Prima Pars
Lecture 131: The Five Notions and the Distinction of Divine Persons

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, 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. Pray that for us. Help us to understand what you're written. So I guess you're up to the third article here in question 32. Really, there are five notions, huh? To the third one proceeds thus. Thus, it seems that there are not five notions. Four, and the first objection says, the proper notions of the persons are nothing other than the relations by which they are distinguished. But the relations in divine things are not except four, huh? That was in our second question, I think, huh? Four relations. The relation of the Father to the Son, and the Son to the Father, right? Then the relation of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit to them. Therefore, there are only four notions whereby the persons are known and distinguished, huh? That sounds like an objection, huh? Moreover, an account of the fact that in God there is only one essence or nature, there is said to be one God. An account of the fact that there are three persons, God is said to be three, huh? Two noose. If, therefore, in God there are five notions, it should be said to be fivefold, huh? Which is unsuitable. It doesn't fit with the rest of it. Moreover, if three persons, if there are three persons, if there are three persons existing, huh? In God, there are five notions. It's necessary that in one of those persons, there are, what, two or more notions, huh? As in the person of the Father is laid down in Nashagletas, huh? Not being born, huh? And fatherhood and common breathing. Now, either these three notions differ in reality and the thing itself, or they don't. If they differ in the thing, it would follow that the person of the Father is composed from three things, or from many things. If, however, they differ by reason only, it would follow that one of them could be said of the other. Just as we say that the divine goodness is wisdom, on account of the lack of any difference in the thing. So, common breathing would be the same thing as what? Fatherhood. Which is not agreed to. I can see that. Therefore, there are not, what, five notions, huh? So those objections are saying there's less than five, right? Now, the said contra. It seems, I bet you Tom's going to reply to both sides, huh? Yes, he is. Okay. Okay. So, sometimes, you know, you have, what? Usually the said contra is the physician Tom's going to dot, but sometimes it's in between the two, huh? But on the other side, it seems that there are more, huh? Because just as the father is from no one, huh? And according to this is taking the notion, which is called unbornness. So, from the Holy Spirit, there is not another person, right? And according to this, we're not to take a sixth notion, right? So, just as it's a, what, a notion of the father that he's not from anybody else, right? So, it ought to be a notion of the Holy Spirit. There's no one from him. I'll give you six, right? Moreover, just as it's common to the father and the son that the Holy Spirit proceeds from them, huh? So, it is common to the son and the Holy Spirit that they both proceed from the father. Therefore, just as there's one notion that is laid down to be common to the father and the son, that's his common breathing, right? So, there ought to be one notion that's common to the son and the Holy Spirit, that they're from the father, or they're from another. So, is it more or less than five, huh? Well, Thomas is going to say, yeah, he's going to say the truth is in between these two positions, huh? It says five. So, Thomas says, I answer that notion, huh, is called what is a proper what? Thought or reason for knowing the divine person. Now, the divine persons are multiplied by origin, the origin of one from another. Now, to origin, it pertains to ideas here, that one from another, right? One from whom is another, and the one who is from another. Whom is another, and who is from another. Okay? And according to these two ways, one can make known a, what? Person. Therefore, the person of the father is not able to be made known to the fact that he is from another, but only from this, that he is from no other. And thus, on this side, his notion is not born, huh? Unborn. Or unborn of one son. Without birth, let's put it that way. That's what it has either, right? But insofar as someone is, what? From him, right? He is made known in two ways. Because insofar as someone, because insofar as the son is from him, he is made known by the notion of fatherhood. And insofar as the Holy Spirit is from him, he is made known by the notion of common breathing. Now, the son is able to be made known through this, that he is from another being born. And in this way, he is made known through the notion of what? Yeah, sonhood. And through the fact that there is another one from him, namely the Holy Spirit. And through this, he is made known in the same way as the father, to wit by common breathing. The Holy Spirit, however, is able to be made known through this, that he is from another, or from what? Others, huh? And thus he is made known by, for want of a better name, proceeding, right? Procession. But not however through this, that another one is from him, because no divine person proceeds from him, right? Therefore, there are five notions in God, without birth, without a beginning, fatherhood, sonhood, common breathing, and procession. Now, of these four, four of them are what? Relations, huh? For without birth is not a relation except by what? Reduction. And this is a thing that comes up even in logic, you know, when you talk about the ten categories, right? And some things are in the categories which are genera, because they are what? Species, huh? Of that genus, huh? But the negation of one of these species is reduced, led back to that genus, not as a species, but as a negation of something in that genus, huh? And sometimes something is led back in another way, because it's the beginning of something in there, right? Okay? So in what genus do you put point, for example? Hmm? Yeah. This point of quantity? Does it have some size? No. But because it's the beginning of a line, which is in the genus of what? Continuous quantity, which is a species of quantity. Okay? And where would you place blindness, huh? Yeah. Not that it's a quality. It's not quality. But it's led back to that genus, huh? Because it's a negation of a species, huh? So without birth, which in a way is saying... It doesn't have a beginning, right? It doesn't signify a beginning or relation, but it's kind of like a negation. And so it's led back, right? And that'll be explained again later on, as he says. Now four of these are what? Proprietatis, properties, right? It's a little bit like we say in logic. What is a property in the strict sense? Is less than ten a property of two in the strict sense a property? And that speaks to it, particularly in our own. Yeah, there's actually three things in the definition of property in the full sense. It belongs to only one species, to every member of that species, and always, right? So half of four is a property of two. Every two is half of four. Only two is half of four. And always two is half of four, right? Then you have properties in the lesser sense that have, you know, two or even one of these things. So it's a property of man to be a logician? Is every man a logician? No. Is man always a logician? No. Well, but only man is a logician, right? No dog, to my knowledge, or cat is a logician, right? Man is a logician. So he's speaking of properties here. What does he mean? Well, it's something that belongs to what? Only one person, right? And not to the other ones, right? So common breathing would not be appropriatism, because it belongs to both the Father and the Son. So though it makes known, in a sense, the Father and the Son, in their distinction from the Holy Spirit, it doesn't make known the Father as distinguished from the Son, okay? But Father belongs to, or Fatherhood belongs to the Father alone. Nobody else is a father there. And Sonship belongs only to the Son, right? And to no one else. And proceeding, or procession, being breathed, belongs to what? Only the Holy Spirit, okay? And being without birth, or without a beginning, belongs only to the Father, right? I don't know. Doesn't it seem like the Holy Spirit and the Son aren't really, I mean, the Holy Spirit... Yeah, there's a question about the naming of that, you see? But I think Thomas understands, you know, this as being understood more generally, right? He's negating anyone from whom he proceeds, right? Okay? Not only that he's not born from someone as a son, right? He might hear a little bit about the naming of that, right? But, so, notice, of these five, four are relations, and four are what? Properties, right? But they're not the same four. See? Because common spiroxio, common breathing, is relation, but not a property. And then, what's the other case? Without birth is a property, but not a, what? Relation, yeah. Okay? Yes. It would be, um, accurate, or a little less confusing, instead of saying without birth, to say without origin? Yeah, maybe you can understand it in a broader sense, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess this is, it became so, so, uh, ingrained, this term in actually, pretty tough. So, and usually the Thomas C. Singers don't come from Thomas, originally, the words, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? Well, in logic, in logic, uh, this is a little different meaning here, because it's not species, right? Yeah. But in logic, the definition of property is something outside the nature of a thing, right? But following upon the nature, right? Yeah. In the strict sense, it belongs to only one species, to every member of that species, and always, right? So, it's a property of two, as they say, to be half of four, right? It's not a property of two, in that full sense, to be less than ten. But every two is less than ten, and always is less than ten. It doesn't belong only to two, right? So, that's a property in a somewhat lesser sense, right? So, the word property there can be taken in a less strict sense, but here he's taking it in a way like that, huh? He's talking about what belongs to only, what? One of the three persons, huh? And in no way to the other two. Well, to be without birth, or to be without origin, belongs only to the Father, because the Son has an origin, which is the Father, right? And the Holy Spirit has an origin, which is the Father and the Son, okay? So, to be without origin belongs only to the Father. To be Father belongs only to the Father. To be Son belongs only to the Son. And to be breathed, to proceed in that way, belongs only to the Holy Spirit, right? Okay. Okay. So, four of the five are relations, and four of the five notions are properties, but it's not the same four, exactly, right? One property that is, what? Not a relation, and one relation that is not a property. Okay? So, you've got a distinct notion of these. Okay? And that makes another distinction here. Three notions are, he calls them, what? Personal, meaning by that, constituting persons, right? For fatherhood constitutes one person, sonship, another person, and proceeding by being grieved, a third person, right? But common grieving, and without birth, without origin, are said to be notions of persons, right? But not personal, not constantly the person, as we'll be more clear later on, right? Okay? And there'll be any questions on the person and the persons, and so on. So, you've got the five down now, huh? Philosophy begins with what other five? Genus, species, difference, property, and accident. And Porphy says, O Chrysorius, he says, it's necessary to know what genus is, what species is, what difference is, what property is, what accident is. Actually, he says, difference before property, before species, but anyway. To understand our style is categories, right? And to understand definition, to understand division, and to understand demonstration. So, those five really, you know? Of course, this book was originally called the Isagoga, the Introduction to the Categories, but then it dropped out the last part. It is the introduction! Kind of like the introduction to the whole philosophy, right? Because logic, in a way, is an introduction to philosophy, and it's an introduction to almost the whole logic, right? The categories, and definition, and demonstration, right? And division, too. But this is something, these five are what? Notions or thoughts whereby we, what? Know the persons, and distinguish one from another, right? And there are five of these, right? But only four of them are relations. One of them is not a relation except by reduction, right? And only four of them are, what? Properties, right? And only three of them are, what? Personal, right? Okay. That's over that 5, 4, 3, right? Now, the first objection says that the proper notions of the persons are the relations of which they are distinguished. But there's only four relations in God, right? So why do you add this fifth notion, right? Well, what do they say about the Father? He's the beginning of the whole Godhead? Take care of about that. You understand that, huh? But He is, you know, for excellence, the beginning, right? And you know, in the beginning of St. John's Gospel, it says, in the beginning was the Word, right? And the Word was towards God, and the Word was God. But how do you understand that first sentence? In the beginning was the Word. That's one meaning of it, yeah? In the beginning, right? It was always there. So eternal. But another meaning is, is in the beginning meaning the Father. And there will be, you know, who the Father is the beginning, right? In this next question, you know? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? What do you think of the Father? But nevertheless, this in a way is more the negation of a relation than a relation. Now, the second objection says, you've got five notions and you just speak of God as being five-fold, right? But notice, the notions are not signifying what? What is found in God so much as notions whereby we distinguish what is found in God. Unlike the essence and unlike the, what, Christians, right? To the second, therefore, he says it should be said that the essence in God signifies as a certain, what, thing. And therefore, we say there's one, what, God, because there's one nature, right? And likewise, the persons signify as some things, huh? And therefore, we say there are three persons in God, right? Now, notice the equivocation there of the word rest, right? And a definition of person that you find in that way is too, in a way, like the one we had, but, you know, in Latin it says, res, a thing subsistence in intellectuality, natura, or something like that. A thing subsisting in a rational nature, right? Intellectual nature. So, you know, I ask this question sometimes. Are the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit one thing or three things? And if you say at one time they're one thing and at the other time you say they're three things, you would seem to be what? Yeah. But it's because the word thing has more than what? One meaning, right? It goes back, in a sense, to Aristotle and the categories there, right? So, there's one absolute thing, right? But then the other three things are what? Relations, huh? So, they signify as some thing in God, right? Or things in God, right? Okay, the essence or the divine nature is a thing and the three persons are three things, huh? But the notions signify not as what? Things in God, but thoughts making known the persons, right? Okay? There's two more thoughts. And therefore, although God is said to be one, on account of the unity of his essence or nature or substance, and three, on account of the trinity of persons, huh? Nevertheless, he is not said to be five-fold on account of what? Five notions, huh? So, you don't want to confuse those two, right? So, seduction from five to four to three is different than the one I was giving you in terms of the soul, right? Because the general powers are different things, right? And the different grades of life are different kinds of things. And the three kinds of soul are different things, huh? But these five notions are not, what, five things in God, right, huh? But they're five thoughts, you might say, rationes, huh? Five reasons to have in mind to distinguish these, huh? Okay? Okay, now, the third objection, huh? If there are three persons existing in God, if there are five notions for them, right? It is necessary that in one of the persons, there are, what, two or more notions, right? We don't want to talk about that, right? Okay? Now, either these notions differ as things, right, in reality, or not. They differ as things that would follow that you have composition in God, right? They differ in thought only. It follows that one can be, what, said of the other, right? And therefore, the common reading is the fatherhood, okay? So the Holy Spirit could be the son again of all these horrible problems, right? Now, Thomas says, to the third it should be said that only relative opposition makes a real plurality in God, right? But many properties of one person, since they are not opposed to each other relatively, don't, what, differ in reality, right? Nevertheless, they are not said of each other, because they signify as diverse, what, thoughts about the person, so. And in that way, we could also say, in the objection there, right, we could say that the attribute of power, we do not say that the attribute of power is the attribute of, what, knowledge, huh? Although we say that, what, yeah, yeah. So in a sense, the attribute is bringing in, I suppose, a little bit of our thought, right, huh? See? So we have a thought about the power of God, and we have a thought about the wisdom of God, and we have a thought about the goodness of God, and are these thoughts the same? No, no. Even though what corresponds to them is the same thing in God, huh? So these are really five different thoughts we have about the three persons, right? But there's a real distinction only where you have things that are opposed, what, relatively. So father and son are opposed, relatively. I can't be my own father or my own son. There must be a real distinction between me and my father, and a real distinction between me and my, what, son. Okay? But say I'm a husband, and I'm opposed to being a father. I think we belong to the same person, right? But those are really different relations, for another reason, huh? They're based upon different relations, I guess. Now, the last two are the objection on the other side, right? So let's look at those again, huh? The first sin contrast says, Just as the father is from no one, and according to this, one takes the notion of without birth, right? Which, as you say, means more without origin, right? From no one. So, from the Holy Spirit, there's not another person, right? So you don't want to have a sixth notion here, right? Thomas recalls the fact that people say person signifies dignity, as John Paul II was saying all the time. Okay? Dignity of the person. One cannot take some notion of the Holy Spirit from the fact that no person is, what, from him. For this does not pertain to his dignity. He has no one from him. Just as it pertains to the authority of the father, that he is from what? No one, right? Well, author has really the idea of the origin or something, right? Doesn't have a sense of authority in us, right? Okay. But part of the excellence of the father is that he's from no one. It doesn't pertain, though, or adds a dignity to the Holy Spirit because there's no one from him. Well, that's why you don't have that as a sixth notion. Now, the last objection. It is common to the father and the son, just as it is common to the father and the son, that from them goes forth the Holy Spirit, right? So it is common to the son and the Holy Spirit that they go forth from the father. Therefore, just as there is one notion, one notion is laid down, common to the father and the son, this common breathing, so not to lay down one common notion to the son and the Holy Spirit. That's the distinction that Thomas points out. The father and the Holy Spirit do not come together in one special way of being from the father. But the father and the son come together in one special way of what? Producing the Holy Spirit, huh? They both breathe the Holy Spirit, right? It's one and the same breathing that they have. But the father and the son don't go forth from the father in the same way. The one is generated from the father. The other is not generated from the father. But he is breathed by the father, right? But that which is a beginning of making known ought to be something what's special. And therefore, it is not similar, right? So we settle with five now. Let's see, there's five notions. Either more nor less. You see, more or less than the truth. They are villains. You see, more or less than the truth. You see, more or less than the truth. Sons of darkness, as Falstead says. Is there a distinction between affiliation and generation? Well, we'll talk about that in the comparative consideration. But, you know, generation, at this point, let's say generation is the act underlying, in our way of thinking, the distinction between father and son. But there are more subtleties that will come up when you get into the comparative thing, right? Now, you heretics are whether it is licit to opine contrarily about the notions, right? To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that it is not licit to think contrarily wise about the notions. For Augustine says in the first book of the Trinity that one is never no words more dangerous, you might say, right? To err than when you're talking about the, what, Trinity, huh? To which it is certain that the notions pertain, right, to this study. But contrary opinions cannot be without some kind of error, right? Therefore, it is not licit to think contrarily wise about the notions, huh? So some of you guys are thinking there are six or seven or only four or something. If I say there's five and you say there's four, then one of us must be mistaken, right? It's nowhere more dangerous than talking about the Trinity to make a mistake, huh? So therefore, it's not licit, it seems, huh? Moreover, through the notions, the persons are known, right? But it's not licit to opine contrary wise about the persons. Therefore, neither about the, what? But against this is that the articles of faith are not about the notions. Therefore, it's licit to what? Think differently, right? Listen otherwise about the notions, right? Thomas is going to make a distinction, right? I answer it should be said that something pertains to faith in two ways. In one way directed as those things which are, what? Chiefly handed over to us or handed down to us divinely is that God is three and what? One. The Son of God is what? Incarnate, huh? And things of this sort. And about these to opine the false by that very fact brings in, what? Heresy. And most of all, if, what? Pertinacity. Persistent. Persistence is joined, right? So you adhere to this, right? You might, you know, thinking kind of loosely think falsely about these things but I'm just pointing out to you, you adhere, you know, with pride, you know, huh? To your false opinion then you get a greedy neercy. Indirectly, that pertains to faith from which follows something that is contrary to faith, huh? Just as if someone said that Samuel was not the son of what? Yeah. From which it would follow this divine scripture is what? False. Now about things of this sort without danger of heresy someone can think something false before it is considered or has been determined that from this there follows something, what? Contrary to faith. And most of all if it is not pertinacity with pertinacity abstinently, right? Adhere to it, huh? But after it has been made known and especially if it has been determined by the church, right? That from this there follows something contrary to faith. Then to err in this matter is not profound, what? Heresy, huh? On account of this many things are now considered heretical which before were not, what? Yeah. On account of the fact that now it is more manifest what follows from that. So even in you know saints, right? You could have opinions, right? that we now would regard as what? You know like the question of the Immaculate Conception, right? I think there are some saints who denied the Immaculate Conception, right? Okay? It would now be clear if the heresy denied it now but before it would not be, Because I got determined that this was connected with the Incarnation. Thus therefore it should be said that about the notions some without danger of heresy opined in a contrary way, not intending to sustain anything that is contrary to the faith. But if someone thinks falsely about the notions, considering that from this there follows something contrary to the faith, then he falls into what? Heresy. And by this is clear the response to the what? Objections, huh? So this brings us to the end of the four questions about the persons in general, right? And we divide the four questions into what? Three, right? Subdividing the second part. There was a question about the meaning of person in general and in God in particular, right? And then there was two questions about the number of persons, right? The plurality of persons and what follows upon them. And then the notions whereby the persons are what? Known, huh? The thoughts we have. Known, the distinction of persons. Now the next six questions are going to be about the persons in particular right but as you'll see there's one question devoted to the father and two to the son and three to the what holy spirit right so he says consequently we're not to consider about the persons in special in particular and first about the person of the what father and about this four things are what asked right first whether it belongs to the father to be a what beginning right now i've mentioned that before one meaning of in beginning was the word right is that he's eternal right beginning of time you know always was but another meaning of in the beginning was the father's an eye and i am father so the word is in the beginning he's in the what the father is the beginning that has no beginning secondly whether the person of the father is properly signified by this name what father third whether the name father right is said before according as is taken personally then this is taken what essentially right so no so you pray the our father to say our father who art in heaven is father naming the first person of the trinity or is that naming god first person because jesus pray to god i guess i assume father's right but i was just playing the answer yeah no it's not but just since the son taught it to us if we define prayer as you know the ascent of the mind to god and asking god for suitable things and this is a prayer of prayers right you know as augustine says uh contains everything that we we can write to the ask for right but seeing that father means god right okay um although sometimes you know it's likely to be attributed to the father because uh some reason because of the power to him or something but so but anyway the father can be taken therefore to mean god and uh it can be taken that means essentially as he says right and then uh personally where it signifies the first person of the blessed trinity right and thomas is saying uh if you got a name then it's equivocal right and does it first mean god or does it first mean the okay that's the order he says so in a sense you put second and the third article together right and because they're dealing with the what name father right does it properly signify this thing the person of the father right it may be complicated because it can signify something else right okay and then whether it is proper to the father to be what unborn right now raise that question again that you're raising right about whether um the holy spirit is in genuine to him right or whether in genuine to him should be understood in a broader sense than the words themselves that seem to indicate that meaning without a beginning right without an origin notice in this question there's nothing here about the common breathing at this point is there he's taking these uh two ones that seem to be what private to the father right there's a problem there about the word father a certain one of its meanings it is private to the father right you'll find out in the second article in the third quote it raises the question of of the order of the words right now will it belongs to the father to be a beginning right that's interesting she began with that so interesting one of his references here that parallel passages against the errors of the greeks they just saw that i printed that out with him right right at the beginning of the errors of the greeks yeah yeah now here thomas is going to um kind of correct aristotle you can say right now okay because aristotle will will say you know in the first reading there in the uh fifth book of wisdom right the fifth book of wisdom is about the names used in wisdom right which are also the names used in the accents and because of their uh community are used to some extent everywhere right and the first name that aristotle begins with is the word beginning or principium right in greek it could be archaic right and aristotle goes through about six different meanings of the word beginning right beginning with the beginning of the table here right beginning of a line and so on and then where it's most appropriate to begin right when i go to boss and i don't begin the beginning of the road but the beginning for me is where i come on to and then you have the fundamental part of the thing the foundation of a house is the beginning of the house right and then you come to the mover or the what maker right the artist is the beginning michael angelo is the beginning of the pietas right but that's the fourth sense the third sense is the foundation of a house is the beginning of a house the keel is the foundation of a beginning of a ship and so on and the fifth sense is what the beginning of knowing right principles of science and then the sixth sense is what any cause right so even the end can be beginning right so you see the word really moved a long way right and the end is the beginning but then when our star gets to those six senses he gives a kind of a common notion of beginning right and he says the beginning is what is first in being or becoming or knowing so he defines in the kind of common notion of beginning that it's first right now what does first mean it means before all the what rest so if you take aristotle's common notion of beginning and you say the father is the beginning right then you'd say he's first therefore he's before the rest right and this contradicts the athanasian creed for example right and we have a later on article that says there's no before and after in the trinity the father is not before the son in any sense of the word before right and thomas will touch upon aristotle's chapter there in before right before in time you know before in being before in knowledge right before in goodness right in no sense of before is the father before the son and in no sense of before is the father of the son before the holy spirit right so is aristotle mistaken about what a beginning is right well of course i was a pagan right he had no knowledge of the trinity right okay but is every beginning that's known to natural reason right is every beginning before that which is a beginning no is every beginning known to natural reason before that which is a beginning what do you think is every beginning known to us first so at first the beginning are all those synonyms right what do you think see it is the beginning of the life The point before the rest of the line. Beginning of the day before the rest of the day. Beginning of the motion before the rest of the motion, right? Is the foundation of the house before the rest of the house? Are the definitions of Euclid before the rest of the science? Is it a go-gay before the categories? Can you see? Let me think about that one. Thomas will say, he applied it through an objection, let's look at that for a second before we get into this, that although this name, Beginning, as regards that from which it was placed to signify something, seems to be taken from priority, right? From beforeness, right? Nevertheless, it does not signify beforeness, but what? Origin, right? So he seems to be, in a sense, here, looking at the word Beginning and say it's got a meaning that Aristotle, he would see, you know, but he thought this other thing was part of it too, right? So there's a little bit of a thing there, right? It's kind of interesting, huh? Because every beginning known by natural reason would be first before that which is the beginning, it seems to me. But in the Trinity, there's no before. What does it mean to say that the Father is the beginning of the Son, right? Well, he's the origin of the Son, right? Let's not explain it there on. His being the origin of the Son doesn't mean he's before him. We'll see the reason before that when you get there. You see, the Son proceeds as the thought of the Father, right? But God is always actually thinking of himself, right? He's always as the thought there. So the thinker is not before the thought in time, okay? Nor can one be without the other. And their goodness consists in the divine nature, which is goodness itself, and they have the same divine nature. So one is not before the other in the sense of being better. And as Aristotle said, the same knowledge passes. David said it before you, right? So in no way is the Father before the Son, right? So, let's look at the thing here. The first one proceeds thus. It seems that the Father cannot be said to be the beginning of the Son or the Holy Spirit. For a beginning and a cause are the same thing, according to the philosophy. He often uses them kind of, what? Interchangeably, right? And this is one meaning, certainly, the word cause, right? See, this is the text of Aristotle. But I say it's a little bit like the word distinction, the word division, right? You'll see Thomas himself using sometimes the word division, synonymously with what? Distinction. Other times you get very strict to say, well, no, you know? That's the way you'll find beginning and cause. Strictly speaking, Thomas will explain how one is more gentle than the other. We do not say that the Father is the cause of the Son, although Basil says that. He calls it the idea. It has to be piously expounded, right? Therefore, we're not to say that he is its, what? Beginning, right? Then you'd be saying he's the cause of it, right? Moreover, a beginning is said with respect to what? What has begun. If therefore the Father is the beginning of the Son, it would follow that the Son, what? As a beginning? I don't know how to translate that exactly. And consequently, that he's created, right? Which would seem to be erroneous. I just read it recently, Thomas, during the Tudus on the Incarnation. You know, you can't say that Christ is a creature. You can't say it's some creature here, he says, right? Okay? You can say Christ, insofar as he's a man, right? He's a creature, right? But then, you're not saying Christ's qualification is a creature. Because Christ's name is a person, and the person is the... Yeah, so he's not a creature. That distinction is simply and not simply, right? Aristotle spoke of as being involved in a second kind of mistake, right? That kind of mistake is made all the time. I took the example there, you know, from the famous dialogue, the Mino there, Plato, right? Where Mino makes a mistake in mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply. And Socrates tries to apply it and makes the same kind of mistake. You wonder, does Plato do this on purpose? Or is this an actual genius, right? I used to say to the students, they say, you know, it's kind of hard to get a grasp of what this kind of mistake is, but you're making it in your daily life all the time. You're always doing something bad because in some way it's good. Or you're not doing what is good because... Yeah, yeah. Okay? You're not doing what is good because... In some way it's bad. So going to Mass on Sunday keeps you from what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or getting messed up. Or my, you know, more obvious example was, you know, someone annoys you, should you kill them? Of course, the students will say, no, no. So, well, yeah, but it's good in some way, isn't it? It removes that irritation from your life, right? Yeah. So we're always doing something that is bad because in some way it's good, right? We're not doing what is good to do because in some way it's bad, right? There's nothing in this life that isn't, doesn't prevent you from doing something else that is good, right? So no matter how good something is, you could say in some way it's bad. That's the kind of mistake that Mino makes in the dialogue, right? He says you can't investigate what you don't know. You have to know what you're investigating. And so you can't, you don't know the unknown, so you can't investigate it. And then Socrates tries to say, well, learning is really just a cause that you already know. He's making the same kind of mistake, right? Did the slave boy really know how to double a square when Socrates asked him? He says you double the side. He doesn't know he's mistaken as to how to do it, right? But the way to double it comes out of the slave boy's answer eventually. But is that to know it beforehand? To be able to know something is to actually know it? So I'm going to go to school then, you know? Anything you're able to know by going to school, you already know. I didn't hear you, ta-da! I already knew this. But you couldn't tell anybody, because they already know too. See, you couldn't mark it, did you? Now, the third objection. Moreover, the name of beginning is taken from what? Priority, right? Which means from beforeness, right? Now, I think it would be more striking, in a sense, to me, as a follower of Aristotle, but when he gives that common notion of beginning, right? He says it's what's first in being, or becoming, or in knowing, right? And first is defined by what? Before, right? But in divine things, there is nothing before and after. As Athanasian says, or as the Athanasian Creed says, right? Therefore, in divine things, we ought not to use the name of what? Beginning, right? But against this is what Augustine says in the fourth book of the Trinity. That the Father is the beginning of the whole deity, right? You've got to understand that carefully, right? You've got to understand that, right? Right. You've got to understand that, right? You've got to understand that, right? You've got to understand that, right? It doesn't mean he's the beginning of the divine nature, right? But the whole Trinity might say, he's the beginning, right? So you've got the great Augustine. He's inspiring this article in a sense, that the Father is a beginning. The idea of the beginning is that for which something proceeds, right? In some way. And that, since it fits in very well with the Trinity, because the Son proceeds from the Father, right? And the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. I answer it should be said, that this name, beginning, signifies nothing other than that from which something, what? Forged. Sounds like the idea of origin, right? So he's giving a little different meaning than the one Aristotle gave, right? Aristotle said his beginning is that which is, what, first? In being, or becoming, or what? Knowing, right? And practically Aristotle said it's true about every beginning known by what? Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that when Aristotle comes to talk about before and after, word before, in the fifth book of wisdom, right? He's already given that common notion of beginning. And then he sees a connection between beginning and before and after. And so he uses the common notion of beginning to distinguish the various meanings of what? Before. So they're very much tied together, beginning and before and after. In the categories, which I like to use as a text for before, in the categories he gives the ordered meanings of before without reference to the word beginning. Then Thomas goes back to the order and categories. He shows there's nothing before and after in God, right? But in the fifth book of wisdom, the word beginning and the word before are tied together. But since it's explained the word beginning, that's where he begins the fifth book, he uses that to, what, break down the meanings of before. So it's that much tied together, right? But Thomas is saying, you know, beginning means, what, the origin, right? That from which something goes forward in so whatever way. Since, therefore, the father is that from which another goes forth, right? Proceeds. It follows that the father is a, what, beginning, right? Now the first objection was saying, well, beginning and cause, cause mean the same thing, almost used interchangeably by Aristotle. You can see that in the physics and the books are natural. And you see that even in scripture there when you say, what, I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the, what, and the end. What does beginning mean there? It means he said, what, cause, in the sense of the maker. It's interesting, huh? Because it'll say sometimes just one of those and sometimes I have all three. The beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, right? The last corresponds to the end and first to what? Beginning. We're back with Aristotle a little bit, right? But in comparison to the creature, God is a beginning that is before. Okay? But the Father is not a beginning that is before. The Son. That's a very subtle thing, huh? Okay? And we can't criticize Aristotle too much because poor men didn't have the faith, huh? And I didn't figure this out. Yeah, yeah. What? Nobody could figure out the Trinity unless it was revealed to us. Right, right. That's what Thomas said before in the chapter in the Noi, yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the Greeks use in divine things indifferently the name of cause, just as the name of, what? Beginning, right? But the Lactin doctors do not use the name of cause, but only the name of, what? Beginning. Now, here's referring to the Greek fathers, right? And I was mentioning scandal when I first saw Basil using the word idea, right? It's the Greek word for cause. Arche is a Greek word for beginning, idea for what? Cause, yeah. And he says that the father is the idea of the son. I'm like, yeah, I shouldn't know. Eric. Well, I didn't understand it. That's what he understood, right? But I mean, I say, gee, has he ever read the fifth book of wisdom? I mean. Now, the reason for this is because the beginning is more common than what? Cause. Just as cause is more common than what? Element, right? So the first three words in Book 5 of wisdom are beginning, arche or principium, cause, right? Aitia in Greek. And then stoicheia, element, right? Going from the more general to the particular, right? And that would have jumped into me because Aristotle begins, you know, the first book of natural hearing, or the premium, he says, in every science in which there are beginnings, causes, or elements, right? And Thomas has to stop and explain how those words can be used. And I'll go back to the fifth book. But I imitate that when I say that this is true about what? Distinction and what? Division, yeah. Distinction is more common than what? Yeah. Every division is a distinction. But not every distinction is a what? Division. And division seems to be more a distinction of the parts of some kind of whole. And so when Thomas is talking about the distinction of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, he won't speak of the division, right? Because that would seem to imply that they somehow are composing parts of God or something, right? Okay? The same way here. The reason for which is that beginning is more common than cause. I got this from Aristotle. Just as cause is more common than element. For the first limit, or even the first part of the thing, is called a beginning and not a what? Cause, huh? And the more common the name is, the more suitably it is taken over in divine things. That's a point Thomas made when he said that this name, I, Muel, right? Is most appropriate to God. It's a least limiting name, right? Because names, the more special they are, the more they determine the mode suitable to the what? Creature, huh? Whence this name cause seems to imply a diversity of what? Substance, right? And the dependence of one thing upon another. Which the name beginning does not imply. For in all genera of causes, there's always found some distance between the cause and that of which it is a cause. According to some perfection or some power, right? But the name of beginning we use, even in those things which have no difference of this sort. But only according to a certain order, right? As when we say the point is the beginning of a line, right? Or even if we say that the first part of a line is the beginning of a line, right? Okay? The first, or the first hour of the day is the beginning of the day, right? Okay? Because they say that you have to be careful about the word order, too. So, that first objection then is really dealing with the confusion of beginning and cause. So, they're sometimes used synonymously, right? But they shouldn't be. You have to be careful sometimes to distinguish them, right? Because if you use beginning synonymously with cause, then the father is not the beginning of the son, because he's not the cause of the son, right? But if you understand beginning more generally, then you can. Because the son does proceed from the father, but he's not an effect of the father, right? We saw that Greeks, you know, tend to use the word, what, hypostasis for what? Persona? Even though the names seem to be more generally than what? Persona? Still be speaking. People get accustomed.