Prima Secundae
Lecture 67: Merit, Demerit, and the Common Good

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To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that a human act does not have the character of merit or demerit, right, on account of its goodness or badness. For merit and demerit are said by order to retribution, which has place only in those things which are, what, towards another right. But not all human acts, good or bad acts, are towards another, but some are towards what? Yeah. Therefore, not every human act, good or bad, has the notion of merit or demerit, huh? You have to sin against God, sin against yourself, sin against your neighbor, and it actually comes up. How can you sin against yourself? Yeah, yeah. No one merits punishment or reward from this that, what, he disposes, right, as he wishes, right, about that which he is the, what, Lord. Just as if a man destroys his own thing, right, huh? He is not punished, as he would be if he destroyed the thing of another, right? I take my car home tonight and I smash it up. You're going to punish me for that? No, it's not. If he'll get fed up with a TV set of them like that, you know, they smash an oven. You should usually get cheered, you know, about this. But then the Los Angeles Favors did that? Somebody in South Dakota, they had a big thing, a family, they got together and they threw their television off a cliff. It was always like a big event, you know. I lived for a while, someone was selling his little, like, Nerf, you know, Nerf thing, but it was a brick. Oh, door to the TV. You know, I destroyed the guy, the father comes home at night, you know, and the little girl is in front of the TV, you know, and he says something to her, you know. I said, shut up, Daddy, I'm watching TV. Yeah. So, he took the TV set out and smashed them. Of course, now, the way they are now, they probably go after him. Yeah. I heard you now. Yeah. And the kids, we didn't have the TV set in the house, you know, they're not allowed in the house. And people say, you know, and they're getting rid of their old TV, you know, and they go, it's their old TV. I don't want to, you know, smash it. So, the guy's looking at me, he says, you know, what do you say? You must be kidding. He's like, you don't have a lot of water or something, you know. He must be in the end, you know. He's mad. Cell phone. Well, we're through the argument now. From this, that someone, what, acquires something good for himself, right? He does not merit that, what, something will be done to him by another, right? Okay. In the same way about the bad things. But the good act is a certain good and perfection of the agent. And the disordered act is a certain evil of him. Therefore, not from this, that a man does a, what, good or bad act. Does he merit or what? Demerit, not just in him, right? But against this is what is said in Isaiah 3. Say to, what, just men, quonium benedit as well, right? Because, what, he eats the fruit of his inventions, right? Way woe to the impious man, you know. For the retribution of his hands will come to him. Okay. Now, this is going to bring in the common good, right? I see this is kind of very striking. I answer it should be said that merit and demerit are said in order to a retribution which is made according to justice, right? But retribution according to justice comes to someone from this that he acts for the, what, perfection or progress or the well-being or the harm of another, right? Now, it should be considered that someone living in some, what, society is in some way a part and a member of the whole, what, society, right? Whoever, therefore, does something in the good or bad of something existing in the society, this redounds to the, what? Just as who, what, hurts one's hand, consequently hurts the, what? He's the man, yeah. When, therefore, someone acts for the, what, good or bad of another singular person, there falls there a two-fold reason of merit or demerit. In one way, according as there's owed to him a retribution from the singular person that he either, what, aids or offends, right? In another way, according as there's owed to him a retribution from the whole college. When, therefore, someone orders his act directly in the good or bad of the whole college, there is owed to him a retribution, right? First, chiefly from the whole college, secondly, from all the, what, parts of the college, right? When, however, someone acts towards what is, what? His own good. Yeah, his own good or bad. There's also owed to him a retribution, right? Insofar as this also bears upon the common that he is a, what, part of the college. Although it is not owed to him a retribution insofar as it is the good or bad of a singular person, which is the, what, agent, huh? Except, perhaps, from himself, according to a certain likeness, insofar as we can speak the common metaphor of justice of a man to himself, huh? You owe it to yourself, huh? That's what the priest told us. Be good. Give yourself what you really deserve. Penance for your sin. Be good to yourself. Thus, therefore, it is clear that a good or a bad act has the aspect of something praiseworthy or culpable, according as it is in the power of the will, right? It has a notion of rectitude or of sin, according to its order to the end, huh? But it has the ratio of merit or demerit, according to the, what, retribution of justice to another, right? To the first thing, then, huh? It should be said that sometimes the acts of men, the good or bad ones, although they are not ordered to the good or bad of another individual person, right? Nevertheless, they are ordered to the good or the bad of another, that is, the community, what, itself, huh? It counts the communion of the saints, right? To the second, it should be said that man who has dominion of his own act, he also, insofar as he is of another, to wit of the community, of which he is a part, merits something or what? Insofar as his, what, acts, he dispenses them well or badly, right, huh? Just as if other things about which he ought to, what, serve the community, right, he dispenses well or badly, right, huh? To the third, it should be said that this good or bad that someone does to himself for his own act redounds to the, what, community, right? Yes. One more. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, come from the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written. So we're down to question, what? 21 Article 4? To the fourth one goes forth thus. It seems that the good or bad act of man does not have the character of merit or demerit in comparison to what? God. Because as has been said, merit and demerit imply the order to a recompense, right, of going, what? Something better, I guess. Or of damn loss to what? To another. But the act of man, the good or bad, does not, what? Give way to some progress or damn of God himself. Where it's said in Job 35, if you what? Sin. Sin? What is it to what? To harm him. Yeah, to harm him. And if you act justly, what are you giving him? I used to compare, you know, giving God something to giving your parents something out of your allowance. Can you take your mother, you know, boy, you know, something, you know, for Christmas or something, and then on the other day, you got to take out your allowance, right? Well, we get some ounces. That's not very certain. Yeah. Therefore, the good or bad act of a man does not have the notion of merit or demerit before what? God, huh? Not like the second argument here. Moreover, an instrument, a tool, right? Tools in this word. Merits nothing or demerits something before the one who uses the instrument, right? Because the whole action instrument is of the one, what, using it, huh? So should I thank the knife for cutting the bread or thank my hammer for driving the nail in, huh? Should I do that? Oh, you're something. I've got to have your vacation now. It's okay. But man, in acting, is an instrument of the divine power, which is the one chiefly moving them, right? Whence it is said in Isaiah chapter 10, huh? Should the what? Yeah. Glory against the one who what? Cuts with it. Yeah. Or should the what? Saw. Saw. Exalt itself against the one who draws it, huh? Or manifestly, the man acting is compared to the what? Exalt. Two. Yeah. Two. That's how we need to find the soul, right? It's the first act of an actual body composed of tools, right? Therefore, man, in acting well or badly, merits or demerits nothing before God. Yeah. That's confusing to me. Okay. Moreover, human acts have the notion of a merit or demerit insofar as they're ordered to another. But not all human acts are ordered to God. Therefore, not all good or bad acts have the, what, character of merit or demerit before God. But against this is what is said in Ecclesiastes, huh? All the things which, what, come up out, God will bring into judgment whether they're good or whether they're bad, huh? But judicium, huh, judgment, huh, implies attribution with respect to which merit or demerit are said. Therefore, every act of man, good or bad, has the aspect of merit or demerit before God. Now, what does Thomas answer? I answer it should be said that it has been said. The act of some man has the notion of merit or demerit according as it is ordered to another, either by reason of itself or by reason of the, what, community, huh? But in both ways our good or bad acts have the notion of merit or demerit before God. By reason of itself insofar as it is the, what? The final end. Yeah, the last end of man, right, huh? For it is owed, you might say, to the last end to which all, what, should be referred, yeah. Hence, the one who makes a bad act that cannot be, what, referred back to God, does not observe or keep the honor of God, which is ordered to him as the last, what, end, huh? On the side of the whole community of the universe, right? Because in any community, the one who rules the community especially has care of the common, what? Good, huh? Whence to the one, whence it pertains to him to, what, pay back for those things which are, what, well or badly done in the community. But God is the governor and ruler of the whole universe, as was had in the first part of the Zuma. And in a special way, he's the governor and ruler of rational creatures, huh? Whence it is manifest that human acts have the aspect of merit or demerit by comparison to him. Otherwise, it would foul that God has no care about, what, human acts. What about the first objection there, right? Can't help him or harm him, right? To the first barefoot it should be said that through the act of, what, man, huh? God in himself, right, huh? Nothing can be, what, added or what? Lost. Yeah. Nevertheless, man, as he is in himself, or as far as lies in him, right? As far as lies in him. Attracts something to God, right, huh? Or he exhibits, shows something to him, right, huh? When he observes he does not observe the order which God has, what? Yeah. So that's kind of hard to understand, right? What's it to you, God? No skin out of your nose. Yeah. As far as lies in my power, right, huh? That's the objection to the crucifixion. Why should anybody be punished for crucifying Christ? I mean, he wanted to lay down his life, so I mean, but he said they did what was in that power and harm him. Yeah. Oh, yes. Thomas More there, you know, the guy. Give him, you know. Oh, he's sending me straight to heaven. Okay. To the second, it should be said that man thus is moved by God as an instrument, that nevertheless it does not exclude, but that he moves himself through what? Free choice. So the word tool is not said univocally, right, of the hammer and the me. The hammer is a tool in the first sense of the word, right? And the tool in the second sense, Have. To the third, it should be said, that man is not ordered to the political immunity according to himself, the whole of himself, right? And according to what? The bishops say that to Obama now, right? And therefore, it is not necessary that any act of his is meritorious or demeritus in order to the what? But the whole that man is, right, and that he's able and has, ought to be ordered to what? God. And therefore, every human act, good or bad, has the aspect of merit or demerit before God, as he guards the act itself, from the act, the nature of the act itself. Now, I'm going to take a little side here, you know, make a little reference here to the next part where it's just getting now the emotions, huh? And just go back a moment to question six, article one, wherein the Ukrainian divides up these things, right? We just look at the Ukrainian at the beginning of question six again. Now, before question six, he had been talking about what? The end of man, right? The last end of man is beatitude. Because, therefore, to beatitude is necessary to what? Arrive at beatitude through some acts, right? It's necessary, consequently, to consider about human acts, huh? That we might know by which acts one arrives at beatitude or that one is impeded, huh? The way of beatitude, huh? But because operations and acts are about singular things, right? Therefore, every operative science, every practical science is perfected in a particular, what? Consideration, right? Aristotle said this before, you know, Thomas, huh? In one place there, he actually criticizes the great, what? Socrates, right, huh? For defining virtue in a very general way, but not descending to what is the virtue of a man, what is the virtue of a woman, you know? He said it would be better, you know, to talk about what the virtue of a man is, what the virtue of a woman is, what the virtue of a father is, what the virtue of a mother is, right? Because that's closer to, what, the end of the science, which is action, right? So because of that, he says, the consideration of morals, which is of human acts, first ought to be treated in the universal, right? But secondly, in the, what? Particular. Particular, right, huh? Particular. Now, about the universal consideration of human acts. First, one ought to consider about the human acts themselves, right? Secondly, about the, what, principles or beginnings of them, right? Okay. And that's going to start down in question, what, 49, right, huh? Long ways to go, huh? The second part. But now the division is kind of relevant now. But in human acts, some are, what, private or proper to man, right? But some are common to man and the other, what, animals, right? And because beatitude is man's own good, huh? More nearly, have themselves to beatitude the acts which are properly human, huh? Oh, there's a Latin word over there. Then those acts which are common to man and the other animals, right, huh? First, therefore, one ought to consider about the acts which are proper to man or private to man, right? Secondly, about the acts which are common to man and their animals, which are called the, what, passions of the soul, right? Or the emotions, right? So that's the distinction between what we just finished here in question 6 through, what, 21. We're talking about the acts that are proper to man, right? And now he's going to do the ones that are common to us in the beast, right? Okay. And I was mentioning something before the class began there, huh? That when Thomas in the, you can see it in the sum when he talks about the teacher, right? He says the teacher leads the student from the known to the unknown in two ways, right? And one way you could call manodaxio, right? Leading by the hand where you take him from something more known, right? And the other one is where you lead him from principles to what? Conclusions, right? Okay. I've often thought that when you teach, like, say, the prima pars insuma, right? Well, the order in which Thomas takes things up in theology, he talks about, first of all, a god, right? And then he talks about the angels, and then he talks about the human soul, right? But which of those three is most known to us? The soul. And so he used to say, you know, that the knowledge of the soul is the gateway to the study of the separated substances, meaning the angels, right? And yet the angels are closer to us than God. So, you could study, you know, the prima pars and do the treatise on the soul first, and then make a transition to what? The angels, and then finally to God, right? And you'd be kind of building up, you know, in a wonderful way, right? And I referred to a text there where Thomas is talking about how it's an order among the objects, right? So, Thomas says, I think about the body so I can think about the soul. And I think about the soul so I can think about the angels. And I think about the angels so I can think about God, and that's it. But notice the order there, right? The body before the soul, and the soul before the angel, and the angel before what? God, huh? And of course, our soul doesn't know itself through itself, huh? Our soul knows itself through its powers, and it knows its powers through its acts, and knows its acts through its objects, huh? And this is what we call discourse, right? So, through the objects I know the acts, and through the acts I know the powers, and through the powers the soul, right? But the angel, he knows his own substance through his own substance, huh? And so, he's more like God, right? Who knows everything through knowing himself, huh? But the angels don't know everything through knowing themselves. Not even what they actually know, they don't know it all. So, they have to have filled in, right? Other, what? Forms, whereby their natural knowledge is completed, right? So, as we all teach you, Kisurik says, you know, when your soul leaves your body, and you greet your grand danger, I suppose that's the first one in your section committee. You can say, oh, good God, you know! And he's a wonderful creature, right? And he says, no, I'm not God, no. Yeah, I'm hired. But you don't be so impressed with this creature, right, huh? You see, that's kind of the order of banyaduxio there, right, huh? As Thomas says in the Summa Contra Gentiles there, the order in philosophy, and the order in theology, is in a way just the reverse. Because in philosophy, we start with the creatures, and the last thing we know is God, right? I just got through going through book 12 there, the metaphysics, again, where Aristotle, finally at the end of the last part, the last science, I rise in God, huh? And beautiful, you know, the last, it's the last reading there, you know, where he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And he asks the question, is it in the universe itself, or is it outside the universe, right? And that's when he makes a famous comparison of the universe to an army, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? And that's when he's talking about how good is in the universe, right? where there's an order in the army, and that's the good of the army in the army, but the whole army's ordered to, what, the victory of the leader, right? And that's outside the army, right? And so the universe has a good that's the order in the universe itself. The order is an account of something outside the universe that's not a part of the universe. And that's God, which is pretty beautiful the way he says that, right? And he goes back to the really Greeks and how they didn't see this well, you know? Actually, it's kind of beautiful the way he does that because, actually, Thomas' text doesn't seem to have the last part of the book 12 there, you know? And Aristotle goes, he's criticizing, you know, the disjointed universe of his predecessors, right? And he compares it to an episodic plot, right? Sticks all the way back to the book on the poetic art, right? And we don't have a really beginning, middle, and end, right? He used to have a jumble of incidents, right? And then, at the end, he says, he quotes Homer, the rule of many is not good, and there'll be one. It's about the whole universe, right? It's kind of beautiful, like when Sunday de Ander often point out how Aristotle sometimes, he gives a very deep and profound argument, and then he comes back to something very concrete as a kind of sign of the truth of this, right? But here he goes all the way back to the, what, you know, what's most known to us, fiction, that sort of thing, and says that this universe, these guys are talking about, it's like a piece of fiction that's just episodic, right? It doesn't have any real order, right? And then he even quotes the Homer, right? He threw it there, and he sees that. Notice the order is just the reverse, right? Because in philosophy, you're going from what is more known to us to what is less known to us, right? But in theology, you're, what, partaking of God's knowledge, and so the order of theology imitates God's knowledge, right? And God, by knowing himself, knows all the things. So we imitate that in theology and consider God in himself first, and then we consider other things as arising from God, their maker, and or God as their last, what, end, huh? But that's kind of what? That's the principle of order of theology, right? In the same way in moral theology, right? It's kind of beautiful, huh? In moral theology, we take up prudence or foresight first, and then justice, right? And then fortitude, and then finally, what, temperance, right? But Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, right, he takes up fortitude and temperance first, which are in the emotions, right? And then he takes up justice in the fifth book, right? And then in the sixth book, he takes up, what, foresight, right? Just the reverse, right? But notice there's something like foresight and justice in God, right? But the virtues that are in the emotions are not found in God, right? Properly speaking, huh? And yet, even fortitude, though, metaphorically speaking, is more like God than what temperance, right? So everything is worded to God, right? It's beautiful, right? Now, in the Summa Cane Gentiles, huh? Because it's written, you know, partly with the view to the Gentiles, right? Those in error, right? Well, then Thomas, you know, separates in the first three books what can be known about God in himself, and God is the maker, and God is the end, even by natural reason, right? As well as by faith, huh? And then he puts in the fourth book things like the Trinity and the Incarnation, our last end, you know, fully knowledge of that, that can be known only by faith, right? But he doesn't separate in the Summa Theologiae, right? They follow more fully, right? The theological order, right? Where God is the beginning of everything, right? Nevertheless, the thing about these passions here, in some ways, it's more known to us, more proportion to us. So in the order of manudexia, right? Today it's by the hand, you might start with these, huh? Mancini Dianne gave a course one time where he was talking about the four arguments, syllogism, right? Entomy, induction, and example, meaning by example, the argument from one singular to another, the same kind. And where do you think he began? Yeah, yeah. But that's kind of the order of manudexia, right? Because it's closer to the, what, senses, right? Example is an argument from one singular to another singular, or the same kind. Well, the senses know the singulars, right? Then induction is an argument from, what, many singulars towards universal, right? You're starting to go more into reason, right? But the syllogism, you're starting out with something that is universal, and you need something completely universal, at least in one of the premises, to have a syllogism, right? But you're kind of being led up gradually, right? To the highest thing, huh? And Porphy takes up genus, right, huh? He takes up the two meanings that Aristotle gives in the metaphysics there for genus before you get to the logical meaning of genus, right? Well, I'm a genus if you look at my grandchildren, right? He's one man from whom many, what, have descended, right, huh? Or else this multitude of grandchildren, you see, I've been in these pictures, occasionally I need to show them off once in a while. But there you see the genus of Requestians, or something like that, you see? But both of those are more sensible, right? The one man from whom this multitude has descended, right? Or this multitude of people, this crowd of children, from whom they're descended from one man, right? And then you're gradually led to the idea of genius, which is something one said of, what, many, right, huh? So it's not a singular, and it's not the multitude of people, but it's said of many, right, huh? So you're led gradually from what is sensible to what is not so, right, huh? So, Monsignor Dianne used to talk sometimes about the kind of monodexia required in this or that, to what science to do, that's by the end, right? So, excuse me then for talking about the acts of the will before we talked about the, what, emotions, right? I mentioned before how it's very beautiful in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where Thomas, you know, talks about how we take the names of the emotions, and then we pick them up, and we carry them over, and lower them, on the acts of the will, right, but we change the meaning of them somewhat. We drop off the bodily aspect of emotions and so on, right? We keep the formal aspect, right? And then because he's going to talk about the love of God himself, right, and the love that God has, and the delight that God has in himself and so on, he said, and then some of these names can be put up and carried all the way over to God, laid down on top of God, and, but there's only really two of them you can do it with, huh? So you can't carry, for example, desire over to God, as if he wants something that he doesn't have and so on, right? And there's no sadness in God, right? There you see kind of the order there of what's natural, right, huh? We place names upon emotions. And I remember as a little child being in church one day and the priest was talking in the pulpit, yeah, about the love of God. And of course, to me, love kind of meant something either that you have for candy, you have to write to girls or not yet. But I mean, it seemed kind of, you know, what does it mean to say to love God? Because it's not, you know, it's not really candy. It's not something that's, you know, sensible, you know, but you're kind of puzzling, right? And I know when I taught the love and friendship course, you know, how difficult it is, and even for college students, right, to see the difference between love that is an emotion and love that is an act of the, what, will, right? I always told you a little joke about the Polish professor, you know, with the symbolic logic and so on. It annoyed me with my syllogisms, you know. And it's saying, you know, Mr. Perkins, one day he's in class, do you have an emotional attachment to the syllogism? And I just kind of laughed. I said, well, it's a tactical girl, but not the syllogism. The kind of student loved the syllogism, right, because of his rigor, right?