Prima Secundae
Lecture 219: The Stain of Sin: Privation and Spiritual Defacement

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So now we go to the macula peccati. What does that mean? The stain, I guess, would be the way to translate it. I was reading Thomas this morning, you know, in the day of Veritate, and the first article is whether there's sciencia in God, right? I said, why does he choose the word sciencia, right? Because one of the objections against saying there's sciencia in God is that there's no, what, discourse in God. God is in syllogizing, no reason from one thing to another, right? Yeah, that's what Euclid does when he demonstrates something, right? He reasons from one thing to another. Well, Thomas says, when you carry something over to God, you drop anything that's imperfect, right? Now, the idea of sciencia is that there's, you know, discourse, right? Also, when the idea of science is that it's certain, right? So when you demonstrate, you know, the interior angles of a triangle, the right angles, you're certain that this is so, right? So when you carry the word sciencia over to God, we drop this idea of discourse, but the idea of certitude, we keep that, you know? Now, one of the texts that you had there in the Sid Contra, I mean, you had the junction saying that God is in heaven, and then Sid Contra was taken from St. Paul, huh? And was it the first epistle of the Colossians, chapter 11, I think, verse 1, where Paul says, Oh, the treasures of God's wisdom. And of course, Latin says, the sapientia, you know, and sciencia of God, right? I said, I don't think that the Greek word that they have there in the Latin text, the sciencia, that's in that quote, would be in the Greek, right? It wouldn't be that word epistemia, which would be the Greek word for sciencia there, you know? And so I was like looking up in my Greek there, Greek thing, and you have, you know, Sophia, but then you have, instead of sciencia, you have kenosis, right? Just the common word for knowledge, right? So you don't have this problem about discourse there, right? I said, oh, Thomas there, now I've got you there. Yeah, you kind of went to Greek. It's funny, being from Southern Italy, you didn't know some Greek. Yeah, yeah. But I was kind of struck by, you know, by the fact that the first article, right, and the second question of the De Veritate, he thinks of God, right, is using the word sciencia, right? Kind of interesting. He says some very interesting things in the article, though, nevertheless. I mean, the Summa Karni Gentile is backwards, huh? I mean, excuse me, the De Veritate backwards. So I did the 10th question first, right, which is about the human mind, right? And then I did 8 and 9, which are about the angelic mind, and the 8th one especially, the 9th one is about the conversation of the angels, right? They're illuminating and talking to each other. How's an angel talking to the angel? Very interesting stuff, you know. And now I'm going back to the second article where he takes up God's mind, right? I've often thought, you know, if you had to teach, you know, roughly to people who knew not much, the Summa Theologiae, it would be given the treatise on the soul, right? And they get to understand the human mind and so on. And then go to the treatise on the angels and finally go to God's mind, right? And Thomas often says that, you know, the De Anima, right, where you take up the first title, where you take up the third book, you know, the human mind and so on, is the gateway for us to understand in some way God and the angels, right? Even though there are many differences between them and our understanding, right? But you have to have some understanding of understanding, right? And of the fact that it's something immaterial and so on before you can go and study the angels, right? So I'm kind of, you know, going... Oh, yeah. Yeah. I watch these words sometimes, huh? Sometimes I find the words of Latin, they don't correspond exactly to the Greek, you know? I know it's a big deal, but I'm not... But myself in trouble with it, Thomas. If you knew the word gnosis, you'd say probably just knowledge, you know, probably something like that. Yeah, yeah. You know, when he's considering there the objections there, taking up God's knowledge, and he's giving kind of some false understandings of it, you know, first, you know, and then trying to show the difficulties and these understandings and so on. And some want to say that God is said to have shensia, just like he said to have anger, right? Well, of course, God is said to have anger only, what, metaphorically, right? And by likeness in the effect of anger, and God's having that same effect of punishing, right? But I was kind of struck by it because he gives example of anger and mercy, see? Then he goes on and he just exemplifies in detail. Think about anger, why we use that metaphorically of God. But it's interesting, huh, that he first sees mercy like anger being the name of a, what, emotion or passion, and therefore they're being said of God by reason of a likeness of their effects or something, right? Rather than the thing itself, right? But it seems to me that in the Summa, the Lord, when you get to the question on, you know, mercy and justice and God, mercy is no longer a, what, being used as a metaphor, right? But it's now, you know, the name. Why, anger, I think, it must be always, always remains a metaphor, huh? We never really say that anger is the name of divine, of justice. You know, it becomes the name of justice, right? But mercy becomes the name of God's will, right? You know, to relieve the misery of the creature, right? Yeah. So very, very seldom use these words, huh? You can be very, very careful how you use them. I was talking to them last night again about the definition of reason there, where the word discourses, is what's used, right? And discourse is taken from what part of our body? Yeah, yeah. It comes from the word for running, right? And the word course is in there, right? And so it's taken from the legs, right? And then I was saying, now I love Friar Lawrence's words on stumbling, right? And he says two things about stumbling in the Roman and Juliet. Wisely and slow, they stumble, they run fast. And later on he says, revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. And it kind of struck me. He said, stumbling from what part of the body? Yeah, the same thing as the discourse, right? Both discourse and stumbling originally named something with the what? The legs. You run by your legs, right? And you stumble by your legs. Like on the ice here, you know? I didn't wonder. So, that's pretty interesting, you know? But once in a while we used the word, you know what? Grass. Grass, that's taken from the hand, huh? But I suppose we identify going from here to there, you know, more with the feet. And the hand, most of them don't go from here to there. But by the hand, the idea of grassing something, where you're not going from one thing to another, right? But just getting a hold of it, huh? It struck me, huh? How interesting the words. What? So you're not seeing and looking too, huh? Yeah, yeah. But I just think, you know, the use of the word stumbling, you see, because there's two ways you can understand a mistake in thinking, right? And one is wise and slow. They stumble. They run fast. Well, your starting point is not necessarily bad, right? Or corrupt. But you run too fast, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what? Well, the other mistake is there's kind of corruption in the very beginning of your thinking, right? So the one who revolts from true birth. And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? And then the other mistake you can make is what you're going to do with your thinking, right? stumbles on abuse, right, so you can, if your principle is wrong, right, or your starting point is wrong, then you're going to stumble. That's the more serious one, right? But even if your starting point is good, not corrupt or anything like that, you can still stumble by, you know, I said, we speak of a jumping to a conclusion, right? I said, what does the word jumping come from? What part of the body? Well, that's the legs too, right, huh? Yeah, jumping, stumbling, and what? Discourse, right? But all three are taken from the, what? Yeah. Now, of course, Fire Lawrence's words to Romeo, wisely and slow, they stumble and run fast, right? He's not using running for discourse, but for what? Action, right, huh? Okay? Like in our founding documents, within the course of human events, right, right, huh? You're talking about, you know, actions and so on, right? Things being done. But then you can apply it, you know, to the mind, right? Just like in calculating, right? You can make a mistake and add it and subtract it because you go too fast or because you have a little bit more nervous. You know? Yeah. Fire Lawrence said something like, Romeo, don't bite off four that you can chew, ruminate on this. Yeah, yeah. That way you'll, you know, digest it. Yeah, yeah. Sort of using different parts of the body. Yeah. Or saying a similar kind of thing. But waifus will talk about ruminating, you know, you know, when you twist it over your mind, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because the animals, I guess, have got an extra stomach or something like that and they can bring it up and chew it again, right, and so on. That's what you have to do, huh? It's kind of marvelous to see the way these things are named, huh? That's a difficult thing to say, right? We're talking about the word anger and mercy, right? I was talking about. Thomas put them alongside each other there in the text there. Because he's saying knowledge is not said of God because he does something like the one who knows. That's like a metaphor, right? He's rejecting that, huh? But then the word mercy, I think, is not what? Yeah, I don't think in the Summa there when he talks about the mercy and justice of God. Mercy is being used as a metaphor. It's not proper to argumentative thing, as Dionysius says, right? You know, to use metaphors, right? And so you're really speaking properly when you say, God is merciful. Right? But anger is, you know, it remains a metaphor, right? It doesn't become a meaning of the word anger, does it? Justice? No. You've got to pay attention to these words, huh? So let's look at the stain of sin here now. Is that a metaphor? And about this, two things are asked. Whether the stain of the soul is an effect of sin, huh? Secondly, whether it remains in the soul after the act of sin has, what, passed away, right? To the first, then, one goes forward thus. It seems that sin does not cause a stain in the soul. Well, it's glad to know that, right? Okay, let's see, let's see. I hope he doesn't change his mind again. He does every time, huh? It's always good. I've never seen a man change his mind so much, do you? Used to be a guy in graduate school, you know, who could imitate the professors and all their little mannerisms and so on. And at the Christmas party, you know, he'd kind of get himself in the front there, he'd take on the professor so-and-so. He didn't say who he was, take you off, everybody knew, recognize in a way. He was so clever, he could imitate, you know, all the little quirks, and then every person's got quirks at us, the way he says things. It's clever the way he did it, you know, huh? But I could have some fun with Thomas there soon. Once I got relaxed with him, I'd be amazed. For a superior nature cannot be, what, stained from contact of a lower nature, right? Whence the ray of the sun, the sun rays, is not, what, stained through touching fetid bodies, right, huh? That's all I think. As nobody less than Augustine says, right? In the book against five, what, Pharisees, huh? Oh yeah, I think it was Thomas coming to you in Matthew there, where, oh yeah, he's talking about the parable there where Christ tells the story about the good grain was planted in a field, right? And up came, what, all these terrors among the wheat, I guess, and the servants come to the, what, master and say, what happened? Did we plant good stuff? He says, and then we have done this, you know? And then they said, well, you want us to tear it up, you know? He said, no, no, no. And so, why not? Because it's bad stuff, right? Well, then Thomas goes into kind of a thing. There's about four different reasons why one maybe might not destroy the bad, you know? And one reason, of course, is that you would, what, um, lose out on a lot of goods, huh? Of course, the one he gives there is the one where the Augustine is attacking the heiresses, right? And Augustine's knowledge of, of grace and the necessity of grace and so on, um, when he's fighting me, what? Yeah, yeah. And how Augustine, after he worked with them, he spoke much more carefully and much more profoundly about these things, right, huh? Okay, that's one way, huh? There are some goods there would not be, right? I would never develop my patience unless I had. Stupid goods. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes on like that. And sometimes you don't know when somebody's really bad, right? And so on. And then sometimes, you know, he, people will, well, innocent people will be pulled away with him, you know? And so on. He gives you various reasons, huh? Anyway, contra quinquay heresies, huh? Against five heresies, huh? I mean, books of this Augustine writing, huh? Might be a law against writing so many books, huh? But the human soul is, what, of a much superior nature than changeable things, to which it has been, what, turned by sinning. Therefore, from then, he cannot, what, contract, uh, stain by sinning, huh? That's a famous example, though, of the solar ray, right? Kind of a subtle argument, huh? Moreover, sin is chiefly in the, what, will, as has been said above. But the will is in reason, as is said in the third book about the soul. But reason, or the understanding, is not stained from the consideration of any things whatsoever, but it's more perfected. So we're being perfected here by studying sin and vice and so on, right? Therefore, neither, what, is, is the will stained from sin, huh? You know, when Aristotle takes up the, in the beginning of the Dianima, he's saying, you know, that, uh, holding as we do that all knowledge is good, he says, huh? Yet one knowledge is better than another because it's about better things or because it's more certain, right? And both of these regards we should consider to study the soul of great value and so on. So I was, I was giving a lecture one time, or a talk up at the Trivium, you know, and, uh, you know, talking about how all knowledge is such as good, right? And I used to, you know, talk to my students about this and they'd say, let's compare knowledge and love, right? Um, and I'd argue, you know, is all love good, see? And of course it's easy to see, you know, I'd love to torture you, you know, not all love is good, right? Um, but all knowledge is such as what? Good, you know? So knowledge is better than love, it's always good, right? This is kind of using this argument. So knowledge is better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better than love, it's always better that he quotes the authority that's just it says right in the third book of the soul that the will is in reason and reason is not what, stain you know because I had somebody in the audience there one parent you know saying well this sex education is very bad and they don't need that and it's harming the kids and so on so I had to explain right and sex education can be very bad but is that in effect per se of knowledge or per se of something else yeah yeah but that's the fallacy of the accidental right it doesn't mean an objection that is good against all knowledge being good right but still is it good for the the terrorists to know how to make a bomb or something but is that per se or paratchitans it's good for me to know something about a knife and how to use it my poor wife could be thanksgiving yeah every morning I get up and I cut an orange used in there for breakfast and I know how to use that knife and how to cut things you know is that good yeah but I might go out and you know someone was stabbing somebody yeah who was it it was in the paper the other day about stabbing somebody and then finishing them off but per se all knowledge is good so we will moreover if sin causes a stain that stain is either something what positive huh it's having something or it's a pure what lack right a pure privation but if it is something positive it cannot be anything except a what disposition or habit for nothing other would seem to be caused by a what act but a disposition and habit it is not for it happened that the disposition or habit being removed there would still remain the what stain as is clear in the one who has sinned mortally by prodigality right huh and afterwards is change right by sinning mortally in the habit of the opposite what place therefore the stain does not lay down something positively in the soul but neither is it a pure privation because all sins have come from what come together from yeah from the part of aversion and what yeah therefore it foul that of all sins there is one what stain which is always the same one in any sin right therefore stain is not the effect of sin huh okay but again this is what is said in the book of Ecclesiastes 47 to Solomon huh you put a stain upon your glory glory too I guess that's what it says huh yeah woman done a woman done a woman done a man right I was at Laval there we used to go in the library there and there's some volumes of Albert the Great right and he's talking about women and so on and he was like if I told the whole truth about this the whole world would be stupefied I mean I mean Solomon was a pretty wise guy wasn't he wise than at least about anybody else right and look what happened to him right you heard that nasty there's some guy who in ancient times would write nasty stories about people you know there's one about Aristotle you heard that one and Alexander was getting caught with some girl's attention right and so Aristotle you know said you know you better watch out and so on she got annoyed at it right so she decided to tame Aristotle right so she tamed him to the extent that he would walk around all fours and she'd ride him around the room right so one day when she's riding around the room in comes Alexander you know now you're talking to me yeah he said Aristotle gets up and says look if she can do this to me who I'm old and wise what could she do to you who are young and foolish yeah actually I saw a good little cartoon the other day for one of the capital sins we were talking about right on the Everest right it reminds me you know kind of the way the reply because we had been talking at the counting house there before the Super Bowl right I says to one of the guys across the table Jack I said Jack who do you think is going to win you know and Jack said I'm kind of worried about that Seattle team you know because of their defense what it was you know and another guy said you should have answered Dwayne he said to Jack you should have answered you know either the Patriots or Seattle will win you know so you know okay so anyway in Hagar the Terrible whatever his name is the guy the old guy is talking to the young girl and he says did you marry him for love or for money and it is kind of an old question right because they used to call one who marries for money a gold digger and so on right did you marry him did you marry the young man for love or for money and she says both and then next one is I love money that was very funny you know it's got an emphasis you know upon the desire for money you know Everest being the root of all of all evil okay in Ephesians that I'm an exhibit to God I guess the glorious church not having a what stain or wrinkle I guess you know they don't wrinkle so either do you in both places you know these two quotes they talk about a stain of sin right therefore a stain is the effect of sin I answer it should be said that stain is said properly in what bodily things so maybe it's a metaphor of the soul but in some what clear shiny I guess body loses its what shine from contact with another what body so it's so worried isn't it something like that and some worried yeah and you got a woman who has to do something to shine it up again just as a what vest well I know so now because you know the snow is so piled up so high you can hardly get over the mountain and so the driveway doesn't have much room I mean I bring that car there in the driveway that pilot not much room to get on and then we go along it and you get the dirt on the car rubbed off in your your nice clothes and so that's okay and gold and silver right okay silver plate I mean folks and so on or something other of this sort right now in spiritual things to the likeness of this it is what necessary to speak of stain yeah now what is this marvelous for the soul of man has a twofold what has it you one from the what yeah the light of natural reason right by which he is directed in his what another from the what it's kind of got the idea of repeating I mean you're like returning something right of the divine light that's a different light right now get two lights here to wit of wisdom and grace but which also man is perfected right to acting well and suitably right now there's a certain what touch of the soul right when it adheres to some things through love and we see that we talk about love yeah you're attached to somebody attached to Washington Irving volumes attached to my my wine attached to candy or something whatever attached to yeah yeah so that's that's contact right now now when one sins one adheres to some things against both the light of what reason and the light of divine law as is clear from things about when's this detriment of shine every other translation besides shine is that the best what yeah but shine get more the idea of the light you know maybe shine what do you father you have that I was talking about you know lady wisdom here right you can see it you haven't seen it yet after class here but but I was remarking to a lot of Michael here my friend watching Irving right and he talks about Sophia sparkle so you can almost say sparkle right too huh she's a real sparkle this girl and she's brilliant oh yeah the sparkle yeah oh yeah so the sparkle or the shine right I can see these little things when's this detriment of sparkle or shine coming from such contact is called the stain of the soul metaphorically right now so Thomas comes down here now to speaking what metaphorically huh okay to the first therefore it should be said that the soul is not what stained from inferior things by their power right okay Frictus Hoxson has a sense of power in Latin as it were them acting in the what on the soul or upon the soul we could say right but more a converso on reverse the soul by its own action right stains itself by adhering huh by attaching itself you could say right attach comes from touch doesn't almost attach yeah by attaching itself in a disordered way to them right in already not they know of course as you know my good friend uh Shakespeare defines reason by what order doesn't he he defines it by order right looking before and after so here you have what when adhering in a disorderly way right and now this shine sparkle is lost against the light of reason and the light of what the divine law and avoid this stain now don't you now the second objection right the second should be said that the act of the understanding is perfected according as understandable things are in the understanding through in the way of the understanding itself okay now this is the famous distinction aristotle makes in the sixth book of wisdom right that truth is primarily in the what mind but the good is in what things so the first act of the mind sometimes said to be simple what grasping so i grasp what a hole is i grasp what a part is and then i put them together and i say a hole is more than a part but notice when i grasp something it's what contained in my hand right and so when the mind grasps something gets a hold of something right it's in the mind right and the learning is in a sense getting something into your head right which is sometimes hard but in the case of love what and it will you're going out to the thing itself right huh okay so you're said to give your love to someone right huh okay i left my heart in san francisco right uh as if the love is in the thing what love rather than the thing loved in the will right but but and that's why we say you know that the will is more in some ways proportioned to god than the reason right because like the little boy told augustine there on the beach how can you get the ocean into this little thing and how can you get the trinity into your little mind augustine right but you can jump into the ocean right you know so since the will goes to god in himself right it's like jumping into the ocean right so it's easier to jump into the ocean and to get the ocean into you right i jumped in the ocean many times down here in newport second beach so actually down in newport new town at the second beach but um but never got the ocean into me so it's it's a very important thing that's why we use the word you know you give and take right which is perfection of the mind to take yeah you know if you want to define the square you take the genus of square and then you add you know take the differences and then you get the definition finding right okay but is loving mania taking no we use the opposite the contrary word to give right giving is uh and i said it's beautiful the way that we understand that you know giving giving giving your love so he says the action of the understanding is perfected according as understandable things are in the understanding in the mode of the understanding itself right like square is in there in an uncontinuous way right it's according to the the way of it right and the case of of what the bad which is basically a lack right now you know when the definition of lack is what the good right so ignorance is a what yeah so the professor knows your ignorance better than you know it because he knows what you like you know what you like you know you like something you know what what is it you like yeah okay but the act of the will consists in the motion to the things themselves huh see this is the famous distinction that aristotle makes in the sixth book of wisdom he's a pretty smart guy that aristotle you know yeah yeah okay thus that love what glues run right the soul to the thing what loved okay i become attached to the music of mozart right i'm stuck with it i can't get it out of my commit a lot of it i should say and from this the soul is stained when it adheres in a disordered way according to that of oc910 this is a beautiful quote they were made abominable just as the things which they loved you're talking about homosexual marriage all these abominable things you know but they're being made abominable themselves right just as the things which they what loved i was kind of surprised he didn't you know sometimes he distinguishes the way in which the will is in reason right you know because there's two ways to look at that huh and thomas sometimes says that there's two ways of dividing the powers of the soul in one way we divide the powers of the soul by their objects their acts and ultimately by their objects right when aristotle distinguishes the five genera powers right the vegetative powers right the sense powers right the locomotive powers the desiring powers and the understanding powers uh he's distinguishing them by their acts and by their objects ultimately but then there's another way of dividing the powers and that is in the way that they what rise above what matter right and the ordinary ways and a little bit of rising above matter in even the plants sun because they take these you know raw materials and they make something up but in the what sensitive part right the animal part you might say um and there is a start of some real immateriality right because when i receive uh the shape of the chair over there the chair is not in my eye but it's in there in a kind of immaterial way right and then you get to the universal understanding huh the one that uh discurses you know has a larger discourse you know about the universal then you think completely immaterial right and so they have a a division into what three right so in in the first level there the the plant you know digestion growth reproduction right that's what it is and in the second level you have what the senses and the irascible because i would take the emotions right and then in the more spiritual part you might say your immaterial part of the soul you have both the reason and the will right so sometimes thomas will say the will is said to be in reason in that particular text that's quoted from the third book in this way of dividing the powers of the soul in those three levels right then and so it doesn't mean that the will is in the reason in the sense that it's a part of it that the power called the reason right quite two different powers that are contrasted here you know i'm surprised thomas doesn't say that because a lot of times he does say what that means you know now a very subtle thing here to the third it should be said huh that the stain is not something what positive affirmative in the soul right now it's not a bump or something right nor does it signify the privation or lack alone right but now you gotta be careful what he's saying there right i mean which is it see what involves a a lack right rather than something positive right but it doesn't signify the lack alone right but it signifies a what lack a certain lack of the sparkle of the soul the shining of the soul right but in order to its what cause which is sin right so there's a lack of the what shining or shining or the sparkle of the soul from the sin right and therefore the diverse sins induce diverse sweat stains right then and it's like what a shadow which is a lack of which is a lack of light but a lack of light from what the yeah no it's the object you know the yeah yeah that's what they get through objection you know something stuck in the way you know what you're saying okay from the yeah putting the weight of somebody right huh and according to the diversity of of what while the objects then the shadows are what diverse huh it's it's interesting that the different sins i'm thinking of it with this is that in a certain way rather than reflecting the light from its source either reason or god um returning away from god some of the things so the light is reflected differently by the different objects you turn to the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light from the light 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