Prima Secundae
Lecture 171: Faith and Hope in the Beatific Vision

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today, where that traditional trust in an authority, a proven authority, now there's a lot of trust in people who are obviously not authorities if you look into what you really sell it. Yeah, educated. Look at all these little information about what's going on, you know, the weakly informed, as we say. So, that a knowledge should be without something appearing or without vision, this pertains to the imperfection of knowledge, and thus the imperfection of knowledge is of the notion of faith, the definition of it. Whence is manifest that faith cannot be what? It cannot be perfect knowledge remaining the same in what? Number, right? You know, sometimes we speak improperly, you know, can a guess become knowledge, right? You know, when the murder's been committed and they're looking for the murderer, right? And what they do is they guess what it might be, right? The wife of the murderer, they guess the husband. What I'm saying, you know? We had in Shrewsbury there years ago, you know, the wife was murdered, right? The police are suspecting the poor husband, right? You know? He was quite innocent, you know? And they find it years after they found the murderer, right? I guess he's the guy who had delivered at the house, right? And then he saw, you know, what the situation was and the attractive woman there by herself, you know? And then he came back later in the day, you know? And I guess they got some DNA stuff there at that time or something, you know? But they didn't know who the heck's the DNA or something. But he went on to other crimes, you know? And they got DNA samples of him in California, I guess it was. And they have a bank where they could compare these. And they compared his DNA there, California, with the DNA back here in Shrewsbury, Minnesota. I mean, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. And they identified him as the guy who had killed this man's wife, you know? The poor husband had to leave the state here because he was suspecting him, you know, and so on. And he went out, I think, in South of California. So, but notice, does the guess become knowledge? Or is that way of speaking not strictly speaking true? Yeah, yeah. Now, I mean, a guess, if they guess that you did it, right? And then they get evidence that indicates, kind of proves that you did it, right? Does the guess become knowledge? Yeah, but really a guess is now replaced by knowledge, right? It's not that a guess itself, you see? Because a guess by definition cannot be knowledge, right? And belief by definition cannot be what? Seeing something as it is. And the only expression, seeing is believing. That's kind of a very questionable way of speaking, right? Seeing is believing. Seeing you sitting there is believing that you're sitting, you know? If I'm talking to you on the phone and you say, you're sitting down, I might believe you, you know? I don't really see that you're sitting down, do I? Unless you have one of these new phones. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. If I'm sitting down, I'm not going to come. See what I mean? So sometimes we speak that way, but it's kind of a loose way of speaking, right? Guessing becomes knowing, right? Seems like we say that more because of mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we say, my suspicion becomes certainty, right? But suspicion doesn't become certain. Can suspicion grow into certitude, right? Or is it replaced by certitude, right? Now, Thomas goes into further discussion over here. But further, we're not to consider whether it can be together with what? Perfect knowledge, right? It says, for nothing prevents some imperfect knowledge being together with what? Some perfect knowledge. Now, what does this all mean? It should be considered that knowledge can be imperfect in three ways. In one way, on the side of the object knowable, right? In another way, on the part of the middle, like the middle term, I suppose. The third way, on the part of the what? Subject. Subject, huh? Now, on the part of the object knowable, perfect and imperfect knowledge differ. What they call the morning knowledge and the evening knowledge in the angels, huh? I guess if you read the text very carefully there, the what? Genesis, right, huh? Let's say evening and morning was the first day, right? So evening came before morning, right? Well, evening, Augustine, in his commentary on the Genesis, right, says evening there indicates the natural knowledge of the angel, right, huh? And then, what? Morning, the vision that the angel sees, those who turn back to him, right, huh? Okay. For morning knowledge is about things according to the being that they have in the word, right? In verbal, right? In God himself. Evening knowledge is about those things according to the being they have in their own nature, which is imperfect with respect to the first, what? Being, which is God, I am, who am. Now, on the part of the middle term, perfect and imperfect knowledge, which is about some conclusion differ, to what? A demonstrative middle term, it shows it must be so, right, huh? And a, what? Probable middle term, right? On the side of the subject, they differ according to perfect and imperfect opinion, fides, and what? Science, huh? For it's of the very definition of opinion. Opinion, notice, is a form of what? Gets, right, huh? When Thomas is talking about the intellectual virtues in the commentary on the sixth book of the ethics, right, he says that opinion and suspicion are not intellectual virtues, see? Because a virtue is what makes its habit good and its, what, activity good, right? Okay, well, opinion can be mistaken, right, huh? And a fortiori, a suspicion can be, right? So he says opinion and suspicion are both, what? Conjectura, right? It's a Latin word for guess, right, huh? Okay. For it's of the notion, huh, or the definition of opinion, that it be taken one side of a contradiction, right? With fear of the, what? Other opposite, right? Okay. So in the election, right, huh? I think so-and-so is going to win. But I have some fear that I might be, what? Mistaken, right? I might be the other guy, right, huh? Whence it does not have a firm, what? Adherence, right, huh? Okay. It's of the notion, though, of what? Science, that it have a firm adhesion with intellectual vision, right? That you see what you see, right? Now you gotta be careful about science in the modern world, because science in the modern world often doesn't mean that, does it? I think so. I think so. It means something that is, what, it's a guess that's been tested, but it might fail the next test, right? Okay. So Einstein says that scientific theory is a system of guesses, right? You know, he used the word guess. You don't really know, right? And the reason for that is that the confirmation of a scientific hypothesis is not a syllogism. You say, if my hypothesis is correct, then this will be so. You find out if this is so, does it follow that the hypothesis is so? You're arguing this form. If A is so, B is so. B is so, does it follow that A is so? If Perkwis dropped dead, I say to my students, then you'll be absent from class, right? Perkwis is absent from class, therefore you dropped dead. I said, that's wishful thinking, but it's not logical thinking. You see me? Now, if you say, if A is so, then B is so, and B is so, right? And if A is so, also C will be so, but C is so. And if A is so, then D will be so, and D is so. And D and C and B are so. And that becomes more probable, doesn't it? But still, by reason of the form of the argument, it doesn't follow necessarily, see? And as Einstein said about, you know, Newtonian physics, right? They had made so many predictions on the basis of Newtonian physics that became what? They were found to be true, that they concluded it must be, what? It must be true, Newtonian physics, right? And, you know, for example, I guess, as they studied the motions of the known planets, huh? More carefully, they realized they didn't exactly obey the paths they should have, according to Newtonian physics. But they were so sure of Newtonian physics that they said there must be other planets that are influencing them. And their mathematics were so accurate they could predict where those other planets would have to be to cause that thing. And then they trained their telescopes and they found these other planets, right? Wow! You know? And so Einstein said, so many things, you know, if A is so, B is so, C is so, D is so, E is so, F is so, you know? And then they all were so, right? Then it had to be true, right? And so some physicists, he said, you know, came to the conclusion that Newtonian physics must be, what? True. But Einstein showed that with the different hypotheses, he could predict the very same things that Newton had predicted. Plus some things that Newton couldn't predict, you know? And then, as you said, the scientists realized that you never really know. You know? That you just have, what? More or less probability, right? So you've got to be careful that the word science there today is used for something that is not, what? Certain, you know? And, well, if you use the word science here for Euclid's elements, there he has something that's certain, right? And he has some certitude, you know, in the most general parts of natural philosophy. But you should get further on, you know? Even Aristotle speaks as if he's not sure what he's saying now anymore, right? And so, you've got to be careful, right? But he's using science here in a strict sense, right? So, it's of the ratio, right? It's of the notion of science that one has a firm adherence to one side of a contradiction, right? With a, what? Understanding vision, right? Vision sense of understanding. For it has certitude going forth from the understanding of beginnings, right? But these are beginnings that are known like the whole was more than the part, right? And all those kinds of beginnings. So, now faith, now if you're talking about supernatural faith, I'm not just to be believing in some human being. In the middle way, it has itself, right? It exceeds opinion, right? In that it has a firm adherence, right? So, one firmly adheres to there being three persons in God, right? But it falls short from science in that it does not have the vision, right? Okay? Because it's the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen, right? That's in the very definition that we give in theology that St. Paul gives there. Now it is manifest that perfect and imperfect cannot be together according to the same thing. But those things which differ according to perfect and imperfect, according to something other, can be together in the same, what? What? Thus, perfect knowledge and imperfect on the side of the object, in no way can be about the same object, but they can come together in the same, what? Middle and in the same subject. Nothing prevents that a man together and once through one in the same middle has a knowledge of two things of which one is, what? Perfect and the other imperfect, just as about, what? Health and sickness and good and, what? Evil, right? So if I know what normal blood pressure is, right? Then I can at the same time know what high blood pressure is, right? Although one is better than the other, right? And I can know them together, right? Or if I know what knowledge is, I can know what the same time what ignorance is. And so the teacher who has the knowledge knows your ignorance better than you know it, right? Likewise, it is impossible that perfect knowledge and imperfect on the side of the middle come together in one middle, right? But nothing prevents that one might in one object and in one subject, for one man is able to know the same conclusion through a, what, probable middle term and a, what, demonstrative, right? So if we get, uh, Joshua up at the board there, right, huh? On the blackboard you're lucky, huh? He would demonstrate on the blackboard that the triangle has its interior angles equal to three right angles, or two right angles, right? Three right angles, okay? But you could also, you know, say that, uh, um, it's probable, because Euclid says so, right? And he has, he's been used as a text for geometry since, what, 300 B.C., right? That's quite it, you know? As Einstein said in the 20th century, right? If Euclid did not arouse your youthful enthusiasm, he says, you were not born to be a scientist. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha vision, right, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha Whence it is manifest that it is impossible that faith remain together with the attitude in the same, what, subject, right? It seems to me you could argue something like that and say, about a guess, right? When I see the reason why something must be so, right? I'd say I follow the demonstration there that Joshua has given us. Then, I'm no longer, what, guessing, right? Sometimes I think about something in geometry and I say, yeah, I, you know, that's so, you know? Then I try to find, what, this is for a reason to say that it is so, right? If I find this for a reason, I'm no longer, what, guessing, right? Now, to the first, it should be said, huh? The first objection was saying that faith is more noble than, what, science, right? And science remains and faith, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that faith is more noble than science on the side of its, what, object, huh? Because its object is the first truth, huh? Now, the first truth is God himself, right? God says, our Lord says, I am the road, I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? He's truth itself, right? And therefore, he's the first truth, huh? So, when Thomas takes up faith in the secunda secunda, you know, more in detail, faith, you'll say its object is the first truth, right? In the veritas, huh? But science has a more perfect way of, what, knowing, right? Which is not repugnant to the perfection of the attitude, to the vision, right, huh? Just as it is repugnant to the, what, mode of, what, faith, yeah? Now, going back again, you know, the point that Aristotle makes, huh? In the premium to the three books on the soul, Aristotle says that all knowledge is good, right, huh? But then he gives two ways that one knowledge can be better than another, right? Although all knowledge is good, that's what he maintained, right? One knowledge can be better than another because it's about a better thing, right? Or because you know the thing better, right? Okay? You have more certitude, right? Okay? So he has these two criteria, right, huh? But if one knowledge is about a better thing, and another knowledge is more certain, but about a lesser thing, which knowledge is better, see? Well, we have a beautiful text of Aristotle there in the Parks of Animals, where he argues that an imperfect knowledge of a better thing is better than a perfect knowledge of a, what? Yeah, yeah. So I can count the chairs in this room and, you know, count a couple times and so on, and be very certain of the number, right, huh? But big deal, I mean, to know in certitude how many chairs are in this room, who they all care is. You know, unless you put the whole congregation here or something, you know, then you might have to know it, right? But other things which are much harder to know, right? I could know, but would not know as well as I know the number of chairs in this room, huh? So you could apply that to the distinction between belief and supernatural belief now, okay? Not human belief. And science. That the science, the way of knowing might be better, right, huh? But the thing known is not as noble or great as. So faith would still be simply better, right, huh? First of all, there's a nice manoductual there in the parts of animals, you know. He says, just as a glimpse of someone we love is worth more than the leisurely view. Somebody I don't care. That's true. I mean, I had my little granddaughter, one of my little granddaughters, for the last week. Those of you who were here, you know, a picture of Sophia, right? He's wisdom there. But what a smile on her face, you know. And I was thinking of Thomas when he gives the excellence of wisdom there. I think it's a kind of gentiles, you know. And the last thing he says, you know, there's no boredom, no tedium, you know. The gaudium joy, you know. She had on her face all this joy, you know, with her book there, you know. And so it's better, right? Faith is better than scientia because you're knowing the first truth, right? But you're not knowing it as well as Joshua knows the Pythagorean theorem, right? Because he sees that it must be so, right? In the other case, you're believing, right? Faith is, what, the foundation, but it's the foundation as it guards what it has as knowledge, right? But then when knowledge is perfected, like in the beauty of vision, there will be a more, what, perfect foundation, right, huh? And of course, God's, what, God's, God himself will be the form of which you understand God, huh? Kind of an amazing thing, right? That's the way Thomas kind of explains those words in the Psalms there. In your light, we shall see light, right? So God is both what we see in the beauty of vision, right? And that by which, in the form by which we see him, right? And, you know, you have to see God that way, huh? You couldn't see God through a created form, right? Because it wouldn't be adequate to representing God as he is, right? And, you know, it's interesting. I was reading the part of the Summa Contra Gentiles there, where Thomas is talking about the incarnation, right? And, you know, it's beautiful, beautiful the way he proceeds. It begins with all the heretics, right? And then he, you know, refutes them one by one, you know, with Scripture, through Scripture, right? So you know what the Church is teaching, right? And then he has objections to the possibility of it, right, for reason, right? And then he goes through and answers all those objections, right? And finally, he says, okay, now we know what the Church teaches, and we know that it's not impossible for God to become man, right? But now is it suitable to become man, right? That's the third thing, right, huh? And you have 24 arguments, you know, it's not suitable for God to become man. And then he answers all those and gives the reasons why this is the best way, you know, for God to work. And, but it's interesting. He gives, you know, in the chapter where he's showing it is suitable, the very first argument he gives is going back to the fact that what he's shown in the third book, that the end and purpose of man is to see God as he is, right, huh? And the only way you can see God as he is is if the form by which your reason is perfected to seeing God as he is is God himself, right? That God is therefore joined to your mind as the form by which you see God as he is, huh? And Thomas says, well, is it possible that God be joined to our mind, right, as the form by which we see, right? But when he became man, he joined what? Man to his very what? Person, right, huh? Well, that gives us hope. The lesser thing, right? He can be joined to our own mind as the form by which we see, right? That's a lesser union with him than there is in the incarnation itself, right? So if he could join, you know, himself to man as he did, right, in the incarnation, well, then, before it's the right, right, he can join himself to us as the form by which we will see him as he is, right? That's the first reason he gives, right? Because he means every kind of marvelous. You see that, huh? But then you have a different foundation for your, you know, foundation would not be faith anymore, right? It would be the very substance of God itself, right? It would be that convincing. It would make you see him as he is, huh? It's quite a thing. That's the first of the eight arguments he gives, right? And in the Summa Theologiae, when he takes that up, he gives ten arguments, right? But the interest is to compare them. They're kind of substantially the same. It's a little bit, you know, in one, not in the other, right? Sometimes the way it's said and so on. We can give us some. It was really kind of a marvelous, you know, consideration of incarnation, right, huh? You begin by, you know, what does the church say, you know, but it begins with the heretics and the misunderstandings of it, you know, reading out the scriptural text, you know, he needs to do that, and you say, okay, this is what the church holds, but then reason comes in there and says, you know, is that possible, you know, and all these reasons for it, you know, it can't be possible, and then Thomas answers all those, right, and he says, yeah, but isn't suitable he could come, you know, you know, give up the rule of the universe, come down here, you know, so, and Thomas says, you know what he does, you know, you know, and I'm prejudiced for the summa contra gentilis, huh? I tell you about a little joke, you know, a girl, you know, you see there, you know, he asked me, what's your favorite work of St. Thomas? And I say, of course, the summa contra gentilis, and he says, why? He says, well, you know, the edition I have is a bigger print than the Marietta, you know, it's kind of a small print, you know, and the edition I have of the summa contra gentilis they put out, you know, directly for the Milanite in text, you know, and so on, and it's got a bigger print, you know. So, he doesn't know how much I mean that, you know, but you wonder if your subconscious, as they say, you know, is influenced by the fact that it's a nice, easy text to read, you know, if you bring it in and compare it to the Marietta text, you know, so it's a bigger print, you know, it's nice to read. Press it, huh? Another thing you can do is, you know, you can download these things from Navarre, you know, you know how to do that, don't you? I don't really. Well, I showed you there, my own computer there, you know. So, you know, you can download a whole work of times, right? And then you can, you know, on a computer, you can make the printing smaller. So, if your eyesight starts to go or something, you know, you're getting old and you need bigger print, you know. And so, get a nice, nice-sized print and then come forward reading, you know. But before we had these, those machines, you know, you had a, whatever the size was in the book you had, right? The Marietti's got kind of a fine print, you know. You got a bigger print there, right? Well, this particular edition of the Sub-Gargenti's has a bigger print, so. And it probably influenced me in some ways, you know. I think there was a call to the book and how, you know, I saw it, right, you know. It'd be to make a mistake, you know, saying, you know, how you know something is more important than what you know, right? How you read it, you know. Big or small print, you know, than what you read. I like to think I'm reading something about what I read. He says, the third, he says, the solution is clear from those things which have been said, huh? You know, that's the distinction going back, right? So, just as our friend there, Joshua, could know, you know, the demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem and then the authority of Pythagoras himself, right, and the authority of what? Of Euclid, right, huh? Probable, right? If you take him as a subject, can he both be, what, believing, huh? Euclid and knowing that it is so? It's interesting, you know, if you get a teacher like Euclid or a teacher like Aristotle or Thomas, you know, at first you believe them, right, and then as you read them more carefully, you know, then you come to know that it is so, right, huh? And now it's no longer because you say that it is so, that I say it is so, or think it is so, but I see that it must be so, right? You really follow Euclid's article, you say, oh, now I see that it must be so, right? And it's not because Euclid says so, but I see why it must be so, right? And then I now no longer believe now, but I know. And so you see God as he is face to face, right? No longer believe that there are three persons in God. You see, well, of course there has to be. There has to be. You see, well, it must be so. You see, you'll see why it must be so, right? You know? Another thing to know you regarded an angel. You say you regarded an angel. Well, you've been on my life, you know? I've been near you. Sometimes I was a bit annoyed with you, but... Couldn't see what you thought of licorice or what you've got in chocolate or something else, or that's the big deal about those things. You know, Thomas has a beautiful passage there, you know, in the beginning of the Summa there, and the metaphors should be used in Scripture, right? And the objection says, you know, poetry is a metaphor, right? But poetry is infima doctrina, the lowest teaching, right? So how can the highest teaching have this, right? And he says, well, they both use metaphors because they're dealing with something beyond reason, right? But in one case, it's above reason and beyond in that way. In the other way, it's below reason, right? So the angel has some difficulty understanding why we like wine or why we like chocolate or something. It's below him, right? It's a little there to like, you know? How can we like it so much, you know? Right? See, now this is what I enjoy, you know? I enjoy this vision of God, right? I mean, I don't think... I've got a stop number, is it time 410? Is it just up there? We'll find out about hope next time, right? Let's have a prayer in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo Grazias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order them in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand what you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Just finished reading the 97th chapter of the fourth book of Summa Contra Gentiles. That's the end of the book. You haven't finished yet? That's the end of the book. That's it? Because I felt like Alexander, you know, no more worlds to conquer. What am I going to do? Hey, you can always start old. Well, I know that, but... I've got to take a little excursion there into the Potentia, you know, even though it's Summa Theologiae and so on. To the fourth one goes forward thus. It seems that hope remains after death in the state of glory, right? So we were joking about the fact that abandon all hope, be you enter. You said where I am here. As well as in hell. It doesn't remain up there, right? For hope, in a more noble way, perfects the human, what? Desiring power than the moral virtues. And that's true, isn't it? But the moral virtues humane after this life, as is clear through Augustine in the 14th book of the Trinity. Therefore, much more hope, right? That's a beautiful, what? Place there in dialectic, right? Because they're more noble than the moral virtues. It seems less apt to belong to the moral virtues to survive in the state of perfection, right? Than hope. So if the ones that are less apt to survive, survive, well, then they fortiori, the more noble ones, are going to survive. Moreover, to hope is opposed, what? Fear, right? Right, huh? But fear remains after this life. Ah, Lord adores for everything else. Yeah. And in the blessed, there is, what? The filial fear, right? Which remains in saquilum, right? And of course, in the damned, there's the fear of punishments, huh? Therefore, hope, for like reason, is able to, what? Remain, huh? They're like contraries, you know? Same genus, right? Moreover, just as hope is of a future good, so also is desire. But in the blessed, there is a desire of a future good, both as regards the glory of the body, right? Which the souls of the blessed desire, as Augustine says, huh? In the twelfth book, upon Genesis to litter. So there's still a desire for something there, right, huh? If you have the beatification there, huh? And even also, as regards the glory of the soul, according to that of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 24. Who eat me will still, what? Be hungry. And who drink me, right, will still be thirsty, huh? And in 1 Peter 1, verse 12, in whom the angels desire to look upon, right, huh? Therefore, it seems that there can be hope after this life in the blessed, huh? What a beautiful argument, so-so, huh? What a mind this guy had, huh? Should we envy him, Joshua? What do you think? Huh? Is he so superior to us? We envy the excellence of his mind? What do you think? Is there such a holy envy? The envy is really a horrible thing, right, huh? But it starts over even good things, right? But against this is what the Apostle says, Roman 8. What someone sees, what does he hope for, right? But the blessed see that which is the object of hope, to it, God. Therefore, they do not, what? Hope. I answer it should be said, that as has been said, that whose definition implies, what? Imperfection. An imperfection of the subject, right? That kind of imperfection. Is not able to stand at the same time with the subject perfected by the opposite, what? Perfection. Perfection, huh? Okay. The opposite of the imperfection of the subject. Just as it is clear that motion is very, what? The opposite definition implies the imperfection of the subject. For it is the act of what exists in ability insofar as it's of the sort. It's still, what? Inability, right? It's not fully realized, right? So as Aristóteles says in the Ninth Book of Wisdom, right? When you're walking home, you haven't walked home yet. When you understand what a triangle is, you have understood what a triangle is. So that's like a perfect act, right? But motion is, by its very definition, imperfect act. So it's said to be the act of the able insofar as it is in ability, right? It's not yet fully, what? Realized, yeah. That's a beautiful thing. When that potency is reduced to act, the motion, what? Ceases, right? When the house is finally built, right? You become fully healthy, recovered from your, whatever you had. I thought you were just playing, you know. Yeah, well. For it is not yet, what? It's not still being whitened when it has been made white. But hope implies a certain motion towards that which is not had, right? As it's clear from those things which have been said above about the passion of hope. And therefore, when that is had, which has been hoped for, to wit, the enjoyment of the divine, right? There can no longer be what? Hope. No discussion. Yeah. Period. Unlike Obama's periods, right? Where he goes on. You've got to tell me he's the word period, you know. I could keep your, your, your thing, your health plan where it is. Period. Yeah. It's a moving target. Now, what does he say, though, to these wonderful objections? I love these objections. To the first, therefore, it should be said that hope is more noble than the moral virtues as regards the object, which is God. But the acts of the moral virtues are not repugnant to the perfection of, what? The attitude, huh? Just as the acts of hope. Except perhaps by reason of the matter, right? According to which they do not, what? Remain, huh? So I won't be struggling to eat a, like, a minimal amount of candy or something, right? Steak. Or not drink too much or something, right? I won't be eating at all, right? We'll be eating, but not the food. Yeah, there is a feast, but it's not food for the table. But moral virtue does not perfect the appetite only in that which is not yet had, right? But also about that which is had, what? In the presence, yeah. Now, let's take an example there, you know. Suppose I guess that there are three persons in God, right? Well, it's a very noble act, a very noble object that I had there, right? The Trinity, right, huh? But considering me subject, in my subject, right? There's imperfection there, right? If I'm guessing there are three persons in God, I don't, strictly speaking, know that there are three persons in God, right? So when I see God as he is, face to face, right, then I will know there's three persons in God, right? Of course there has to be. Together ones. And then, what? Could I still be guessing? No. But I bet even when I see God as he is face to face, I'll continue to know the Pythagorean theorem. Wouldn't you say so, Joshua? Even though it's a much lesser thing to know than the Trinity, right? So my guess, if I have a guess, if I'm not a believer, I guess that there are three persons in God, right? I have a more noble object than knowing the Pythagorean theorem, right? But the way in which me as a subject possesses that object is, by definition, imperfect, right? Even the great Socrates says there in the Mino, right? There's a difference between knowing and guessing. When I say this, I'm not guessing. Which is unusual for Socrates to say that, right? Because he's famous always for saying, I don't know, I don't know. He's always trying to avoid the terrible thing of thinking you know what you don't know, right? But here he comes out and he says, yeah. And even if someone says, Socrates, oh, you don't know, you're just guessing, that person is making the same distinction, right? So the distinction is altogether, what, stable, certain, right? There is a distinction between knowing and guessing. You may not always know whether you're guessing or knowing, right? But there's still, even in that case, there's still a distinction, right, between knowing and guessing. And Socrates is always warning you about thinking you know when you don't know, right? So you can think you know when you don't know, but that doesn't destroy the distinction between knowing and guessing. To a second, it should be said that fear is twofold. Servile, or slavish, fear, and filial fear, right? As will be said below, right? But briefly, what is the difference between servile fear and filial fear, right? Yeah. In servile fear, I fear to what? Be punished by God, right? But filial fear, I fear to be separated from him, right? Okay. So I treat him very verbally, right? For servile, oh, he's telling us here. I'm just reading, you know, there's testimonies to MacArthur there, and the latest thing that came, you know, from Thomas Aquinas there. And some of us say, you know, that Ron MacArthur taught them, you know, when you read Thomas, you've got to read them sentence by sentence. So I don't know if they make sense of a thing, right? So servile, slavish fear, is the fear of punishment, which is not able to be in glory, right? So those who see God face to face, they can't fear that God will ever punish them now, right? There being no possibility remaining for punishment, they can't sin anymore. But filial fear has two acts, huh? Well, this is very extremely interesting. To wit, to what? Reverence, God, right, huh? As regards this act, it, what? Remains, huh? And to fear is separation from him, right? As regards this act, it does not, what? Remain. So once you see God face to face, you don't, what? You know that this is going to last forever, right? And so you don't have any fear that you will be, what? They're separated from God. To be separated from God has the definition or the aspect of, what? Something bad, right? But no, nothing bad will be feared there, right? According to that of Proverbs 1.33, right? You will, what? Rejoice in abundance, the fear of evil things being taken away, huh? That's a beautiful text there, huh? But fear is opposed to hope by the opposition of, what? Good and bad, huh? As he said above. And therefore, the fear which remains in glory is not opposed to, what? Hope, right? Rejoice in abundance, the fear of evil things being taken away from God, right? They're talking about this fear that remains even in the vision, right? And it's kind of like the last meaning of fear, right? Because you've almost lost the object of something, but bad, right? There's still a reverence of God, you know, when you see his infinite perfection, right? And you're just, you know, nothing in comparison to him, right? And there's kind of a reverence there, but reverence is kind of what? You know, it's the least kind of fear in a sense, right, huh? Yeah, the fear of the wolf. Yeah, yeah. It says in Hebrews that when he prayed on the cross, he was heard for his reverence. Yeah. My teacher, Kassar, there, you know, the clients up there, giving his talk there at the seminary, you know, and some little problem with the microphone, and Kassar jumped out of the audience, wrapped his thing, picked up his shirt, went back at that. It's reverence, you know? But in the damned, there's more able to be the fear of punishment than in the, what? Blessed the hope of, what? Glory, right? Why? Because in the damned, there is a succession of, what? Punishments. You go from the hot to the cold, and back again, they say. And that's the remains there, the ratio of the future, right? Which is the object of, what? Fear, right? So you first define hope and fear, they're in regard to something in the future, right? Just like desire and version, right? As opposed to love and hate, which can be in the presence of the object as well as the absence, and joy and pain, which is in the presence of their objects. But the glory of the saints is without succession. Why? Because it's according to a certain partaking of eternity. And so we call it eternal life, right? Tauta simo. Yeah. Because it's the definition of eternity. Yeah. What's the definition of eternity? The one that we use? Tauta simo. The perfecta. Possession. Fide. Interredavit. Very good. And who gave that definition? Who gave that definition? Yeah. Thomas takes it over, and bit by bit he prefers it. Yeah. That's what he made it, isn't he? I think Thomas had a great deal of respect for what we think, son. Mm-hmm. In which there is no before and after, but only the present. Okay? There's no before and after in God, huh? You know, God is before us, right? Mm-hmm. But God the Father is not before the Son, and the Father and the Son are not before the Holy Spirit. And Thomas would take that up, and he takes up the Trinity, huh? But nevertheless, not even in the damned is there, what, properly fear, huh? Because just as has been said above, fear is never without some hope of, what, evasion, which altogether in the damned will not be, right? Mm-hmm. Whence neither, what, fear, right? Except, kimuni te alo kwendo, right? Mm-hmm. According as any expectation of a future evil is said to be fear, right? It's more like dread. Yeah. I thought that despair was the contrary. Well, hope and fear are the, what, principle of passions, huh? Despair is kind of accidental in a sense because its object is something good, right? And the good is more something that you approach, right? So the despair arises because you don't think you can attain the good, right? That's kind of secondary with regard to the good, huh? And fear is more the natural thing with regard to the bad, the boldest way over it, towards the evil, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the definition of comedy, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the truth, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the truth, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the truth, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the truth, right? I'll tell you, you know, when I was trying to think out the truth, right?