Prima Pars
Lecture 152: Notional Acts and the Necessity of Divine Generation

Transcript
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to what? To the relations, this one we just read, and the first one was to the, what, very substance, right? Okay. Now do you manage to compare it to the, what, notional acts, right? So is the father and generation really two different things? You probably have a father, generation, you have, you know, birth and the son, you have four things there, right? Okay. You have four different things, right? Okay. But the way of signifying is quite different, right? Because father signifies as a relation and generation as an act, right? And we have to do that because we understand God from creatures, right? And we have to understand that nation somehow is based upon quantity or based upon actions, yeah. So let's look at the premium here first. Then we ought to consider about persons in comparison to notional acts. And about this six things are asked, right? First is whether notional acts should be attributed to the persons. Secondly, whether these acts are necessary or what? Voluntarily, right? Does the father choose to generate the son? Does the father and the son choose to breathe the Holy Spirit or is it something that necessarily takes place? Third, whether according to these acts, the person proceeds from nothing or from what? Something. Is it like creation? Does the father create the son so that he proceeds from nothing or from something? The fourth question, whether in God, um, one should lay down that there is a power with respect to the notional acts? So not only generation, but the ability to generate, right? The power to generate. And is there in the father and the son an ability to breathe the Holy Spirit, right? They not only breathe the Holy Spirit, but they have this ability, this power to do so. Who does he? And of course, Thompson's going to answer yes. But then that gives rise to the fifth question, if that's so. What does ability or power signify there, right? This comes up again in a very great question there, disputed questions. De potencia, right? Okay. You talk about his omnipotence and so on and you talk about these power generating and power breathing and so on. And sixth question is whether a notional act, a notional act can terminate at what? Many persons. So he had three questions about the, what? Notional acts and two about the powers, right? And then one here about the notional act, the limit of it can be more than one person. So the first one proceeds thus. It seems that notional acts should not be attributed to persons. The great Boethius says in the book about the Trinity that all the genera, right, when one turns them over to, what? Predication in God are changed into, what? Divine substance except for the, what? Relatism. But action is one of the ten genera. If therefore action is, some action is attributed to God, it pertains to his essence and not to this, what? Notion which is in relation to subjection. Moreover, Augustine says in the fifth book of the Trinity that everything that is said of God is either said according to his substance or according to relation. It's almost the same thing that Boethius is saying, right? But Boethius is following Augustine, right? It's like Thomas is following Augustine. But those things which belong to the substance of God are signified by the central attributes. those things which pertain to relation through the names of the persons and through the names of their properties and relations. It doesn't leave any room then for these notional acts. They should not, therefore, apart from these, to be attributed to persons' notional acts. Moreover, it is proper to action that it infer from itself a passion, right? The two categories in Aristotle, they're called poin and pasci, right? Axio and pasci in Latin. But in English, you call it acting upon and what? Undergoing. Well, there's no undergoing in God, right? That's something, something passive, right? In God is pure act. Therefore, neither should notional acts be, what? But in God, there's no passions, right? Therefore, neither should notional acts be placed there, right? That's what Thomas is going to say, secundum grammatica. But against this is what Augustine says in the book on faith to Peter. It is property of the father, or property of the father, that he generates, say, what? Son. But generation is a certain act. Therefore, notional acts ought to be placed in God, contrary to all these objections, right? So Thomas answers very briefly now, unless the embodied article is very small, and the applied of the objections are comparatively long, especially the first two. The answer should be said that in divine persons, there is to be noted a distinction according to what? Origin. But origin cannot be designated suitably except through some kind of what? Act. Designating, therefore, the order of origin in divine persons, it was necessary to attribute to the person's notional acts, huh? Unless you said that the father generated the son, you wouldn't see how the son is proceeding from the, what? Father. Unless you attribute to the father the son breathing the Holy Spirit, right? You wouldn't see the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the father and the son, right? So you've got to have notional acts, Thomas says. Strangely as they seem, right? Now, let's go back to the first objection there, right? Quoting from Boethius, right? Boethius says you're going to admit to, yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that every origin is designated by some act. But a two-fold order of origin can be, what? Attributed to God, huh? One according as the creature goes forward from him. And this is common to the three, what? Persons. And therefore, the actions which are attributed to God to designate the going forward of creatures from him pertain to the, what? Essence. There is another order of origin in God according as one person goes forward from, what? Another. According to the going forward of a person from a person. Whence the acts designating the order of this origin are called, what? Notional. Because the notions of the persons are the habitudiness, and the relations of those persons to each other, as has been said. So in a way, he's admitting the distinction between the substance and relation, right? And then he talks about the fact, though, that we speak of two kinds of origin in regard to God, right? So in a way, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, Thank you. One is the origin of creatures from God, and the other is the origin of one person from another person. And the origin of what? Creatures from God are going to be the acts that designate that, right? Like creating, meaning are going to belong to the essential. But the origin of one person to another is going to be tied up with the relations of one person to the other. And therefore the acts designating those origins will pertain to the relations, right? So in a way, he's admitting the distinction that Bwethi has made, right? That anything said in God has to pertain either to the essence of God or to the relations in some way. But origin in God can only be understood or expressed through some kind of act, right? And then he sees a distinction. He sees a distinction between the proceeding of creatures from God and the proceeding of creatures. Yeah. Incidentally, that kind of follows the order of the magister, right? In the sentences, right? Because he deals in the first book with the proceeding of one person from another, right? And then after that, he goes on to the proceeding of the creature from God, right? From one proceeding to the other proceeding, right? Kind of a nice way of putting things together, right? And then in the last two books, he deals with the coming back of things to God, right? The second objection, again, he quoted something similar from Augustine, right? That is where Thomas gets into the very subtleties of this matter. Because is fatherhood and generation really two different things? See, they're not synonyms exactly, though I think. What Thomas begins by saying, he applied to the second objection, that he's following Augustine, right? That the notional acts, secundum modem significandi, according to the way of signifying, only differ from what? The relations of the persons. But in things, in reality, they are altogether what? The same. Whence even the Magister, the teacher, says in the first book of the Sentences, Distinction 26, that generation and birth, by other names, are called what? Yeah. When you say by other names, though, do you mean simply by synonyms? They don't signify exactly the same way. They're not synonyms, right? But they signify the same what? Thing. Now, Thomas says to the evidence of this, that's not too kind of strange, yeah? It should be noted that we are first able to what? Guess the origin of something from another. From what? Motion. For that something is removed from its disposition through motion, is manifest that this happened from some what? Cause. And therefore, action, according to the first placing upon of the name, implies the origin of what? Just as motion, insofar as it's in the movable thing from another, is called what? Passion, undergoing. So the origin of that motion, according as it begins from another and ends in that which is moved, is called action or acting upon. Okay? When one removes therefore motion from this understanding, action implies nothing other than the origin, the order of origin, according as from some cause or beginning, the beginning is more general than cause, there goes forward that which is from a beginning. Whence, since in God there is no motion, the action of the, what? The personal action, the one producing a person, is nothing other than the relation of that beginning to the person which is from the beginning. So, which relations, habitude is kind of a part of word for relation, are the relations themselves or what we call the notions. Okay? Now, why is this whole way of speaking then, right? See? Well, Thomas is not going to give the reason for that. Because, however, about divine and understandable things, we are not able to speak except according to the way of, what? Sensible things. That's what Aristotle taught in the third book about the soul, right? That the proper object of our reason is that what it is is something that can be sensed or imagined. And so something that cannot be sensed or imagined, we either cannot understand and talk about, or we have to understand and talk about it through the way we understand those things that can be sensed or imagined. So he says, because about divine and understandable things we are not able to speak, except according to the way of sensible things from which we receive knowledge. That's why he had the concrete and the abstract, right? That's why we have to speak about, what? God and the divine nature, right? Deus and divinitas, right? And you speak of Deus as habens, divinitas, or something, right? God is having the divine nature, right? Even though God and what he has are the same thing, right? Well, we can't avoid that way of speaking, right? Derived from material things, where form and the thing that has a form are really, what? Distinct, right? The have and the have. Yeah. Yeah. So he says, because about divine and understandable things, we are not able to speak. Except according to the way of sensible things, from which we get our knowledge. In which actions and passions, insofar as they, what? Imply motion. Are other from the relations which follow upon those actions and passions. Is necessary for us to consider separately, right? The relations of persons through the, what? Manner of act. And apart from that, through the manner of, what? Relations. So we have to understand something that is one and simple in God, through two thoughts, right? One of which helps us understand why the other is there. See? Because you can't understand relations in God, except according to the way that relations are in, what? Creatures, right? So in creatures, there is a real, what? Distinction between my generating my son and my being a father, right? And my being a father falls upon my generating my son, right? Now in God, the generating and the fatherhood are the same thing, right? So we're understanding one thing by two thoughts, right? Is that false? False, because the way things are and the way they're understood don't have to be the same for truth. False comes in if you say that because they have two thoughts that correspond to something in God, therefore in God there's two things, right? Really distinct, right? That's a mistake that comes in, huh? You have to admire our style, right? As seeing that truth does not require that the way we understand be the way things are, right? In fact, in a way, truth requires that we don't confuse the two, right? Which Plato did, right? Hegel did. You know, the rationalists in modern times, especially, you know, like Spinoza, right? Descartes kind of starts it, but then it becomes full-blown in Spinoza. And Spinoza says that the order in our thoughts and the order in things is the same. And Aristotle says, you know, that for the most part... The order in things and the order in our thought are the reverse. So, for example, we tend to know the effect before the cause. And so every time we ask the question why, whether we can answer it or not, that's a sign that we know the effect before the cause. So in our knowledge, the effect is before the cause, but in things, the cause is before the effect. You know, you take water and hydrogen and oxygen, and you take the proton, right? Proton comes the Greek word for first. But of these three things, water, hydrogen, and proton, which is first in our knowledge? Yeah, it's second in our knowledge. Hydrogen, yeah. And proton is third, right, in our knowledge. But in things, proton is first and hydrogen is second. And so, in a sense, we're just backwards from the mystery of the verse. And that's why the great shot Holmes says to Watson, we're going to have to reason backwards. Watson says, what do you mean? From the effect back to the cause, he says. So our mind is naturally, what, backward. I was going to say, to reason is reason backwards. That's just like identity there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In theology, we're imitating God's way of knowing a bit, because this is revealed theology, right? So it's a result of God revealing, in a sense, his knowledge, right? Well, God knows all other things by knowing himself. So we kind of imitate that in theology. We consider God before, what, preaching itself. But as Thomas says in the Summa Contagentiles, the order then in theology is just the reverse in philosophy. In theology, God is the first thing to be considered, but in philosophy, he's the last thing to be considered. That's why I always thought Jusson was off the track here, and he's writing an introduction to philosophy, and he's following the order of the Summa Contagentiles. So he's following the order of theology as an introduction to philosophy, when Thomas himself says that the order is simply, what, the reverse. So we're forced, in a sense, to what? Understand one thing by two thoughts, right? And, you know, take something a little more maybe known to us, but when we talked about God's substance and so on, and about his operations before we got to Trinity, we talked about God understands and he, what? Wills, right? Now, are these two different things in God's understanding and his will? Why do you have these two thoughts, then, about God? Yeah, and because our understanding and our willing are not the same thing, right? And we have to, in a sense, use these two thoughts in talking about God, right? And we even try to understand why God has a will, you might say, because he has an understanding. And so we have two thoughts, and one is kind of the reason for the other, right? But it's because we're understanding God through his effects. And what's simple and one in God is composed and multiple in preachers. Thomas, you know, quotes their, was it the prophet, not Zachary, what's the other one? He says, you know, in that day there will be one name. Thomas, what's, that's when you see God as he is, right? When you have one name for him, huh? But so long as you know God from preachers, you don't know God as he is, you're going to have many thoughts about God. God has only one thought about himself. I've got many thoughts about God. You know, a mountain, anything compared to his one thought. So, going back again here. Because about divine and understandable things, we're not able to speak except according to the way of sensible things, from which we take our knowledge, and in which actions and passions, insofar as they imply motion, are other from the relations which follow upon the actions and the passions, is necessary to signify these separately. The relations of the persons through, what? The manner of an act, and a part through the manner of any, what? Relation. And thus it is clear that they are the same in things, in reality, but they differ only according to the way of, what? Signifying. Now this third objection was saying, he can't have passion in God, he can't have the passive. To the third, therefore, it should be said that action, according as it implies the origin of motion, infers from itself passion, right? But not in this way is action said to be placed in God. There's no motion there. Whence are not placed there passions, except, what? Speaking grammatically, as regards the way of signifying, just as to the Father we attribute to generate, and to the Son to be generated. Now that's not simply a distinction made to get out of the problem. You can see that distinction elsewhere, right? If I say, for example, I see this glass, right? Well, grammatically speaking, that's active, seeing the glass. And the glass is what? Is seeing. So the glass is being acted upon by my seeing, right? You wouldn't say that, would you? No. If anything, the glass is acting upon my eyes, right? That glare from the glass there is. You see? So, but being seen, grammatically speaking, is passive, right? Is that the way it is in reality? And in this case, it's a real acting upon, but it's reversed. The object is acting upon the senses. Sensing, as Aristotle says, is an undergoing, right? So you don't want to confuse the grammatical with the, what? The real. And there's a kind of fallacy there, huh? In the fallacies from language in this, its refutations. But what of those would be to take the grammatical form and conclude something about reality from the grammatical form without realizing that it's a source of deception. So should we take a break? Or a break? For a contest? Now, whether the notional acts are, what, voluntary, right? The second one goes forward thus. It seems that the actual, the notional acts are voluntary. For Hillary says in the book on the synods and the councils that not led by natural necessity did the father generate the son. I see if Hillary had known Aristotle a little bit better, he would have been a little more careful. Same in Thomas. Because necessary is one of the words in the first of the three parts of the fifth book of wisdom. And the first words have one pertaining to cause in some ways. So Aristotle has beginning, cause, element, nature, and then he attaches back to the word necessary. Thomas will make use of that, of course, in here. Moreover, the apostle says in Colossians 1, verse 13, he carries us over, right? To the kingdom of the son of his love, right? But love is of the will. Therefore, the son is generated by the father, by the will, right? By the beloved son. Moreover, nothing is more voluntary than love. But the Holy Spirit goes forward from the father and the son as love. Therefore, he proceeds voluntarily. Moreover, the son goes forward by way of understanding as the word or thought. But every word or thought goes forward from the one speaking it through his will. Therefore, the son proceeds from the father through will and not by, what? Nature. Moreover, what is not voluntary is necessary. If, therefore, the father did not generate the son bound by will, it would follow that he generated by necessity, which is against, what? Augustine, huh? In the book, Adorosium. I don't know if that's all good authentic work or not. It says it's among the works. Yeah. Anyway. But again, this is what Augustine says in the same book, that neither by will did the father generate the son nor by, you know, distinction of sense isn't necessary. I don't know. Thomas says, I answer. It should be said that when it is said that something is or comes to be by the will, this can be understood in two ways. In one way that the adjective designates the going along with only, right, just as I'm able to say that I am a man by my, what? Will. According to my will. Because I wish myself to be a man, right? But I'm not a man. It's an effect of my will, right? And Thomas says, in this way it can be said that the father generated the son by will, just as he is by will, what? God. Because he wishes himself to be God, he wishes himself to, what? Generate the son. But is that wish the source of his being God? Is the source of his, what? Generating the son? He's going to deny that now. In another way that the adjective implies the relation of a, what? Beginning or source. Just as it is said that the artist operates by his will. Will. Because his will is the beginning of the, what? Will. Yeah. And in this way it should be said that the father, God the father, does not generate the son by will. But by his will he produces the, what? Creature. Whence in the book about the synod it is said, if someone says that the son was made by the, what? Will of God. As if he is one, something, one of the creatures, right? So Matthew must say he's a cursed phrase there. Lost. So Thomas is beginning in this first paragraph to state his, what? Position, right, huh? Now he's going to give the reason for this, right? And the reason for this is because the will and nature differ in this way, in causing. Because the nature is determined, what? To one. But the will is not determined to what? This is a distinction that Aristotle brings out in the first part of the ninth book of wisdom, right? Now why is it that the nature is determined to one, but the will not to one? The reason for this is that an effect is like the form of the agent in which the agent acts, but is manifest that of one thing there's only one natural form, to which a thing has being. Whence such as that thing is, so does it make. So dogs naturally give rise to what? Dogs. Dogs. And cats to cats, right? Horses to horses, right? But the form by which the will acts is not one only, but there are what? Many. Same knowledge of opposites among other things. According as there are many reasons understood. Whence what is done by the will is not such as the agent is, but such as he wills and understands that to be when he acts. Of those things, therefore, the will is a beginning, which are able to be thus or in another way. But those things which are not able to be except thus, the beginning is what? Nature. Now, something can be thus or in another way is far distant, right, from the divine nature. But this pertains to the notion of the creature. Because God, as we saw before, is necessary to be, what? To himself. But the creature is made from nothing. And therefore, the Arians, wishing to lead to this conclusion that the son is a creature, said that the father generated the son by will. Also a dangerous idea to say. According as will designates, say, what? But to us, it should be said that the father generates the son not by will, but by what? Whence Hillary, in the book about sin on the son, says to all creatures, the will of God brings substance on being. But to the son, but he gave the nature to the son, right? From his impassable, right? And not born substance, a perfect, what? Birth, then. For all things created are such as God willed them to be. But the son is born from God and subsists such as God himself is. Think from Shakespeare. Coriolanus. Act 4, scene 7 of Coriolanus. And Ophidius is reflecting on the troubles of Coriolanus and how he got into trouble. And what the cause might be, right? First, he was a noble servant to them, the Romans. But he could not carry his honors even. And now he speculates as to the cause. Whither it was pride, which... Out of daily fortune, ever attains the happy man. Now, pride would be the will, right? And the thing about pride is it can arise from good in somebody, right? In fact, it's an excellence that you have, right? It would be the occasion for pride. Whether a defect of judgment, to fail in the disposing of those chances when she was lord of. A defect now of the mind, the reason, right? Or with her nature, not to be other than one thing. Not moving from the cask to the cushion. The cask is a soldier, right? But commanding peace, even with the same austerity and carb as he controlled the war. Well, custom is said to be a second nature, right? But notice what he says there. Nature not to be other than one thing. He's seen the same thing that Aristotle saw, right? That nature is determined to one, right? By the reason, as you know from dialectic and rhetoric, and the opposite side. And the will that Jews to do or not to do something, or to do it this way or do it this other way. It's not his bookmark. It's the town's bookmark. It's from the real Alcazar of Seville. The royal palace of Seville. What did you get there? I can bring you a book on the royal palace. That's where the king of Spain stays when he comes to Seville. So you don't see the whole thing, you know. You see some of the rooms, but you don't see the red quarters. When you buy a book, you can see the quarters more. I can bring you a bookmark. I can bring you a bookmark. I can bring you a bookmark. I can bring you a bookmark. I can bring you a bookmark. Sure. I know some Franciscans, you try to argue that the procession of the sun is the procession of the blood, which is similar to Obieus. Obviously, it's not the same promise of the position, but how is it that, if you're saying the Aryans go wrong, the procession is the procession of the will, how is it that it leads to a serious error to say that? Well, if you say that the will is the beginning of the source, right? In other words, if the father chose out of love to generate the sun, right? You can say that about human generation, right? Maybe it comes out of love, right? It should. But, and you can say God made creatures out of love, right? He chose, you know, to make a sun. You know, you should thank God that he chose you to be. And, but did the father choose to generate the sun? No. Now, Thomas says, is it agreeable to the will of the father that the sun be generated? Yes. Yes. It's in harmony with his will, right? Okay. But his will is not the source of that, huh? And we'll come back, because there's a subtle distinction that will come out in the replies, right? Right. Okay. Now, if you know something about dialectic, you know, dialectic is a way of reasoning from probable opinions, right? Even to contradictory conclusions, huh? And so, you see Aristotle, Socrates, just like Socrates, you know, in the Mena, right? Mena wants to know where the virtue can be taught. And Socrates says, well, we don't know yet what virtue is, so how can I really answer your question? Well, let's think about it, right? And then he says, let's see what can be said for or against, right? So Socrates, in the third part of the Mena, he brings out a probable argument that virtue can be taught. And then he brings out a probable argument that virtue cannot be taught, right? Okay. And then in rhetoric, right, you learn how to reason two opposites. And, you know, I know if you know anything about debate clubs in high school even, you know, usually they have a topic they're going to, it's such a debate to share. If you're on the debate team, you have to learn how to maintain both sides, right? And then when you get into competition, you may be, you know, on the affirmative today, and tomorrow you're on the, what, negative, right? So you learn how to do this, right? And a good lawyer can maybe defend a man or prosecute him. And the politicians, you know, can defend something. I think we have another name for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flip-flop, flip-flop. See? But reason can flip-flop, right? And you can actually change your mind, right? As we say, right? And think, you know, that's what you thought before, right? So, both reason as reason and the will as will are capable of what? Opposites, right? See? So I can choose to eat steak tonight or not eat steak, right? Okay? Or to eat too much or to eat too little, right? I can choose these things, see? And so is will the source of the sun, the beginning of the sun, right? Does the father choose, you know? Should I generate the sun and not generate him, right? And he chooses to generate him, right? No. That's going to put him in the class of the, what, creature, right? You see, when we say the divine will, we see that he doesn't have to necessarily will the creatures, right? Because the creatures are not necessary for his goodness, right? He will is suitable to his goodness, but not as necessary for it. Now, going back to the first objection here. Hillary says in the book of the Sennahs, not by natural necessity led did the father generate the son. And Thomas says, to that first therefore it should be said that that authority is brought in against those who from the generation of the son would remove also the, what, or even the, what, going along with of the divine will, the competence. Saying that thus he generated the son, that his will of generating him was not, what, present, right? Just as we, by natural necessity, undergo many things against our, what, will. As death, old age, and defects of this sort, right, huh? You know, looking at the package store there, the old guy would come in and say, you know, never grow old, he says. You don't do that. I was much younger than I am now. I'm getting to see a little bit of what he meant, you know? The age of 72 here. And this is clear through the things before and after text. For thus it is said there, for not nolente pati, not unwilling, right? Or coerced the father, right? Or by natural necessity induced when he did not want to, you see, you've got to add that, cum nolent, right? Did he generate the son, right? But, you know, if you just said natural necessity, you could say that the father's generating the son is naturally, what, necessary, right? So, Hillary, you know, you've got to say he doesn't express himself fully if you just leave out that, what? Yeah, see? Vella naturalia necessitatia ductus, cum nolent, right? You've got to have that in there, see? If you leave out that nolent, then you could say he does generate the son by a kind of, what, natural necessity. The second objection is from this text of St. Paul there. The son of his love, right? Well, he understands that in the way that you'd expect. The apostle, by Antonio Messiah there, St. Paul, names Christ the son of the love of God insofar as he is, what, loved abundantly, right there, overabundantly by God. Not that the love is the beginning of the, what, generation of the son, huh? Now, the third, huh? I'll check you now. Let's look at it first, and I'll kind of expand it a bit. Let's look at it first.