Prima Pars
Lecture 157: Divine Generation, Eternity, and Order of Nature

Transcript
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It includes both the relations distinguishing the persons and the unity of the what? Yeah. And in part of this, the Master says in the 31st Distinction of the first book of Senses that in these, the what? Calling is only what? Relative, right? That's a relation of reason. You see the sense of saying that? That's a beautiful thing, right? So if I say to you, does the equality of the Father and the Son signify their common nature or does it signify their opposing relations? I'd say it signifies both. Yeah. Because can the divine nature be equal to itself? Doesn't equality imply some distinction between the things of equal, right? But the only real distinction there is is between the relations. So in some way it involves them. But it also involves the what? Yeah. So these two distinct persons are equal because they have the same what? Yeah. So in a sense of saying they're equal, you're saying that they're distinct but have the same what? Yeah. I don't know if they're going to change. Better stop. I don't know what time you're doing there. How to put it around here. 4.30, I don't know. Yeah. I won't get it. You can put a stop there. Yeah. Okay. Next week, I think plans are not going to be coming back on Friday. I think so. I'm leaving this Saturday about California for this talk. I'll cut you back. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angel. Angels strengthen the lights of our minds. Or everything that is corrupted ceases to be therefore everything that is generated begins to be seems kind of reasonable right for its generated in order that may be but the son is generated from the father therefore he begins to be and he's not the more difficult to answer that objection moreover if the son is generated by the father either is always generated right or one can give some what instant of his generation if he's always generated he's always being generated you could say in a sense when something is being generated it is imperfect right just as in things that are successive in time which are always in what coming to be is time and motion and would follow that the son was always imperfect which is unsuitable therefore you can give some instant of the generation of the son and therefore before that instant the son was not but you have to understand the tyranny to answer that objection we were taught that but we think it's right long time back something but against this is what athanasia says and that's again a reference to the athanasian what creed that the three persons are what co-eternal right now thomas says i answer it should be said that it is necessary to say that the son is co-eternal to the what father right for the evidence of this he says it should be considered that something existing from a beginning of course thomas admitted that the father was a beginning right meaning by beginning that from which something proceeds in any way whatsoever to the evidence of this he says it should be considered that something existing from a beginning is after posterior to its beginning and this can happen what in two ways in one way on the side of the what agent in another way on the side of the what action now on the side of the agent in one way in voluntary agents another way in what natural agents in voluntary agents on account of the choice of the what time for just as it's in the power of the voluntary agent to choose a form which is going to confer upon the effect so it's in his power to choose a time in which he produces the effect right nervous effect in the fullness of time right in natural agents this happens because some agent from the beginning uh does not have the perfection of the what power for acting but this comes to him after some time just as man from the beginning of his life is not able to what generate okay i know that's the distinction he makes there right because in natural power as our style explains in the ninth book of wisdom it's like the fire right huh if you put the paper in the fire it's going automatically burning it acts automatically and so the only reason why i wouldn't act right away would be because it's not yet his power is not yet all there right well in the case of the voluntary agent huh he can choose to do it now or later huh it doesn't automatically produce an effect right pictures might show up at the very beginning of class and begin right but i don't know the professors who are preferably late right now on the side of the action itself it could be impeded that something be together from the beginning with its beginning on account of this that the action is what successive right before and after the action itself whence given that such an agent such an action begins to act immediately when it is but not at once in the same instant is the effect but in the instant to which the what action is terminated right so i can begin to walk right now and will immediately be at my destination or i can begin to build a house right right now and there won't be another won't be a house right now because this action is before and after in the time all these distinctions are relevant to talking about the father generating the son now it is manifest according to the things that have been said before that the father does not generate the son by will right we excluded that but by nature and again that the nature of the father from eternity was what perfect okay so on the side of the agent then because he's acting naturally and his power was always there right there's no impediment to his having a son but kind of like the other thing too right what about the action and again the action by which the father produces a son is not successive huh because thus the son of god would be generated what successively yeah and there would be a material generation and with motion which is what impossible it remains therefore that the son was whenever the father was and thus he's what co-eternal and likewise the holy spirit to both right so he convinced by the body of the article you can say that the word of god proceeds from god thinking of himself right he's always thinking of himself perfectly right so he always has a thought of himself so the thought of himself is what always there when his thinking is there which is always there and his thinking is not like our thinking it's just like motion it's a succession right think something out right we think about something before we understand it so we have to think it out it's not true god has to think about something before he understands it no so his understanding is always perfect his understanding is a substance which is always perfect so he always understands what he understands right so he always has the thought what he understands so the thought which is the son right is co-eternal with the father he has one thought then yep only one thought that's another argument but that's true there's nothing in nature that acts that way it's already perfected as it acts well unless you talk about something like you know two and half of four oh yeah so I mean does the two exist in the mental world it becomes half of four St. Augustine used the idea of looking at an human it's not like when you look in the mirror and then after a while you have a view of it it's there as long as you're there it's there that's one way but it's not of the same nature because he thought that life has took no time but it took some time for the son to get up you know it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature but it's not of the same nature On first objection, is Heretic, where he is enumerating 12 ways in which something comes to be from something else, right? And in all of them, there's either, what, not the same in time or not equal in nature. To the first, therefore, it should be said that, as Augustine says in the book about the words of the Lord, no way of going forward of some, any creature, perfectly represents the divine, what, generation. Whence it is necessary for many ways to collect a, what, likeness. That what is lacking from one is in some way supplied by the other. And on account of this, it is said in the Synod of Ephesus, right? Ephesina Synod, the Ephesian Synod. I guess that's the Council of Ephesus, right? To coexisterate, huh? To coexist, always, coeterns with the Father, the Son. The word, what, splendor, right, huh? Because splendor is proceeding from the, what? Light. Light, yeah, and seem to be simultaneous, huh? As far as the senses could judge, right? That's in Psalm, what, 109, isn't it? Among other things? Is it? The Lord's sent by the word, yeah. Yeah, excellent. The, uh, not suffering or undergoing of the birth is shown by the word, what? Word, huh? Verbal, right? That's also where you see the immateriality, right? Of the generation of the Son. But the being of the same substance, the name of Son insinuates, right? That's kind of interesting to see those three words, right? One word brings out the fact that the, uh, second person is coeternal with the Father, right? He's the splendor of the, you know, like this Father. And another one brings out that he's, what? Of the same substance, because he's the Son of the Father, right? But Son might imply a little bit, you know, you think of material sons, right? The kind of sons we're familiar with, huh? And so when you say he's a word, the thought of God, right? Then you realize the, uh, immateriality, right? And it's not a, a material generation undergoing, right? The impassibilitate, he says there. Impassibilitate. But among all of these, nevertheless, uh, more expressly represents what takes place, the proceeding of the thought from what? The understanding. Which is not posterior to that from which it proceeds, except in such an understanding like ours, which goes forth from potency in act, right? Which is not able to be said in God. I can know that as a student, you know, you get interested in something, you study it, you know, and after all I get interested in something else, too. And I want to go in there and kind of get your basic thoughts, you know, about the subject, you know, or form your basic thoughts, right? So my mind is in ability to knowing some subject I haven't studied really. And then I go to Euclid and he's going to help me form my thoughts about the subject. So my thoughts are, what, posterior to my mind, right? That's because my mind didn't actually know anything to begin with, right? But it was able to know something, right? And so it went gradually from ability to act. But in God, he's pure act, right? So he's not only always understands, but he's understanding itself. So how can he be ever lacking in his, what, thought? So he has no ability? Not in the passive sense, right? He doesn't have to be actualized, right? Yeah. Okay. And there's no real distinction between the ability of God to understand his understanding. So, but if you want to, you know, go from us to him, you say that when I finally succeed in actually understanding the Fagorian theorem or some other thing, right, then when I finally actually fully understand it, I'm never without the thought of that thing. So if I had always understood fully and actually what I'm thinking about, I would always have had to put this thought to that, right? So when I finally come to understand the definition of a square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, I can't be in that state of actually and fully understanding what a square is, let's say, right, without having this thought of what a square is, right? So what I'm in, the situation I'm in at the end of my thinking out of what a square is, which is quite an accomplishment, I guess, God is always in that fully actual understanding. So he's always with the thought, right? So there's no succession, right, in the act of what? Understanding himself. And because he's producing this thought, and he's producing this thought, naturally rather than by will, there can't be any delay in that respect, and his natural ability to generate is always, what, perfect, right? So he doesn't have to wait until he gets the full ability to. So that kind of adds something, you know, to the understanding of the body of the, what, article, right? Because as Thomas says at the end of the body of the article there, and again, that the action by which the father produces the son is not successive, because thus the son of God would be generated successively, and his generation would be immaterial, and with motion, right? Which is impossible. But he's coming back upon the fact that the word thought there brings out the immateriality of the divine generation. But you have to realize that that thought is always there when the mind actually and fully understands something. And that's the way God always is. So he can, in a sense, reason from our mind the way God is in this respect. When I finally actually and fully understand what a square is, I always have it that simultaneous with that, actually in fully understanding what a square is, a, what, perfect thought of what a square is, right? And God is always in that actually fully understanding state, the change. So he always has that actual thought. So the son must be co-eternal, right? And God is the same way for the Holy Spirit to be co-eternal with the father and the son. Because again, their breathing is something natural, right? And they're always breathing. Because Peter's confession of faith, the son of the living God, he has the word living there, making it a little more distinct than sometimes they do, right? Rather than living, right, go together. He's always alive. He's always breathing. So they're always breathing in the Holy Spirit. Now the second objection was the one that was mixing up, what, different senses of the word beginning, right? So he says, to the second it should be said, that eternity excludes a beginning of, what, duration, but not a beginning of, what, origin, right? So the definition of eternity was what? Tota and perfecta possessio, vitae interminabilis, son. So it's the altogether at once, right? Possession of a life that has no beginning and no what end, right? So you're denying that kind of a beginning, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if God is always actually and fully understanding himself, there's no beginning or duration of the thought he has in himself. But nevertheless, the thought proceeds from the thinker. But I see if you go back, you know, Aristotle already pointed out how Melusius was mixing up two different senses of beginning. It's very commonly done with senses. Aristotle begins the fifth book of wisdom with the word beginning. As they say, a very good place to begin. The beginning of life's journey to God says, In the beginning, I call upon the person. On the third objection, what is corrupted and ceases to be, therefore what is generated begins to be, right? He says to the third it should be said that every corruption is a certain, what? Change, yeah? Utoxio. And therefore everything that is corrupted begins not to be, right? And ceases to be, huh? Now the generation that is opposed to corruption is also a, what? Mitatsio or change, right? But he goes on to say, but the divine generation is not a, what? Changing over. Okay? Trans mitatsio. Trans means over, right? Whence the Son is always generated, right? And the Father always, what? Generated. Yeah. You might say the Father and the Son always breathe, and the Holy Spirit always is breathed. Now the fourth objection. Let's look at the fourth objection again. If the Son is generated from the Father, either always he is generated, or you can give some instant of his generation. If he is always generated, then when something is being generated, or when, however, something is being generated, it is, what? Imperfect. Imperfect, just as is clear and successive things, which are always coming to be, right? That's time in motion. Then we'd follow up the Son is, what? Imperfect, which is unfitting. So we say the Son is always being generated. He's always coming to be. He's always, what? Imperfect, right? Okay? Therefore, he must give some instant of his, what? Generation. And therefore, before that instant, the Son would not be, right? Well, this is partly a problem in the grammar in the first part there, a little bit. What's the best way of expressing this? And he's going to, you know, say something about that, according to the way origin speaks, and the way destin speaks, and so on. But also, misunderstanding the, what? The now, the instant, of time, and the now of what? Yeah, yeah. So he begins by saying, to the fourth, it should be said, that in time, other is what is indivisible, namely the instant, right? Another, what is, what? Enduring, to wit the, what? Time. But in eternity, the indivisible now is always, what? Standing, as has been said above, right? So that kind of goes back to the way that the great Boethius, in explaining eternity, he says that the now that flows makes time, right? A little bit like the point of, I suppose, making a lie, right? Okay? But he says, the now that stands still makes, what? Eternity, yeah. There's a big difference between these two nows, huh? Now, the generation of the sun is not in the now of time, or it's not in time, right? But it's in, what? Eternity, huh? Just reading our style there in the treatise on time there, you know. Saying, what's in time, right? And he says, well, to be in time is to be in a number, to be contained in a number. And so he says, something that always is, isn't in time, right? Because it can't be measured by time, it's not. And then he says that a sign that you're in time is that you are, what? You change in time, right? You corrupt. You get old. You wear away in time, see? So the eternal things don't wear away at all, so that's a sign that's not in time, right? But the first reason he gives is that you have to be contained in time, right? I'll say Kittredge was born in 1860, the end of 1941, 1860. So his life is, that's beginning and end in time, right? It stays in a number. Yeah. If something was eternal, it would have no beginning or end in time, it couldn't be contained by time. So it wouldn't be in time, right? And Aristotle says, you know, to be in time doesn't mean to be when time is. More than to be in place is to be when that place is. Because then the universe would be in this room. Because the universe is when this room is, right? So for God, you know, to be when time is is not for God to be in time. So the generation of the sun is not in the now of time or in time, but it's in eternity. And therefore, to signifying the being present and the permanence of eternity, it can be said that he is always, what? Born, as Origen says. But, as Gregory and Augustine say, right, it is better to say he is always, what? Born, right? So that the word semper, right? Lacta is a defective language, doesn't have any article, right? And so you'll find in the medieval ones, they try to, you know, put in L-Y there, you know, as a what? That argument, right? Yeah, yeah. And I've seen it in Cajetan, you know, so you find it through, you know, these things. So that's going beyond classical Latin, huh? Sometimes I've seen they use the Greek note or for some reason. I forget where I've seen it. I thought, you know, maybe L-Y in French came from, it's L-Y, but I told you that's not the origin of it. L-Y. L-Y, yeah. It made sense L-Y, you know. Yeah. So that the word semper, right, designates the, what, permanence of eternity, the now that stands still, right? And the natus, born, signifies the, what, perfection of the thing generated, right? Thus, therefore, the son is neither imperfect, nor was there a win he was not, as the heretic, Aries says, the chooser. Dr. Berkowitz, I don't understand the difference between semper and natus and semper and nashitora. They're both passive and... Well, in a sense, what I think is saying, he is always being born. Yeah, yeah. Oh, our presence. Oh, okay. The other presence is always born. So being born. Very good. Thank you. You see, the verb there, you know, reflects what's most known to us, right, emotion. And when I'm walking home, I haven't walked home yet. It's against the problem. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. When I'm thinking out something, I haven't thought it out yet. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. You use our grammar, right, to talk about God. article three now whether in the divine persons there is the order of what nature right to the third then one proceeds thus it seems that in the divine persons there is not an order of what nature now whatever is in god is either what the divine essence right or a person right or one of those notions right but the order of nature does not signify the essence nor is it what one of the persons or what notions therefore there is no order of nature in god and that's going to be solved pretty easily by thomas right it's going to be signifying what this doesn't imply there the notion of origin in general right not in particular right so that's that'd be a great problem but now the second one i think is important moreover in whatever things there is an order of nature one is before the other at least by nature and understanding but in the divine persons nothing is before and after as athanasia says in the athanasian creed that's kind of a precious thing in athanasian creed so the father is not before the son and the father and son are not before the holy spirit therefore in the divine persons there is not an order of what nature i've told you before i think of my own problem there with order right because when i first got thinking seriously about order it seemed to me that order means before and after right and after right and then as i began to read about the trinity you know here and in the disputed questions uh thomas would say um there is um not an order of this before that in god but an order of this from that well then i said see i must have been mistaken when i said that order means before and after that's one meaning of the word order but the other meaning is this from that that's the way thomas seemed to speak right it's not the order of this before that but the order of this from that so like two different meanings of order right well then now sitting in warren murray's office office at the vault and this is before i had a an addition of the sentences on so we didn't know the sentences so i'm looking at the sentences there what it says about these things and there thomas says three things pertain to order right first is distinction i talked to you that nothing is before or after itself right or he says distinction is really presupposed to order right that's the first thing happening then order means before and after he says and then he says there are what species of order right okay and i can be before this in time or i can be before this is a cause of before and effect in a different species so on and then he says when you carry this word order over to god and speak of an order in god like you speak of the order in a tour here phrase of augustine you drop the genus which is before and after and you keep the what specific difference right okay so i'm before my son and my son what i'm the origin of my son in some way right okay um so you carry this over to god you drop the idea of the idea of being before but you keep the idea that's a specific difference right so that was a great uh my first thought was splendid my second thought i'll be misled you see but thomas in the text i had like in the i think maybe the potencia um it doesn't make those distinctions right okay but the idea that when you carry something over to god that you drop the the genus and keep the difference is a common what uh thing in the names of god and i just want to think of boule is dropping into us all the time right um how we drop the genus and keep the what difference well of course you can see the reason for that is going back to porphyry that the genus is to the difference but matter is to what form its ability is to act right so since god is pure act you can see why you might have to drop the genus and you might keep the difference because of the actuality so when our style talks example about episteme and us you know well it's basically a demonstration except the episteme what's a what's a uh a uh episteme what's what's a demonstration rather well it's a syllogism making us know the cause and that of which it is a cause and it cannot be otherwise if you carry over this to god what do you keep syllogism making us to know god's got a syllogism making us know he's going to euclid like i am going to know things no you keep the the difference right so syllogism making us to know the cause and that which is a cause cannot be otherwise god knows the cause and that which is a cause cannot be otherwise he doesn't need the soldiers to make known to him the cause right so you drop the genus and therefore the imperfection of our way of knowing right and you keep the difference so that was to me kind of a lesson too in the importance of going back maybe and reading sometimes in the earlier works of thomas right because although the later works have more authority um sometimes in an earlier work he might be more explicit then later on he's he's less sorry i've seen people that do that with aristotle too you know there's like the category is kind of a thing i've made a study of and to the best of my knowledge now there's only two places that i've seen where aristotle enumerates all ten categories and one is in the categories itself and the other is in the book about places what they call the topics in english other times refers to them he gives you know three or four women he's incomplete right so i remember one guy you know saying well aristotle wasn't too sure how many there were you know and that sort of thing you know and uh so uh and i know sometimes thomas will not give the complete distinction and the sub-distinction just the part that's most relevant to his text and people would take off as this this is a complete explanation or a complete teaching about this so but also it struck me too you know that the the i know myself my own writing that sometimes i'm more explicit and develop a point more fully and sometimes when i come back to his point you know later work i'm more brief and not as expansive and so on so that when i heard you know scriptural scholars saying oh saint mark's gospel is the shortest therefore it came first and people kind of added things you know to what he'd said you know we read the gospel saint mark in the parish one time because we figured we could get through it in the time we had he wanted to you know not be part of the gospel the whole gospel so this is a choice to make right but i mean sometimes a person does write something and then he later on expands on it you know but it just reverts and so you can't argue you know one way or the other i said it again and again so order natura is dropping the genus what order means in general before and after but keeping something that pertains to some species you might say of order right so a lot of lessons there you know you And he was caught out as soon as he was asking me a question of what it was. And I was just kind of, you know, filling it in there, you know, as I was sitting in his office there and looking at his book that I had not really had access to, you know. It's kind of hard to get a hold of copies of the sentences, you know. And it's kind of, what? Before the internet. Yeah, yeah, before, yeah, or before, you know, the revolution, you know. Yeah, technical and scientific, yeah. Warren is saying something that really understands computers, really. He's being impressed with your computer room or something. Yeah, I saw him with all Brother Gustin's way to get the printers all set up. Yeah, yeah. He goes, wow, wow, wow. So that seems to be, you know, going back to what order means in general. So how can you be able to order the Taurian God if there's no before and after? Moreover, whatever is ordered is what? Distinguished. And that goes back to the thing I mentioned also where Thomas says that distinction is the first thing that we find in order, or maybe better to say it's presupposed to it, right? And I use the axiom before and after to show, you know, distinction comes first. So whatever is ordered is distinguished, right? This is before that. There must be some distinction between this and that. But the nature in God is not what? Yeah. Therefore, it's not ordered, right? Therefore, there is not there an order of nature. So the second objection, in a sense, is maybe attacking order notary from ordo. And the second objection, yeah, the third objection, from nature. Yeah, that's beautiful, huh? What I like about these objections is sometimes they concentrate upon each word of the thing. Just like you go back to the article on Eternity, each objection is kind of attacking some part of the definition. Now, the last objection is more objection to the word. More of the divine nature is his, what? Essence. But there is not said in God an order of, what? Essence. Therefore, neither an order of nature. But Thomas is going to illuminate us about that choice of the word nature, even by the great Augustine. But against all this nonsense, wherever there is plurality, without order, there is confusion. That's a lie in the university. A pluribus confusionalism. Did the Warren tell you that story? He says, you want to see a good example of the confusion of the modern mind, just look at any college cowboy. But notice, in the beginning of the Eight Books of Natural Hearing, Aristotle reasons that the confused is before the distinct in our knowledge, and that the confused is more known and more certain for us. And this is a different meaning of the word confused here, right? Because confused can mean mixed up, right? And that's in a sense what you're saying here. So does Aristotle mean that we're more sure when we're mixed up? And perhaps, you know, part of Descartes' problem is mixing up these senses of confused, right? He's confused about the word confused. And probably the first meaning of confused is the bad sense, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know, a simple example of the two senses. This is, you know, if you think a dog is a cat, then you're confused in the bad sense. You're mixed up. You're mistaken, right? If you think the dog is an animal, are you mistaken? Although animal does not distinguish between dog and cat, right? So, that's confused in a different sense, right? But it's not false. You can say, that's an incomplete knowledge of dog to know he's an animal, right? But it's not a what? Yeah. So, if you give me a nice glass of carbonate sauvignon, let's say, and I say, this is Chianti, and then I'm, what? Mistaken. If I take the easy way out and say, now, this is a dry red wine, you can say my knowledge is not too distinct of what I'm drinking. But that's why I'm certain. And I am not, in fact, mistaken. So, this is the bad sense. Confusion, actually, ethycologically, means that it's poured together, right? Mixed up there is a little more discreet, the parts, but somewhat the same thing, you know? I think mixed up, you know, doesn't have, hasn't moved to this neutral sense. But you can compare confusion there a little bit. But if the first sense is something bad, and the second sense is indistinct but not, you know, mistaken, you can compare that to the way we move the word suffering, or passio, or undergoing, right? But the first meaning of undergoing is to be acted upon in a way that's harmful to you, right? And then later on you drop off the idea of being harmful and just keep the idea of being acted upon and receiving something. That's a little bit like the way you move the word confusion, perhaps. Aristotle doesn't really, you know, stop there and explain the provocation of the word, but it seems to me that there is. And I see them using, you know, this word confusion there in the text sometimes, you know, in this bad sense. The answer should be said that order is always said in comparison to some, what, beginning. This is very much the way Aristotle proceeds in the fifth book of wisdom, huh? Because the first book, I mean, the first word he takes up there is the word beginning, right? Then later on he takes up the words before and after, which pertain to order. But the way he proceeds there is to recall the common notion of beginning. But it's first in being or becoming or knowing. And then he divides the senses of before, according to before and being, before and becoming, before and knowing, right? So, by the categories he just takes the word before by itself, right? Without using the word beginning, huh? So, whence, just as beginning is said in many ways, huh? The word beginning is equivocal by reason, huh? According to what? Position as a point, huh? That's kind of the first meaning Aristolic is, right? According to what? Understanding, which is actually the fifth meaning Aristolic is. That's the beginning of demonstration. And according to what? Singular causes. So, also order is said, huh? Now, in divine things, there is a beginning by origin without, what? Before. Whence is necessary that there be an order by origin without before? That might seem to be, you know, either contradiction if you're thinking of order meaning before and after. Or else, you might say, well, that's the order that involves before and after just one sense of order. But not according to Thomas in the sentence or something. And this is called the order of nature according to Augustine. Not by which one is before the other, but by which one is from the other. Yeah, he has one like that in the debut tense, you know? And that seems like he's distinguishing those two kinds of order. One, this is before that, the other, from. And that's not the way he explains it in the, what? Yeah. Consensus explains before and after is the general meaning of order, right? And then there are differences, right? To contract, order, invert.