Prima Secundae
Lecture 116: The Object of Fear: Evil, Nature, and Guilt

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Father and Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios, gracias. God, our Enlightenment, Guardian Angels, snooze in the lights of our minds, o'er to illumine our images, and rouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen, for us. And help us to understand all the children. So, Holy Spirit, Amen. Before we begin, question 42. Just look back at question 41, the previous question, and the first article, right? And the point that Thomas was making about the senses of the word passio in Latin. He said, Among the other emotions of the soul, after sadness, which he puts first, right? Fear has more the notion of a passion, right? For it has been said above to the notion of passion belongs, first of all, in general, that be the emotion of the undergoing power, to which is compared its object as an active mover. In that passion or passio, undergoing is the effect of the agent, right? So the agent acts upon the patient, right? And in this way, even as Aristotle says in Dianima, to sense, right? And to understand, they said to be an undergoing, right? Second, he says, more properly, that is said to be a passion, which is the motion of the appetitive power, right? So it says in Scripture, they became abominable just as the things they loved, right? So you're more affected by the things you love than the things you what? No. You can know disgusting things, and you're not for that reason disgusting, right? But if you love disgusting things, you are ipso facto, you know, disgusting yourself, right? There's too many about the will, right? And then even more properly, the motion of the appetitive power having a body organ, right? This is the appetitive power now that is the emotions, which comes about with some, what? Body change. And even more so now, the fourth degree here, it might say. Propriosime, right? Most properly. Those emotions are called passions, which implies some, what? Harm, right? And then he talks about fear and what? Sadness, right? And he says at the end of that thing, right, that verissime, the idea of passion belongs to them, but nevertheless after sadness, which is about a present evil, for fear is about a future evil, right? Which is not so much move as the present does, right? So sadness is most of all, what? A passion. And most of all is causing, what? Commotion in the person, right? Now, go to chapter 13 here of the Gospel of St. John, right? And, you know, Christ is said to, what? Let himself be troubled, right? To batio, right? A commotion in Christ. Now, you see, Christ's emotions don't come into play unless Christ allows them to, right? They don't surprise him like our emotions surprise us, huh? And, but Christ will allow them to function, do their natural thing to show that he has got really human nature and so on, right? And there's an example of this here where he's talking about, what? The, uh, Judas Iscariot, right, huh? And the Latin says, and when Jesus had said these things, to batio sest, he was disturbed or troubled, you might say, his spirit. And he protested and said, Amen, Amen, I say to you, that one of you will betray me and so on, right? So that's causing kind of sadness, right? Well, Thomas comments upon that, right? He says, um, about this one should know that turbotio, this disturbance, right, designates a certain commotion, right? And he gives some examples of this, right? At the time when the water was moved in the temple there and the guy went with everything. And, uh, and that's to say that the C is, is turbotum, right, when it's commotum, right? Commotion. So the disturbance of the soul designates its commotion, right? But there are certain acts of the soul without the commotion of the body, namely the acts of the understanding part, right? But the acts of the sensitive appetite are with the commotion of the body, right? Whence the affections of the sensitive desiring power are called passionis on the same thing he's saying here. But among all the affections or passions of the sensitive power, tristitia, sadness, more has the vim commotionis, has the power of commotion, right? Disturbance. For the delictatio, pleasure, delight, since it says a certain rest in the present clinic, right? So he said beautiful is what? How restful, yeah. He said beautiful. Pleasure has more of the ratio of rest than of commotion, huh? He said, I mean, it kind of agrees with his texture, but it kind of gives a little sharpness to it. Timur, however, fear, since it is about a future evil, minus, less, moves than sadness, the same thing he says here, which is about the present evil, right? And therefore, it is that the turbatsio, the disturbance, the commotion of the soul, is especially called what? Sadness, right? Tristitzi, right? So, turbatus est ergo jesus, Jesus is disturbed. Id est tristatus, sad at the thought of this, right? And he goes on to talk about that about a little thing that seemed happy reading this, reading the Chinese, I'm kind of struck by that, huh? Yeah. But it ties in with this, right? It's like the Lutheran 13 says that the scholastics, you know, through the theology, are able to explain things in scripture sometimes. And we do. Okay, let's go now to question 42 on the object of fear, right? Then we're not to consider about the object of fear. And about this, six things are asked or sought. First, whether the good is the object of fear or the bad, huh? Second, whether the model naturae, the evil, the bad of nature, is the object of fear, right? Third, whether fear is about the evil of what? Guilt. Guilt. Guilt, huh? Yeah, guilp. Guilp. Fourth, whether fear itself can be, what? Feared, huh? Okay? Okay, I can't get a big speak and finally, people are afraid. My mother would tell me about, you know, she gives a little small town in Minnesota, right? Sometimes they have some kind of a public meeting, you know, and some people get there. They're terrified. They're terrified, huh? But sometimes, I mean, it seems like you're afraid you're going to be afraid, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Five, fifth of them, with the repentina, right? Things that are what? All at once, right? All at once, right? are more what? Feared, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay? And six, those things against which there is no remedy are more what? Feared, huh? Mm-hmm. Obviously, that's it, but yes, we'll see. To the first, one goes forward thus, it seems that something good is the object of fear. For Augustine, in the book on the 83 questions, says, huh? That we fear nothing except that which we, what? Love, huh? Mm-hmm. Either that, what? We might lose it, right? Yeah. But that which we love is good, right? Therefore, fear regards the good as its own object. Mm-hmm. Or maybe in a remote way, but in an approximate sense, right? Mm-hmm. So if I love my body, I wouldn't fear the bullet, right? I'm not looking at the bullet. I'm fearing the bullet. Okay. Moreover, the philosopher says in the second book of the rhetoric that power and what? So if I love my body, I love my body. I love my body. So if I love my body, It's terrible. I thought what he said there in that thing was this, fearful to be in the power of another man. Because the rule, men do bad whenever they can, he says. Very low estimate of... No, not a low estimate. A real estimate. An experienced estimate. Here he's saying super, over somebody, right? Oh, super, I'm sorry, yes. Over another. Okay, so there's another thing he's saying. But this is a certain good, right? I suppose, power, right? That's one of the, what, five goods that Boethius has in the false happiness, right? In the Consolation of Philosophy. It takes up false happiness before, what, true happiness? Because it's more known to us. Moreover, in God, nothing bad is able to be, right? But it's commanded to us that we fear God, right? Well, nothing bad in God, is there? It just says in Psalm 33, fear the Lord, all you his saints, right? Therefore, also fear is about the good, right? But against all this is what Dan the scene says in the second book. That fear is about some future evil, right? Well, St. Thomas says, huh? I answer, it should be said that fear is a certain motion of the desiring power. But to the desiring power there pertains the pursuit of something, right? And the flight from something, huh? As is said in the sixth book of the Ethics. But the pursuit is of the good, the flight is from the bad, huh? Whence whatever motions of the appetitive power implies some pursuit have something good for their object, right? But whatever ones implies some flight have the bad for their, what? Object, huh? Whence since fear implies a certain, what? Flight, right, huh? Primo et per se regards the bad as its, what? Own object, huh? But it is able to regard also the good according as it has some relation to the, what? Bad, huh? In one way it can be, which can be in two ways, right? In one way, insofar as through the bad, the, what? One is deprived of the good, huh? For from this something is bad, then it is the, what? Privation of the good, of the lack of the good, right? Whence since one flees the bad because it is bad, it fouls that one flees it because it deprives one of the good, which one pursues in loving, right? And according to this, Augustine says that there is no cause of fearing except that one might lose the good that he, what? Loves, huh? Okay? That's kind of like a remote cause, right? In another way, the good is compared to the bad as its, what? Cause. Insofar as something good, by its power, can induce some, what? Harm in the good, what? Loved, huh? And therefore, just as hope, as has been said above, regards two things, namely to the good in which one tends, right? And to that to which one hopes to obtain the good, what? Desired, right? So also, fear looks towards two things. To the evil that one is refusing or fleeing from, and to that good which by its power is able to inflict, what? Yeah. So you're fearing the judge, right? And in this way, God is feared by man, insofar as he can inflict punishment, either a spiritual punishment or a, what? Polypleasure, right, yeah? And to this way also is feared the power of another, what? Yeah. Man, huh? Especially when it is, what? When it is, what? Wounding or harmful, I don't know how it says that. Or when it's unjust, right, huh? Because thus, it can readily, right, infer some harm, right, huh? And thus also one fears to be, what? Over someone, right? Yeah. I think it's under. Under. That's as many, huh? Yeah, that's the sense. Yeah. I understand what you're doing. The one being, what, in his power, right, huh? Mm-hmm. So he can infer a, what, harm to us, right? And thus the one who's conscious of a crime fears, lest his crime be, what? Revealed. Revealed, huh? And to this is clearly the reply to the, what? Objections, yeah. So you're fearing God or you're fearing the punishment of God might still upon you? Punishment, yeah. Yeah, more immediately the punishment, right? Yeah. But that's what you say in the actual conclusion. You recognize the more immediate fear, but that's the cause of God's purpose. Yeah. So let's look at the second article. The second one goes. forward thus, it seems that fear is not about the evil of what? Nature, right? The evil done to nature means that. For the philosopher in the second book of the rhetoric says that fear makes us what? Take counsel, right? There's something like that in philosophy, right? The fear of being mistaken makes one thing carefully, right? But we do not take counsel about those things which come about by nature, as is said in the third book of the Ethics. Therefore, fear is not about the evil of what? Nature. Moreover, natural defects are always imminent for man, as death and other things of this sort. If therefore about these evils there was fear, it would be necessary that man would always be in fear. True. You're always fearing death, huh? Not actually. Maybe habitual. So that's the thing where the guy sits down and says, oh, she could die, you know, and death comes along, you know. What's I do for you? Oh, just tell me about this load, you know. That's what happened with my mother. Mormon nature does not move to what? Contraries, right? But the evil of nature comes from nature. Yeah. Yeah. And therefore, in fearing someone, what? Some evil? About nature. Yeah. The natural fear is not about the evil of nature, to which, nevertheless, this evil would seem to pertain. I don't understand the objection very well. But against this is what the philosopher says in the third book of the Ethics. He's talking about courage, I guess, right? That among all things, the most terrible is what? Death. Yeah. Which is a model of nature, right? By answer, it should be said that as the philosopher, it's Aristotle, by the way, but as the philosopher, right? Here in my text, the philosopher says, capitalized, right? It should be, right? Some of these other texts, they don't capitalize it. I think they're anti- Disrespect. Disrespect. Disrespect when I always capitalize on that. Impious. Impious. I think, yeah. Impious. For as the philosopher says in the second book of the rhetoric, fear arises from the, what? Image of a future evil that is either, what? Corrupting or saddening. Saddening, right? But now, just as the contrustativa, the saddening evil, is what is contrary to the, what? Will. Will. So, what is corrupt, the evil that is corruptive, is what is contrary to, what? Nature. And this is the model nature, right? Once about the evil of nature, there can be, what? Fear. Fear, right? But it should be considered that the model nature, sometimes is from a natural cause. And then it is said to be a model nature, not only because it, what? Deprize the good of nature, but also because it is a, what? Effective nature. So, model nature is, what? Amphibolous. Two senses of the genitive. Yeah. Just like, you know, Aristotle says wisdom is the knowledge of God, but you say in, what? Two senses, right? It's a knowledge about God, right? And it's a knowledge which God has known as, alone and most of all, right? But sometimes, the evil of nature arises from a cause that is not natural, as death which is violently inferred by a, what? So, what do they say now in these kind of pro-life prayer there, these things in the church now, don't they? From birth to what? Natural death. Natural death. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. from what? Nature. Nevertheless, according as it comes from nature, right? Although it's not total entirely able to be avoided, right? It can nevertheless be what? Deferred, right? And under this hope, there can be counsel about the avoiding of it, yeah. Somebody's waiting to do it there. 103. This is 103, this one. By an age, right? Oh. The second should be said that the evil of nature, although it is always imminent, is nevertheless not always imminent in a near way, right? And therefore it is not always what? Fearing, huh? So the person goes through the whole day not fearing death, right? Because his fat's far off. Something happens to people. As of somebody else, right? I don't die, but I don't think I've got too many things to do, I can't think about that. Yeah. Manly lies down. To the theory, it should be said that death and other defects of nature arrive from the universal nature, huh? To which, nevertheless, is repugnant the, what, particular nature so far as possible, right? And thus, in the inclination of one's own particular nature, there is, what, pain and sadness about these evils when they are, what, present, huh? And fear if they are, what? In the future. In the future. Yeah. So if you're dying now, are you afraid? Right now. Positioning right now. Yeah. Probably not. You might fear the future of judgment, right? Yeah. You're not fearing death. I wouldn't be fearing death at that point. Yeah. Yeah. You'd be sad, though, right? That's a present evil, right? Yeah. That's a future one. Ahem. Three. There is fear about the evil of what? Guilt, huh? To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that fear is able to be about the evil of what? Guilt, huh? For Augustine says, upon the canonical Epistle of John, I guess, that by a chaste fear, right, huh? Man fears separation from what? God, right, huh? But nothing separates us from God except guilt, huh? According to that of Isaiah chapter 59, your sins divide between you and your God, right, huh? Therefore, fear is able to be about the what? No. You might fear you're going to be separated from God by your guilt, huh? Good argument, isn't it? Yeah. I kind of forget why he's arguing this way in the opposition. Moreover, Tulli, no, that's Cicero, right? He says in the fourth, you notice how in Scripture sometimes it arises, you know, a man having two names, right? And you find that same thing here when you speak, Cicero is Tullius, right? Moreover, Tullius says in the fourth thing under the Tuscum questions, huh? That we fear those things when they are future, about which we are sad when they are, what? Present. Present, right? But about the evil of guilt, one can, what? Be sad or in pain, right, huh? Therefore also one can fear the evil of guilt, huh? Interesting, right? So the prison, you know, is contrite, right, and is sad about his guilt, right, huh? So if you fear the things that you are sad when they are present, well then, you know, that's kind of an interesting argument, right? Moreover, hope is opposed to fear. Not the contrary, but principal passions. But hope is able to be about the good of virtue, as is clear through the philosopher in the ninth book of the Ethics. And the apostle says in the epistle to the Galatians, I am what? I trust about you, or I can talk about you in the Lord. That you save nothing else, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Therefore fear is also able to be about the evil of what? The evil of guilt. Moreover, vera kundia, which we translated as what? That's the embarrassment, or is that the shame? Shame. What was the other word? Erobatia. Erobatia is embarrassed. Yeah. It's the shame. Shame, yeah. It's a species of fear, right? But shame is about some ugly thing done, huh? Which is the evil of guilt, right? Therefore also fear, huh? Against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of the Rhetoric, huh? That not all bad things are, what, feared, huh? As if someone would be, what, unjust or, what, slow? Yes, yes, yes. Now, tell me what I'm going to say about these things. I answer it should be said that it's been said above, that the object of hope is a, what, future, a good that is in the future, but difficult, right, that someone is able to, what, obtain. So that was the four things there, four letters in that definition, right? So, likewise, fear is about a mallow, something bad, futuro, future, bad, right? Difficult, right, huh? That is not able to be easily, what? Avoided. Avoided, huh? So, in the Latin, you can get the proper order there, right? I mean, the grammatic order can follow the logic order, right, huh? Just like, in Latin, you could put the genus before the difference, right? But we have to say, not that I am an animal rational, but, yeah, but animal is more basic, right, the genus, huh? Aristotle is a wise man, not a man wise. You could say, he's a man that is wise, you know, but we have to do that grammatically if we want to follow the order. So, fear is about a, something bad that is future. Difficult to avoid. It's difficult. Oh, difficult and not easily avoided. Yeah. That's interesting, I didn't think of those two together. It's difficult and not easily avoided. Difficulty is not just about avoiding it in some other way, too. And it's difficult and not easy to avoid. From which it can be taken that that which is altogether subject to our power and to our, what, will, right, does not have the notion of something, what, terrible. Terrible. But that alone is terrible that has a, what, extrinsic cause, right? But the evil of guilt has, as its own cause, the, what? Human will. The human will. And therefore, property does not have the notion of the, what? Terrible. Terrible. Yeah. So, can you fear that you might take your own life? Qualify that man a little bit and say, since my, I'm not entirely in control of myself. Yeah. In some way. Yeah. It's true. So, given certain circumstances, I remember somebody telling me that she was given a medication for something by a doctor that gave her suicidal thoughts, and she, she was scared of that. Yeah. They advertise it on TV a lot, you know, when they give her this possible danger of taking their medicine, they're trying to sell you. Yeah. Yeah. And what's that? I don't know. I don't know. She had sleeping problems, and that was one of them. Yeah. Yeah, those things, yeah. It was terrifying. And I can't imagine being, I mean, I've never been that way, so I can't imagine. And it seems to be out of your power. You think it's out of your power, right? But our guilt. Yeah. But because, yeah, yeah. But because the human will is able to be inclined to sinning from something outside, right? If that thing, inclining one, has a great power to incline one, right? According to this, there can be fear about the evil of guilt insofar as it's from a, what? Exterior guilt. Yeah. As when someone fears to, what? Spend time with, I guess, huh? Yeah. Bad company. To dwell with, in a society of evil, right? Right, huh? Mm-hmm. Lest they be induced from, by them, to what? To sinning, right? Mm-hmm. St. John of the Cross gave to a prostitute a proposition, and she made her offer it. And he said, ma'am, I'd rather spend the night in hell with the devil than with you. Because, basically, I wouldn't be sinning with the devil, but I would be with you. That's a good answer. Who said that? St. John of the Cross. Yeah. He had a proposition. He came into some town, and he was just a little bitty guy, too. And he came into the town, and he blew her away with that one. But, properly speaking, in such a disposition, right, a man fears more, what? Seduction. Seduction than guilt according to its, what? Proper definition. That is, insofar as voluntary, huh? For thus it does not have, that it be, what? Spirit, huh? Mm-hmm. I know what Thomas is writing this article. Yeah, yeah. That's very helpful. That's very helpful because all the addictions that people have today, they subject themselves to this kind of seduction all the time, and then they habituate themselves to that. That's hard to get out of. That's where it deals with the exterior thing, those outside occasions of sin that are strictly voluntary. A gentleman that we knew was an alcoholic, and one of the things he said, it was God's grace in it because he didn't learn this from somebody. He was just kind of reasoned it out for himself. He said, I knew if I was in this part of town, I had to make an errand over here, and the bar was in between. If I went down that street, I'd be in it, because I know I was. So if I had to get to there, I'd have to go over here, over here, over here, over there. Then I'd be safe. But if I went by it, I'd be in it. He said, I didn't have to do that for himself. He didn't have the strength to do that. To the first, therefore, it should be said, that the separation from God is a certain, what? Punishment, following upon, what? Sin. Sin. And every punishment, in some way, is from the, what? Serious cause. Yeah. Totally. How many murders would be committed if there wasn't any punishment for a murder? How many husbands and murders? Yeah. That would be played too, you know? They'd have a moratorium on death penalty for, or penalty for murder. Yeah. They'd bar yourself in your house and have your gun ready or shotgun, I don't know where it is. Yeah, yeah. It's all right. The second argument is, it's a nice one from Tully, right? Mm-hmm. The second should be said that sadness and fear in this one thing come together, because both are about the, what? Bad. Something bad, right? But they differ, however, in two things. In one, because sadness is about a present evil, but fear is about a, what? Future evil. In another way, because sadness, since it is in the concubiscible appetite, right, regards the bad absolutely. Whence it can be about anything bad, whether small or, what? Great. Great, huh? But fear, since fear, since it is in the irascible, regards evil with a certain arduousness or difficulty, which is taken away insofar as something is subject to the will, right? And therefore, we do not fear all things which are our future, about which we would be sad when they are present, but some things which to it are, what? Arduous and difficult, right? To third, it should be said, that hope is about a good that one is able to, what? Obtain it, huh? One is able to obtain a good either through oneself or through another, right? And therefore, hope can be about an act of virtue which is in, in our power, yeah. But fear is about something bad that is not subject to our power. And therefore, always the evil that is feared is from a, what? Extrinsic cause, huh? But the good which is hoped for can be both from an intrinsic cause and from an extrinsic cause, huh? Existentialist, or is afraid, you know, they've got to do something crazy. The existentialist who says, in the end, they die stupid. To the fourth, it should be said, that as has been said above, huh? That shame is not a fear about the act itself of sin, but about the ugliness or the... Ignomity. Yeah, which falls upon it, right? It's just from an extrinsic cause. Every time in some politician he got caught with another woman during his campaign, he had to drop out and he said, he was sorry about the whole thing. And my mother said, yeah, he's just sorry he got caught. He's not sorry about the whole thing. He's sorry he lost the campaign. Okay. He's not sorry about the whole thing. He's not sorry about the whole thing.