Prima Secundae
Lecture 205: God's Causality of Sin and Divine Punishment

Transcript
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The second one precedes thus. It seems that the act of sin is not from God. For Augustine says in the book on the perfection of justice. He's got a lot of books, Augustine or whoever he is. That the act of sin is not some thing, right? Well, this is Augustine's act, I suppose, too. Eve was, what, nothing, huh? The man who sins becomes nothing, right? Kind of a way of emphasizing how that Eve was basically a, what? A lack, huh? None being of something he's able to have and should have. It doesn't have. Everything over that is from God, by God, is some thing, right? Therefore, the act of sin is not from God. I've got to watch Augustine's way of speaking sometimes, huh? Moreover, man is not said to be the cause of sin, except because man is the cause of the act of sin. But no one intending to evil works, huh? Or does something, as Dionysius says, huh? Everybody, because we all want, huh? But God is not a cause of sin, as has been said. Therefore, God is not the cause of the act of sin, huh? Moreover, some acts, according to their species, are evil, right? And sins, as has been said above, huh? Whatever is a cause of something is a cause of that which belongs to it, according to its, what? Species. If, therefore, God is the cause of the act of sin, we would follow that he was the cause of, what? Sin. But this is not true, as has been shown. Therefore, God is not the cause of the act of, what? Sin, huh? Against this, the act of sin is a certain motion of free judgment, huh? Free will. But the will of God is the cause of all motions, as Augustine says in the third book of the Trinity. And Aristotle says, too. Therefore, the will of God is the cause of the act of the sin, huh? But maybe he's not the cause of the, what? Privation, huh? The answer should be said that the act of sin both is a being and is a, what? Act. And from both of these, it has to be something from, what? God. For every being, in whatever way it is, necessarily, right, is derived from the first, what? Being, huh? As is clear through Dionysius in the fifth chapter in the divine names, huh? I guess you're not too sure exactly who Dionysius is, huh? They don't think he's a Dionysius that was converted by Paul. So he's called Dionysius the Arapagite and then the Pseudor Arapagite. Yeah, Pseudor Arapagite. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Oh. So now they're there. I'm going to decide if they're St. Mary. Well, yeah, St. Thomas would respect for him, you know, like, you know, he doesn't attain to Dionysius' understanding of things, you know, he's trying his best, you know, to, and I don't remember him saying that even about Augustine or even Aristotle, you know, interesting. Every action is caused from something existing in act, because nothing acts except according as it is an act. But every being in act is reduced to the, what, first act, huh? which is the pure act, huh, to God as in a cause, who is, to his essence, right, act, huh? So it's pure act, huh? Once it remains that God is the cause of every action insofar as it is a, what, action, huh? But sin names being an action with a certain defect, huh? And that defect is from a created, what, cause, namely, libero obitrio, huh, judgment, huh? Insofar as it, what, falls short, huh, from the order of the first, what, agent, huh, to wit, God. Whence this defect is not reduced in God as in a cause, but in free, what, judgment, huh? Just as, this is a very common example of time, Jesus, the defect of, what, limping, I guess, right? Is reduced in the curved, what, tibia? Okay. As in a cause, not in the motive power, right, huh? From which, nevertheless, is caused whatever there is of motion in the, what, limping, huh? And according to this, God is the cause of the act of the sin, not, however, insofar, but he's not, however, is the cause of sin, because he's not a cause of this, that the act is with a, what, defect. It's, I just looked it up, but it says the inner, this is the English definition, the inner and typically larger are the two bones between the knee and the ankle, so it's actually one of two bones, but generally, in Latin, I prefer the shin bone, but I guess since there's two there, I prefer the one, it's more precise than the hand is. Okay, so if I'm thinking, you know, is God the cause of my thinking? Yeah, is it the cause of my being deceived? Yeah, making a mistake? Being deceived by the fallacy of equivocation or some other fallacy, you know? I'm responsible for the defect there, right? I got up to Laval there after I was, you know, out teaching assumption, you know, by doctrine, so I'd go up there, you know, sometimes I'd run into, you know, somebody's student there, you know, and I said, what's Dionne talking about these days, right? And I get kind of a garbled version of what Dionne is saying, and I can recognize right away, you know, that they haven't understood Dionne, you know, and therefore, I know where the defect is coming, though, in their account of what Dionne said, right? I'm sure you didn't say it quite that way, you know, or you didn't quite say it the way you, you got it, you know, huh? Yeah, that's like, I'll beat it. Yeah, I used to teach sometimes, you know, the books of the physics there, and you do the definition of motion, so, you know, and one time I just, for the fun of it, I took the different misquoting of the definition, just, you know, and garbled, and somebody's really, you know, giving a false meaning to it, right? It's surprising how many different, you know, a whole page of them. So there were a few students here at the beginning that got exactly right, you know, the way to explain it, but, you know, a large number of them have been able to repeat what you said, right? Or repeat what Aristotle said, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the students wrote a whole paper on this notion of Scotus of thinness. Because he couldn't read how he wrote it on the board. Whatever it was, it wasn't what Scotus said. Yeah, yeah. But there's like a great pianist who's playing the piano, you know, if one of the keys was defective, right, and he hits it, you know, and then, is he responsible for that? See? But what there is of sound there, you know, he hit the key. I mean, he's responsible for the sound, right? But not for the defect in the sound, right? Thank you. To the first there, therefore it should be said that Augustine names there a thing, that which is a thing, what? To it, what? A substance, but thus the act of the sin is not a thing, right? So that's a little different explanation than what I was giving, right? From the text of Augustine there. Some of these objections are taken just from the famous text, but people are misunderstanding the text, right? You have to correct them. The second should be said that in man, as in a cause, it's reduced not only the act, but also the defect, because he is not subject to the one to whom he ought to be subject, right? Even though he himself does not intend this, what? Principally, right? And therefore man is the cause of what? Sin. But God thus is the cause of an act that in no way is he a cause of the defect accompanying the act, and therefore he is not a cause of what? Sin. You know, they talk about God giving the human soul there in generation and so on, which he does. And of course, one of the objections, of course, is, well, what about this adulterous thing, you know? There isn't God cooperating with sin, right? He's a cause of what is natural in the act, right? But he's not a cause of the disorder in the adulterous act, right? So he's not, in that sense, cooperating with the adultery, right? He's cooperating with what? Nature, right? What about this third dejection of species, huh? It's a very subtle point now. To third, it should be said that, as has been said above, acts and habits do not receive their species from the privation itself, right? In which consists the ratio of evil, right? But from some object to which is joined such a privation. And thus, that defect, which is not said to be, what? Pertains to the species of the act consequent there, consequently. And not as worry, what, specific difference, huh? It comes up with, you know, that same distinction there where you're talking about, well, nobody, what's this, a quote there from, and he said earlier there, where he said that no one acts except for the good, right? So how does the evil arrive, right, huh? The evil, the good, is what? Yeah, but it's attached to some kind of, what, lack, right, huh? Okay. So does the sinner want to be punished, right? No, that's a consequence of what he's done, right, huh? It's something that follows upon it, right? Is this, there's some connection to human life, to human, human life, God creating the soul, there's original sin there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're responsible for the defect, right? There's nothing. The sinner becomes nothing. Custin says that. We are emphasizing that. But the God is... the cause of what? Blinding, right? And hardening. There's a lot of people blind in our society now and hardened hearts. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that God is not the cause of blinding and of what? The hardening of the heart. For Augustine says in the book on the 83 questions, that God is not the cause that a man become worse, right? But to blindness and, what's the best way to translate that? Obduracy. Obduracy, yeah. Hardness of heart, right? A man becomes what? Worse, right? Therefore God is not the cause of blindness and the hardening of the heart. Moral Fulgencia says that God is not the, what, avenger, is it? Of that thing of which he is the, what? Author. But God is the punisher of a, what? Yeah. That he, heart and heart. The end, yeah. Yeah, the last day, huh? It's called me vissimoi. It's always kind of, by the way, speaking in Latin. The vissimoi means the last day. Hard, hard, hard. Yeah. Therefore God is not the cause of the hardness of the heart. Moreover, the same effect is not attributed to contrary causes. But the cause of blindness is said to be the malice of man, right? According to that of Wisdom, Chapter 2. That their malice has blinded them, right? And also the devil, according to that of 2 Corinthians. The God of this age, right, has blinded the minds of the faithless, the unfaithful. Which causes seem to be contrary to God, right? Therefore God is not the cause of blindness or of the hardening of the heart, huh? It's your malice or the devil. Blinds the minds of men, right? But against this is what is said in Isaiah, Chapter 6. Blind the heart of this people, right? And way down there, what? Years, huh? It's interesting. In Romans 9. Whom he wishes, he has mercy on. And whom he wishes, he, what? Hardens. It's frightening, huh? The answer should be said that blinding and becoming hardened imply two things, huh? One of which is the motion of the human soul adhering to the evil, right, huh? And turned away from the, what? Divine might. Don't tell me, I don't want to know. It teaches that you fear my freedom. Yeah, I was reading something there about this, one of those crazy committees there, uh, committees there, the United Nations there, you know, the one on, uh, cruelty, you know? They tried to attack the Vatican for being cruel for their teaching on, on, on fornication, and, um, you know, I mean, on contraception, and so on, and abortion, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cruelty. We want children to live. And he's thinking about Islam's teaching. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's, that's, it's the same way, but, that's, that's, that's, it's the same way, but, that's the point, right? Ram, Ram Emanuel calls them as Islam, these Muslim guys to patrol the neighborhoods of Chicago, right? But it, he, Ram Emanuel is in favor of the gay marriage, but, but Islam, it's the death penalty for that. But he'd seem to turn a blind eye to that one, and as regards this, right? God is not the cause of blindness, right? And of the hardening of the heart, just as he is not the cause of what? Sin, huh? Another thing, however, is the subtraction of grace, right? From which it follows that the mind, right? Is not divinely illumined to seeing correctly, right? And the heart of man is not what? To living will. And that's interesting there, just that text there, because it makes you see the difference between those two words, not just synonyms, are they? Exce kationis is more in the mind, right? The reason that it's blind, it doesn't see, and the hardening is in the heart, right? In the will, okay? You see that when he says there that, um, mens non illuminator ad recti videndum, it's not enlightened to seeing correctly, right? And the heart of man, huh? Is not softened to living, what? Well, huh? It's interesting, isn't it? You know, is a soft heart good? But a hard heart didn't seem to be good, right? But hard-headed seemed to be good, right? And soft in the head. I gave a talk one time, and I forget where I was, some college, on the contrariety, right, huh? Of reason and the will, right? A kind of contrariety, not a, it's not simply a contrariety, you know? But you see in these words, right, huh? Kind of striking, huh? I'm kind of puzzled by this, this way of speaking, you know, talking about time there, with these students that are coming to the house there. And that's the expression we have in English, we say, what time is it, right? And you say, well, okay, it's, uh, 3.06, huh? Is 3.06 time, or an example of time? It's a now, but it's not time, see? Now if I say, you know, what day is today, right? Well, today, I guess, is, uh, Thursday, right, huh? Well, a day is a part of time, right, huh? You see, what time is it? I'm not asking for, uh, what day it is, or what, uh, month it is, what year it is, right? All which are parts of time, right? But what time is it? It's 3.06. It's not a part of time, because it's something indivisible, right? Let's see. When I say 3.06, I mean, that's supposed to be pinpointing it, right, huh? You see? But, you know, it is a line composed of points, and is a, um, is time composed of nouns, huh? Or is anything continuous composed of indivisibles, right? Aristotle will argue against this, right, in the Sixth Book of Natural Hearing. It's interesting our way of speaking, right, huh? Where I say now, like, we meet, you know, we start at 7 o'clock, right? And we end at 9 o'clock, right, so people can get home and not be tired the next day, right, huh? So, uh, we begin at 7. Was that a part of time, the beginning? The way of speaking is kind of interesting, isn't it? What time is it? What time o'clock is it? What time is it? But you said it's between 306 and 307. Is that what you need to name the time? Yeah. Well, if I say, you know, we meet in the evening, right? We don't meet in the morning or in the afternoon. Well, the morning and the afternoon and the evening are all different parts of time, right? I say, we meet at seven o'clock. Don't be late. Well, seven o'clock sometime. It's kind of mysterious, you know, to see this, right? I was reading the Second Book of Wisdom, reading it, the short book there, Second Book of Wisdom. And it's divided into three parts. And the first part is how man is towards knowing the truth. And the second part is to what reason out knowledge does the knowledge of truth belong most of all? And then in what third part is in what way a man ought to pursue the truth, right? Anyway, the first part is kind of beautiful how man is towards the truth, right? Because Aristotle says that in some ways it's easy to know the truth. In other ways it's difficult, right? And he says it's easy to know the truth insofar as everybody, right, sees some part of the truth however small and insignificant it might be in life, huh? Even if you make McDonald hamburgers all day long, that's your life, you're going to see something about hamburgers and how it turns cup and so on with the heat and so on. Because he's on the part of the truth about things, right? And then he says that there's a part of the truth that everybody sees. Like, you know, the axioms on the hoe is more than a part, right? So you can't go through life without seeing that, right? Everybody knows the hoe is more than a part, right? And if someone says he doesn't know it, we'll give him part of his salad this week. Or part of his dinner, you know, when he orders it. And part of a car when he buys a car. So he'll fully admit then that the part is not equal to the whole, right? And then he says through the efforts of many men, right? You know, you get a certain bulk even of truth, right? Then he turns to the difficulty of truth, right? And he says, well, there's two causes of difficulty. It can be in the object or it can be in the, what? The subject, right? So I used to take the example there, you know. Some things are hard to love, right? If you find it hard to love God or hard to love wisdom, is it defect in the thing or in you? Yeah. If you don't love the common good, right? It's hard to love the common good, right? People are kind of selfish and so on. But there, the difficulty is not in the common good not being very good. It's very good. But the difficulty is in you, right? But if you find it difficult to love cancer, is it difficulty in you? Well, it's in the object, right? He says the same way in knowing that, right? He's giving the reason why mathematics is easier for us than natural philosophy and easier than wisdom, right? But the difficulty, the reason why natural philosophy is more difficult than mathematics is in the thing. Because these things hardly, what? Exist, right? He says, you know, time is what? In the past and in the future, but the past no longer is. The future is not yet. So time doesn't even seem to exist, right? It hardly exists. But the difficulty of wisdom is the weakness of our mind. You say, but I think what you're saying, you say, what time is it, you know? Natural area? No, no, this is the second book of wisdom, right? But if somebody doesn't love salmon, is the problem a thing? Oh, definitely, definitely. You objected. You hit it. You hit it. You hit it. You hit it. You hit it. You hit it. A man prefers beer to wine. Yeah, difficulties in him, you know. He prefers Beethoven to Mozart. Difficulty is in him, you know. You know, at DC Kings 7, he got to recording the solo piano music of Mozart. There's only Mozart. You had Wagner, huh? Yeah, one of the guys on Sunday there when we count the money there, one of the guys, I was electing for Wagner, you know. Puts him in the company of mad Ludwig and the king and Hitler and so on. But anyway, I said, you know what Wagner said about Mozart, huh? He said, Mozart is above all the masters in all the arts and in all the ages. Wow. That's pretty, isn't it? That's pretty. Yeah. Sometimes I get into a bad habit there, you know. I'm reading something when I'm listening to Mozart. I say, we should just, you know, put the books down and just listen to the Mozart and make my cousin's advice, you know. Okay. So this is beautiful, huh? This distinction here, huh? So it's the subtraction of grace. As regards this, God is the cause of what? Blindness, right? And the hardening of the heart, right? Now, it should be considered that God is the universal cause of the enlightenment of souls. According to that of John 1, 9. He was the, what? True light, which enlightens every man coming in this world, huh? Just as the sun, huh? His universal cause of the enlightening of bodies, huh? He gets a nice little comparison there, huh? But the sun in a different way than God, right? Aliterat, Talmud Aliterat. For the soul acts by enlightening through the necessity of, what? Nature, huh? So nature operates, what? You might say automatically, right, huh? In the presence of its object, huh? So fire burns, right? The paper's put in front of it. But God acts voluntarily through the order of his, what? Wisdom, huh? So the sun, although as far as from itself, it enlightens all bodies, right, huh? If, however, it finds some impediment in some body, it leaves that, what? Dark, right, huh? This is clear about the house whose windows are closed, huh? But nevertheless of that obscurity, in no way is the sun a cause, huh? For it's not by its judgment that the, what? Light is not brought in intimately, right? But the cause is only the one who closes the, what? Yeah. I suppose you have these any of the wooden things, don't you? Closing shutters. Shudders, yeah. I mean, so that you really exclude the thing. God, however, by his own judgment, right, does not send the light of grace in those in whom he, what, finds an obstacle, right, huh? Whence the cause of the subtraction of grace is not only the one who places an obstacle to grace, right? But also God, who by his judgment is not only the one who places an obstacle to grace, right? But also God, who by his judgment is not only the one who places an obstacle to grace, right? judgment does not what place you know place the grace there and in this way god is a cause of what of blindness right unless he's got three things here now right because the eyes and the ears are both used in instruction right and in this way god is the cause of blindness and of the what weighing down of the ears but it's you have been in the in the um actually apostles there you know where then they close up their ears and then the stephen was preaching and they didn't want to hear yeah yeah and they closed their ears and they shouted yeah yeah and in this way god is the cause of blindness and of the the weighing down of the ears huh and of the hardness of the what heart then it goes back to just two which are distinguished according to the effect of grace which both perfects the understanding by the gift of what wisdom that's one that gives the holy spirit and what softens the affection by the fire of what charity and because for the knowledge of the understanding most of all served to what senses to wit sight and hearing of whom the one serves for what discovery by oneself as it were to wit sight and the other to what being taught namely hearing therefore as regards seeing the sight is laid down what blindness as regards hearing the what yeah how do they translate that weighing down in your english text heaviness of the ears what heaviness of the ears yeah yeah weighing them down that's kind of interesting you know i mean uh why do they do that uh you know instead of saying closing the ears or something right yeah why do they say they're weighing down huh yeah you know you speak of someone who listens well and someone just light ears i don't understand that comparison you know that that is the word that's interesting i suppose if your ear is weighed down it's not an alert to hearing something huh yeah so as regards sight he lays down blinding because he hears the hair weighing down of the ears as regards the affection they're hardening huh to the first therefore it should be said this is the idea about making a man worse that sense blinding and hardening from the side of the what subtraction of grace are certain what punishments huh from this part what by him a man is not made worse huh but he's what brought back to order right but being made worse through guilt he encouraged these things just as other what punishments huh second objection huh that objection proceeds about hardening according as it is what guilt right huh goes back to the beginning of the body article again too right we talked about that right the motion of the what human heart adhering to evil and turned away from the divine light and as regards this god is not the cause of these things huh malice huh talking about malice now huh malice is a cause of blindness that demerits blindness right huh i guess there's some kind of blindness in the devils too now you see yeah yeah just as guilt is the cause of what punishment right and in this way also the devil is said to what blind in so far as he induces one to what to guilt right i mean apart from that the devil himself suffers a student blindness now right because of uh his sin right pride behind you i guess huh but thomas says blindness i mean pride is the cause of error right in two ways huh in one way because it makes you what evaluate yourself as better than you are and therefore you apply your mind to judging something unable to judge and therefore you make a mistake easily and then the other way is what that doesn't make you you don't want to listen to the teacher right huh all those seven deadly sins three to some form one form of blindness or another yeah we'll be coming to those sins pretty soon here all at a good time my friend can't get out of order here you see and uh take it before you get there yeah she's going to article four here before you take our break here but here you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then you see and then