objection, right? Those are both attributed to God in the scripture. So, the meaning of the word person, there, yeah. If, however, it's necessary to say about God only those things by voice, which sacred scripture tweets of God, huh, it would follow that never in another, what, language could someone speak about God, except in that which was, what, handed over in the scriptures of the Old or the New Testament, huh? If we prayed to God, we couldn't say our Father, we'd have to say, put their nose there and maybe go back to the, not even that, go back to the Greek and then back to the Aramaic, right? Then they see in the original there, the Aramaic, there was kind of a verse form there, I saw them. You know how Thomas' prayer, you know that one, the Adorote, Devote? Well, as soon as they call it, the Rhythmus, yes, Tome, right? There's some rhythm there, you know, it seems to be to cake, right? For most part. Which Shakespeare uses for solemn things, unusual creatures, you know? As opposed to the, what, Iambic, which we fall into in daily speech without realizing it sometimes. Now he says, to finding new names, huh, signifying the ancient faith about God, right? The necessity of disputing the heretics, what, Christos, huh, okay? Nor should this newness, huh, be avoided, since it is not, what, profane, really, as something that is discordant from the sense of, what, scripture. For the Apostle, meaning St. Paul, the Messiah, teaches profane newnesses of voices should be, what? Avoid it, huh? I don't want to say that there's transignification, but not transubstantiation in the Eucharist, right? This is a profane newness of voice, huh? I assume transubstantiation, that word there, which the church has adopted, I don't guess, probably in scripture either, huh? Christ talks about the Eucharist, he doesn't talk about transubstantiation by name, right? It does indicate that there's a change of substance there. And the second objection is talking about the, what, it's taken from that from which the name is taken, right? Rather than what it signifies, huh? That's a different objection. The second should be said that although this name, person, does not belong to God, as regards that from which the name is, what, imposed, right? And notice that word incidentally, impositum, right? Literally, etymologically, it means, what, placed upon, right? So Thomas will speak of the impositio nominis, right? The placing of a name upon something, huh? We sometimes in English say, put a label upon something, right? So we imagine the name being placed upon the thing, right? But Thomas will often distinguish between that from which the name is taken and that to which it is, what, applied, right? So Thomas always gives, as far as perhaps a false etymology, the word lapis, right? It hurts the foot, laid it, peed it, or something like that. That's not what it means. That's what it's taken from, right? So it gets your attention from that, huh? I'm often pointing out the word philosophy, right? Does philosophy mean the love of wisdom? I think the meaning of philosopher is love of wisdom, right? But Aristotle and Plato, too, they don't use the word philosophy to name the love of wisdom, right? But to name the knowledge that the love of wisdom pursues. So love of wisdom is not the meaning of the word philosophy, at least for Aristotle. But it's that from which the name is taken, right? So a lot of people, I think, you know, make this kind of confusion, right? Between that from which the name is taken and that from which it is applied, right? The meaning and the etymology don't have to be the same thing. There may be a connection between them, but you have to know the meaning of the word to see what the connection is. So Thomas is making this point. It's a common enough point in Thomas, right? Like we mentioned, the word perfect. Okay. So he says the name of person does not belong to God as regards that from which the name is placed upon something, right? That from which the name is taken. But nevertheless, that to which signify, huh? It is placed. Most of all belongs to God, right? Because in comedies and tragedies are presented some, what? Famous men, right? This name, person, is imposed to signify someone having dignity as the dignity of the person. What the father of John Paul II especially liked to talk about. Whence we are accustomed to call persons in the churches those who have some dignity. An account of which some define person, right? Saying that it is a hypostasis, right? Which means individual substance. By a properly distinguished that pertains to what? Dignity, right? It's individual substance that has dignity, right? And because it is of the great dignity to subsist in irrational nature. Therefore, every individual... Therefore, every individual... Therefore, every individual... Therefore, every individual... Therefore, every individual... of a rational nature is called a person, as has been said. But the dignity or worth of the divine nature exceeds every dignity everywhere. And according to this, most of all to God belongs a named person, right? In Shakespeare, you know, in the footnotes a lot of times you have references in Shakespeare to the seven worthies. You know, in the 80s, he was guys, some of them, you know, from fiction and so on, right? They're called the worthies, right? Okay, so compared to God, you could say, I'm worthless. So God, most of all, is worth them. So most of all, does the name of person belong to God as far as what it signifies? Not that from which it is taken, right? He's kind of turning the table for this guy, right? He's saying, first of all, you're talking about that from which the name is taken, right? And you've got to look at that to which it's applied. You look at that, and you see, most of all belongs to God. At least to us, to us worthless people, right? Now, you have a similar problem with the name, what, hypostasis, which is a third objection, right? The third should be said that the name hypostasis, which etymologically means to stand under, right? Does not belong to God as regards that from which the name is, what, imposed, right? Since he does not stand under, what, accident, son. But it belongs to that to which, right, the name is imposed, to signifying a thing, what? Subsisting, right? We talked a little bit about subsistence there in the previous article, if you remember, right? And that name is more, what? That something exists by itself and not in another, right? That belongs most of all to God. Now, what about this authority from the great Saint Jerome? Jerome says that under this name is hidden, what, poison, huh? It's awfully strong, right? Because before the meaning or the signification of this name was plene nota, fully known, right? Among the Latins, heretics deceived through this name those, the simple, right? That they might confess that there are many, what, essences or many, what, natures in God, right? Just as they confess many, what, hypostasis. So there was poison hidden under the name, right? That's what he was reading too. On account of the fact that the name substance, which corresponds in Greek, to which it corresponds in Greek, the name hypostasis, etymologically the same, right? Sub and hypo and stasis and stand, right? Is commonly taken among us for what? Yeah, the nature of the thing, the substance of the thing, what it is. And incidentally, what English word, etymologically, is the same as substantia and hypostasis? That's just an excellence of the English word to understand, right? To understand could mean to what? To know what stands under the accidents, right? But to know the substance of things in the sense of what they are. It's a proper object of reason to know what something is. It's very revealing, in other words, that the English word understanding and Latin with substantia have the same, what? Yeah. Because only understanding knows substance, right? The senses know only accidents. The senses know nothing more fundamental than quantity. And that's a problem with Descartes, right? When he identifies the quantity or extension of a thing with its very, what, substance, right? And this runs through the modern philosophers a lot, right? You know, I quoted that thing that Bertrand Russell says, you know, the accidents of Mr. Smith have no more need of a substance to exist it. And the earth has in need of it all to rest upon. If they are true, then, the nation called the accidents, which is Smith, accidents, they are substances. What do you mean by substances, right? It's interesting, huh? When you study wisdom there, in the sense of first philosophy, right? Aristotle, in the fourth book of wisdom, shows that wisdom is about being as being. And then he shows that being is said in many ways, and that the first meaning is really substance, and the other meanings all go back to substance. And then he concludes that wisdom is chiefly about, what, being in the sense of substance, huh? Which shows a connection between understanding and the subject here, huh? Beautiful, beautiful English word, huh? I think the English word, to understand is a better word than the Greek word knowing, huh? It's more revealing the word, huh? And even better in some ways than the Latin word intelligere, which means more to read within, the similarity between those two meanings. And I mentioned before how Shakespeare will pun upon the, you know, like, can't understand me, can't you understand me, you know? The pun upon those things. But, you know, making us very attentive to the etymology of the word understand. And you say it very much when you talk about understanding words, right? Understanding, what does it mean to understand a word? It means to know what stands under the word, right? So when I hear somebody speaking in Russian or some other language like that, Chinese, in fact, in the airplane, they're saying Chinese. I mean, you know, they make the announcement, then they announce it in English, and they announce it in, I must be Chinese or Japanese, and all these things. I hear the sounds as well, but I don't understand what they're saying. I don't know what stands under these sounds. I don't understand. Yeah, that's a problem, too. Basically, I don't know what stands under them. Most of all, it goes back to the idea of impositio nomides, right? Yeah. So, look at the etymology of this word. The word understanding, it's impositio, but in the Latin word, intelligent, which has an idea of intus, to be within, not to get what's under. So, that's the end of the third, apply to the third objection, right? But because this name of substance, which corresponds, to which corresponds in Greek, the name of hypostasis, is commonly accepted among us for the, what, essence of the nature of the thing. But in Greek, hypostasis would never be used to name, what, the nature of the thing, what it is. So, when the Greeks say three hypostasis, they're not, there's no occasion to be decedious to their saying that there are three natures, right? When we say there are three substances there, there are three persons, and a person is a substantia, then there's a possibility of misunderstanding this, right? Now, the fourth objection. To the fourth, it should be said that God can be said to be of a rational nature, according as reason does not imply discourse, but using it in a, what, more generally, right, something for intellectual, what, nature. So, he's kind of stretching a little bit the rationales there, right? But he's saying that a way this doesn't mean by rational there, in the strict sense, right? They build for discourse, but in general, intellectual, what, nature, right? And that, you know, doesn't, it shouldn't be taken simply as a hot defense of his master there, Boethius, but you'll find even Aristotle, and we'll sometimes follow in speech, the Congress speaking, where we accept, let's say, even imagining and, what, thinking, right? And yet, when you're going to win the election, I'd say, I imagine so-and-so, right? I don't re-imagine this, maybe I do, that's all you want to do, that's all you want to do. That's a bad story. Yeah. But I'm not too sure, you know, so you think, right? But, you know, we looked at, I think one time, and I did, we had the, you know, the fifth of Shakespeare, right? We were talking sometimes about, what, filling out with your imagination, what's being referenced on stage, right? There's two or three guys rocking sticks on the hook. You've got to imagine a whole battle going on, right? They sometimes speak of filling this out with your thoughts, right? So thinking and imagining are kind of what? You sometimes one for the other, right? Aristotle speaks of sensible matter and understandable matter, right? But using understandable there more to mean what? Imaginable matter. That's much more of a stretch of the word and the use of it than between rational ratio and what? Intellectual side, between reason and understanding, right? Okay? If you want to take reason in the strict sense, then you couldn't say person of God, could you? But no, so you could take the word reason and what? Keep part of the meaning of it, right? When Shakespeare defines reason, his ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, right? Looking has got the idea of understanding, right? So I could keep the idea of understanding and drop out the idea of discourse, right? You can make the word equivocal by reason, right? And Thomas is taking the liberty of making it here. Okay? That's what communitarian sense means, right? You drop something that's private to the first meaning, something that's common there, right? In some sense, you could say reason is an ability to understand, isn't it? Not very good. But you could say, if I have reason, I have an ability to understand. It's understandable, too, I hope. Now, individual does not belong to God in this way, insofar as the principle of individuation is matter, right? But only according as it implies, what? Incommunicability, right? Now, hold on to that, because at the end, he's going to quote Richard and St. Victor, right? So we'll come back to that. Substance belongs to God, according as it signifies, what? Exist or a per se, right? Not insofar as it's, what? Standing under, right? But notice, even the substance of a dog or a cat, right? Exists per se, right? It doesn't exist in another, like an accident, right? And that's the idea of substance when it's applied to what? To God, right? Some people, however, say that the definition given above Bible atheists, right, is not a definition of person, according as we speak of what? Persons in God, right, huh? On account of which, Richard of St. Victor, right? He's the one that's famous about Abby, I guess, huh? St. Victor. He's a Hugo of St. Victor, right? And my name is actually Hugo, by the way. I was christened Hugo Duane, right? And they got to switch around and call me Duane Hugo. So my, when I went for the Social Security, of course, my baptismal certificate says Hugo Duane, of course, I'm applying the name of Duane Hugo. But there's no problem with him. It's very common, that switching of names, right? My mother was baptized, married to Richard, but then I called her Richard. So it happens, you know. My confirmation name is Victor, so I feel close to these guys. My brother's named Richard, so a lot of names in common with these guys. And on account of which, Richard of St. Victor, wishing to correct his definition, says that person, according, as he said, of God, is of the divine nature and incommunicable existence, right? I don't think Thomas necessarily says you have to do what Richard of St. Victor is doing, right? But it helps you to understand the definition in a way that makes it applicable to God, right? So individual is not said of God in the definition of person, because it signifies that the matter of the Father is unique, the matter of the Son. Maybe the Mormons believe this, I don't know what they believe. But it is being something incommunicable, right? When he uses that, when he uses that verb, he uses that verb, he uses that verb, he uses that verb, he uses that verb, he uses that verb, he uses that verb. Well, existerate, per se means through itself or by itself, right? As opposed to existing in another, in the way an accident does, huh? Sure. I'm wondering about existerate, because that's what I'm doing, I'm thinking back of when we had before on the first one, it's about per se ends. Yeah. So he didn't say per se existed. Okay, I don't think I would make... There's a great deal about that, though, you know. Yeah, sure. Because, in a sense, if you say ends per se, you're saying, a res cui conveniut existere per se, a thing to which it belongs to exist per se, right? That was part of the definition of substance here. That gave me the whole definition of it, right? Because if you were to say a substance means a thing that exists per se. It exists per se, it's not so much like the genus, but like the difference there, the meaning of it, that completes the definition of it. Okay? There's not insofar as substance signifies something that, substare, right? To stand under, right? Not insofar as substance is something that is said to stand under the accidents. That's not why the word substance belongs to God, right? That's satisfying? You satisfied? It's sort of beyond me, but it's fine that what's good enough is just that. Yeah, yeah. He's emphasizing what you might call the difference there, right? Substance, right? You say, by substance, don't you mean a thing that stands under accidents? Well, the standard of accidents is belong to God, see? But if by substance you mean a thing that exists by itself, right? Then to be a substance belongs most of all to God, right? You see? So he's emphasizing not the word thing, which you could say is the meaning of substance, right? But what completes the meaning of substance, right? And if you say what completes the meaning of substance is the standard of accidents, then you couldn't apply the word substance to God, right? But if, to complete the meaning of substance, you mean a thing that exists, right? By itself, then this belongs most of all to God, right? He could exist without all the things, but they could exist without him, right? He exists most of all by himself, right? Okay? So now we know that the word person belongs to what? Now, this is the key thing here now. To the fourth one proceeds thus, it seems, now what does this name person signify, right? Does it signify relation in particular? He's going to raise that question. To the fourth one proceeds thus, it seems that this name person does not signify relation, but substance in divine things. For Augustine says in the seventh book of opportunity, when we say the person of the father, we do not say anything other than the substance of the father, right? I'd say to itself, the person is said, not to what? The son, yeah. That's a text you could easily be misunderstood about Thomas' help. Very interesting, huh? I don't seem to say I'd say that way of speaking there. is an affirmative way of saying something negative, right? Okay. Just like we sometimes say, you know, accident exists in substance, right? When we say substance exists in itself. Yeah. Is that taken affirmatively? It can't exist in itself. Yeah. Yeah, you mean it exists not in another, right? So there's a grammatically affirmative way of signifying something that's really negative in its what? Meaning, right? Okay. Like one is not divine. Yeah, yeah. But, well, if you go back to the simple theory, right? The simple means not composed, right? The thing is here, it's more explicit, though. It's a little bit like we speak of statements and we say that some statements are known to other statements. It must be understood affirmatively, right? They really are known to other statements, right? But now, the next question arises, is every statement known to other statements, huh? Well, because in that case, no statements would be known, huh? Okay. So there must be some statements that are known not to other statements, right? But we speak of them as statements known to themselves. You'll find that in Latin all the time. Per se nota, right? So now, if you say that these first statements are known to themselves, should that be understood affirmatively? Because then you're saying, well, it is so because it is so. A woman's reason, as Shakespeare says. A statement cannot be the reason for itself, right? You can't prove a statement. You can't prove that it is so because it is so. Therefore, what are you going to say? It needs to be understood negatively, right? And Aristotle, when he takes up the eight meanings of in, in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, he shows that nothing is really in itself, right? Quickly speaking. Sometimes you say, you know, I drank a glass of wine. But did you really drink a glass of wine? It was in the glass of wine. Yeah. So the wine can be in the glass, but there's a real distinction between the wine and the glass, which it is, right? So is the glass of wine in itself, strictly speaking? It's the same thing inside of itself? But we say it, don't we, right? So Aristotle points out that we're speaking, but you've got to understand it, right? The glass of wine that I drank is in the glass of wine, right? You drank the amount of the glass of wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes, you know, we've got to spell this out a little bit to see. So strictly speaking, nothing is in itself, right? So accident is strictly speaking substance, but substance is something other than the accident, right? Health is in my body, but is my body health? No. When I say substance exists in itself, we speak that way sometimes, per se ends, as he says, right? What does he say in that thing there? Existerate per se, that we were talking about earlier. Is it in itself? Substance? No. The same here. We say when they distinguish between absolute and relative, right? Relative is towards another, right? And what is substance? And what is absolute? You could say negatively, not towards another, right? But they sometimes say, well, I'd say, right? To itself, right? But perhaps that should be understood negatively, right? So, in Thomas' Latin there, and he distinguishes between absolutum and relativum, right? Relativum is always, what? Towards another, right? Going back to Aristotle's, prosti. They translate ad aliquem, right? By absolute is, what? In itself or towards itself, right? But not towards another, right? So, he says, so he's quoting Augustine, it's a great text. For when we say the person of the father, we do not say anything other than the substance of the father, right? For a person is said to itself, right? Or absolutely he's saying, right? Not to the son, right? So, Augustine in that text seems to be saying that, what? A person signifies not a relation, but a substance, yeah. Okay? Now, when you get to Thomas and Euclid, you realize how important Thomas is from just that thing. Augustine, right? Moreover, quid in Latin, what? Asks about the essence or nature, right? But as Augustine says in the same place, that's been the seventh book of the 3.2.2, when we say that there are three who give testimony in heaven, the father, the word, and the Holy Spirit, that's text is some question that's a interpolation scripture, right? But we don't have to get involved in that question whether it is or not. And it is asked, quid trez, right? We respond to three persons, right? Therefore, this name person signifies essence, right? I go to someone in my call and say, well, I'm going to say there are three nations, actually. This is really something about the word what, you know? There's nobody speaking what does it signify other than the nature of the thing, right? But it signifies the nature of the thing than it signifying something absolute and not something what? Relative, right? Moreover, according to the philosopher, that's Aristotle, the fourth book of wisdom there, that which is signified by name is its what? Definition. But the definition of person is a what? Individual substance of a rational nature. It doesn't say an individual relation of a rational nature, does it? Therefore, this name person signifies substance. I'm even more convinced now of the false side of this. Moreover, person in men and angels, right, does not signify relation, right? But something absolute. There you see that use of the word absolute in Thomas, right? There's a lot of fuzzy use of the word absolute in English, right? But Thomas often, you know, contrasts absolute to him and relative to him, right? If, therefore, it signifies in god a relation, it would be said equivalently of God and men and angels, I'm completely convinced, aren't you? Truth must be on that side. That's amazing how convincing Thomas can make the opposite side. Now, the moderns never do this, right? They serve strong men. For the most part, they come out with their own position, right? They don't bother with stating forcefully the opposite. They call it the body of the earth. Yeah. No, but as I mentioned, in a book of doctor's thesis there comparing Descartes and Aristotle, and Descartes says some things, or many things, but some things that are just the opposite of what Aristotle said, they're very fundamental, and he doesn't recall for us that Aristotle said exactly the opposite. In Fort Siori doesn't recall the reasons Aristotle gave for it. In Fort Siori doesn't show what's wrong with those reasons if there is something wrong with them. They gave you his opinion. When Aristotle rejects the position of Plato, say, or some other philosophy form about something, right, he'll recall what this guy said, and you'll recall the reasons what he said, right, and sometimes you argue both against the position and against the arguments, right, and