Prima Secundae
Lecture 20: Beatitude in Speculative Sciences and Knowledge of Angels

Transcript
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Soda pop or something. Because you've got the obvious difference, right? But these wine tastings, sometimes people don't identify it rightly, right? I'm sure if you gave me Carbonet Sauvignon and Coke, I could tell the difference. It's not that much exercising my mind, right? And things are that close together. So, we're up to the Article 6, was it? Mm-hmm. Okay. I've been pursuing these spectator sciences. I'm going to see if I can expect Beatitudes from these, right? I don't know whether I've deceived all my life in seeking my Beatitudes this way. Maybe I should have become a monk or something, you know, instead of a philosopher. Okay. We'll see. We'll see what that is. To the 6th one proceeds thus. It seems that Beatitude of man consists in the consideration of the speculative sciences, huh? Speculative is the, what? Latin word, huh? Theoretical is the Greek word, right? And the English word is, what? Looking. Looking. Looking before and after. It's so named because the word looking means you're trying to see, right? You're trying to understand. You're not trying to do something. So it's not a practical science, but you're trying to understand it. For the philosopher says in the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? That philicitasen, that's the way they usually translate the Greek word there. But the Greek word is hedamonia that he uses there. That it's an operation according to perfect, what? Virtue. And that's what he terms already in the kind of the first book, right? But then he goes through all the virtues. The moral virtues and all the virtues of reason, right? And then finally he cut down. What is that perfect virtue? In distinguishing the virtues, he does not lay down speculative virtues except three. Science, or epistemia in the Greek, sapiensium, right? Savory knowledge, as Thomas explains the etymology of that. Sapiensium. And intellectus, a natural understanding, as I call it sometimes. Which all, what, pertain to the consideration of the looking sciences. Therefore, the last happiness of man, his beatitude, consideration is expected to sciences, huh? Convincing. I find that pretty convincing. Moreover, that seems to be the, what? Last beatitude of man, which is naturally desired by all for its own sake. But of this sort is consideration of the looking sciences. Because, and this is the famous first sentence of the premium to wisdom there, at the beginning of the 14 books of wisdom. All men by nature desire, what? And they translated shire there, huh? That's the way, it's in the commentary, too, you know? But the Greek word is actually, what? Not epistastai, but identi, right? So, to translate in English, you're saying, all men, by nature, by birth, want to understand, right? And a little bit after that, Aristotle shows that the looking sciences are sought for their own sake. Therefore, in the consideration of the looking sciences, consists, what? Beatitude, huh? Moreover, beatitude is the last perfection of man, the ultimate perfection. But each thing is perfected as it's reduced from potency to act. But the human understanding is reduced to act by the consideration of the speculative sciences, geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, first philosophy of wisdom. Therefore, it seems that in the consideration of these things, the ultimate beatitude of man consists, right, huh? Against all this nonsense is what is said in Jeremiah, huh? Chapter 9, huh? Let the... They were reading from Jeremiah this morning, huh? In our scripture reading this morning, I don't know what you had, but... We had Job. It could be just... This is bad. A few things, I mean. Let the wise man not glory in his, what? Wisdom, huh? Ah, that's a put-down for me. Supposing. I've got to get stranded out here. And he's speaking about the wisdom of the speculative sciences. Therefore, it does not consist in the consideration of these things, the ultimate beatitude of man, huh? Now, what does Thomas say when he's going to... Not just the old Aristotle that the dump heap of history is. It does, man. Yeah. Actually, it should be said that as has been said above, two-fold is the beatitude of man, right? One perfect and the other, what? Imperfect, huh? And Aristotle seems to have seen this in some way, you know, because when he gets through with his consideration of happiness, he'll say, you know, and he's aware of what the Sola had said, you know, call no man happy till he be dead because of all the incertions of life and so on. And so he says, he kind of modifies that and says, let's call him happy, but happy as men. Happy as men can be, right? Because they're in actual power, so. So two-fold is the beatitude of man, one perfect and the other imperfect, huh? Is that contrary to what he said before, that there can only be one last in? Okay. But he calls them both nevertheless beatitude, right? In some way he's saying both are kind of the last in, huh? Yeah. Or one really, what, perfects the other, right? You know, and it's, again, another reference to this treatise on the angels there, where Thomas talks about the natural love of the angels, right? As well as the supernatural love, huh? And some people are kind of tempted to say, you know, that you love God above all things only by the supernatural love, right? You need caritas, charity, right? And Thomas says, no. He says that even by his natural love, right? The angel loves God above all the things, huh? Because it's natural for the whole, I mean, for the part, to love the, what? Whole more than itself, right? And then he goes on, making an interesting objection to the people who think the other way around, that if the angel did not, by his natural love, love God above all things, then the supernatural love of charity would not be perfecting nature but going against it. If the angel, say, naturally loved himself most of all, that was his natural love. Or the same thing for you and I, huh? If we naturally loved ourselves more than God, and then the supernatural love of charity, whereby you love God above all things, would not be perfecting, huh? The natural love, but grace would be contrary, huh? To nature, huh? It's kind of a profound insight, you know? I think a lot of us are, the way we're brought up and so on, we kind of, you know, think of our love as naturally selfish, huh? And there's some truth to that, some of our emotions, but insofar as we are, what, a part of some greater whole, huh? The part actually loves the whole more than itself. And Thomas gives an example, you know, of how the, when somebody, you know, aims at your head, you spontaneously raise your hand to protect your head, right? Even though the hand may end up getting hurt, right? But it's sacrificing itself for the head, which is most necessary for the common good of the, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. For instance, De Sales makes the same point in treating the love of God, you know, natural love. Yeah, so when Aristotle, you know, if he was to be introduced to Christianity, he would not see that as, what, you know, or unreasonable, right? But my charity, your loving God is the source of what? The beat of your vision, right? Not just the source of our natural good, right? It's necessary to understand perfect beatitude, which reaches or arrives at the true, what? Definition of beatitude. But imperfect beatitude, what does not attain the true definition of beatitude, but partakes in a, what? Particular. Way, a likeness of beatitude. Just as perfect foresight. Now, prudence is the Latin word, but the English word is what? Foresight. And Thomasine explains when he talks about prudence that comes from a contraction of providentia, which is etymologically the same as what? Foresight, right? Just as perfect foresight or prudence is found in man, before whom there is what? The reason for things to be done, right? Right reason about things to be done. But there is imperfect prudence in some of the, what? Boot animals, huh? In which there are particular instincts to some deeds, right? Like the, what? Deeds of prudence, huh? So, the animals have in kind of the perfect way, right? The virtue of, what? Foresight, right? But kind of for particular things, for their, their things, huh? I always remember Tabitha, the cat there we had. And, and, uh, Tabitha got left in the house one day, uh, the door closed down to her, her box, right? And she had to go wee-wee. Now, um, Moppet would have, you know, taken the next, the nearest rug, right? Yeah. Tabitha jumped in the bathtub, and went over the drain. Wow. Because she knows who's going to get it if she gets caught. That's a little bit of foresight, right? Very considerate, I thought, of her part. I was extremely impressed with that. We went there and put her in our, you know, or played her in the bathtub, you know, she always went down to her box, right? But she came up with that, I don't know. She did it more than once. There's something more going on in there. Yeah, we put Tabitha down the stairs, you know, at night time, and you'd pick her up, you know, and, you know, kind of pet her, and she'd be nice. And then the minute she took the first step to go downstairs, argh, she didn't want to go downstairs. So I'd say to my son, Marcus, you put Tabitha downstairs now. But you had to be able to hold her, her, her, her thing, you know, to avoid damage to yourself. But she had foresight. You know what it was, right? Like, the minute I took that first step, you know, the first step to go downstairs. And that was it. Up at that point, she was nice and didn't mind being in her arms. Don't fool me, you know, as to what you've got to be in your arms for. There are marvelous things that the animals do sometimes, right? They seem to partake, right, of something like foresight, huh? It gets the bow just all mixed up about it. The difference is between man and the beast, right? It's just a matter of degree. No, but one has it in a particular way, right? Partakes of what the other one has in this perfect sense. But perfect beatitude in the consideration of the speculative sciences cannot consist, well, essentially, right? Proper word over there. The attitude is not able to consist essentially in the consideration of the looking sciences. For the evidence of which it should be considered that the consideration of speculative science does not extend or go beyond the power of the, what? Beginnings of that knowledge, huh? Because in the beginnings of science is contained in virtue, right? In power? The whole, what? Science. So that's why, you know, Thomas and Aristotle and Albert de Grinsohn, they'll speak of those principles of the science. It's like a seed, right? That's a very common comparison, right? Something small in size, but great in its power, right? If you look at a great oak tree out there, you know, and you pick up an acorn, you say, now, that came from this. You say, I don't believe that. But it does, right? So I often translate the Greek word for scientia there, episteme, as reasoned-out knowledge, right? Or reasoned-out understanding. But this reason-out understanding comes from natural understanding. But the first beginnings of the looking sciences are taken through, what? The senses. As is clear through the philosopher in the beginning of the metaphysics and also at the end of the posterior analytics. And that's the book about episteme, right? And demonstration that results in it. Whence the whole consideration of the looking sciences cannot extend beyond, what? Yeah, I can't go farther than the knowledge of the sensible things is able to, what? Lead one, right? But in the knowledge of sensible things cannot consist the last, what? Beatitude of man. Man, which is his, what? Last perfection. For something is not perfected by something lower than itself, except, huh? According as in that lower thing there is some partaking of the, what? Higher. Now it is clear that the form of the stone or of any sensible thing, even Tabitha, is lower than man, right? Whence also through the form of the stone, the intellect is not perfected insofar as it's such a form, right? But insofar as in it is partaken some likeness of something that is above the human, what? Understanding. As the understandable light is something of this sort, huh? Interestingly, Aristotle is talking about the form of sensible things there in the first book of the physics. He says that it's something divine, huh? It's something like God, huh? Because God is pure act, right? And so form is a kind of act, right? But not a pure act. And therefore, insofar as it's an act, it's like what? God, huh? And both Plato and Aristotle say that when the animals reproduce or the plants reproduce, right? They're trying to be immortal like God is, huh? So far as it's possible for them, right? They can't be immortal as individuals, but their kind can have a kind of immortality. This will be new made when thou art old and see thy blood warm when thou feelest it cold. For thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee calls back the lovely April of her prime. That's what the word reproduction means, right? You say, ask in class, you know, who's reproduced? You or your parents? Yeah. You're not reproduced. You're produced the first time. But your parents are reproduced. So why do we use that word? They don't stop and think, you know, that what re means there, right? The prefix there. Reproduce, what? We can speak of production there, too, as well as reproduction, right? What we call the whole thing reproduction, because you are being, what, produced again, right? That's important because you're not going to last too long. That was long as a tree. I know. Whom the gods love dies young, the Greek proverb, huh? Those trees are legally protected now. Everything that is, what, through another, huh, is led back to that which is through itself, huh? Okay, that's kind of a axiom, huh? But it's very important to understand through itself and through another, right? Through itself is one of the words that... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Aristotle takes up in the fifth book of wisdom, right? So, when Thomas is talking about how the angels, right, are created, right? Sometimes he uses the word per se, because to be belongs to God per se, he's being itself. Sometimes he'll say God's essentially being. So sometimes he'll say that what is so by participation presupposes what is so essentially, right? Or what is through another presupposes what is so through what? Itself, huh? He takes up through itself as one of the words attached to perfect. That's why I admire Aristotle, right? They know something through themselves, right? By the rest of us who learn from them, we're parallel, right? Yeah, not as perfect as they have it. But the applications of that principle, right, rise to all kinds of things. Everything that is through another is deduced to what is so through itself. You know, in the arguments for the unmoved mover, right? I mean, the movers we know are moved movers, right? They move other things insofar as they are themselves moved. So is a moved mover a mover per se or per alli other? Yeah, that's what it means, a moved mover, right? So if what is through another presupposes something to itself, there must be a mover that is what? To him. That's leading into the first argument for God, right? The unmoved mover is a mover to itself. Every moved mover is a mover to another. So if the coffee is not sweet to itself, there's got to be sweet to something that is sweet to itself, like the sugar or something of this sort, huh? Or if the dishcloth is wet but not to be a dishcloth, it must be wet to something that is wet to itself, or essentially, like the water. So, now it has been shown, however, that through sensible things, one cannot arrive at a knowledge of what? The separated substances, huh? The material substances, which are above the human what? That understanding, huh? Whence it remains that the last happiness or the attitude of man cannot be in the consideration of the, what? Speculative sciences, huh? So Aristotle said, to knowing these immaterial substances, man's mind is like that of the back to the light of day, huh? And Plato compares us to those who are, what? In a cave, huh? You just see the shadows of things, huh? So you can see how the next article is going to follow upon this, right? Well, then maybe it's seeing those angels, I'm studying, right? I'm seeking happiness there, and they treat us on the angels, but maybe even that's not going to be my attitude. Once it remains that the last happiness or the attitude of man cannot be in the consideration of the looking sciences. We don't really know what the angels are, but you know what they are not, and they're above what you know. And they're something enough that's something like them, but very short of what they are. But just as in sensible things, forms, sensible forms, partake, huh? Some likeness of the superior substances. So the consideration of the speculative sciences is a certain partaking of true and perfect, what? The attitude, huh? So I wasn't pursuing true and perfect the attitude all my life, but I've been pursuing, what? A partaking of that, huh? A likeness of that, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the philosopher speaks in the Book of the Ethics about imperfect what? Yeah. Because, you know, after even he gets that first definition of happiness, then he comes into what Solon said, the very famous things, call no man happy till he be dead, right? And of course, what you see in the great Greek tragedies, you know, a man is, you know, presumably very happy, and all of a sudden, now Adapus the king, right? You know, the greatest play, maybe. And so, that was well known, huh? So I was told, you know, this is not true and perfect happiness, no, but it has some likeness to it. Let's call him happy as men are. That's such a famous saying, you know. You heard my paraphrase of that, you know? Well, my brother Mark and one of my good friends, they both got married late in life, and I said, call no man a bachelor till he be dead. Unless he's a monk. I can't even trust those guys. That is a consecrated bachelor. Remember, we're recording this. Now, to the second it should be said, this about all men are what? Yeah. To the second it should be said, that naturally is desired not only proof of gratitude, but also, what? Whatever likeness or taking of it that there can be, huh? And about being reduced to act. Well, that's true. But not to, what? The ultimate and complete act. So in some way, one is reduced to act. We inquires those sciences, huh? We do know about what numbers are proportional and so on, right? Well, you can have a third proportional and so on, but that's not the ultimate and complete reduction to act. Now, we'll sell it here. Do know about it before we take our way. Okay. To the seventh one proceeds thus, it seems that the beatitude of man insists in the knowledge of separated substances. That is of the, what, angels, huh? They call them separated substances because they're, what, separate from, what, matter. For Gregory says in a certain homily, right, huh? Nothing is, what, yeah, to be, what, messed up with the fests of men? If one cannot, what? Be among the feasts of the angels. The witch, our final beatitude is designed, huh? But the festies, how do they translate that? Feast or how? Feast. What? Feast. Yeah, feast, okay. These beautiful pictures are, you know, after the final judgment there, you know, where the men and the angels are kind of in a dance there, you know, together, you know, and the evangelical, right? He's kind of the supreme painter of these things. I told you what I saw there. I think I told you that, but was it St. Teresa of Avila out there, you know, where at one point Christ says to her, you know, I would have you converse with angels and not with men. In show of God, my guardian dear, light and guard, rule and guide me. Therefore, it seems in the contemplation of the angels, the last, what, beatitude of man consists, right? Moreover, the last perfection of each thing is that it be joined to its, what, beginning. Whence the circle is said to be the perfect figure, because it has the same beginning and end, huh? But the beginning of the knowledge of man is from the angels, through which men are, what, enlightened, huh? as Dan Isha teaches us in the fourth chapter of the celestial hierarchy. Therefore, the perfection of the human, what, understanding is in the contemplation of the, what, angels. Moreover, each nature is perfect when it's joined to a higher nature, just as the last perfection of the body is that it be joined to a spiritual nature, like in the human soul. But above the human understanding and the order of nature are the angels. Therefore, the last perfection of human mind is that it be joined by contemplation to the angels, huh? Well, I'm convinced now. I'm on the right track here. To be honest with the angels. But he's probably thinking here about the soul after it's separated from the body, right? Where it knows the angels directly, huh? But against all this nonsense is what is said in, hey, Jeremiah. In this, let him glory who glories in knowing me, right? And he's God. Therefore, the last glory of man or beatitude does not consist except in the, what, knowledge of God. I answer it should be said, that as has been said, the perfect beatitude of man does not consist in that which is a perfection of his understanding, according to the partaking of something, but in that which is such, through its very essence, its very nature of substance. For it is manifest that each thing, that each thing so much is a perfection of some power insofar as it, what, pertains to the definition of the, what, object of that power. Now, the proper object of the intellect is, what? The truth. I guess he's up to that thing in John there, huh? I have the way, the truth, and the life. Whatever, therefore, has, what? The partaking truth. Yeah. It does not, contemplated, make the intellect perfect by its ultimate perfection. So every truth other than God himself, I suppose, and he's going to go on to say, is only a partaking of what? Truth. It's not truth itself. Now, since there is the same disposition of things in being as in truth, as is said in the second book of, what, wisdom and metaphysics, whatever things are beings by participation are also true by, what, participation. Now, the angels have being, that is, they partake in, right? Because of God alone is, what, his essence is on, what, being. I am who am. That's the meaning of that. God alone is, I am who am, right? That's the prima part, so we study things in the proper order here, right? Once it remains that just as God is only being itself, so God is only, what, God alone is truth, what, essentially, his essence. And therefore, the contemplation of him makes one perfectly, what, blessed, huh? But some imperfect beatitude, right? Nothing prevents to be observed in the contemplation of the angels. And also, what, higher than in the consideration of the, what, expected to sciences. So he's not talking here about the knowledge of the angels that we can get in this life, like Perkis is getting from reading the questions 50 through 64, the prima parts. But the kind of knowledge you have of the angels after our soul is separated from our, what, body, huh? I mean, I'll teach you, because Sirk says, now when you meet your guardian angel, you're going to say, this is God. This is the most magnificent. I mean, it's a creature. It's a creature, right? It's got to be something, right? You've got to be impressed as your guardian angel. When he's got, he's in the highest angel. Somebody used the example of a mirror. You take a mirror and you put it toward the sun into your eyes. Can you tell the difference between the sun and the mirror and the sun and itself? That's what it's like looking at an angel or the Blessed Mother or something compared to God. We're so overwhelmed. One looks like the other. So, and the angel will say, no, I'm not God. I beat the devil. He might say, I'm God. I'll say, down, down with you. I hope it won't beat him. It's interesting use of that text here in the second book of Metaphysics. Aristotle, you know, is arguing there usually from cause and effect, right? And he's saying that the effect is true because of the cause. And then he invokes the axiom, I guess you'd say, that the same belongs to two things, right? But to one of them because of the other. It belongs more to the cause. Which I used to always exemplify. I'm sure you do that before, but if hot is said of the fire and of the air around the fire, but of the air around the fire because of the fire, right? Which is hotter. Or if sweet is said of coffee and of the sugar, but of the coffee because of the sugar, which is sweeter. And if wet is said of water and of the dishcloth, but of the dishcloth because of the water, which is wetter. So if true is said of the cause and the effect, but of the effect because of the cause, which is truer. Yeah. And therefore, the cause of the cause, right? And ultimately, the first cause would be what? Most true, right? So, if Aristotle, you know, saw in the Old Testament that God says, I am who am, right? And then the New Testament says, I am truth itself, he'd say, well, that makes sense, you know? Because the position or something in truth and in being is the, what? The same. Okay? And then Thomas is just going another step further saying, but God is in the Old Testament, and he's going to be Being what? Essentially, I am who I am, right? And therefore is truth itself. So how can you be, what? Satisfied if your object is the true with what is true by participation and not what is true, what? Truth itself. You know, I think about that as when there's communion prayers there, we use the term, what? Look severa. That's kind of interesting. I appreciate it. But this is even more explicit in some ways. And what follows that is what, perfect satiety or something? Mm-hmm. God would give them some eternity. So on. It's beautiful. He's talking about the angels, you know. Once they have the beauty of vision, will they ever have any more the attitude, right? And Thomas says, well, no, not essentially. That's it. And don't keep on, you know, getting higher and higher here. Enjoy the beauty of vision. That's really contrary to the notion of end, to be endless. So Aristotle points out in the second book of wisdom, right? But he says the accidental reward, right? That will increase until the day of final judgment. And so, if I turn away from my wicked ways, my guardian angel will, what, rejoice in that, right? His bad truth doesn't consist, essentially, in that joy that he has over my turning away from wicked ways, but it's kind of an accidental, what, reward, right? Yeah. And that will increase, but until the day of judgment. So, no one knows you're going to be converted after that day. Well, then you're really, uh, fixed, yeah. You're finished. It says, to the first, huh, it should be said that the festi, huh, that's the feast, huh, the angels, huh, we partake in not only in contemplating the angels, but at the same time with them, contemplating what? God. And chiefly contemplating God, I didn't want to say it, but, okay? So, we've got the festival of the angels, so, but have you speak with angels and not with men. That's marvelous. What Christ would think of saying that. The second should be said, and Thomas is always, you know, pointing this out, that when he talks about how the human soul was created, right? You know, in contrast to some of the thinking, like Avicent and so on, we think of the human soul as being created by the angels, right? But if it really was created by the angels, and we'd be made of the image and likeness of the angels, and that would be our end, right? To the second, it should be said that according to those who lay down the human souls to be, what, created by the angels, it seems, what, huh? Suitably appropriate that the beatitude of man should be in the contemplation of the angels, as it were, being joined to their, what, beginning. But this is ironous, huh? Okay? Thomas spends a lot of time in fitting those notions in the summa, both summa, so. Once the last perfection of the human mind is by conjunction to God, who is the creator of his soul, right? Who is the first beginning of the creation of the soul and also of its illumination, who enlightens every man, right? Who comes into this world, huh? The angel enlightens only as a, what, servant or minister, right? As has been pointed out in the first book. Whence by his service he aids man that he might arrive at the attitude, right? But he is not the object of human beatitude, right? He's pointing that way to God. So my teacher, because Sirius, to say, he should make a prayer, opening up your thought and your mind to your guardian angel, right? Give him more access to your right, because he's going to direct you. I'm going to guide me. I go talking to human beings you can talk to your angel. Get Christ's advice there or command to. And Teresa of Avila, that's marvelous. To the third, it should be said, huh, that to attain the higher nature by the lower one happens in two ways, right, huh? In one way, according to the grade of what? The power of participating. And thus, the last perfection of man will be in this that man attains to contemplating, just as the angels contemplate, huh? God, huh? In another way, as the object is attained by the power. And in this way, the last perfection of each power is attained that in which plene, huh? Fully is found the, what? Notion of its object, right? Notice they used the word plene, right? It comes from, the class is full, right, huh? You can see how we are led by these senses, huh? We've been talking about these things. So we've got to wait until the eighth article, I guess, to find out what it does consist of, huh? Okay, should we take a little break? Is that a little bit there? Yeah.