Prima Pars
Lecture 123: The Plurality of Persons in God and Divine Simplicity

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In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our knight and knight, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. May I be your host. And help us to understand all that you are today. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. We're up to now the start of question 30, right? If you recall, in the four questions in this part here, the consideration of persons in general, right? So last time we learned what a, we learned what in general a person is, right? And then how the name person can be used in talking about God, right? What it means, right? And now Thomas is going to talk about his next two questions, about there being more than one person in God, and how many persons are there in God, right? And some things that follow upon it in the next question. We're going to talk about our knowledge of such things in the 30th sec. We'll get that far. We'll get to, so we're in question 30. Okay, then one asks about the plurality of persons, he says in the premium here to question 30. And about this four things are asked. First, whether there are many persons in God, that way he says in divinis, right, in divine things. Secondly, how many there are, right? That's really the question of whether there's three or what, four, because their relations is what, subsistent, and there's four relations, so there's many more than three. And then what these numerical terms signify in divine things, right? And fourth, then, about the community of this name person. So if there are three persons in God, or in general, if there's many persons in God, right, then person seems to be said of these, right? And what kind of community is that? Is it like man said of us? Or animal said of dog and cat and horse? You know, I have to see that. Okay, to the first one proceeds thus. It seems that there should not be laid down many persons to be in divine things. And this first objection recalls the definition of a person, right? A person is an individual substance of a reasonable, right, or intellectual nature. If, therefore, there are many persons in divinis, it would follow that there are many substances, right? There's this poison that Jerome spoke of, which seems to be, what, heretical, right? It's like saying there's three natures, huh? It's moreover, a plurality of absolute properties. Now, what does it mean by absolute properties? Well, God is said to be, what, simple and good and perfect and knowing and so on, right? All these things. This makes no distinction of persons, right? Neither in God nor in us, right? So it's my geometry and my logic, two persons over here. One person is a geometry and the other person is a logician. Another person is a theologian. Another person is a Christian. You know? Not even us, right? Even though they're more distinct in me, obviously, than they are in God. Much less, therefore, a plurality of relations, huh? But in God, there is not any other plurality except of relations, as has been said above. Therefore, there cannot be said to be in God many, what, persons, huh? That's a nice objection. Moreover, Boethius says, speaking about God, that that is truly one in which there is no, what, number, huh? But plurality implies a number. Moreover, therefore, there are not many persons and divine things, huh? So you've got to interpret what Boethius means, huh? Like he does Augustine. Moreover, wherever there is a number, there is whole and part. If, therefore, in God there be a number of persons, there will be in God, what, whole and part. So two is part of three, right? It's going to be a whole and part in God. It's contrary to the simplicity of God, huh? Which is impugnant to the divine simplicity, huh? If you compare, you know, the Summa Theologiae with the sentences, the sentences, I think there's a question in Thomas there, whether there's any whole or part in God, right? And then you eliminate composing parts and subject parts, right? And here he doesn't really have an article like that. But he eliminates composing parts in the question of simplicity of God and subject parts in the unity of God. There's no parts in the God. So that's established, huh? If you've got three and two and one in there, two is a part of three, right? Got whole and part, you've got one problem, right? So we've got four objections here, huh? But against this is what Athanasius says, huh? Other is the person of the Father, other that of the Son, and other that of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are, what? Many persons, huh? That's a reference to the so-called Athanasian Creed, right? Which may not be written by Athanasians as such, but it goes back to his teaching and to the tradition of the Church. It's one of the standard, what? Creed, right? In my text, it gives you the reference there to Denziger, which is sort of official texts. Okay, now Thomas' response is much shorter than the reply to the objections. I answer, it should be said that there are many persons in God, and this follows from what has been said before, right? Why? Because it's been shown before, and that, in fact, is just the last article we looked at, right? That the name person signifies in divine things a relation as a thing subsisting in the divine nature. That's where it's signifying relation, per modem substantiates, as other way of speaking, right? So it signifies relation as a thing that subsists, right? That exists by itself, right? In the divine nature, okay? That's what person means in God in particular, right? It doesn't mean that in us, right? It's a subsisting thing in human nature, the human person is, right? That's not a relation, right? Okay? But in God, it means what? A relation as a thing subsisting in the divine nature. But it has been had above when we talked about the relations that there are many real relations in God, right? Now, he's not getting the problem that there's four relations and only three persons, right? But there are many real relations in God, so that's enough to see that the kind of general way that there's going to be, what? Many persons in God, right? Whence it follows that there are many things subsisting in the divine nature. That's what you mean by what? The person in the divine nature. The thing that subsists, right? Now, subsist means what exists by itself, not in another, it's in a subject, right? And this is to be many persons in divine things. So you see the syllogism there? It's kind of colloquial, I think, you know, because I think it would be more natural to say it in English, you know, there are many, what, relations in God, right? Right. Yeah, in divine things, yeah. What you'd say about the word things there in Latin, could get you kind of followed up, I think, if you said that. Maybe something like, we say, the Lord's Prayer. So the answer then to the question, why there... Many persons in God, right, involves what? An understanding that a divine person is a relation, understood as the things assisting in the divine nature, and then the other thing that there are many relations, right? And you put those two together, and you say, there's got to be many persons then in God. Now, the next article will narrow this down, that there's three rather than four, but we'll see why that is so, right? The first objection is taken from the word substantia there in the definition of person, right? And Thomas here, he doesn't refer at this point here in the applied, the first objection to the text of Aristotle, but in many cases he does, and he takes up the same objection. And in the fifth book of wisdom, when Aristotle distinguishes the senses of the words, the two main meanings of the word substance are the, what, individual subsisting in some nature, and then the nature itself, what it is, right? And of course, this is taken in the first of those two senses, right? So Thomas refers, doesn't refer to Aristotle, but he refers to the distinction that Aristotle made in the fifth book of wisdom. To the first, therefore, it should be said that substance is not laid down in the definition of person according to it that it signifies the essence, the nature, the substance is sometimes called, in that sense of a thing, but according as it signifies the, what, individual, standing under, you might say, huh? It's a positum, it's a Latin word, huh? What's placed under there. And this is clear from the fact that there is added, what, individua. Now he says, to signifying substance said thus, the Greeks have a name, hypostasis, right? And those hypostasis is almost the same, etnologically the same as substantia, right? But it's also almost the same as suppositum, right? Because stasis means stands, and hypo means under, right? And suppositum probably is under kind of, and positum is placed under, right? But unlike the word hypostasis, and unlike the word suppositum, the word substantia can mean both hypostasis and, in Latin, what a thing is, right? And therefore there's an equivocation there, right? And so the objection is taking substantia in the wrong sense and not the sense that's meant in the, what, definition, huh? Just like when I say that a genus is a name said with one meaning of many things other than kind signifying what each is, right? Signifying what it is. What does the word many mean there? Well, the word many has two meanings. Many as opposed to few, and many as opposed to what? One. Is that the same sense of many? Because two would be few, right? And therefore many as opposed to few would be more than two. But you could have a genus that is said of just, what, two species, like number might be said of odd and even number, right? So if someone said, well, I got two. Many means more than two. I said, well, no, no, no. There's two meanings of the word many, right? And you've taken the, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in understanding a definition, you've got to realize that a definition is composed of words. And many words, if not most words, if not all words almost, have, what, more than one meaning. So you have to know what sense you're using it, huh? So notice that Thomas makes you concentrate upon each word of the definition as he did when he defined before, right? And now he's coming back to it, right? It's kind of starting with that, right? But that's misunderstanding the general definition of person. Whence, as we say three persons, so they, the Greeks, say three, what? Hypostasis, huh? And we pick up that word when we speak of the hypostatic, what? Yeah. I bet you want to see the Hans article, too, huh? Grace of Mary is of the hypostatic order. And what do you mean by that, right? Well, it's because she's the mother of God, right? That she has an abundance of grace as a kind of, what? The mediatrix of grace, huh? She's kind of a salty. And therefore, he says, of hypostatic order, that only Christ and Mary have enough grace to save everybody. Other saints have enough to save. Yeah, and so just not to save ourselves. We're the lost. It's only enough to save themselves. Isn't that the, you know, borrow, you know? But the other morning, you know, the oil lamps there, right? The fire that had and the fire that didn't, right? Well, you go by, you know, because maybe we're going to have enough for you, you know? Who said that after a purpose? About the hypostatic? I'm seeing it, yeah. There's an article, you know, the antilegique and the philosophique. The grace of Mary is a hypostatic order, right? I wonder if he got that from St. Alphonsus. I've read it just recently. The Lord of the Mary is something along that line. Could be. I don't know. That made you think of that article you mentioned. Yeah, yeah. So we say to pick up on that, we query it, right? But we don't say three hypostases usually in English, right? Or in Latin. We say three persons. We are not accustomed, he says, to say three substances, right? Lest you understand in the other sense, other being three, what? Yeah. On account of the equivocation of the name. The fact that it has two meanings, huh? So usually we think of substance of a thing in the sense of what it is, huh? I know this is all the time when I talk about happiness is the end of human life, right? And I'm trying to get the students to avoid, you know. So I say happiness is the end of human life, and human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death. Well, when they think of the end of it, they probably think of it in that sense first, right? So you have to almost see that, right? And I find when I'm speaking of these things, you say happiness is the end or purpose or the end or the goal. You know, just because of that equivocation, right? And the fact that people are accustomed maybe to use the word end, not so much for purpose, but for the, you know, the limit of its existence or something, right? You see? And something like that happened with substance, right? And the second objection was arguing kind of like a fortiori, right? It's plurality of absolute things doesn't give you a, what? Distinction of persons. So why is she just disfacious? The reason is that the absolute properties are not opposed one to the other, right? After the second, it should be said that absolute, and absolute is always, usually in Thomas is the opposite of a relative, right? So absolute properties in God as goodness and wisdom are not opposed to each other, right? Now this goes back to the distinction that Aristotle makes both in the 12th chapter of the categories, first book in logic, that has come down to us in the father of logic, and in the fifth book of wisdom, right? That there are four kinds of what? Opposites, right? Contradictories, like what? Being and non-being, right? Having and lacking, huh? Like sight and blindness. Contraries, like virtue and vice. And then relatives, like father and son, double and half, and so on. And distinction, other than what we call material distinction, right? Is by some kind of, what? Opposition, right? Now in the continuous, you can have another kind of distinction, because the continuous is part outside of part, right? So if I draw a circle here and a circle here, right? They're not distinguished by any opposition, right? But because one is here, and the other is, what? There, right? Okay? But when you don't have the continuous, you don't have the father nature anymore, right? Then the only kind of distinction there can be is one of opposites, huh? And so, as Aristotle saw, relation is one kind of opposite, right? But goodness and wisdom, for example, are not, what? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? Contraries, huh? They're not contradictories. One is not the lack of the other, right? And they're not towards each other, right? But father and son, the father is the father of the son, and the son is the son of the father, right? So he says these absolute properties in God, as goodness and wisdom and love and so on, are not opposed to each other. Whence neither are they really, what? Distinguished. There's a distinction that reason makes, right? But there's no real distinction. They're not two things, in other words, in God, right? Realitaire comes from res, meaning thing. So the divine goodness and the divine wisdom are not two different things. Whence, although it belongs to them to what? Subsist, right? Because God's goodness or his wisdom is not something really existing in him as something different from himself, right? My wisdom or my geometry might be something existing in me really distincting from him. Nevertheless, there are not many, what? Subsisting things, right? Which would be to be many, what? Persons. Now, absolute properties in created things, huh? Do not subsist, right? So my love and my knowledge are not subsistent, right? There's something that exists in me, right? Okay? Although they are really and truly, right? Distinguished from each other. So my knowledge and my love are not the same thing in me. Different things. But they're not, what? Subsisting, right? So they're not two persons. As whiteness, he says, and what? Sweetness, huh? But the relative properties in God both subsist, right? And they're really distinguished from each other by this opposition of relatives. Whence a plurality of such properties is enough for a plurality of persons in divine things, huh? So notice what Thomas is doing that. He's pointing out that the absolute properties in God subsist, but they're not distinct. Really. The absolute properties in us are really distinct, but they don't subsist. But the relations in God, right? They both but subsist, right? And are really, what? Distinct. So one of those two really subsist, or they subsist, is lacking in our absolute properties, although we have the other thing, distinction, right? And distinction, or real distinction, that is to say, is lacking in the absolute properties of God, but not, what? Subsistence. So you've got to have both of these things, right? To have many persons in God, you have to have many really distinct, subsistence things. That's what you have, right? With these relations, huh? Because the relations are opposed to each other, so they're really distinct, one from the other. And because they are the same thing as God, they're really, what? Subsistent. Therefore, they're really different persons. Yeah. But it's also something that follows upon the real distinction, too, to individuals, right? But I'm a different person than you, because my flesh and blood and bone is cut off from your flesh and blood and bone, right? And so, you and I are different persons by something absolute in us, right? And I'm a different person from my son, because his flesh, even though he's not my flesh, in a sense, his flesh is not my flesh, right? Okay. So we're not distinct persons because I'm a father, he's a son, but because of something absolute, right? But because this absolute thing generated that absolute thing, and then we have, as a consequence of that, that I'm a father, he's the son, right? Isn't that also the separation of the souls that stick to you? You know, what I think of, too, is that, like, my sister, who's recently told me, is that two signs of twins are, you know, that had to fit, when this is a question that Thomas would raise, you know, when our souls are separated from our bodies, right, they seem to be like angels in the sense that they're totally immaterial now, right? And therefore, it might seem the only kind of distinction you could have would be by opposites, right? Because you can't say that one is here and one is there, right? But, the way Thomas solves that is to say that my soul fits my body, right? My soul is made from my body, right? That's why God would not have created my soul unless my parents had made a body that that soul fits, right? Okay? And so, it still goes back to the distinction in bodies, right? In matter, that my soul is different from, what, your soul, right? Okay? Yeah, okay. See? Because my soul remains the soul that is apt to be the form of this body here, right? Okay? So, that's why we say there can't be this transmigration of souls, right? So, the soul of one person can't enter into that, you see? In A4, it's more manifest, you know, that the, you know, the soul of a man cannot become the soul of a dog, say, you know. And the whole story taught about Pythagoras, right? You know, where somebody's beating a dog and he says, stop beating him! Recognize the soul and the whelping of the dog, the soul of my friend is supposed to die, right? But, you know, as Aristotle, when the argument Aristotle uses there is that the, the body corresponding to the soul is a body composed of what? Tools, right? And can the medical art use the tools of the carpenter? Or can the carpenter use the tools of the tailor? No. So there's a combination, there's a connection between art and the tools that it uses, right? And that's the same way with the body and the soul, right? But just as this kind of soul can only be in this kind of body, right? So an individual soul of this kind, right, is proportional to this individual body with its peculiarities, right? I guess some of these twins at least some of the principal organs, they still have some of the principal organs that's multiplied though, so. Yeah. Yeah, they might be sharing some organs, but they're going to have some organs separated. So it's really concerning, two bodies sort of, yeah. And together, you wouldn't necessarily see Simon's friends, even though they might have joined at the head, but they wouldn't have one body. Incidentally, that principle about form and matter, you know, Aristotle's arguing there in the second book of natural hearing that the same natural philosophy considers matter and form, right? One of the reasons he gives is they're relative to each other, and it's the same knowledge of opposites. But then Aristotle has something like that when he gets into the politics, right? That there's a, between this form of government and this kind of people with this kind of customs and education and so on, there's a correspondence. So you can't realize just any kind of government and any kind of what? People, okay? Something the State Department might see or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. But before it's really you couldn't make the, you know, have the soul of a dog be the human soul, right? Or vice versa. But it's like that with the, also the individual soul. So my soul fits my body. know. But what is to say, how do you tell, you know, recognize somebody else's soul? Some guys, they always mix up everything before they, see the way you recognize that mind, you know, that mind worked in this back-ass good way, you know. I recognize them by that. That's kind of a joke. But, yeah. Okay. So, that was the second objection, right? In the other way, Thomas brings in those distinction between absolute properties in God and in us to bring out these two different points, right? Because the absolute properties in God have one thing that's required for a distinction of persons, and that is that you have something that's subsistent, right? And that's something that our absolute properties lack, right? But vice versa, our absolute properties are really distinct. That's something that the divine absolute properties are not really distinct. But the divine relations, these relations that we've talked about inside God, they are both really distinct and subsistent. Therefore, there are many distinct persons in God because a divine person is nothing other than a relation as a subsisting thing in the divine nature. As something subsisting in the divine nature. Whiteness and sweetness are absolute properties in us? Yeah, not like father or shorter or taller, you know? Oh, I see. Right. Okay. Not nice to say in the relative there. Aristotle, in the categories, when he takes it out, he doesn't have the abstract word. He has pros-ti, right? And in Albert's own, they'll call that ad olivia, right? Pros, towards something, right? Okay. So, in English, you might translate it as toward something, right? Okay. Or toward another. You see that, right? And that's not we brought out when you use the word relation or the word relative. That's not as concrete as to what the thing is. And, you know, people are talking about relation and relationship, even which is an abstraction, abstraction kind of, right? But you see, strictly speaking, you might say, is there a relation between me and my son? No, not between you now. Yeah, you see that? Yeah, that's the way it is. Because I am to him a father and he is towards me a son. I am towards you maybe taller or shorter, right? And you are, you know, to me. So, this idea that these words of Aristotle, they give more the idea of what it is, right? And I was mentioning I think before that in the Gospel of St. John, in the beginning there, we translated the beginning was the word and the word was, you know, we say it with better, but the Greek, the Greek says pros, pros, towards. So, if you know, you know, if you're a student of Aristotle and it would strike you, you know, and it would be more clear, right? The distinction between the word and the one towards whom he is is a distinction by what? Yeah. That's kind of structure. I'm not going to point that out that I know of, but someone else must have seen it besides me, but it's funny, you don't say it in Thomas, you know, he says the word apolidary, and ours comes the Latin, but mostly somebody along the line who's seen the connection between Vedatia's prosti and St. John saying that, but I don't know, I can't be, can't be, can't start with me. But I arrived at it without anybody else putting it up to me, just to read the text of St. John there, and knowing Aristotle. My old teacher, Kassari, you know, he used to, he didn't talk about St. John, he talked about Aristotle's way of speaking here, right? He says, prosti, ad aliquid, he doesn't say relation, right? A lot of times Thomas would talk about relation, you know, but it's not as good a word to get across that it is. That's important that we get to this principle in part. Now the third one is for the text from the great Boethius there, right? To the third it should be said that from God on time of his, what, highest or supreme, right, unity and simplicity is excluded every plurality of things said absolutely. It means every, what, real plurality, right? Okay? But not, however, a plurality of what? Relations. Because relations are said about something as, now he's got something like posti, right? Ad altru, right? Okay, usually they say ad altru, but it's towards another, right? Ad altru. And thus they do not say or speak of any composition in the thing which they are said, as Boethius himself in the same book teaches. So in other words, the father is this towards the son, the son is that towards the father, but to those two opposing relations signify something put together in God. They're distinct though from each other, right? I was thinking of the son, we were talking about with relation in us, father to son, there's no relationship between you and me, and this is jumping ahead maybe, but with the trinity, is there actually a relationship between them and that's the Holy Spirit, or is that crazy? No, no, no, but Thomas would insist that the father and son, the son as well as the father, has to be towards the Holy Spirit, right? Yes. And the Holy Spirit is towards them, right? But as he points out or has pointed out before and again here, the relations here are not, we don't have names for them, right? In the case of the Holy Spirit, because this is something so different from the creature, right? Well, we have father and son, you know? It doesn't mean exactly the same thing, but if there's something creatures in which you can name these things, right? Now, the fourth objection says wherever there is number, there is a whole and part, right? If therefore in God there is number of persons, there will be in God a whole and part, which is bugging to the divine simplicity, right? Now, though Thomas doesn't mention it here, he goes back to the distinction that Aristotle makes in the fourth book of natural hearing among other places. In fact, I've been looking at the fourth book of natural hearing again this morning, and Aristotle is talking about time, and time is the number of motion according to the before and after of motion. And Aristotle is explaining how it's a number. He says, it's not the numbering number, but the numbered number, right? Okay? I think it's people followed up sometimes, see? Because the distinction between, say, geometry and arithmetic, huh? Or the distinction before that that you have in the categories, distinction between continuous and discrete quantity. quantity. Now, this is in the category there of quantity. Now, the distinction Aristotle gives between these two, they both have parts, right? But, in the case of continuous quantity, the parts meet at a common what? Bound, right? So, the first continuous quantity had a line. With this part and that part, they meet or aren't continuous at this point. And, if you had a surface, you'd take this side and this side, and you'd meet at a what? I don't know. And, in the case of a solid, the compound would be a surface, right? A two dimensional thing. But, in the number seven, let's say, the three and the four meet nowhere. So, this is the distinction that he makes in the chapter on quantity there in categories. But then, especially in the sixth book of natural hearing, he gives another definition of the continuous. And, he said, the continuous is that which is divisible forever. And, so, you can what? Fisect a line and fisect that and go on forever. But, can you do that with another way? You divide 5 into 3 and 2, let's say. You divide 2 into 1 and 1. Can you divide that 1? No. Because that 1 is even simpler than a point. So, you have this distinction between the continuous and the what? The discrete, right? But now, numbers, say, would be considered a discrete quantity, and line, and surface, and solid, or body, and so on. And so on, it's a continuous quantity. Now, what about time? Because time is defined as the number of motion according to the before and after motion. And especially the first motion, right? For the Greeks, the first motion seemed to be the sky revolving around us, right? So, if you take the sun, let's say, going around the Earth, right? Or a single tour around the Earth. And you say, well, there's before and after that motion, right? And so, you number days, or number hours, right? You speak of three days or three hours. You're numbering it before and after in that motion with the sun around the Earth, right? So, time is the number of motion according to the before and after motion, okay? And Aristotle, in explaining that definition, says, Is time a number in the sense of numbering number? It's the abstract number, right? Or is it a numbered number, right? Is it like the number 10? Or is it like 10 men? Or is it like the number 14 and 14 grandchildren? Well, 14 grandchildren is what you call a numbered number, right? By 14, it's a numbering number, right? And arithmetic, the science that's basic science of math along with geometry. Geometry is about continuous quantity, shape. And arithmetic is about number, but that numbering number, right? Okay, so, is time a continuously discrete quantity? And someone might say, well, it's a discrete quantity. It's called a number, right? It's just a minute now. You're probably looking at the distinction between what? Numbering number and numbered number, right? Just like if I said three yards, right? Is that a discrete or continuous quantity? Continuous. Yeah, it's a number of a continuous thing, right? Okay? So, Thomas is going to recall that distinction, right? And when you speak of there are three persons in God, is that three a numbering number or a numbered number? Is there three in God or three persons in God? Yeah. And as he's going to point out here now, it'll come out explicitly there on anything. Is God more than God the Father? Well, we're going to find out later on, there's no distinction between God and God the Father. No real distinction, right? And therefore, God the Father and God the Son is no more than what? God the Father alone. And of course, in the relations, one person is not, well, more or less than the other, not more or less wise by something relative, it would be something absolute, right? But the absolute is always one thing in God, and there's absolutely no distinction between God himself and the Father. The Father is not less than the Father and the Son. That's a very subtle thing to see, right? Let's look at Thomas' words, but to consider the idea here. To the fourth, it should be said that number is twofold, huh? As Aristotle teaches in the fourth book of Matthew hearing, right? To it, simple number or absolute number as two or three or four, right? And a number which is in things numbered as two men and two, what? Horses, right? Okay? If, therefore, in divine things, is taken number absolutely, or abstractly, in a way of putting it, nothing prevents their being in it whole and part, right? And in this way is not except in the taking of our, what? Understanding. Because that, what? Absolute number is not what's existing, separate from things numbered, except in the mind, huh? Okay? So if we take, that's why these moderns get confused between arithmetic and math and logic, right? Because there's something fundamental about both, right? Now, if we take number insofar as it is in things numbered, thus, in created things, one is a part of two and two of what? Three, right? So when you have one child, it's only a part of what you have when you have two children, right? When you have three children, two is only a part of what you don't have, right? And so on. As one man of two and two of three. But it is not thus in God, right? Because the Father is just as much as the, what? Whole Trinity. The Father, in other words, is not a part of God, is he? The Father and God are exactly the same. There's no real distinction. So the Father is just as much as the whole Trinity. He and the God. Do you see that? It's a very subtle thing, you know. And Thomas will come back upon that point as he says later on, when you get into the comparative thing, in Christian 22. But that's the key thing, right? You've got to stop and realize what it is you're numbering, right? And that's why I make this comparison to what we're doing here in the fourth book that you're hearing, right? Where Thomas, or Aristotle, rather, before Thomas, is saying, hey, what kind of a number is time, right? Well, it's not the abstract number, right? Which exists maybe only in the mind, right? But it's a number number, right? And it's a number of something, what? Continuous, right? The before and after emotion. And motion is continuous because it's over a distance that is continuous, right? So because the line is continuous, then the motion down the line is continuous. And then you're numbering the before and after in that motion, right? So you're numbering a continuous thing. So time, in that same chapter, in quantity, time is given by Aristotle as a continuous quantity. See what I mean? Okay? So you've got to be careful there, right? Look how number you're dealing with, right? Now, when you get into the Trinity, if you take the numbering number, right? That's only in our mind. So that doesn't put whole and part in God, right? In that numbering number, it's only in our mind. Then you have part and whole, right? So two is a part, or parts, as you could say, of three, right? But two is a part, you'd say a four, right? It measures four. But if you take the numbering number, right? Then, is the Father and the Son more than the Father alone? Are the Father, you know, two heads are better than one, you say? Oh no, the Father and the Son have only one head. They only have one wisdom, right? Or are the Father and the Son more of God than the Father alone? Huh? No. Because the Holy Spirit is God, right? So there's not more wisdom or goodness in the Father and the Son than in the Holy Spirit. Even the Father and the Son together, go ahead and speak that way, right? This goes back to the Athanasian Creed, which says they're all equal, right? This will come up in the comparative consideration of the last five questions, right? There's 10, 15 questions on persons, right? And 10 about the persons, absolutely, and then five comparing them. So there's not going to be more wisdom in the three persons than one of them. I used to be annoyed at this expression you hear at faculty meetings, our collective wisdom. I hate that phrase. But there's some truth, right? You know, if we sit around and discuss, maybe we come with something better than one of us, you know, each of us might contribute a little bit, you know, to understanding something, right? Or saying, of course, of action, something like that. And nothing like that in the Trinity. Not much, your hands are out. Then you've got something else. And again, no, Harrison, are your terms known to say... It's not mine, they're Aristotle's terms. What's that? Aristotle's terms in the fourth book. What again goes with St. Thomas' understanding of the absolute number? Well, the numbering number, he calls absolute, or he calls it simplex, right? And that's the one in the mind. Yeah. And so he makes a distinction between what Aristotle calls numbering number, right? It's absolute or simple number. Which is only in the mind, right? Yeah. And then the, what? The numbered number, right? Okay. And... Which is like the 15 children in the two yards. Yeah, yeah. So he rejects the idea that you can say that there's whole and pride in God because there's whole and pride in the abstract number. Because the abstract number is in our mind only, right? You can start remembering in grade school, you know, by going from one to the other. Did you have that? There'd be ten little sticks. Remember that? Yeah. When I was in grade school, when you were first starting out with this, you had ten little sticks. And then, you know, one, you count them, you know, the teacher had to count them. And then you take away maybe three, and then how many you got left and you count to seven, right? You did that for a while, you know, and then all of a sudden you forget that, right? And then you really abstracted, you know, the number, you've got the number now. But where is this number that is in ten sticks? What is this ten that is in ten sticks? Or where is this five that is in five fingers or something, right? So we've got a count of fingers. But eventually, you know, talk about five, and you leave out fingers or anything else, right? Toes or whatever else. You see? So then you've got the abstract number, right? That exists only in your mind, right? Okay? So the fact that there's a hole and a part in the science of arithmetic, right, is referring to a number that is only in our mind, right? But then if you take the other number, the numbered number, right, then you've got some surprises, right? This is easier to see here. But you can see that we also number continuous things, right? And so if you speak of, you know, football field is about 100 yards, huh? Okay? Is 100 yards a number, a discrete quantity, or a continuous quantity? Yeah. Because you've numbered now something that is in fact continuous, right? Okay? So you really have a continuous quantity. See, it sounds strange, right? I want three yards of this material, right? I want something continuous, not something discrete, right? You've got to use number, right? And so then you have to look at God and say, well, what is going on here, right? And he makes a distinction there. Well, if you're numbering men, right, I get some flesh and bones that you don't have, right? And you, so you and I together have got more flesh and more bones than one of us alone, right? Okay? In a sense, there's more of humanity in both of us than just one of us. But is there more divinity in two persons than in one? Because God the Father is not a part of God, right? God the Father and God are identical. There's no distinction, real distinction, between the Father and God. And there's no real distinction between the Son and God, right? So the Father and the Son together, if we can speak that way, don't have more wisdom or goodness or love than the Father alone, right? You and I might have more wisdom than one of us alone, right? There's something you see I don't see and vice versa, maybe, right? And he saw the same thing. We both know the Pythagorean theorem or something, right? My knowledge of that is not individually the same as your knowledge of it, right? But the Father doesn't have some wisdom that the Son doesn't have, right? Or some love that the Son doesn't have, right? No, no, no, no, no. I said, when Aristotle was explaining the definition of time, right? You know, when you speak of time now, you've got to be careful here. When I ask what time is it, and I look at my watch and I say, well, it's 3.05. That's not what we mean by time there in the fourth book of the National Hearing, right? But you mean something like three years or three days or three hours or three minutes, you see? So numbers somehow involved in what time is, right? But three days or three hours is what? A numbered number, right? Yeah. What you're numbering is the before and after in the first motion which seems to be that of the sun around the earth, right? So you know when Christopher, not Christopher Columbus, but Robinson Crusoe, right? When he got on that island, right? He wanted to keep track of how long he was shipwrecked on that island, right? So one way you could do it is say every time every sunrise or every sunset take let's say every sunrise we'll make a little mark in here, right? And so there's a before and after in this, right? And it goes around here and then that's before this next time, right? And so on. And so you're numbering the before and after in the motion, right? But you're numbering a before and after in something what? Continuous, right? Okay. Now a simple example of that is to say when I'm, you know my wife always gets some material in the store and she wants three yards of this material, right? To make a dress or something. And then they kind of, you know, you see? But now you have not the abstract number, right? But the number of something continuous is cloth, right? And so although it might seem kind of paradoxical, right? But you have a number here a number of yards or a number, right? It's not a discrete quantity, is it? It's a continuous quantity, right? So you have to look at what's being numbered, huh? Now what's being numbered here are these, what? Relations, right? Okay. But what's absolute is one and the same, right? And each of these persons is the same thing as God. I think it's interesting. I think you could say that God is three persons. And you could say these three persons are one God, right? But no one of these persons is a part of God. So if you compare the Father with God, they're exactly the same thing. There's no distinction. There's no opposition between them, right? But if you compare the Father and the Son, then they are both and there is a distinction of one from the other. And you talk about, more or less, you're talking about something absolute, right? So the Father and the Son are not something more absolute than the Father alone. That's a very subtle thing, right? that's a very subtle thing, right? That's a very subtle thing, right? That's a very subtle thing, right? That's a very subtle thing, right? That's a very subtle thing, right? You see, most people, and I'm sure Hamidens and people like that, you never think we're polyphases or something, right? But either that or else, that's even worse, right? But even to think that, you know, we think that these are a few parts of God or something, right? See, they're not parts of God. God has no parts. So now we'll see this again when we get back to the comparative questions, you know. We'll talk about eventually the equality of the Father and the Son, right? I said, real equality. A little break now before we do the next article.