Prima Secundae
Lecture 249: The Word 'To Have' and Divine Simplicity

Transcript
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That's very interesting to see that, huh? Well, then I was checking up a little bit the Gospels there, as far as I can see from my shoddy research. These words that I saw in Mark, you find them also somewhat in Matthew and in what? Luke, but not in John, right? There's a little difference in the count, you know, in those three Gospels, but they all touch upon us, right? That's a parallel passage, but nothing in John, right? I said, it's appropriate, right? That he might speak in those three passages, right? Of himself as man and not in John, where he's emphasizing more the divinity, right? Okay. Now I got thinking about again, this morning after mass there, because the priest was kind of interesting sermon he gave. Now, we had a text from St. Paul, I don't know. He probably didn't have the same text, right? But the epistle reading was from St. Paul talking to Timothy, right? And don't let them make fun of you because you're your age. And so you had something, right, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he gives, you know, the many pieces of advice he gives, right? What was interesting in Father's sermon this morning was that he said, it seems to me that one of these things that he said is really the basis for all these things, right? And that was the idea that where St. Paul says, don't neglect the gift given to you, okay? That's kind of interesting you're saying that, right? But then what really struck me was that he said, he was making a little point about that, kind of applying it to us, you know? And then he went to the ceremony for baptism. And I don't know, you probably, you know, perform baptisms, and I don't know what the liturgy is, but I've noticed this before, you know, in the baptism. I guess it's, I think it was when you anoint the baby with oil, and you're saying the baby, now you are a priest and a prophet and a king. I was struck by that, right? And, of course, I got thinking about, of course, those three Gospels, right, huh? Because I'll take those three Gospels and distinguish them in Exegorian fashion, right? That Matthew emphasizes the, what, kingship of Christ, right? The Mark, the prophetic role, and the priesthood of Christ, right, huh? That's, you know, an Exegorian way of speaking, right? You know, I say that, huh? And Exegorius, you know, said that everything is instead of everything. And then somebody said, well, then why do you call this a cat and this a tree and this a stone, right? And poor Anxiety says, well, we call it what it has most of, right? So I call this the, the, an Exegorian way of naming things, where you name something from what it has most of all, either absolutely, right, or in comparison to other things, right? So it doesn't mean that, you know, that the kingship alone is talked about in Matthew, the priesthood alone, you know, or the prophetic role. But either it talks more about being a king here, more about being a prophet here, or more being a priest here, or at least in comparison to the Gospels, right? That, that Luke talks more about him being the priest, and they point out how it begins in the temple and ends in the temple, and more references to the temple and so on. And like in, in Matthew is it, that the, the Magi, I guess they're only in Matthew and so on, all kinds of things, right? Emphasize how he descended from David and so on. And, uh, so I think about it, and it says, well, now, I think I was talking the week before, wasn't I, about the three ways you divide sacred doctrine, right? Remember that? Yeah, but you find an ink reading in St. Augustine in Thomas's catechetical instructions in the compendium of theology, right? That's the division of sacred doctrine. But then you have, um, in the Summa, contra gentiles, the division of sacred doctrine into God and himself, God as the maker and his effects, and then God as the end and his providence, right? So you have God in himself, God as the beginning, God as the end, right? And, um, that's what you follow in the Summa Theologiae, but it's not as easy to see because of the expansion of the part of the human humanity and so on, second part. Um, so I said, well, maybe this is another way of divine sacred doctrine, right? So then I got thinking about it some more, and I said, well, maybe, you know, it's really somewhat like that into faith, hope, and charity, right? Because could you, in an Exegorian way of speaking, right? Um, you know, one of the parts, the part on, on charity, I mean, the part of charity in Augustine and Thomas, you talk about the two commandments of love, right? And the Ten Commandments, right? Now, to which of these three would you appropriate commands, huh? Priest or prophet or king? And to whom would you appropriate, um, prayer? Now, under hope, they take up prayer, right? Augustine and Thomas, huh? They're our father, right? You know, sometimes they all marry too, but basically the, like, to whom does it belong to pray? Well, you say, well, a king should pray, a prophet should pray, a priest should pray, right? But whom does it seem to be? Yeah, yeah. And then the prophet is the one that's going to give you the, what? The teaching, which is the creed, right? So you've got the same thing. Because it's very, very, very beautiful, right? But then I came back, you know, to the fundamental difference it was talked about in these words to Catherine of Siena and the words to the young man, right? And I said, um, why is it that we say, you know, like Thomas in the Summa Congenitiles, he shows that God is, what, good? And then it is goodness itself, right? Now, can you say that for a creature? You can say the creature is good in some way, right? But you can't say the creature is goodness itself, right? And this leads back, you know, to the key word, huh? The word is so key that there's a chapter on it in the categories, huh? What word is it that's relevant here? What word is key to understanding this way of speaking? It's a key word in the categories, huh? Not talked about too much, but I somewhat puzzled over the text there. It's the word to have or to has. Has, huh? Now, if you know the categories, huh? It almost explains the whole categories by the use of the word has, right? Because what was the categories about, huh? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, the ancients, the ancient Greek commentators used to refer to the isagogi as the book of the five names, right? Genus, different species, property, and accident, huh? And the categories is the book of the ten names, right? But what are those ten names the names of? Yeah, the highest genre, right? Okay, now, does the genus have something? Is the genus said to have something? No. Yeah. But a genus is said to have species, huh? So Euclid tells us that there's five kinds of, what, quadrilaterals, right? So quadrilaterals is a genus that has, what, five species, right? So that's one example. The word has is pretty important. But this is about the highest, ten highest genre, right? Okay. So a genus has species, huh? Now is the reverse true? Does a species have a genus? So a genus has a genus has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a genus that has a gen Now, is that the same meaning of as? I mean, I've got two meanings of as, right? Can you understand the categories of Aristotle if you don't understand how a genus has species and how a species has a genus? Can you understand that? You've got to understand at least those two senses of as, right? Now, what else does a species have besides a genus? Yeah, but even before properties, what does it have? It has differences. It has differences, right? So, is that the same thing it has to have a genus and to have differences? That's a what? Third sense, right? Now, if a species has a genus and it also has differences, then it has a what? Yeah, hey. Now, is that another meaning of as? To have a genus is to have a definition? Or to have a difference? To have a definition? No. So, now we've got four senses to have, right? Okay. Now, a genus doesn't have a definition, right? I've got to be careful. Yeah. Not because it's a genus, but because it's a species of a highest genus. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But what does a genus have as genus as well as a species having? And the species has what? I mean, can the genus be said to have differences, by the way? Yeah. And Aristotle says that the differences that one genus has will not be the same as another genus unless one is under the other, right? Okay. Well, now I'm getting lost. Is that the fifth sense or the sixth sense? I'm trying to find the sixth sense. I think sixth sense about, yeah. What else does a, what does a genus have that a different species also has? It's not a definition, right? As a genus, it doesn't have a definition. Thomas will make that point. In other words, it's protodents in a sense that a genus has a definition. Because it's not as a genus, right? But as a species that it has it, right? Okay. We're up to seven, I think. I think so, yeah? Seven. Huh? Lucky seven. Yeah. Well, a genus has, what? A name. A species has a name, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? That seems to be something with the same sense, right? To get, let that go through as one sense. Now you get eight senses of to have, right? See how important that is? No wonder we're still in a chapter on to have, right? Okay? And now what? What other sense of have is very important for the, what? Categories. What has what? It's very important to understand the categories. The species have been appropriated. Okay. Okay. That's nine, yeah? That's nine. You better put, you better divide the sense. Yeah. Maybe it has accidents too, right? Okay. Yeah. But you're missing a big one here, you know? It's very important to understand the categories, huh? And we said the highest chance, we said, in certain categories it is, but what does substance have? Yeah, but more tied up with the category, it has accidents, right? Right, huh? Okay. So I have a size, right? I have a shape. I have some health. I have some knowledge, right? Right, huh? See? So a substance has what? Accidents, right? Right, huh? Well, I mean, it's enough to show. Aristotle said three was enough. Yeah. But you wonder why Aristotle, you know, should take up the word has there, right? He doesn't distinguish all those things here, does he? No, no. No, in fact, I haven't even finished yet with that. But it is there, right? It's like a 263 set. Yeah. Now, it shows you how, you know, you could come and explain maybe the whole almost of the categories, right, but the word have, right? Okay, we'll stop there with those senses there. It's sufficiently manifested there, right, huh? By kind of induction. Zero. Yeah, yeah. I read a text of Thomas there, and someone's quoting Augustine, huh? Every sin is in the will, Augustine says. And Thomas, of course, stops in the word in there, right? And in one sense, every sin is in the will. But in another sense, every sin is not in the will. One of the two senses have been there. There's a sum of it, right? Yeah. And one is as a, what? Cause, right, huh? So if I tell a lie, that's a, what's sin, right, huh? But the subject of that is my vocal ability, right, huh? Or if I, you know, strike you, you know, and kill you, right, huh? That's an act of my, what? It's a sinful act, right, huh? The cause is in the will, right, huh? And he distinguishes the two ways in which the will can be the cause of sin. One per se, one per achi, and some. And that's relevant to what we're talking about here, right? But when the will directly chooses something, right, huh? Then it's a per se cause of this, right? But when it doesn't restrain something that it should restrain, then it's, for accident, it's a cause, right? So I didn't stop the pillar when it's falling in you, right? And I could have shook it and it would have missed you, right? Am I responsible for your downfall? So I didn't restrain what I could have restrained, right? So, now, when you try to understand the words to have, though, apart from the, you know, context of the categories, right, huh? Probably the easiest has is to understand something exterior to me, right? So I have a book, you know? Am I what I have? I have a car out there, still out there, I think it is. I have a house, unless it's burned down, unless it's burned down. Yeah, Aristotle uses the example. I have a wife, she said, that's a very hard example, he said. I always like to build on what he says about relatives, though. Yeah, yeah. And he used to say, especially, your in-laws. Yeah. We were talking about last night there, the other night there, Tuesday night there, this thing, his expression, I've had it. What sense of had that is? But, you know, if you say, you know, a man has a wife, but a wife has a husband, right, is that the same sense of has? Well, no, so you start with the sense of has, you know, we take the expression the has and the have-nots, right? Now, they're referring to having something that is, what, outside you, right? You have money. Yeah, you know, it's not. Somebody else doesn't have any money. He's a have not. But in fact, we used to wear it have and have not shows that sense of have is very much prior in our mind. But now you start to go inside me, right? And you say, well, I have two arms, right? Okay, now that's got more to do with me than my having some money or having a car or something like that. But am I two arms? It's closer to me than my having a car, right? But nevertheless, my having two arms is not me, right? And how about my having some knowledge, right? My knowledge? I have love, right? Okay. But am I love, right? So our friend, you know, St. Paul says, I mean, St. John, I guess, right? That God is love, right? Okay. But we have love, and we're not love itself, right? Thomas has some wisdom, right? Is Thomas wisdom itself? So it seems you're not what you have, right? Even if it be, what, within you, right, huh? And he, for it's where it gets outside you, like the car that you have, right, huh? Okay. And what's the difference between health and healthy, right? Well, if I'm healthy, you know, can you describe that in terms of health? I have health, right? Okay. If I'm wise, I have some, what, wisdom, right, huh? Okay. I got a big ambiguity in the word love there, right, huh? If I love someone, I have love. Okay. But it seems that you're not what you have, right, huh? So now, what about God, though, right, huh? Does God have love, or is he love? Yeah. But now you've got a little problem there, right, huh? Because in our whole discourse, inductively going through your having and my having, right, one is never what he has, right? If you have a good steak, are you what you eat? I don't think so. Okay. But now you look at, as I said, like Thomas is saying in the 37, 38 chapters, he has one chapter that says God is good, right? The next one that says he's goodness itself. But grammatically, goodness means, I mean, good means that you have goodness, right, huh? So I usually go around saying that God is whatever he has. So if God has wisdom, he is wisdom, right, huh? And that's kind of interesting, you know, for me as a philosopher. I'm always kidding my little grandchild there, Sophia, right? And I say, philosopher means a lover of Sophia, a lover of wisdom. That's why I love you. But if God is wisdom itself, you could say that if you love wisdom, in a way, you love what? God, huh? That's the way you do, huh? Because God is wisdom, right? But why do we use both ways of speaking of God, right? That God, we would say, is good, and God is goodness itself, right, huh? Or that God is, what, wise, right, huh? And he's wisdom itself, right, huh? He's having composed. Yeah, what we say is wisdom itself to bring out is simplicity, right, huh? See? There's no difference between God and his wisdom, right, huh? But why do we say that God, then, is wise? Why don't you say, God is wisdom, and we are wise, huh? Well, then you'd be changing around and saying, why do you call God wise? Man alone is wise, huh? The angels are wise, and God is wisdom itself, right? He's not wise. But then you say, I would be detracting things from God, right, huh? And what good would it be to be wisdom itself if you weren't wise by this, huh? Yeah, yeah. And we realize that our human way of speaking doesn't quite fit God, right, huh? You know, Thomas is always quoting Dionysius, you know, saying that the affirmative statements about God, they don't quite fit, you see? Because if you say God is just wise, period, right, or God is good, then you seem to be denying the simplicity of God, right? You seem to be saying that he has goodness, or he has wisdom, but he's not goodness or wisdom itself, right? You deny his simplicity, right? But if you say he's just wisdom itself, but he's not wise by it, what good is that, right, huh? You see? You see, in this, does my knowledge know something, do you think? Or is my knowledge that by which I know something? It's this, right, huh? It's my knowledge, don't know nothing, huh? Now what good would knowledge be if no one knew by it, huh? If you were knowledge itself, would you know anything? Does geometry know the theorems of geometry? Or do I, by geometry, know some theorems, huh? Yeah. So we're kind of forced to, what? Say both that God is, what, wise and, what? And you can find this text in Scripture now. It was in St. John, I guess he says, God is love, huh? He had a quote in Scripture, I mean, in church a lot, but then another place to find, you know, God so loved the world that he said, it's only, you know? So, is he love itself, or did he just love, you know? Partake of love, right? So I realize I'm forced to say both, but for imperfect, what, reasons, right, huh? It's like when Thomas gets into a discussion, you know, of, can you make statements about God, right, huh? Well, as the philosopher shows in the book on statements there, the second book in logic, after the categories, right? He didn't got problems there. You get into the statement, and the statement is put together from at least a noun and a verb, right? And what's the definition of noun and verb, right, huh? Well, they're both a, what, each is a vocal sound that signifies by human agreement or custom, no part of it signifies by itself, right, huh? But the difference between the noun and the verb is that the verb signifies with time, right, and the noun without what? Time, right, huh? And, of course, time can be the present or the past or the future and so on. Well, now, how can you make statements about God? You've got to use the verb, right? And God is not in time. Well, hell of a problem there, right? Now, you all know that statement, is it in, I guess it's in John, right, huh? Where Christ, you know, says that Adam, I mean, Abraham saw my day. You're not even 50 years old. You saw and you seen Abraham? And Christ says, before Abraham was, I am, right? There he seems to be kind of touching upon his, what, eternity, right, huh? But because, you know how Thomas explains the now of eternity with the now of time, right? He uses the circle as an example, right, huh? And the now of eternity is like the center of the circle, right? And the now of eternity, right? And the nows of time are like the points on the circumference, one of which is before or after another point, right? But they're all directly across from the point that is the center of the circle. And so God's eternity, in some sense, encompasses all of time, right? He expresses that by saying, by he who is, and distinguishes Catherine of Siena, by saying that she is she who is not. Yeah, that's the reason I gave, though, you know, that he is his own being, right? His own to-be, his own existence, right? Why we are not, right? It also expresses his being in eternity as opposed to St. Catherine in time as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also his being, substance, simply, and her being a creation out of nothing. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is, you know, Thomas will have to explain, you know, how we can use a verb in talking about God, right? Which we have to do to make a statement about God, right? But you realize the imperfection of our way of knowing, right? We're kind of limited, right? In making statements about God, right? We have to understand what it means to say. In the beginning was the word, right? That doesn't mean the, what, past time, right, right, right, see? And why you sometimes use this or that verb, you know, huh? You know, that's a very hard thing to understand, you know, huh? But the more basic problem is the one about has, right, huh? Because to say that God is wise is not to say that he's wisdom itself, right? It's to say that he has wisdom, right? But the unusual thing about God is that he is whatever he has. So if he has knowledge, he is knowledge itself, right? If he has love, he is love itself. If he has justice, he is justice itself. If he has mercy, he's mercy itself, right? I'm sometimes merciful to the student, but am I mercy, right? Am I merciful to the student? No, see? I'm never what I have, right? That's a big difference in the asking God, right? Whatever I am said to have, I am not. Whatever God has, he is, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to use this in both ways, right? As what is good in them, right, huh? We call God goodness itself because of the simple way, huh? That he has, you know? And then we say he's what? He's wise, right? Because of his perfection, right? That he's perfected by this, right? My wisdom is not wise. I'm a little bit wise by the wisdom that I have, but my wisdom is not wise. You'd be knowing something, right? That's where my mind went then, you see, this last week. And then this morning with the nice sermon there, I've got a young priest there from Columbia, you know? I've been the assistant now in the parish. So, I think it was kind of interesting, right? I was kind of struck by that thing he quoted from the ceremony of the baptism, right, huh? Right in those three things, huh? Priest and prophet and king, right? I was giving him that order, you know, starting with, what? Priest, right, huh? Because it's appropriate for the baptismal, huh? Okay. Let's go now to Article 2 here. Mm-mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I believe that's where I left off, right? To the second one goes forward thus. It seems that the old law was not, what? Made by God, huh? Now, a very good argument. For it's said in Deuteronomy chapter 32 that the works of God are, what? Perfect. But the law was imperfect, as has been said above. Therefore, the old law was not by God, huh? Well, that convinces a stimulant over here, right? Myself. Moreover, it's said in Ecclesiasticus. Is it Ecclesiasticus or is it getting mixed up? Ecclesiastes, yeah. Okay, the U or what? E, E, E, E, E. Yeah. He used to know that. He's escaping from me now these days. I have learned that all the works which God has made persevere in aeternum. That's pretty definite, right? But the old law does not persevere in aeternum. Whence the apostle says to this of the Hebrews, reprobatio, right? I suppose the giving up, you might say, right? The approving of the foregoing, the preceding mandate or command on account of its infirmitatum. It's what weakness is and its uselessness. Therefore, the old law was not made by God, huh? I wonder how Thomas would have taught this by the spoken word, right? Give one objection, you know, and then sit back and that shit kind of. Struggle there, you know. Oh my God, what am I going to do? Oh my God, what am I going to do? Would he take pleasure again? You see, now I'm really confused. Like my teacher Kassirik said, you know. That's my picture of my teacher, first teacher, my teacher Kassirik, you know. Yeah, I can show you the smile of wisdom. It's quite a picture, the smile of wisdom. Moreover, it pertains to the wise legislator to not only, what? Take away bad things, but also the occasions of bad things. But the old law was the occasion of sin. This has been said above. Therefore, the God, to whom no one is alike, among legislators, right? As is said in Job 36, does not pertain to give such a law, huh? Yeah, I've been taught, you know, avoid occasions of sin and so on. Gee whiz, you know. God gave us an occasion of sin. Really, I'm really stumped now. Moreover, in the first epistle to Timothy, chapter 2, it said that God wishes all men to be, what? Saved, huh? Come to a knowledge of the truth, huh? It's in that same passage, right? But the old law does not suffice in the salvation of men, as has been said above, huh? And therefore does not pertain to God to give such a law to achieve his end, huh? Therefore, the old law is not from, what? God, huh? He doesn't know how to get to the end he wants, right? I was thinking about our politicians, and I thought about it many times in a month, but it just came back to me today. I was thinking about it again today. When Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? He says that Nicomachean Ethics is in a way the beginning of political philosophy. And why is that, huh? Yeah, yeah. It's about the last in-demand, huh? Okay. And the, what? Government, huh? In a sense, it commands everything else, right? Okay. So I used to say to the students, you know, I can't go down and whisper there and open up an office and be a dentist or something. Hey, you've got to have a, what? Yeah. And that's regulated by law, isn't it, right? Or if I go down and you say, you know, I'm opening up a hospital here and I'm trying to operate on people and so on. Yeah, yeah. And so I can't practice the art of a dentist, the art of a doctor, without the, what? Obeying what the government says, right? I can't even drive a car without getting a license. And he said, now, have you ever been to a graduation here, you know? The president gets up, and virtue of authority invested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That's fancy talk, you know? But that's true, right, huh? You know, the college has sent his license to grant these kind of degrees, right, huh? Okay. Every other art, it seems, is commanded by what? Yeah. I can't even go be a cook downtown, right? You know, they can come into their restaurant and see the cockroaches or whoever else is running around. And they can close me down, right? They do that sometimes, right? You know? Remember in Quebec there, they found the cats there in the trash behind the restaurant. I guess some Oriental people like to eat cats, you know? So they were catering to those people, but the government thought differently there. So they can, I came, you know, that's pretty fundamental, why the art of cooking, you know? And so if I can't go down and practice that, you know, my restaurant, they're going to check up with me, you know? So the end of the whole, what? State, in a sense, is the end of man, right? That's why they go together, right? Why does, you know, Aristotle gives the example, the common example is, why does the government command the army, right? Well, victory is not the ultimate end, but it's ordered to the ultimate end, which is the good of the city, right? So Aristotle argues in that, that this in a way belongs to political knowledge, right? To know what the end of man is, right? Now, if you go through the Nicomachean Ethics, you'll come to realize what is, what? Wouldn't Shakespeare say that? Yeah. Yeah. One of the plays there, huh? That part of philosophy that treats the happiness by virtue, especially to be achieved. That's not a bad description of Nicomachean Ethics, right? So they don't know the Nicomachean Ethics, you know? They shouldn't be required to do that before they're allowed to run for office, right? And they must sit in a class with Dr. Berkwist, and they will learn about the virtues, and the Supreme Court will learn about the virtues, and they won't make these terrible decisions about abortion or about homosexual marriage, or, you know? And you say, you know how, I keep hearing these horrible things about the Common Core, you know, the kind of sex education that's worked into the plan, you know, which gives kids, you know, an inclination to be vicious, you might say. So they're actually, you know, directing people to vice, in some sense, right? And very openly to voting them, directing them to vice, so they're really incompetent for not knowing the what? The end which they should be directing people, right? They should be directing them to virtue, right? You know? You don't direct the soldier to be a coward and the kid to be a liberty and so on. Well, here in the fourth objection, you're saying, hey, God's end is what? That all men might be free, right? Be saved, rather. And to come to a knowledge of the truth. But the old law doesn't suffice for the salvation of men, as has been said above. Therefore, it doesn't pertain to God to give such a law. Well, I'm convinced, aren't you, gentlemen? I don't know. But against this is what the Lord himself says in Matthew chapter 15. Speaking to the Jews, to whom the old law was, what? Given, right, huh? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You have made, what? Or you might say, the command of God on account of your, what? Traditions, right? They're going against honor your father and mother, but they're making sure you wash your hands before you eat. Make sure you give plenty to the priests in the temple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a little before, there was sent forth honor your father and mother, right? Which manifest is contained in the old law, right? Therefore, the old law is from what? God, huh? So I don't know about these Pharisees and other people, you know, whether they're any more reasonable than our people are. We saw them eating without washing their hands, you know? I help on Sunday there to account the money for the church, right? And we're right next to the room where the little coffee and donuts are, right? So usually, we send somebody out to get some coffee and some donuts or something, you know? And I know some of my colleagues, they don't wash their hands, you know, the kids have been handing all this money, you know? In terms. I don't know, you can't get germs some money, I suppose you can, then. Just as much as you can from a donut. Don't be a lucre of your mouth. You ate your donut without washing your hands, you know, from handing this money from the parishioners. Why, oh, did the parishioners not give us a contaminant bill? I wouldn't think they do that. We'll see what the great master here does about tying this. But notice, when Aristotle, when he talks about this, he calls this, what? You're tying the knot, right? And you have to untie it, right? And the untying of the knot is the discovery of, what? Something that was hidden before, huh? Interesting how we take that, you know, Aristotle compares it to the, you know, if your legs are tied up, you can't walk forward, right? So if the mind is tied up, it can't go forward. We speak of a game as being tied up, too, you know? And then when the guy hits a home run at the bottom of the ninth there, and the game is untied. So are all the knots in there, fans' stomachs. Yeah, yeah. That's a beautiful, beautiful comparison there, though. Aristotle would say that in the plot of the tragedy, right, there should be a tying of the knot, the untying of the knot, huh? It's interesting if you read the critical comments on the symbol line there, Shakespeare, you know, and they seem times counting the number of knots he unties in one little scene there at the end, you know. It says he counts up to 20 knots, you know, and so on. They see more and more things he's doing. It's incredible what Shakespeare does, huh? But, yeah. It shouldn't be untied. Only by then. The answer should be said that the old law was given by the good, what? God, right? Who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, huh? Again, there, it's something like I was saying in the next Korean way of speaking, right? Did God the Father alone give the law? Well, so why is it being appropriated, you might say, to God the Father, right? Well, no, we think of God the Father as king, right? And the Son as prophet or teacher, you know? Because when he's thinking about the Son, the Word, and this is a light that invites every man who came into this world. That's one hell of a teacher, right? I was thinking there, was it, I think it was Bellarmine, Bellarmine was the... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it said, you know, it's just a doctor of the church, right? It says, my God, what a talent it is. What it's saying is, a teacher of the church. He's a teacher for the whole church. And I said, that's quite a thing, you know? But the Word of God is the light that enlightens every man who comes into this world. So he's the, what? Prophet, right? Now the priesthood, right, you might attribute to what? The Holy Spirit, right? Because he sanctifies and so on, right? Just like you attribute to him charity and so on, right? Doesn't mean that he alone does this, but there's some connection, right, between him, right? You know? So here you find it being attributed to the Father, isn't it? You know? That's good in exagree and naming and attribution, you know? Now, you edit your own text, you leave a little blank there, right? And you go on. Now, the old law orders men to what? Notice he said that the old law is given by the good God, right? Abonadeo, right? So it must be good, right? But who's that good God? Well, it's kind of appropriate to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's marvelous, huh? But the old law orders men to Christ in two ways. In one way, by giving what? To Christ. Whence he himself says in Luke, ultimate, verse 44, is necessary for all things to be fulfilled, which are written in the law and the Psalms and the prophets about thee, right? Now, Thomas sometimes will, what, use that phrase when he's talking about the division of the Old Testament. But sometimes they divide it into two on the basis of law. The law of the king, right? And the law of the father, right? And then the prophets come under the law of the father because they're reminding the people, you know, to follow the law that God has laid down, right? But sometimes they make the, what, prophets be a, what, separate section, right? And then they have these three here, right? And the Psalms, kind of by metonym there or something, metonym more by what? When a part is a whole, what is that? No, that's, Tommy, I think it's... Or Synecdoche, sorry. Yeah, Synecdoche, yeah, yeah. The Psalms kind of stays for the, the, uh, sapiential books of the Old Testament, right? Okay, so you get the three parts, the law and the Psalms and the prophets. I mean, like the whole, the whole, in the sense of the Old Testament. And he says, John 5, verse 46, If you believe Moses, believe also as him to me, for he wrote about me. Okay? That's one way it prepares, huh? Now, what's the other way? By way of a certain, what? Disposition. When withdrawing men from the cult of idolatry, right? He brought them in, concluded them, right, huh? Surrounded them under the cult of one God. By whom, right? Would be saved, the human race, through what? Christ. So it's kind of a remote disposition, right? For the church, huh? Whence the apostle says, in the epistle of the Galatians, Before, huh? Faith had come, we were, what? Contained, huh? Heard it in, right? Conclusive. In the same faith, right? Which had been revealed, huh? Now, it is manifest. Now, you can skip a little space right here, and you see another point he's got to make. It is manifest, that is, of the same, to dispose for the end, and to lay to the end. And I say, of the same, per se, or through his, what? Subjects, right, huh? For it was not the, what? Of the devil to take away the law, through which men were brought to Christ. Through whom he would be, what? Cast out. And according to Satan, cast out Satan, his kingdom is, what? Divided, huh? And therefore, from the same God, by whom is made the salvation of men through the grace of Christ, the old law was, what? Given, huh? I think it's an interesting vision, there's two ways that the old law prepares the way for Christ, huh? One, by disposing the people, you know, to avoid idolatry, and to have the, what? The commandments, right? And the commandments are almost homestead of the natural, aren't they? Yeah. You see, you're being dispoved, right? Like that, huh? Yeah, yeah. You have to have that, huh? It shows how far away we are now with this homosexual marriage and abortion and everything. Because I'm always struck by the fact, you know, that the word nature comes from the word birth, right? So that really stands out, you know, that you're really going against the natural law when you get messed up, you know, going against birth, huh? But that thing you're saying earlier, you know, it struck me, you know, how diabolical this is, right? Now, Shakespeare calls the devil the common enemy of man. Who else would want to, you know, have us kill our own offspring, huh? You really, you know, it's really a hatred of mankind that would lead you to want to kill your own offspring, huh? So, I mean, it's very reasonable to say that the devil is behind this, huh? He is incredible. We live in a town where everybody wants to get it. Yeah. They want to make it natural. Yeah. They live the most unnatural life as possible in St. Paul's promoting it. Well, the Pope's trying to bring this out, you know, but then they just give him, you know, they emphasize the one part of what he's saying and don't take the other part, you know. All right. That's fine. Now, beautiful, this argument that Thomas has is probably the first objection, right? And the proportion he uses there is really used by St. Paul there, right? In the Galatians, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that nothing prevents something from not being perfect simply, right? That nevertheless is perfect according to its, what? Time. Just as a boy is, what? Not perfect simply, there. But according to the condition of his, what? Time. Thus, the precepts which are given to boys are perfect according to the condition of them of them to whom they are given, even though they are not perfect, what? Simply, right? And such were the precepts of the law. Whence the apostle says to the Galatians, lex pedagogus, right? What's a pedagogue? Yeah, it means little in Greek, doesn't it, huh? Paisa. Aristotelius is the word, yeah, there's two words in Greek there, paideia and paideia, right? And one can mean, what, the education of the boy and the other, the play of the boy, right? I used to explain, one means what the boy does when he's left to get the place. You know, what he does under the tutelage of his parents or teachers. Aristotle, you know, speaks of every Methodist, having, you know, two stages. One is called paideia, right? And the other one is called epistemic, right? So paideia is where you learn the method to use and so on, right? And then the more perfect thing is the episteme, when you go down that road and you get to the end and come for rest and then you have episteme. But it comes from the same word, right? The word for child. Shakespeare wrote all these, what do they call it? Yeah. It's better than the word drama, it seems for us. It plays, right? It's a bit like play, huh? Thomas has one of his little works there, you know, he has a scripture where it says, run into your house and play there with your thoughts. Thomas says, why is this like play, right? Well, he says, play is pleasant and it's for its own sake, you know, and therefore, the life of the mind is like play, right, huh? As far as it's pleasant, though, pleasing, right, huh? That's what I showed you, the smiling wisdom, you'll see what I mean, huh? But notice Thomas' argument here, right? You know, gets his basis in a way from what the apostle says there, right, huh? It compares the old law to the pedagogue, right? Who's going around, usually the pedagogue was a slave, I guess, you know, but educated slave and he would make sure the boy was doing his studying and so on, right? I know, you know, one thing that we complain about in the education of the young there is they don't do enough memorizing and that's appropriate for that age, right, huh, to memorize things, huh? I still remember memorizing things from the catechism, you know, and they kind of stick with you, you know? A sacrament is an outward sign that stood by Christ to give grace. Most people, you know, if they ask about a sacrament they wouldn't know how to spell it out, but it was, huh? You know, they learn the language too better at that age, I guess, huh? These aren't the highest things in the world, but I mean, it's appropriate to them, right, huh? It's good for them at that age, huh? My son Marcus in the tribune there had to memorize the raven, right, you know? Quote the raven never bore. It's kind of fun to watch him. He recited it, it was a lot, it's a long poem, right? I remember one day I was sick at home and laying in bed there and Brother Richard, you know, made a bed with me where I could memorize Lissedas, you know, by Milton, right? I got the whole thing just about memorized in the course of the day, you know? It's a beautiful poem, you know, written about one of his fellow students who had died, right? To second, it should be said that the works of God persevere in eternity, the works which God makes that they might persevere in eternity. He doesn't make all works, does he, right? So what you give for the child, do you make that, you know? There's some things you're aiming at the child, you know, that you love God and so on, that you want him to do forever, right, huh? But you don't want the child to remain a child forever, right? You know, in the famous Lives of the Poets by Samuel Johnson, right, huh? I remember talking to all these poets and they're kind of, you know, they grew up, you know? It was said he remained a child all his life. That's what he just says. You should remain a child all your life, huh? You know, say, puzzle, I gave a man, I put away the things as a child, right? When I was young, I thought as a child, right, and so on. But that's appropriate, right, huh? I shouldn't be sitting around reading fairy tales for myself. I think as an agent, you should read fairy tales, right, and kind of rouse us in wonder, you know? You know, one of the best collections is the Dover Collection, right, huh? The Blue Book and the Green Book and the Yellow Book and the Red Book, you know, the classical ones. If you wanted to, you know, start with that, you know? Beautiful. It's fun to read them to children, too. What? One thing that I would expect in the world was that a lot of the traditional fairy tales were being re-engineered. Oh, yeah. The ogres, the witches are the good ones, and the knights, and the humans are generally the people ones. And you see that in the village, too. Yeah, yeah. Very strange. So he says the old law, then, is what? Reproved, huh? In the time of the perfection of grace, right, huh? Not as if it is something bad, right, huh? But as being, what? Weak and useless for that time, right, huh? Because it has been joined, there is subjoined, for it brings nothing to perfection, the law, right, huh? Once, again, in Galatians 3, the apostle says, when faith comes, huh, we are now no longer, what? Under the pedagogue, right, huh? Now, the third one. The third should be said, as has been said above, God sometimes permits or allows some to fall in sin, that they might therefore be what? Made humble. Remember that part in Augustine there, he's talking about some of the women who were virgins, you know, became very proud, and would actually benefit them to fall into sins of the flesh, that they might be humbled, right, huh? Because pride is a sense of we're sin, then this has got houses sometimes to fall, right, huh? How's always been here? Everybody in checkers at the house, you know.