Prima Secundae
Lecture 305: Merit, Grace, and the Holy Spirit in Justification

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rather they're made, right? So why doesn't man merit something from God simply, yeah? And he doesn't have anything except what he's received from God, right? So I used to use the example that I used earlier there, about the child having no money of his own, right? He's earned, and if I give him an allowance, right? At the time, my brother Richard got an allowance of 10 cents a week, the oldest, my brother Marcus, has an allowance of five cents a week, because he was an ex-born, and I had an allowance of two cents a week. You can go down to the corner of the drugstore, right? And they had a big glass thing there with candy there, and you could, it's like a pretty penny, you know? So two cents, you could go and spend your two cents down there, or a soda pop in those days cost five cents, right? You had to go three weeks, and you can have five cents, and you have a pin in a store for candy, but you could get an orange soda, or a grape soda, whatever you'd like, that the one-armed man used to have a little, the store wasn't very far away, and you had a cooler in the front there, you know, and you had the nickel saved up, you know? But if I saved up my two cents, and I bought something for my mother or my father, then, you know, you'd appreciate that, right? I'd probably be worried for it in some way, right? A little more love, or something. You know, a rise from two cents to five cents. It's funny, huh? Because it's funny that we observe a certain difference between the three boys, you know, and there's known as the ancient and honorable rules, right? Of order, you know, hierarchy, right? But there's an order that God has made, right, of things, right, huh? And that if you do this, then you'll get this, right, huh? You say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, right? And thy will be done, right? There's an ordering there. Thy will be done, right, huh? And thy kingdom come, right? So God orders this to that, and if we freely do this, then we merit that, right, huh? It's strange, huh? It's a kundum quid, huh? I wonder if God has those thoughts. Let me, you would say, though, that simply, though, you owe this to God, right? Is doing God's will my merit of heaven, or is it something I owe God? Yeah, but I would say simply, it's something I owe God is to do his will, right? And that God accepts my doing his will as meriting, right? That's the dog out there. I think he likes the class. He likes the lesson. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what we're doing in here, I guess. You got the nice idea of what we're doing here, right? No fooling. It's fucking fooling. That's because God has ordered, right, doing his will as a way to get to heaven, right? To get to the kingdom, right, huh? And so in some way, if we're free to do that, right, then we merit. Heaven, right, huh? But not simply. Not simply. Strange, huh? Look at the second article now. Look at the second article here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The second one goes for it thus. It seems that someone without grace is able to merit eternal life. Wait up, wait up, wait up, wait up there. Wait up there. For that God merits right from God to which he is ordered divinely, as has been said. But man, according to his very nature, is ordered to beatitude as to an end. Whence also he naturally desires to be, what? Blessed, huh? The beatitude is the supreme good, right? The end of the rational creature, rationality. Therefore, man, to his own natural powers, without grace, can merit the beatitude, which is eternal life. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that God orders human nature to the end of eternal life, achieving that, not by his own, what, power, but by the aid of grace, huh? And in this way, his act can be meritorious of, what? Eternal life, huh? What does Aristides say? He always quoted in Binnin, that man's eye is to seeing God like the eyes of the bat are to the light of day, as if it's too bright for him, right, huh? So he's kind of knowing that man, by his natural, what, knowledge, cannot, what? He's kind of like blinded, huh? Trying to see God, huh? You know, happened to Aristides, or is he taken upon him or not, but the happiness that Aristotle talks about then is the one that man can make by, what, the discourse of reason and so on, which is something less than knowing God as he is, right? Did Aristotle, was he known to have lived a life of the virtues that he so wonderfully wrote? Was he a man of virtue of himself? Well, certainly, it's a statue to Plato saying the first man to show by both word and example that the virtuous life is the happy life. So he praised Plato for doing that, right? He could hardly be praising himself for doing that. Maybe he was the same, right? He'd say, I read Plato. You know, teacher Kassari could say to me, you know, he knew I was listening to Mozart and so on, you know, do you find it helps you to control your emotions more? That was, he asked me. I said, oh, yeah. There's crazy stuff, people listen to now, but there's music, you know, just, just, there's some pieces of Mozart, you know, they have Mozart's own words, where he says, there are things in here that only, you know, a connoisseur, you know, a man can really appreciate, but they're written in such a way that everyone will like them, you know? There's always one that can't like some of these things, you know? My little seven-year-old grandchild, I told you, you know, you heard Mozart's audio term corpus, and her mother asked her, what do you think of this? And she said, it was heaven singing on earth. That's pretty good for a little six, seven-year-old. And I've talked to a number of people who are involved in an art world who have this attitude very strongly, and they will talk condescendingly and how I can prove myself. You know, implying we couldn't possibly understand how the common stuff is, whether there's no good truth or beauty at all, and what they're, you know, having solved. I remember when I taught out at St. Murray's College in California, right? And one time they had an exhibition of some modern art stuff, you know, and so they had to kind of spread around the campus or around the academic building, right? Well, the head of the physics department, he thought, well, damn nonsense, which it was. So he looked around his lab and found some odd pieces of stuff, you know, a piece of metal. So he put together, it's a big jumble, and he went and put it up and splayed it, you know, and went through the whole thing that nobody... throughout the Tate Museum every year or so it has a contest for the new up-and-coming arts. And so after this, all the exhibits were put out and shown, and I guess the winner had to determine, they closed for the night, the janitor came in to clean things up, and he found this tray with a bunch of cigarette butts and half-hebbing coffee cup and crumple napkins and sort of food crumbs and stuff like that. There's kind of this kid here, so... Do it all. So the next morning, he filed it. I was informed that he had just thrown out the prize, first prize. Poor guy got fired, probably. But just doing his job. It was relatively easy to... There's a story in Canada there where a guy just splashed the paint on the thing and sent it in, won the first prize, and he says, what the hell? So he goes down there, right, to the exhibition of the works, you know, and there's a young lady there in front of the painting now, carving it, you know. And so he walked up there, he didn't tell him, of course, who he was, and he said, don't you think the artist is kind of pulling your leg, the public's leg, you know? She turned and he's like, the contrary to the man is pure genius! He splashed the thing, you know, paint on the thing, and sent it in. Yeah, I actually saw it as a bar along the way. I actually saw it as some artist and his idea was to make a painting by splashing it. What he did was he got permission to go on tarmac on an airport with a jet engine. He turned out a jet engine on, you could get the cameras up, you know, strapped, all kinds of things, and he just broke in, and that was important. A while back there was an artist named Pierre Simeon who had an exhibit which was very highly reviewed by the art critics, but it turned out that Pierre Simeon was actually a chimpanzee who was owned by a crimecologist who had given chimps and paints and had an canvas or paper and splashed some stuff on, and yet these art critics thought it was really great stuff. Yeah, a talented artist. I remember reading in Aristotle's Poetics, you know, he was talking about, Aristotle was talking about the more primitive, you know, statues and so the Greeks and things, and Aristotle said, no one knew what they were unless they labeled them, you know. They never knew what the thing was, a statue of, right, unless they labeled it, right? It shows you what that, the emperor, you know, that story about the emperor and his clothes, right? That's what it is, you know. So up to the second article here now? Okay. Moreover, the same work, the more it is less owed, right, the more it is, what, meritorious. But that is less owed, that good which comes about, right, from that which is, what, which is preceded by lesser benefits, right? Since therefore the one who has only natural goods has achieved, or achieved, or acquired lesser benefits from God, right, than the one who has with natural things also gratuitous things, it seems that his works are before God more meritorious. Hey, Aristotle's got, you know, hope there, right, with that objection. And thus the one who has grace can merit in some way eternal life, much more the one who, yeah, now to the second it should be said that man without grace cannot have a work that is equal to the work that precedes from grace. Because the more perfect is the source of the action, the more perfect is the action. The argument would follow supposing the equality of the operation of both, right? That makes sense, doesn't it? that makes sense, that makes sense, Moreover, the third objection, the mercy and the liberality of God in infinitum exceed the mercy and liberality of human liberality. Thomas is always quoting, what is it, Avicenna, right, that God alone is liberal, right, because he gives, we're getting nothing in return, right, gets nothing out of what he gives us, right? He's really liberal. But one man is able to merit before another, even if he, what, yeah, before he's there. Therefore, it seems more that a man can, without grace, possess eternal life, he can merit from God, right, eternal life from God. To the third, it should be said that as regards the first argument induced, in a dissimilar way, it has itself in God and in man. For man has every power of doing good from God, right, not from another man, right? And therefore, from God, a man is not able to merit something except to what is, in fact, the gift of God, right, which the apostle significantly expresses. Who before gives to him, who before gives to him, and it must be, what, returned to him. But for man, one's able to merit something before one is accepted from him, but to that which he has received from God. But as regards the second argument is taken from the, what, yeah, and similar about man and God. For, because man is not able to merit from another whom he offended before, unless he be, what, satisfying, yeah. I'm sure I understand that. Against this is what the apostle says in Romans 6, verse 23. By the grace of God, eternal life, Acts 23. Okay, answer, it should be said that of man without grace, there can be considered a two-fold, what, status, as has been said above. The one of integral nature, this is before the fall, as it was in Adam before sin. Another of corrupt nature, just as in us, before the, what, preparation of grace. If, therefore, we speak of man as regards the first state, thus, by one reason, one is not able to merit without grace, eternal life, through purely natural things. Because, what, the merit of man depends upon the preordering that's divine. But the act of anything is not ordered divinely to something, exceeding the proportion of the power, which is the source of the act. For this is from the institution of divine providence, that nothing acts beyond its own, what, power. But eternal life is a certain good, exceeding the proportion of created nature. Because it also exceeds even the knowledge and his, what, desire. According to that of 1 Corinthians 2.9, Neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended in the heart. That's interesting, you know, to explain that, because the eye and the ear, he attacks the knowledge, right? But, not in the heart, he even lacks a desire, right? So, there is a style of desire eternal life, right? Yeah. He desired the happiness that was possible for a man by natural powers, right? And, therefore, hence it is that no created nature is a sufficient beginning of an act meritorious of eternal life. Unless there be added above this a supernatural gift, which is called grace. If, however, we speak about man existing under sin, there is added with this a second reason, right? An account of the impediment of, what? Sin. For since sin is a certain offense against God, excluding one from eternal life, as is clear from the thing said above, Nothing in the state of sin existing is able to merit eternal life, unless it be first reconciled to God, right? The sin dismissed, which comes about through grace, huh? For to the sinner is not old life, but death. According to that of Romans 6, that the wages, I guess, are stipendia. We had the word, we used the word in English there, stipend. What is a stipend? Is that given for a lecture? Stipend, I mean, they give a, it's kind of. A mass stipend, so. Yeah, stipend, yeah. It's like something else. Yeah. Where else do you use the word stipend? We used to throw in. But anyway, the stipend, or the wages of sin, I guess, some, these are trying to say wages, I don't know. The wages of sin is death, huh? Regular psalm, pay, a salary, or allowance. Yeah. Stips means wages and wages. So it's kind of an expected, customary offer. Maybe we'll stop here, huh? Thank you. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. God, our Enlightenment. Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, or in illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. And help us to understand all that you have written. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. So we're up to Article, what? Three, right, huh? I was thinking about this Article 2 that we did last time, where he talks about man being in his two-fold status, right? And the reason why even the state before the fall, he couldn't, what, merit eternal life, you know, by his natural powers. And then the second reason he says it's because of sin, right? And then you need grace doubly, right? I was just thinking, you know, this is a little bit off the text there, that thing, but one thing Thomas doesn't talk about in this consideration of grace is the sacraments, right? And, of course, he does talk about the sacraments in the tertia powers, right? So you talk about Christ, the incarnate Christ, in the third book, right? And then you talk about the sacraments, right? The tools of Christ, right? And we, if I remember my definition from catechism, right? The definition of sacrament was an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, right? So the connection between grace and the sacraments is very clear in that definition, right? It's the purpose of the definition, to make things clear, right, huh? It's one kind of discourse, right? You know, when Shakespeare says that reason is the ability for discourse, right? Just take the first thing, he shows what it's for. If you go to the science of logic, huh? And one of my teachers there was a guy named Albert the Great, huh? And Albert the Great divides logic into two parts, huh? The art of defining and the art of, what, reasoning. Yeah, the art of the, coming to know the simple unknown, which is defining, right? And the art of coming to know the complex unknown, the statement, right? Reasoning, right? And so, that's interesting. That's a sign of the truth of what Shakespeare had said, right? Reason is the ability for discourse, right? And the two main kinds of discourse are defining and reasoning. And Albert testifies to the fact that that's a way of dividing logic, right? Logic is the art of discourse, the art of coming to know what you don't know. He divides it into the simple unknown and the complex unknown, which kind of exhausts the subject, right? And then the way of arriving at making known the simple unknown, which is defining, and the complex known, which is by reasoning, right? So, we should go back, you know, to our friend Annex Egris, right, who was the first, who was like a sober man among drunk men, when he introduced the greater mind, right? But to distinguish things and to order them, right, this is the second part of the definition, right? So, these things sing. But anyway, you don't notice the, from the definition there of grace, I mean, of sacrament, the connection between grace and sacrament, right? Now, something Thomas doesn't talk about in this treatise here, and the question is just right, because he talks about the two conditions of man, right? But do the angels have grace, too? See? Do the angels need grace? He doesn't really talk about that explicitly here, does he, right? Okay? But is there sacraments for the angels? You don't have bodies, yeah, yeah. The sacraments are tied up with the fact that, what? Yeah, yeah. And Thomas, you know, will talk about how the sacraments are proportioned to Christ, the Word made flesh, right? And you have this double aspect in the sacraments, corresponding to that, and so on. And then how it fits us, right? Animals that have reason, right? We need the sacraments, something sensible, right? To get out of these things. But there's no sacraments for the angels, right? So how did they receive grace, huh? It's not by sacrament, is it? I mean, it's more... More good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see, among the sacraments, we say the greatest one is the Eucharist, huh? And the reason they give sometimes is in terms of grace, that it's the one sacrament that contains the source of grace himself, Christ, right? His body and blood and soul, divinities, they say, are there, right? In a way, they're not in the other sacraments, although the power is in the other ones, right? But it's because he's a source of grace, huh? Which is the way Thomas begins. The division of the New Testament, right? New Testament is about grace, and the articles, it's divided in three parts. The origin of grace, which is in the Gospels, and then the nature of grace and the epistles of Paul, and the effect of grace in the Acts of the Apostles, canonical epistles in the Apocalypse, beginning, middle, and what? And it reminded me, they had, you know, these articles in the thing about Mother Angelica, right? And one little quote, they had a whole, you know, half page there of sayings, the things she said, right? And I don't have exact words here, but she's talking about the faith, hope, and charity, right? And she said something like, faith gets you going, right? Hope helps you persist, right? And charity gets you there. So that's pretty good, you know? Because, you know, when Thomas talks about the three theological verses, he does say something like that, right? And that the faith makes you, what, know what your goal is. Hope makes you tend towards that goal. But then charity finally unites you to the goal. So that's something she's saying, right? But I doubt you got it from Thomas, I mean, just from your own common sense, you know, and you're thinking about these things, huh? Kind of a marvelous little quote there from her. So, but here's the connection between grace and sacraments here. That will come out in the tertia, what, Paras, right? And that's really important for us to see the connection between that, right? They speak of this, you know, we hear the expression about sacramental life, right? And we have that in the Catholic Church. And when I listen to The Journey Home, you know, it's always talking about the sacramental life that the convert is discovered, right? You know, the fullness of the sacraments, right? That you don't really have. And maybe you have baptism or something in the, you know, but some of you don't even take baptism too seriously, right? I don't think it does anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we're up to Article 3 here. To the third, then, one goes forward thus. It seems that man, constituted in grace, is not able to merit eternal life ex condigno, right, huh? And what does that mean, ex condigno? Yeah. You know, when they talk about kind of a common thing there in the Church now, they talk about the dignity of life, right? The dignity of man, huh? And you suspect the dignity of everybody and so on. And, uh, but what's the English word for dignity? I mean, that's the Latin word dignity, right? Like you have in here digno. But what's, what's the English word for dignus? I think so, yeah. I think so, yeah. Yeah. It doesn't sound quite as, you know, elevated as dignity does. But that's the word, right, huh? So, in other words, are you really, you know, worthy of this because of what you've, uh, merited, of your merits, right? See? And now this other one they talk about is congruism, congruity. And, and how would you translate that in, what would the English, the native word, you know? No, no. How would you translate that, you know? Because that's, trans is going to make here, I mean, in the text, it's a text- agreement. Agreement or arming. Yeah, yeah. Congruism. But maybe it's more fitting, you know, huh? You see? It's fitting that you, what? Yeah. Yeah. More done. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, like when a parent says, you know, if you do this, you'll get this, right? And you don't really, what, deserve it. Yeah. But it's fitting that you'd give them the reward you promised them, right? If they did this, right? So I don't know if, uh, worth and fitting are, that's one way of translating it. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the apostle says, and that's in town of Messiah for, for St. Paul, right? And I guess sometimes Peter's called the apostle too, you know? I ran across, I was reading the Thomas's commentary on John, right? And he's talking about how God, Christ is talking about how the devil is the, what? Well, I could say the homicide, right? I don't know, in English, homicide names the crime, right? Of killing a man, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the Latin, he's the homicide, right? I don't know if he's saying he's the homicider or whatever, but I don't think we have a word there, right? But he's saying that it's said of the devil by Antonio Messiah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's got to be thinking again, you know, how this abortion, you know, is devilish, right? Because it's homicide and the devil must rejoice in this, right? And he's, must be, you know, it's his campaign, right? So to speak, right? It's frightening. So the apostle says, huh? It's much better to be an apostle by Antonio Messiah to Romans 8, huh? He's the apostle of the Gentiles, right? That the passions of this time, right, huh? Are not condigne, huh? Is that word, huh? To the future glory, which is going to be revealed in us, huh? But among the meritorious works, huh? Most of all seem to be the meritorious passions of the saints. Therefore, none of the works of men are meritorious to eternal life ex gundigno, right, huh? Yeah. Yeah. And also, Thomas answers that, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the apostle speaks about the passions or sufferings of the saints according to their substance. Yeah. Yeah. Not according as it's informed by grace in the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah. Because we've already talked about the necessity of grace, you know, to merit here, right? Now we're asking a more particular question. Does it merit it by fittingness or by being worth it in some way, huh? Moreover, upon that of Romans 6, the grace of God, eternal life, by the grace of God, we'd say in English, huh? It can be said rightly, the Goss says, right, huh? Stipendium, huh? Stipendium, huh? The wages, I guess, of justice, eternal life. If we're not one to say, what? But it'd be better to say, by the grace of God, eternal life, that we understand God, what? To lead us. Yeah. By his mercy, right? To eternal life, not by our, what? Merits, right? Notice that text I was talking about in, where was it? Was it John, I guess? The canonical epistle there, right? No, no, no, no, no, the one from Jude, right? Okay. About building up your house in faith, hope, and charity, right? And then, you mentioned mercy, right? Elias, right? So, I was thinking that it was only fitting, right? There's still mercy on his part, right, huh? Okay. And this text here would seem, you know, it'd say, by the grace of God, eternal life. Well, then it's not by merit, huh? By my merit, eternal life. Sounds heretical. Sounds Pelagian or something, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Now, what does Thomas say to this? To second it should be said that the word of the gloss, right, huh? And the gloss is what? Augustine, I guess, huh? Yeah, yeah, from the Incredian. Must be the Incredian in faith, hope, and charity. Yeah, it's in my footnote in the Marieta edition, huh? Here's the nice thing about these Marieta editions, right? It's that big edition. I have a big print, and the Summa Gargenti doesn't have all these nice little references to, you know. I mean, this always has, you know, the parallel text is another place in the time as we talked about this matter, you know. So if you want to make a prolonged study of some question, you know, you can go right away to the other texts, you know. Okay, to second it should be said that that word of the gloss should be understood as regards the first cause of arriving at eternal life, which is the mercy of God, huh? But our merit is a causa subsequence, huh? And he's very subtle, that Thomas, huh? It almost swithers out of the air. So you shouldn't forget that it all started by him, from him, right? And be thankful for him, right? Whoever that merit would seem to be condignum, right, worthy, that equals the what? What? Yeah. But no act of the present life can be equal to eternal life, which exceeds our knowledge and even our desire. That's a famous text there, right, huh? Not into the... Yeah. Yeah. I has not seen her, not her. It was into the heart of man, right? Even his will, right? Things that God has prepared for those who love him. For it exceeds the charity, charity or the charity of the way, right? Just as it exceeds, what? Nature. Nature. That's why that text was saying that, what? We should be like him. As if we're not like him yet. We're like him in an inferior way. So how is there equal to it, right? Therefore, man is not able by grace to marry eternal life ex condigno, huh? I thought I was going to answer that, huh? I'll get you tied up a third time there with the chain. So you see the entire way. To third, it should be said that the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now he's throwing the Holy Spirit in there, right? The grace of the Holy Spirit. Which we have in the present, huh? Although it be not equal to glory in act, is nevertheless equal in virtute, in power, in ability. He makes a beautiful comparison here. Just as the seed of trees, in which there is the virtue or power for the whole, what? Tree. So you show the acorn to the kid and you say, this came, you know, this tree there from one of these. I don't believe you. Pulling the wool over my eyes, right? Okay. Now sometimes, you know, the pro-life people there when they talk about abortion there, right? Are you killing a human being? Well, is the fertilized egg a human being? Or would it be more accurate to say that it's like the seed of the human being, right? Okay, just like the acorn is a seed of, you know. If someone asked me, is it acorn an oak tree? You know, I'd say no. See? Or you and I buy a package of seeds there and plant them in the garden there, right? But are these seeds, you know? Yeah, is that broccoli? I don't think you'd say so, would you? Well, yeah, but is it really a broccoli plant, right? See? Is the acorn a tree? Yes or no? Dan's a tough question here, right? The acorn question we'll call. First stage in the oak tree's life. Well, it's a tree, though, see. It's not a tree. It's not a tree yet. Like I said, it's a first stage, which doesn't mean that there's been the end reached. It's just the beginning. See, again, as I said, holistic process. See, well, we should make the distinction here that's analogous to the one made here, right? The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have in the present, although it not be equal, right? Although it's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. It's not equal to glory in act. is nevertheless equal in virtute, right? That's a very strong way of saying that the seed, you know, destroy the seed in a way is like destroying the, what, tree, yeah. And so it's just, you know, but it's not yet, I don't think, you know, a tree, yeah, okay? But in some sense, it's equal to it, right? Equal to it in power, right, okay? And likewise, through grace, the Holy Spirit inhabits a man. Now, that's something that is important to see, huh? We study the Holy Spirit in the Prima Paras, but the connection between the Holy Spirit here in grace is being made, huh? Who is a sufficient causa, right, of eternal life? Whence he is said to be the pledge, right, of our inheritance, huh? 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22, huh? When he says sufficient causa, huh? And then he seems to be saying that it's what? Condigno, right? Okay? You've got to be in the Holy Spirit to see this, maybe, right? That the grace, the Holy Spirit inhabits man, right? So this grace in which the Holy Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit inhabits, in which he inhabits us, is equal to glory in virtute, right? Although it's not an act. You don't have it in act yet. Yeah. Now, what's the sin contra, huh? What text is he going to pull out of Scripture, right, huh? It's amazing how he pulls these things out of Scripture, right? That which is rendered according to just judgment, right? Justice in the strict sense, right, is something that you're obligated to because you really do owe it to the person, right? So what is rendered according to a just judgment would seem to be a reward that is, what, condigna, right? That equals us, right, in some sense, huh? But eternal life is rendered by God according to the judgment of, what, justice, huh? According to that is second to Timothy, where St. Paul is now talking about himself, right? It remains, there is, what, aside from me, right? A crown of, what, justice, which the Lord will render to me in that day, he being a just judge. That's a beautiful, beautiful sin contra, right? Very good, Thomas, very good. We're going to advance you into a, to a, you know. I've got to find a card, I've got a card there, you know, one of these, you know, the triumph of Thomas, you know, and it's like the center of the hole, you know. He's a marvelous guy, this Thomas. I'd like to twit the Jesuits, you know, that their founder, you know, was very insistent upon them following Thomas, right? But they don't seem to follow all the time. Yeah. Okay, now let's have this thing unfolded gradually in the Respondio. I answer, it should be said, that the meritorious work of man, right, can be considered in two ways. In one way, according as it goes forward from free, what, judgment, from free will. In another way, according as it goes forward from the grace of the Holy Spirit. So notice how he sticks on the Holy Spirit there with grace, huh, he said before. If one considers then it according to the substance of the work, huh, and according as it goes forward from free judgment, right, then it cannot be, what, quindignitas, it cannot be worth so great a thing, right, on account of the maximum inequality. Well, it's like you can't be more unequal. Thank God, God hates equality there. I told you a Bible teacher, because he said, you know, God hates equality. If we demand equality, we'd be lost here, right, huh? I was thinking, you know, the other day, what really is misery, and what do you think would be misery, Mr. Berkwist? And I answered myself, saying, you know, I think misery would be to never see God as he is, never see God face to face. I was thinking, you know, if I never saw God face to face, I think I would be supremely frustrated, huh? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a text that Thomas quotes from Augustine sometimes, where he says, miserable the man who knows all the things but doesn't know God, blessed the man who knows God even if he knows nothing else. Happy also the man who knows God and other things, but not for knowing other things as well as God, but for knowing God, right? If you realize that, I mean, that's more frustrating, you know, for the soul, right? Kind of amused, I think, you know, they said that the Greeks had, you know, some ghost stories like we have, ghost stories, right? And the philosophers interpreted the truth, if there's truth about these stories, that the ghosts were seen to hang around the graves, right? That's where ghosts hang out, right? And these are people who are attached to the pleasures of the body, right? And now they're trying to get back in the body because they're missing the pleasures. What was their life, you might say, right? And they can't get back in their bodies, so they're completely frustrated. Yeah. But I don't think my soul would be frustrated not being able to get back in the body but to not see God as he is, huh? Face to face, huh? That's really what you're, you know, your heart is, you're made for, right? I don't think that they have any idea that you can see God, you know? They just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's not a harmony between their faith and reason, you know, like ours. And our faith would make a lot of sense to aristography because they're reduced to it, you know? I hope he was in some way, but, you know, yeah. Just got through reading Summa Cagentilla's there on chapter 61 there in the second part there where he's refuting Averroes' view about the possible understanding and he gets through really demolishing him, you know? And then finally he has another chapter saying, you know, but because he tries to base this on the authority of Aristotle at the time this shows that Aristotle is not the same opinion as Averroes' and it's kind of nice to see him defending Aristotle there, you know, from this kind of mistake or this distortion reading, you know? It's pretty obvious distortion in that part of Averroes, you know? But nevertheless, there is there a certain congruity, right? Now let's use the word congruity there, right? On account of a certain equality of proportion, right? For it seems that it seems that it seems that it seems right, suitable right might say or fitting that man doing what he can according to his power right that God would recompense him right according to the excellence of his own what my son is a lieutenant colonel there he sends me the history magazine military history magazine right they talk about the war the potato war right the 18th century there between Vienna and northern Germans there and one guy was defeating you know the enemy there and really took you know killed a lot of the enemy and took a lot of prisoners and so on so he got this highest award that the that the indese government gives you know it makes you mobility for the rest of your life seems you know the excellence of the emperor right you know historic upon the guy who succeeded in this battle if however we speak about a meritorious work according as it goes forward that's the way it translates appreciated how do you translate it there yes see people can't get you know that's Latin so we call it speaking of philosophy you know Aristotle or Thomas uses the thing the way of proceeding right it's just the way of going forward that's how it's written more of course you want to go forward right you're understanding these things right well how do you go forward you know see way of proceeding doesn't have that same thing I'll teach it so you can see I almost got to put it in English before you think you really understand it fully if I always speak of a meritorious work according as it goes forward from the grace of the Holy Spirit thus it is meritorious of eternal life ex condigno for thus the what strength you might say of the merit is to be observed according to the power of what the Holy Spirit moving us towards eternal life according to that now I read this recently John 4 14 there what that grace will become in him a fountain of water jumping up into eternal life jumping for joy there is to be observed the what price you might say right of a work according to the dignity of what yeah so one should you know you might say measure you might say the price of a work right or this value according to the dignity of what grace through which man being made a what nature which is going back to the definition that St. Paul is adopted as a son of God right to which is owed what his inheritance by the right of adoption that's what is said in Romans 8 that's a beautiful text his sons then heirs right okay so was it in as you like it right for the younger son is not being given his share of the inheritance of the father and the older brother is keeping him away from it and so on and planning to have him knocked out by the the wrestler you know that can oh that's as they go I remember that okay got all the distinctions down now and you know when you should affirm when you should deny mostly says right the opus meritorious of man can be considered in two ways right he's seeing a distinction right just like the great mind of an exagerus right distinguishing things in one way according as it goes forward from free will or free judgment but another as it goes forward from the grace of the holy spirit and the first could only be by what fitting and there might be certainly quality but this quality of portion right you do your thing and daddy will give you something much greater than what you did but and then here from the grace of the holy spirit right then it is that's a seed right it's not actually equal to that but it's in power equal to that right so it's good to have that so it's in power so it's in power so it's in power so it's in power