Prima Secundae
Lecture 170: Intellectual Virtues and the Separated Soul

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Second article. To the second one goes forward thus, it seems that intellectual virtues do not remain after this life. For the apostle says, St. Paul is often referred to by Antonia Messiah as the apostle. For the apostle says in the first epistle to the Corinthians chapter 13 that science is destroyed, right? And the reason is because, right, we know imperfectly, right? But just as the knowledge of science is ex parte, imperfect, that is imperfect, so also the knowledge of the other intellectual virtues remains as long as what? This life remains. Therefore, all the intellectual virtues cease to be after what? Moreover, the philosopher says in the predicamentis, that's the Latin word for the categories, right? Predicabilibus are the, what, genus, species, difference, property, accident, right? But the predicamenta are the ten categories. Substance, quantity, quality, relation, and so on. But the philosopher says there that science, since it is a hobby to us, is a quality that's difficultly, what, moved to change, yeah. For it's not easily, what, lost, right, huh? Except from some great change or sickness, right? But no change of the human body is as great as what? That through death, right, huh? Therefore, science and the other intellectual virtues will not remain after this life, huh? Thomas has spent his whole life, you know, acquiring all this knowledge, right? What's going to happen? My soul leaves my body, right, huh? They didn't free these objections, right? Socrates argues in the, I was going to say at the Last Supper, here, in the, no, no, in the Theod, right? That the soul is going to be, what, perfected in knowledge, right? And in virtue when it leaves the body, huh? This objection is saying, no, no, it's going to be such a big change, huh? Shakespeare says, who knows, but dreams may come when we have shuffled off this portal coil. Moreover, the intellectual virtues perfect the understanding for acting, well, its own act, right? But the act, intellect, does not seem to be the act of this life. And as Aristotle says in the third book on the soul, the soul understands nothing without, what, the phantasm or the image, huh? But phantasms or images do not remain after this life because there's something in the body. Since they are not except in bodily organs. Aristotle takes up the phantasm, right, after he's taken up the senses, right? He needs to distinguish the phantasms from thoughts, right? Therefore, the intellectual virtues do not remain after this life, huh? Won't be the same way, so they have understanding if there is, right? They won't be treating the images if they don't have any, right? But against all this is that more firm is the knowledge of universals and necessary things than of particulars and, what, contingent things, huh? But in man there remain after this life the knowledge of contingent particular things to rid of those things which he did or underwent, right? According to that of what? Of Luke chapter 16, huh? He's talking to, I guess, the rich man, right, huh? Remember that you receive good things in this life. And Lazarus, likewise, but bad things, right, huh? You didn't take care of your neighbor, right? So if there remains knowledge of singular, contingent things, right, much more would there remain in knowledge of universal, necessary things, huh? Which pertain to knowledge and sciencia, reasoned out knowledge, and to the other intellectual virtues, huh? So that means that the knowledge of particular contingent things is somehow stored in the intellect, intellectual memory? Well, that's what the text seems to say from the past four, right? So this is using a, what, dialectical place, right? If what would seem less apt to remain does remain, then what is more so apt to remain will remain, right? But I'm questioning about this less apt to remain because I'm having a hard time seeing how particular contingents can be in the intellectual memory. We take that as a probable statement because it's in Scripture, right? So he's not, you know, he's not showing how that's the case, you know, but Socrates is arguing, you know, about the, is the soul immortal or not, and he's an argument from the more so, right? He argues, you know, which is more godlike, the body or the soul, right? And it's not too hard to show that the soul is more godlike, right? And in Christ, for the Greeks, you know, they often refer to God as the immortals, and the gods as the immortals, and he is the mortals, right? So if the soul is more like God than the body, then the soul is more apt to be immortal than the body, right? And then Socrates says, but the body does survive death, at least, what, the bones, right? And down in Egypt, you know, they even produce, they even save something. The skin, right, huh? My friend Roy Menor used to work at that old science museum there, there in St. Paul, they had a little kind of run-by-night thing, but they had a mummy in there, right, you know? Oh, yeah. And so, right, there's this little science museum, right? You could, he's arguing, right, here, because the bones remain, right, huh? So if the body, you know, remains after death, well, then even more so, well, they, what, soul, right? It's good, yeah. Good Dalitical argument, huh? So this isn't, what's your head, it's one of the places, son. Now, he's going back to something that was taken up earlier. I answer, it should be said, this has been said in the Prima Pars, some lay down that the understandable forms do not remain in the possible understanding, the undergoing understanding, except when it understands an act, is what Avicenna said, right, huh? Every time you want to think, you've got to turn yourself again to the age intellect, you've got the forms come in, right? Nor is there some conservation of the forms when the actual consideration ceases, right? Except in the sensitive powers, which are acts of body organs, as in the imaginative power and the memorative power. And these sort of powers are corrupted, the body being corrupted. And therefore, according to this, reasoned out knowledge of science in no way would be able to remain after this life, with the body being corrupted. Nor any other intellectual virtue, right? But this opinion is against the position of Aristotle, who in the third book about the soul says that the understanding, the possible understanding, is an act when it becomes, what? Each one of the singular things, doesn't mean it's singular in the sense of individual, but as one knowing, right? Since our very disimpotency to consider an act. Aristotle distinguishes two acts, right? The first act is when you receive the form, and then the second one you use that form to know something, right? When you're not using it to know something, you still have that form, right? And he's saying, not only is it against the position of Aristotle, but it's also against, what? Reason, right? Because the understandable forms, or understandable species, are received in the possible understanding, what? In an immobile way, according to the way of the, what? Receiver. Receiver, right? Interesting, the Greek word for shentia there is, what? Episteme, which comes in the Greek word for, what? Coming to a halt or stop, right? But you see it in the English word, understanding, too, right? Stand, huh? 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Whence the possible understanding is said to be the place of what? Forms, the place of the species, as it were, conserving the what? Understandable forms, right? But the phantasms to which man understands by looking towards them, right? In this life, by applying to what? Them, the intelligible forms, as it has been said in the first part. They are corrupted, and the body is corrupted, right? So even if I know what a triangle is, I want to think of what a triangle is, I imagine a triangle, right? And I kind of apply my understanding of what a triangle is to that particular triangle. So when you get old, then your imagination is starting to corrupt, right? A little difficulty, right? But therefore, it's right when the images are gone entirely, right? Then you're not going to understand in that way. Whence, as it guards the phantasms, the images, which are, as it were, material, in the intellectual virtues, the intellectual virtues are destroyed, according to that way of using them, right? By turning to the images, when the body is destroyed, right? But as it guards the intelligible forms themselves, which are in the possible understanding and not in the imagination, as far as they are, themselves are concerned, the intellectual virtues remain. And basically what that is, that scienza is, is an ordering of those understandable forms. So will the separated soul be able to reason from one thing to another? Yeah, but it won't understand by turning to the images. But it will be able to have this process by which it goes from one to another, from principle to conclusion? Yeah, I think so, yeah. So you can do your geometry, the separated soul can kind of do its geometry? Yeah. I have one important thing to think about. What my teacher at the church used to say, you know, when you first meet your guardian angel, right, you kind of, you know, you know, this is God, right? He's a magnificent creature, you know, I mean, you know. Then your guardian angel says, no, no, no, I'm not God. He says, you know, and when we're down here, right? He's got a long way to go. And then even the greatest of the angels, right? The lone God, right? Well, he's going to be pretty impressive, right? The image I made to Roman Juliet, right? You've got to go through many steps, right? When you see your angel, that's really a delight to see, huh? Yeah. I kind of suspect he'd be the first person on this, right? Mm-hmm. And he'll say, goodbye. You're going down. Yeah. Nice night. Or, come on, come on, on, you know. I hope he says that, you know, obviously. The teacher used to say, you should make an act of will, you know, opening your mind up to your guardian angel, so you can, you know, have more influence there directly, huh? The one philosopher who was married to a woman that was very practical, and she thought this whole nonsense about the angels. You can never convince her of anything. That's right. Okay. So now it's a little prayer that we say for the guardian angel there, right? The part about the images you can forget about when you're, you can separate the soul, right? It'll help you to understand, huh? Even then. Whence the intellectual rituals you may enact in this life as regards that which is formal in them, right? Namely the understandable, what? Forms, huh? That are received in the understanding in an unchanging way, but not as regards what is, what? material in them, right? Which refers to the images that you turn to, right? Mm-hmm. See, I would have thought that you needed those images in order to reason, you know, to go from them. Yeah. You'll, you'll more understand, your soul will understand itself, uh, through itself, right? You see, in this life, the soul is known through its powers, right? Mm-hmm. But the powers are known through their acts, and the acts are known through their objects. So it's a discourse starting with the objects, right? And then through that you come to know the acts and distinguish the acts. And then through that you come to know the powers, and then through that you come to know the soul, right? Yeah. But when the soul is separated from the body, it'll be actually understandable, right? And you understand the soul through itself in the way an angel understands itself. Do angels go from principle to conclusion? No, they don't do so, huh? So we'll be like that more, you know, then. We'll still understand reasoning, you know? But we'll be understanding in the way the angel kind of understands, huh? That's one thing. Um, but if the angels don't have this process where they go from principle to conclusion, then why would this a great soul? Yeah, it wouldn't be its normal way of knowing anymore, no. Okay, so it wouldn't be anymore. Yeah, yeah. But you might still know something about that, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just like Thomas says, you know, God understands syllogisms, right? Mm-hmm. He doesn't syllogize, right? And some of you say, well, it's hard to imagine how the soul will be after separation of the body. And he says, well, you can't imagine it, right? It's not body, right? But it's very, really hard for us to transcend the bodily, right? And Aristotle, in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, he takes a place, huh? He says, he quotes a common opinion of the early Greeks that whatever it is must be somewhere. If it isn't somewhere, it doesn't exist, right? Aristotle says, well, if that's true, you know, then place is really the first of all things, right? Because nothing else can be without having some place to be, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, but, you know, Venge de Aristotle will argue that there exists something that is not a, what? A body, right? But you can see that they've kind of identified what is with bodies, right? And the body's got to be somewhere, right? And Christ's body is somewhere, right? Because there's some problems in it. Think about the Eucharist and so on, which Thomas, of course, results in the Summa Contra Gentilis. It's a beautiful, you know, inspiration there, the Eucharist there, the Summa Contra Gentilis. It's innocent. It's innocent. It gives all the objections. He has five sets of objections, and then, you know, chapter each one would knock them off, but it's something easy. Paul VI, I think, got close to calling Thomas the Theologian of the Eucharist, right, huh? He understood it so well. So, in regard to the objection from St. Paul then, the Apostle. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the word of the Apostle should be understood as regards that which is material in science. And as regards the, what? Way of understanding, right? Because neither do the, what? Phantasms. Phantasms or images. Phantasms is kind of the Greek word. Latinized. Not translated, but the images or the phantasms remain. They don't remain when the body is destroyed. Nor would there be that use of science, that way of knowing, by conversion to the, what? Phantasms or images, huh? I tend to go to bed at night, and I get thinking about some philosophical thing, you know. And there's no distractions, and everything's quiet around, and your body's completely at the rest, you know. And if you're not... disposed to fall asleep, right, you know, then the images are kind of, what, clear and so on, huh? Remember I come up the next morning and I took a cigarette, what I thought, you know. I said, I was laying in bed last night and I thought of this. He was always amused. He thought that I would get to the bed, you know. You can see, like, when a person's been drinking or something like that, the images are all kind of all moving around, you know, nothing at rest, right? You've got to have the images kind of at rest, right, so you can consider something in them. That's why we pray for the angel to help us with their images. To second, it should be said that through sickness, the habit of science is corrupted as regards that which is, what, material in it, that is, as regards the images, huh? But not as regards the, what, understandable forms which are in the possible understanding. An episteme or scientia is really a, what, an ordering of those understandable, what, forms, huh? My teacher, Mr. Eric, used to joke about, you know, how do you recognize your friend there, you know? When he's another separate soul, right? Separate soul, right? You can't recognize him by his face, you know. And he says, simply, you know, when they think, they always think, you know, in a disorderly way, right? So he recognizes, you know, his thoughts. That's how he recognizes him. He always thought in a screwy way, you know, really. There's some truth to that, right? Well, you're going to recognize Thomas right away, you know. First it should be, then this distinction. Now, to the third, right, it should be said, in regard to what Aristotle teaches us there, to the third it should be said that the separated soul, after death, has another way of understanding than through, what, conversion to the images, huh? As has been said in the first book, that belongs to that treatment of the soul there in the first part. And thus, sciencia remains, but not according to, what, the same way of operating, right? You'd use those understandable forms, but not to know by applying them to images, right? Just as has been said about the, what, moral virtue, so. Yeah, I thought, again, when you talk about Christ, right, huh? Did Christ have this knowledge, you know, of treating the images and so on? If he had everything, you know, except sin, he's going to have that too, right, huh? And that could develop throughout life, right, huh? It kind of, one who's there, you know, the pagan there who has this belief, you know, and he's found such belief in, yeah, yeah. And it's somebody tied up with these images, right? But in his other higher knowledge, he knew it all, this man already, right? Right. Imagination has a lot to do with our making our mistakes, and it's the cause of error of imagination. You're knowing things in their absence, right? You know yourself, you imagine something, and then you go there, and it's not the way you imagine it to be, right? C.S. Lewis says that in one of his little stories there, you know, where he's invited out by some uncle there in some part of England he's never been in, right? And he gets down there, and I can't be sad, it's not the way you imagine it to be at all. And his uncle says, what right did you have to imagine it to be? One way or not he'd never been here, you know? One way or not he'd never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he's never been here, he he says that likeness is a most slippery thing, right, slippery thing, it's hard to grasp exactly in what way two things are what, alike, right, and somebody's, you know, doesn't understand the likeness between two things in the dialogue, right, and Socrates makes this very important point, whereas God with his book on sophistry, right, such a reputation, says that likeness is the cause of what, deception, and you can be more precise and say, well, likeness and you don't see the difference, right, okay, and then I notice Aristotle takes up the four tools of dialectic, well, the third tool of dialectic is a tool of difference, right, and the fourth tool of dialectic is a tool of likeness, and Aristotle says that the fourth tool is the ability to find a difference, right, and he says this is useful for syllogism about the same and the other, and for what, definitions, right, because difference is one, then he takes up the two of likeness, which he says is useful for induction, right, for if-then syllogisms, hypothetical syllogisms, and for what, definitions, right, okay, but he doesn't say that the fourth tool is the ability to find a likeness, right, but he says, I think the best way to translate it is the ability to consider a likeness, right, and the Greek word is skeptic, which doesn't mean, you know, you'll be skeptical about likeness, right, doesn't have that negative sense, but the idea that you consider exactly in what way they are, what, alike, right, and what way they are not alike, right, that's kind of part of it, right, right, and so you're deceived by likeness when you don't see the difference, right, and I said years ago to him on Sunday on, he said, it seems to me that Aristotle gives the tool of difference before the tool of likeness, right, because of that danger, right, that likeness can be not a, you know, source of knowledge, but a source of error or deception if you don't see the difference, right, so Aristotle gives the tool of difference. Well, he didn't object why he said so. I used to joke about one senior, you know, his first reaction to any new idea was to reject it, you know, so I didn't object to this, but it seems to make some sense, right, huh, so I kind of used those three passages, right, like the one from Plato in the Sophist, right, and Aristotle saying it's his refutations, that likeness is the cause of deception, and then this thing about the tools, right, and, okay, now, what does the word imagination, what does the word image mean, imago versus the Latin word, what's the image word for that, yeah, yeah, what's that there, let's say, what, image of what, I've seen her name, we think it's an image of Father Patrick Paco. All right, the one over there, who's that, who's that image up there, the one here on the right, that's the one of our Lord, but the one. It's in Charvel, no, okay, Charvel or same man? It's Charvel or, no, it's in Charvel, on the right, I'll say Charvel. It's Charvel, okay, so, you know, I'm speaking Latin, no kind of, you know, Latin, the right word, image, right, image of him, but we'd probably see it in English, it's the likeness of him, right, okay. When Aristotle, you know, speaks of tragedy and these things, as we get, imitation of something, right, I think the word in English to use is better is what, a likeness of something, right, so the imagination is named from likeness, right, but without the, what, without the difference, right, yeah, and, you know, Shelley is a famous thing. on what the poet is about, you know, and he sees the likeness of things, you know, and all reasons he sees is the difference of things. You know, you can see how it's kind of, you know, it's going to deceive somebody, right? You know, during the Second World War there when we, Russia, Congress Russia, was our ally, right? They were putting movies out in Hollywood where they made Russia seem, you know, to be a wonderful place to live. People going to church and everything, you know, and people go away with this image, you know, of what it's all about, right, and, you know, how politicians, they worry primarily about their image, right, and we have very little to do with the reality, right, you know, what these people really are like. But the likeness, you know, sticks, right, huh? So to not be dependent upon images, right, is going to lead to a certain purification of thought, right? Because imagination is the main cause of deception. In a song, imagine, imagine, that's where you die. It's funny, these politicians are saying, they're always saying, I have a dream, right, you know? Okay, now it's going to the, what? It's going to be a dream, right, you know, it's going to be a dream, right, you know, it's going to be a dream, right, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a dream, you know, it's going to be a theological virtues, right? Special concern here, the theologian. The third one goes forward thus. It seems that faith or belief remains after this life. For faith is more noble than science. But science remains after this life. Therefore faith. That's persuasive, isn't it? More. First epistle of the Corinthians. Chapter 3. No one is able to lay down, right? Another foundation. Apart from that which has been laid down, which is Christ, what? Jesus, huh? That is the faith of what? Christ Jesus, huh? In fact, we call faith the what? The foundation, right? Substance, huh? But the foundation being taken away does not remain that which is what? Built upon it, right? Faith is defined there in Hebrews as the substance, right? The foundation of what is hoped for, right? Conviction that was not seen. It's removed the foundation of it, you know. Building upon it, it's gone, right? Therefore, if faith does not remain after this life, no other virtue will remain, right? Moreover, the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of glory differ according to perfect and what? Imperfect. Imperfect, huh? Imperfect knowledge is able to be together with perfect knowledge. Just as in the angel, at the same time, there can be evening knowledge with what? Morning knowledge, huh? Now, this is a distinction that Augustine used that term for what? The knowledge that the angel has is natural knowledge. He called it evening knowledge, right? And then those angels that turn back to God in praise, right? Received, what? Morning knowledge, right? But they didn't lose their natural knowledge, right? When they acquired this supernatural knowledge, right? Okay. And some man is able to have together about the same conclusion science, which is something certain, through demonstrative syllogism and opinion through a, what? Dialectical syllogism, huh? So, when Thomas is expounding the text of Aristotle, sometimes he'll say, Aristotle is here giving a dialectical argument, right? Then there on, he gives an argument that has necessity, right? And Aristotle, Thomas says that Aristotle's dialectic can be better because he knows the truth, right? He can find those arguments that are approaching it with probability. So that's imperfect knowledge, you might say, this probable knowledge, right? But it's something that can exist with the more perfect knowledge. And Thomas has all these objections, right? You know, against what he knows to be, what? True, right, huh? But that's part of his excellence, right? He can do both, know both, right? Joshua can, what? Say that it is so because Euclid said it is so, right? And he can go to the board, he can demonstrate the theorem on the board, right? Yeah. So he can give the probable argument, you know, probable opinion that Euclid says so, right? And then he can give the demonstration, you know? So, perfect and imperfect knowledge can exist together, right? Okay? Therefore, faith can be together after this life with the knowledge of glory, yeah? Against this is what the apostle says in the second epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 5. So long as we are in the body, we, what? Wander, right? From the, what? Lord, right? Peregrine Amorite. What's the name of that novel? Peregrine Pickle? It's a wander, right? Wandering around. Through faith, we, what? Walk, and not through, what? Species or meaning sight. But those who are in glory do not wander from the Lord, but they are, what? Yeah. Therefore, faith does not remain after this life in, what? Glory. Glory, right, huh? So he's saying as long as we are in the body, we, how do they translate there, Peregrine Amorite, in your text, the English text there, if you want? As long as we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord. Yeah, okay. But by faith we walk, he says, right? And not through species. So, so long as we, what? By faith God, in some ways, they're absent from us, right? Okay. Well, next slide. Glory is not absent. It's face to face, right? So faith is not going to remain, huh? Okay. Now, let's see what Thomas says. I answer. It should be said that opposition is the per se and proper cause that one thing is excluded from another, right? In so far as in all opposites is included the opposition of affirmation and what? Negation, right? So we talked last night, can an odd number be even? Could an odd number be even? Why not? Why is one excluded from the other? Why can an odd number be even? Like discrimination. An even number is a number that is divisible into two equal parts and the odd number is not divisible into two equal parts, right? So how can an even number be an odd number, right? Can a prime number be a constant number? Can a prime number be a constant number? Well, a prime number is a number that is measured only by what? One and not to be any other number, right? Or a constant number is measured by some other number, right? Besides one, one is not strictly speaking number, right? So the constant number is measured by some other number, a prime number is not. So can a prime number be a constant number? No. Can a acute angle be an obtuse angle? That's not so much in terms of immediate contradiction like in these first two cases, I guess. You say an obtuse angle is an angle, what? It's defined as an angle greater than a right angle. An acute angle is an angle less than a right angle, right? Right. Okay. But, you know, an angle that is greater than an obtuse angle cannot be, what? Less than. But that's what an acute angle is, so it can't be. So there's an affirmation negation there, right? Right. Inside these, right? So Thomas is starting off with a good solid foundation. She's going to build on there, right? Okay. And of course, affirmation negation, what's tied up in the first statement? And there's something cannot both be and not be at the same time in the same way, right? Or to quote Shakespeare, right? To be or not to be. That is the question, right? And they say, well, it's the question, because you can't both be and not be, right? Well, Shirley was talking about there being poets seeing likenesses as opposed to distinctions. Yeah. And there's Whitman and Song of Myself, Peeds of Grass, whatever, where he goes, I contradict myself? Well, very well, I contradict myself. There's a constant theme, at least that I've seen in the world back when I was out working, is that people think that it is possible for there to be a contradiction to exist within a certain thing. Yeah. And it seems sloppy thinking, but if you talk to them about it, they say, well, you know, there's this white male tradition of logic, which we have to sort of transcend, we have to grow beyond it. But I could never get any sort of solid argument why that was the case from them, but partly it's because I was thinking along the white male logic thing. Probably. But that fuzzy thinking is just incredibly prevalent, just in culture. I told you my teacher at some conference, you know, and you've got the guy, you know, into a contradiction, right? And Kasir says, no, what are you going to do about that? And the guy says, no, that's a contradiction I've learned to live with. There's found, however, in some things, an opposition according to what? Contrary forms, right? As in colors of what? White and what? Black, right? In some, however, according to perfect and imperfect. When in alterations, more and more, they're taken as what? As contraries. As when from the being less hot, something becomes more hot, right? And because perfect and imperfect are opposed, it is impossible that in the same what? Time? Together, according to the same thing, there be perfection and what? Imperfection, right? Now, it ought to be considered that imperfection is sometimes of the, what? Very definition of the thing, right? So the very notion of the thing and pertains to its, what? Species. Just as the, what? Lack or defect of reason pertains to the notion of species of a horse or of a, what? Cow. And because one of the same remaining in number cannot be transferred from one species to another, hence it is, that such an imperfection being taken away, that it's taken away the very, what? Species of the thing. Because now it would no longer be a cow or a horse if it were, what? Rational. Rational, right? Just as he took away reason from man, if the man didn't have reason, he would be no more than a, what? Beast, right? Now, sometimes, however, an imperfection does not pertain to the notion of species, but it happens to an individual according to something other, right? Just as to some man, sometimes it happens for there to be, as you said, a defect of reason, right? Insofar as he's impeded in, what? It, the use of reason, on account of sleep, right? Or an account of, what? Being drunk, right? Or something of this sort, right, huh? Or some kind of false imagination, right, huh? It is clear, however, that such an imperfection being removed, nevertheless, the substance of the thing, what? Remains, right? So you're too tired, huh? Take yourself to sleep there. He's too tired to think of that, right? Can't think. Don't have reason anymore? That's a temporary thing, huh? Now, what about this imperfection of knowledge that is of the notion of faith, huh? He says it's manifest, however, that the imperfection of knowledge, the imperfection of knowledge is of the very notion of what? Faith, huh? For it is laid down in its definition. Faith is the substance of what? Things hoped for. Things hoped for. The conviction, right, of things not seen, right, huh? As is said in Hebrews 11, right? Okay. So when Thomas takes up faith in detail in the secundi secundi, he's going to take up that definition there that St. Paul has, and he does in other places, and he takes up faith. And Augustine says, what is faith? To believe what one does not, what, see, right? Now that knowledge should be without appearance or sight, this pertains to the, what, imperfection of knowledge, huh? And thus the imperfection of knowledge is of the very, what, notion of faith, huh? Whence is manifest that faith cannot be, right, perfect knowledge and remain the same in, what, number, right? It's not the drunk man, right? It's of the very definition, the very nature of faith, right, huh? Okay. You know, sometimes you say to somebody, you know, do you really know that or just guessing? Now guess is something different than belief, but can it be both? Can I know something and be sure that, knowing in a strict sense means you're sure, right? Can I know something and just be guessing and be guessing it? I say, I know there's four students here. This is one that's left. I know there are four students here, right? Can I be guessing if there are four? Because what is the distinction between knowing and guessing, right? Yeah. It's of the very definition of knowing in the strict sense that you're certain, right? And of a guess that you are what? Not certain, right? So can a guess be knowledge, right? Or can I guess when I know? So it's of the very nature, not only of guess, but of belief that it would be what? You know, perfectly see something, right? So when you come to see God as he is, as St. John says in his epistle, right? Or as St. Paul says, when you come to see God face to face, then are you believing that he is three in one? Are you believing anymore? That's what they call it, the patriotic vision, right? Which is opposed to what faith is by definition, right? The conviction of what is not seen, right? You're convinced that what you don't see by your mind is so, right? By the person who's drunk or asleep, right? He's impeding for the use of his reason, right? And he doesn't, what, lack reason, like a dog does or a cat, right? Well, you could include a lot of academics as far as having being impeded in their reason, in that there are certain ways of thinking, deconstructionism and things like that. and relating things where you can't really know anything. Yeah, yeah. And it seems like it's a real acid, sort of corrosive thing as far as destroying the ability to know anything philosophically. If you go back to that simple example I give you about something as obvious as the whole is more than a part, right? And, you know, I try to show my students, you know, the importance of what Aristotle does in the fifth book of Wisdom, where he distinguishes the senses of these words, right? And, but I would give the argument, you know, I've given this argument to you in class a number of times, but just to give it again briefly, I say, my mother didn't like it when I said man is an animal. And I said, my mother, he's not just an animal, he's an animal that has reason. Well, that's better than what he said. So, animal is only a part of what man is, right? Okay? But yet animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, and so on. So, sometimes the part includes more than the whole. Yeah! Yeah! See? Well, they're, you don't see how to, what, avoid the conclusion, right? See? You don't know how to avoid the conclusion, right? how to solve this sophistical argument, right? It's the most common type of fallacy, Aristotle says, when it comes to mixing up the senses of a word, right? But if you can't untie that, then you, what? Your mind is inclined to think that well then maybe the whole is not always greater than the part, right? But you don't really know that the whole is not. You're confused because of this argument you can't untie. Now, Socrates in the Mino, it's kind of beautiful what he does in the third part there, the Mino there. Socrates is being asked by Mino, you know, to, you know, can virtue be taught, right? And Socrates says, well, we don't even know what virtue is, so how can we answer that question, right? But Mino still wants to know, you know. Brother Mark used to say, you know, what do you know the guy like this, right? And he's got to know this before he knows that, and he wants to know this, right, without knowing that. But Socrates says, well, let's look and see what can be said for and against, right? And he gives a probable argument that virtue can be taught, and a probable argument that virtue cannot be taught, right? Well, they can't both be true, right? So then Socrates comes back and examines the arguments more closely, right? And he thinks he finds a difficulty, right? In the argument for saying that virtue can be taught, right? And the argument that virtue can be taught is basically that virtue is knowledge and knowledge can be taught. Therefore, virtue can be taught. And the reason for saying that virtue is knowledge is that it's knowledge that directs us to the good, right? But the great men of Athens, right, directed Athens to what was good for Athens, right? And therefore, virtue is what? These are the virtuous men. Virtue must be some kind of knowledge. And then Socrates says, well, is that true that you are directed towards the good by knowledge? Well, sometimes, right? But aren't you sometimes directed to the good by a guess? I have to give an example. You know, you're going down the road there, and there's a fork in the road, and one fork leads to Boston, and the other one leads to Providence. And you want to get to Boston, but you don't know which one is the one, right? But you might guess that this is the one, and if you take that road and your guess was correct, you made the right guess, you'll get to Boston just as much as if you knew, right? So it ain't necessarily so that the man who directs us to the good knows, right? I used to take the example of the Incheon landing there, you know. Did MacArthur know that he would succeed? No, he had a plan, you know, to withdraw if he had to, you know. He didn't know, you know, if I have a plan to withdraw, you know, it's going to succeed, right? And MacArthur, you know, he's on the boat there going there. He went over the whole argument that he had, you know, kind of bounced it off one of his lesser officers there, you know. He said, yep, yep, yep. And he went ahead, right? Then he sat down and started reading the Bible, right? So he didn't know to succeed, right? But he made the right guess, you know. And you can see that, you know, these great generals, you know. They make the right guesses and so on and they succeed, right? And sometimes, of course, they fail, right? MacArthur and, what's his name, Catherine, I guess, were together in the First World War. And they were standing in some little mound and the war was going on and one of them said, I think it's time to move on, let's move on. And shortly after they moved on, the shells came right down there, right? So they escaped death, right, one or both of them, by really, what, knowing those times to move on? When Nixon was down in South America there, you know, they had those kind of riots there down in those things. And they were down in one, I don't know, there's a Vendaway at Caracas, all these places. And they were going down the highway, they were like dangerous to later on. And MacArthur, Nixon said, you know, this is the wrong, you know, let's turn off this road, right? And they turned off the road they were supposed to go on, right? And down the road there was a bomb, right? Did he know there was a bomb there? No, but something made him, you know, like the crowd or something, you know? Something made him guess, you know? So Socrates says, right? So I guess, right? So Socrates then is introducing us to logic, or Plato is in the Mino, right? And this is part of logic to distinguish between knowing and what? Guessing, right? And so Socrates is, in solving, you know, this opposing argument, this contradiction, he's coming to the distinction between knowing and guessing, right? And now Socrates says, and it's dramatic, because Socrates rarely claims to know anything. If you know this, he's famous for, you know, knowing what he didn't know, right? But he says, I know there's a difference between knowing and guessing, right? Or knowledge and opinion. I know there's a difference. And he's not guessing when he says this, right? And I say, well, why is Socrates so sure? Well, because knowing is being sure, and guessing is not being sure, right? They can't be the same, right? And if someone says, well, Socrates, you don't really know that they're different, you're just guessing they're different. That person is making the distinction, saying there's a difference between knowing and guessing, right? So the ball goes over. You have to admit that knowing and guessing are not the same thing, right? So you can say a guess is by what? Definition, right? Something, what, uncertain, right? Something imperfect, right? A guess can be a reasonable guess as opposed to an unreasonable guess, right? Or a, but it's still a guess, right? And the purpose of logic, as far as guessing is concerned, is to make reasonable guesses, right? A probable guess or a likely guess, right? In dialectic it's a probable guess and rhetoric it's a likely guess, right? So, he's already here that belief is what? By definition, something what? Imperfect, right? It's not just, you know, temporarily. So like me when I'm drunk or I'm asleep or something, right? I'm angry or some crazy emotion, you know? I'm all heated up, you know? I don't see straight. But it's something in the very nature of what belief is, right? You don't see the thing, right? So, when you come to see God as he is, which is the very words of St. John, right? In chapter 3, verse 2, right? The first epistle, I think it is. We know we should be like him because we shall see him as he is, right? Okay? We see him face to face, to use the expression of St. Paul. Well, then faith is going to disappear, right? So, if Aristotle has a demonstration that this is so, or my friend Euclid has a demonstration that the interior angles of a triangle are two right angles, right? Then he knows that this is so, right? He's not guessing it, right? Even though he might not understand the problem of arguments that would lead you to that, right? I mean, if you read Euclid, you know, you start to respect him in his mind, right? So, you're going to be believing him even before you know his demonstration that he knows, right? But, you know, that's the belief, right? But when you end up doing the demonstration, right? Then you're not believing him, right? But you're knowing it. There's an interesting phenomenon, too. It seems that, traditionally, you would believe people who were reliable witnesses, you could say, or reliable teachers, for example, the philosophers, the apostles. But these days, so many people, actually, they are certain that certain people that they are following are correct. When they have a terrible track record of being wrong, you look at the philosophy in their lives, and so many people out of Lenin, and Marx, and Hitler, and stuff like that, and Rousseau, and they're crazy in a lot of ways, and they're wrong about a lot of terms of basic important things, and yet so many people blindly follow him. And then they accuse people who believe in God of blind faith. It's a strange phenomenon. It's a strange phenomenon. It's a strange phenomenon. It's a strange phenomenon. It's a strange phenomenon.