Secunda Secundae
Lecture 2: The Object of Faith: First Truth and Complex Knowledge

Transcript
================================================================================

The taste, we call it, right? But you're talking about the object there now, huh? Okay. So we distinguish the powers or abilities of the soul by the act, right? For which they are an ability. And we distinguish the acts by the objects. Okay. And that's why when they divide the powers of the soul, they say there's got to be a connection between the object and the power. Well, either the power acts upon the object or the object acts upon the power. So when Aristotle takes up the power of digestion, right? That's the power that, what? Acts upon its object, huh? He takes up the senses. That's the power whose object, what? Acts upon it, right? So colors acting upon my eye in color, right? And sounds acting upon my ear, right? And so these kids are going deaf, you know, because there's too much, too much sound, you know, from these fans, or whatever you want to call it. That's funny, that's funny. I was listening to EWT on the other day, and he had, Grody had on a bishop, right? And at one point, the bishop was just talking about, you know, some of the bad translations, you know, and how they could get into the wrong idea. And he quoted one, which I always thought was kind of hilarious, huh? Where the translation was, Christ and his band, right? What does it make you think of, he says, you know? Nowadays, you know, you think of some band, you know, that plays. I was going to say, his disciples, or something, his band, you know. I mean, it wasn't the best choice of words, huh? Get you to get a kind of a false image here of what you wrote. It's all about, huh? So first, he's going to consider about the object, second, about the acts, and third, about the habit itself, right? That comes from Aristotle, that kind of order, right? Now, my goodness, about the object. About the first ten things are asked. My goodness. First, whether the object of faith is the first truth, right? Well, you shouldn't be too surprised that a faith is in reason, right? That its object should be truth, right? But not just any truth, huh? Because the object is going to be the first truth of all, right? What did our Lord say there at the last supper, was it, huh? He said, I am the... I am the way, the truth, and the life. Yeah, yeah. Now, the word way there in Greek is much more, what, concrete. The word is hodas, huh? I am the road. I am the road, it means, right? Yes, similar to Orho. What? Similar to Orho, which is Aramaic. And Aristotle, you know, called philosophy very often a methodos, right? Which means over a road, huh? So, methodos names a knowledge that follows a, what, road, right? Well, this is a methodos, right? There is an order in which you are following, right? When you follow, what, Thomas, right, huh? And if you read Euclid, you'd find there's an order, right, in which he proves things, huh? So, it's knowledge over a road, knowledge that follows a road, huh? Beautiful way of naming it, huh? Okay. So, that's the first thing we're going to be examining, right, huh? Secondly, with the object of faith is something complex or incomplex, right? Now, you see, when we study truth there and logic, right, huh? I'll come into class and I'll say, you know, where do you find truth? If you dug in the ground, would you find some truth in the soil? If you went and swam in the ocean there, would you maybe bump into a piece of truth around there, right? If you get an airplane fly up through the sky, right, you might pass a few pieces of truth here and there. It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the material world, huh? Where is truth? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And more exactly in mind, huh? Is odd number true or false? Either one, right? Is even number true or false? Well, how about no odd number is even? Ah, yes. Now you get to a statement, right? That's where you seem to have truth, right? You find truth and falsity in the same place in general. It's in statements, right? So no odd number is even. I see truth in that statement. Some odd number is even. That's false. And every odd number is even. It's false, right? Okay. When God says, I am truth itself, do you think he's saying I'm a statement? Or is he a thing that, you know, is truth itself, huh? So that's a real problem, right, huh? You see? And in our daily life, huh? We think of truth as something that is found in statements and falsehood is found in statements, huh? Were you there, you know, when they get you in trial there, right? You've got to make a statement, right, huh? So that's an important thing, right? It's the first truth. Is it something complex, right? Like a statement? Or incomplex, right? Is it a thing or is it a what? Enunciabile, right? It's referring to statement, right? Enunciation is the old word for statement, huh? In Latin and so on. Now, the third thing. Whether something false can be found in faith, right? Okay. Thomas is very thorough, right, huh? Whether the object of faith can be something seen. I don't think so because it's the evidence of things unseen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the definition we'll meet, huh? It only gets to the habit of faith, right? He'll take that definition, right? Okay. But in philosophy, right, huh? If I know what an odd number is and what an even number is, I can see right away that no odd number is even, right? If I know what a square is and what a circle is, I can see no square is a circle. Or if I know what a quadrilateral is and what a square is, I can see right away that a square is a quadrilateral, right? Now, there's some things I can't see right away, and I have to prove them, right? And that's what the fifth article is about. Whether it can be something, what? No, right, huh? Then, number six, whether the things that are believable ought to be distinguished by certain articles, huh? And you'll see Thomas gets very precise about that. Seventh, whether they're the same articles subject to faith according to all, what? Time. I was mentioning Charles Deconic, right? And he was one of the philosophers and theologians who had a private audience with Pius XII, right? And Pius XII was going to, what, declare the, what? Yeah, yeah. Of course, he was consulting, you know, the bishops and so on with him as appropriate now to do this, right? And he was also, what, consulting theologians, right? So he had my teacher there, Charles Deconic, and Deconic said, following Thomas of Coruscant, that... Um... Thomas Comity says that Peter is not in heaven because Peter is something composed of a body and soul, right? And so Peter is not in heaven. He will be after the last judgment, right? But the soul of Peter is in heaven, right? So he said to Pius XII that if Mary's body was not assumed in heaven, Mary would not be in heaven. Well, you can't possibly accept that. So then he said, Pius XII is very impressed with this argument, right? You know, her body had to be assumed into heaven, otherwise Mary would not be there, strictly speaking. It's a subtle thing, though, right? So sometimes mysteries of the faith seem to be added to, right, or made explicit, right? Eight about the number of the articles, right? That's really getting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then about the way of treating the articles in the simbolo, right, huh? It's kind of funny, the Greek word simbolo means what? Thrown together. It's not really. Yeah, that's what sim means together in bolo, you know, to throw, right, huh? But you can throw things together in an orally way, too. You cook, you should do that, you know. Yeah, you cook, you whip something up, but it's always worth it. And then, to whom does it belong to constitute a, what? Yeah, what we call creed now, usually, you know, but that's the Greek word, huh? Simbolo, right? Okay. Simbolo, fide. Well, I don't want to go through all those ten articles, do you? I don't know. Well, then you don't want to know, do you? These things. So let's look now at the first article, right? To the first, therefore, one proceeds thus. It seems that the object of faith is not the first truth, right? It's kind of funny, you know, a guy who wasn't used to this thing would say, Thomas always begins by arguing against what he thinks. And then he changes his mind, and says what he thinks. But this is the way he, what, gets your mind to really think about the thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For that would seem to be the object of faith that is proposed to us for believing, right? But not only are there proposed to us to believe the things that you pertain to the, what? Divinity, which is the first truth, right? But also those things which pertain to the humanity of Christ, and the sacraments of the, what? Church. And even the condition of creatures, right, huh? You've got an immortal soul or something, right? Therefore, not only is the first truth the object of faith. Well, that convinces a dummy like me, you know, huh? I don't see any way out of that, do you? No. No, that's, you know. Second objection. Moreover, faith and infidelity, or lack of faith, are about the same thing, right? Since they're opposites, huh? But about all the things which are in sacred scripture, or contained in sacred scripture, there can be, what? Lack of faith, right? Infidelity. For whatever of these things a man denies, he's regarded as, what? Unfaithful. Therefore, also faith is about all those things which are contained in sacred scripture, right? But there are many things that are contained about men, and about other, what? Created things, huh? Who was the father of so-and-so, and who was the son, and who was the husband, and who was the wife, and all that sort of stuff, right, huh? Therefore, the object of faith is not only the first truth, but also created truth, huh? Who is Solomon the son of? I deny that. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, but they're not the first truth there, David and Solomon, are they? No. Now, another very impressive argument. Moreover, faith is divided against, what? Charity, in the distinction of the theological virtues. But by charity, we not only, right, love God, who is the summa bonitas, but also we love our, what? Neighbor. Therefore, the object of faith is not only the first truth, right? Just like the object of, what? Of charity is not just the, what? Summa bonitas, which is God, right? Right, huh? Okay. You know, in both summas, you know, he takes up the goodness of God, the first chapter or the first article is that God is good, right? And then the second chapter article would be that God is not just good, but he's goodness itself, huh? And then the third one is that there can't be anything bad in him, right? And then the last one is that he's the summa bonita, right? So to say God is the summa bonita seems to be in the order of good, like saying God is the first, what? Truth is in the order of truth, right? So if I'm supposed to love not only God, but my neighbor, right? Well then, so I believe in only the first truth, right? But also the truth about David and Solomon and so on, right? I'm convinced this is dumb here. I mean, I don't see any way out of this, right? Okay, I'm tied up and Aristotle, you know, spoke of these objections as tying the mind upright and it can't go forward until it, what, unties the knot, huh? You've got to see the knot first. Hmm? You've got to see the knot first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to examine the knot, otherwise you can't untie it, right? Even then it's hard to untie it, huh? So why is Thomas making things so difficult for us, huh? So you'll have to make more effort in our part, huh? Mm-hmm. Okay. When I was first teaching college out in St. Murray's College in California there, I remember there was one class in particular where almost every day there's going to come in and have an objection, right? Mm-hmm. To what I was saying. Yeah, because I'd heard all these objections, you know, in my readings and so on. And so I'd untie his objection, you know, and so on. Well, anyway, in the class was over one day. He was talking to me and he said, you know, I come to class and, you know, I say, I got him today and he'll never be able to answer this, you know? But he was convinced, you know, he couldn't get me, you know, huh? But it was beautiful to see him because I knew, you know, how to untie the objection, you know, and he was, you know, he was like this, you know, when he posed the objection, you know, and then as he saw me untieing it, he would, you know, he would just, you know, go back in his seat, you know, relax, you know? He was a beautiful student, right, huh? Thomas' fellow students called him the, what, Damox, right, huh? You know, it was the title that the great Chesterton took for his little biography of Thomas on the Damox, huh? And one day the teacher of Thomas there, Albert the Great, huh, arranged to have a debate between himself and Thomas, right, and Thomas, of course, won. And then he turned to the other students and said, I tell you that his bell will be heard around the world. That's kind of a good example. You have to admire in a teacher, though, that if he has a student who's better than him, right, that he doesn't resent it, or, you know, at the end of his life, Albert the Great lived to, you know, a good old age. Thomas died young, 49, the age when the mind is best, as Aristotle said, 49. God took him in his mind and said it's best. So Albert goes down to Paris to defend the teaching of Thomas at the end of his life. It's kind of marvelous though, right? There's a story told about Plato coming into the academy, the school after the academic world is named. That's an amazing thing, the academic world is named from the school of Plato, the most famous school in the world, right? He came in, there's nobody there but Aristotle. He says, no matter, he says, he's a whole school by himself. Some people think in some of the late dialogues of Plato's influence already he replied to Aristotle and his objections, right? Now, who's this Dionysius that he's quoting here in the Sid Contra, right? He's using his a very short Sid Contra, right? He's using some authority, maybe from Augustine or something. But here it's from Dionysius who wrote the book on the, what? Divine names, right? In the book on the celestial hierarchy, right? And Thomas wrote a commentary on the divine names and Albert the Great on the celestial hierarchy, right? So, Dionysius was the, what? The area of the church. Yeah, yeah. That's when Paul had met in Athens. Yeah, very famous, huh? Very famous, very great. Great, great, great mind. And what does he say? He says that faith is about a simple and always existing truth, right? Well, that's the first truth, right? Well, you're going to go against Dionysius, right? And maybe there's something wrong. Even the demon, like me, can't say anything wrong with those objections. Maybe there is something wrong with them, right? So, what does Thomas say? I answer it should be said that the object of any, what? Knowing habit has, what? Yeah, the object has. That which is known in a material way, right, huh? Which is a material object. And that to which it is known, which is the formal ratio of the object. Now, what the hell does that mean, huh? When I see you, what do I really see? Color, yeah. I don't know your, I don't see your substance really, do I? Do I see the inner man? Even your shape, I know through color, right? Yet I can see you guys are alive, right? But it's through color that I know this stuff, I know it, huh? Get a little bit of water here. I'll be placing one of my medicines in it here. Or ordering it again, I should say. Gee, there's a little thing that says, this may affect your throat, this medicine. I don't know if it's affecting my throat or not. And that through which it is known, which is the formal reason of the object, right, huh? Just as in the science of geometry, what is known materially are the, what, conclusions, right? But the formal reason of knowing are the, what, middle terms of the demonstration, to which the conclusion are, what, is known, right? Thus, therefore, in faith, if we consider the formal reason of the object, is nothing other than the, what, yeah. For faith does not, what, about which we are speaking, does not assent to something, except because it is revealed by, what, God. Whence it rests upon the, what, divine truth as a, what, medium, right? Whereby all the things are, what, known, right? Thus, therefore, in faith, if we consider the formal reason of the object, it is nothing other than the, what, first truth, huh? For faith about which we are speaking, a sense does not assent to something, or a sense of something, there's not assent to it, except because it is revealed by God, right? Whence it rests upon the, this truth, right? As its middle, the middle that shows these things. If, therefore, we consider materially those things to which faith assents, it is not only God himself, but many, what, other things, huh? Which, nevertheless, do not come under the ascent of faith, except according, as they have some order to, what, God, huh? That to some, what, effects of divinity, man is aided to tending in divine, what, enjoyment, huh? And, therefore, also, on the part of the object of faith, is it, in a way, the first truth, insofar as nothing comes under faith, except in relation to, what, God, huh? Just as the object of medicine is said to be health, right? Because medicine considers nothing, except in relation to, what, yeah? Yeah. There's kind of a double reason there, why you could say the first truth is the object of faith, right, huh? We ascend to whatever we ascend to by faith in the light of the, what, first truth, and we, what, know all things in comparison in relation to the first truth, huh, which is God himself, huh, okay? So you are made in the image and likeness of God, right? Aristotle doesn't say that, you know? But you're being, what, compared to God, right, huh? Related to God, right, huh? So in that way, too, the first truth, right, is what unites all these things, right? So that would be an object of faith in relation to the first truth. Yeah, yeah. Like the virgin birth would be in relation to God as well. Yeah, yeah. She's the mother of God, right? Yeah. It's heretical not to say she's the mother of Jesus, but not of God, right? So you have to go all the way to God, right? And my end is eternal life, which is God, too, right, huh? He is eternal life. Remember that, yeah. Yeah. So both the light by which I ascend to these things and the way I consider these things in comparison to God, right? You know, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, which is a little shorter than the Summa Theologiae, Thomas considers God by himself and then he considers God as the beginning of things, right? And then he considers God as the end of things. So everything is considered in comparison to what? God, right? He does that twice, right? Insofar as it can be known by natural reason as well as by faith and insofar as it can be known only by faith. So he talks about God in himself and then God is the, as he said, I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, right? So the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles is about God in himself. The second about God as the beginning of things, making things and moving them and then God being the end, right? Having providence over things. So now let's see how he answers the objections, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that those things which pertain to the humanity of Christ and to the sacraments of the church or to any creatures, they count and they fall under, they come under faith. Insofar as through these we are ordered to what? God, huh? And we also, it's the second thing, we ascend to them and account to the divine what? Truth. Why is the Bible called the Bible? Truth. Truth. Truth. Because it's a collection of books. Well, the word biblios in Greek just means book, right? So the Bible means the book. What way of speaking is that? Yeah. That's the Greek name for it, right? But you take a name that's common to many and you give it what? To one that stands out. So among all the books there are, the Bible is said to be the book. Why? Because it's the word of God himself, right? Now another way of saying that is to say it's the book of books, right? But to say it's the book is to say it's by Antonia Messiah. Gospels are named by Antonia Messiah. The gospel just means good news, right? But this is the best news, right? We could have, right? Christ is named by Antonia Messiah. Not only is Christ anointed, right? There are many other people anointed, right? But among all those who are anointed, he stands out, right? So he's called the anointed. But the Greeks use this figure of speech. Aristotle's book on the poetic art, he calls Homer the poet. And for us, the poet is who. So I was reading the Federalist Papers one time. They're talking about the importance of staying together at the colonies and so on, right? If we don't, we'll be squabbling each other and fighting about the margins of our stage and all that sort of stuff. And so he says, if we don't, he says, in the words of the poet, a long farewell to all my greatness. He didn't say who the poet is. Any fool would know it's Shakespeare, right? Henry VIII, right? Which is as the poet says. The Bible, right? The book. And similarly, it should be said about the second thing, about all those things which in sacred scripture are treated, right? It's always in respect to what? To God, right? Now, what's the name of this thing I was reading earlier? You mentioned it was Verbum Dei, right? Now, translated into our native language here, it means word of God, right? Now, word of God is amphiboli. What's an amphiboli? But speech that has more than one meaning, right? Now, I like this amphiboli of word of God because the word of God in one sense is about the word of God in another sense. The Bible is most of all about what? About Christ. Yeah. The word of God as John calls him, right? And he tells us the word of God became, was made flesh, right? Became man, right? So, the word of God can also mean the Bible, too. But it'll point out in this Verbum Dei, you know, the Bible is mainly about the word of God made flesh, right? And that's why they say that even among the books of the New Testament, the Gospels have a preeminence, right? Because of the chief witness to the words and the deeds of the word of God made flesh, right? But even the Old Testament, you're looking, you know, for the prophecies and things that prepare in a way for the word of God to become man, right? So, the Bible, the word of God in the sense of the Bible is chiefly about the word of God in the other sense, right? That's interesting, that amphiboli, right? Equivocation is when a word has more than one meaning, but amphiboli is the Greek word, huh? Where a speech like word of God, a number of words, has more than one meaning, right? And when there's a connection between the two, it's kind of beautiful to see that, huh? Now, the Vatican II is very interesting in the way it says, you know, that just as the Son of God becomes man, right, huh? So, the word of God in the meaning of things takes on human language, right, and becomes human too, huh? It's a beautiful analogy between the two, right? Two senses in which the word of God becomes flesh. God adapts himself kind to our way of speaking, I taught for years, you know, at Assumption College there, the philosophy of nature, right? But then, I saw Shakespeare called it, the philosophy of nature, the wisdom of nature. He said, well, that's very good, right? The wisdom about nature. But the wisdom about nature is the wisdom about the wisdom that nature reveals and what it does. So, the wisdom of nature in one sense is about the wisdom of nature in another sense. Just like the word of God in one sense is about the word of God. It's beautiful to see that connection, right? And our mind is, gravity is the soul of it, right? Say two things with one word or two things with one few words, right? Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. What about the third objection which is a little different, huh? You know? Charity is not only the love of God, it seems, but the love of your neighbor, right? Well then, you know, to say that faith is about the first truth and be like saying that, well, charity is about the love of God and you're giving out the love of man and you're reading. Anybody who says he loves God and doesn't love man is in trouble, to say the least. Liar. Yeah, liar. He says to the third it should be said that also charity loves the neighbor on account of what? God, huh? And thus the object of charity properly is God himself, right? So sometimes they say we love what? Our neighbor in God, right? Okay. And so he corrects, you know, the objection, right? Now you're untied, huh? We can go on to the second article. He's going to tie us up again. He's going to tie us up ten times in this question. I mean, you know, and he's going to, you know, he usually has about, you know, in the Summa Theologiae he has about three, what, objections, right? If you go to the question on dispute art, you might have ten or twelve objections, right? So, I mean, you've got really, really, really tied up, huh? We'll do that in the very first. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. To the second, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that the object of faith is not something, what, complex by way of something, what, enunciabilis, something able to be stated, right, in a statement, right? Sometimes, you know, they'll say that Aristotle's second book in Logic, the Peri-Herminius, is about the, what, proposition, right? And actually, the proposition originally meant something like premise. Because it's pro-pono, right, the place before, right? So I like to say it's about a, what, statement, right? So is the object of faith something stated, right? Well, the first objection says, the object of faith is the first truth. But the first truth is something, what, complexum. The first truth is God, and God is, what, not composed in any way, right? If you read the question on the simplicity of God, right, Thomas has eight articles, right? And the first six articles show that he's not composed in this way, or this way, or this way, or this way, this way. In fact, he exhausts all the ways that the creatures are composed. And then in the seventh article, he says, what, in no way can he be composed. And the first argument is inductive, right, from the fact that he eliminated all the ways, right? Then he gives syllogisms, you know, for three, four more syllogisms, right? So how can faith be something, what? It's a statement, right? How can you believe a statement when your object is the first truth, and the first truth is not composed, but a statement is composed as subject and predicate, huh? Noun and verb, as Aristotle said, huh? Well, that convinces this dumb here, you know? You know? We were talking to this guy, and he says, I always believe the last guy I talk to, he says. I always believe the last objection I heard, right? I'm in sad shape if you do. The stability of a wind side. Who's the famous Frenchman now? No, the writer, Voltaire, right? Oh, Voltaire. They say Voltaire, you know, we look at the objections, and then when he met these Catholics, he would pop these out of his head, right? And of course, they couldn't answer them, right? So, you know? You had a lot of fun with these things, right? I guess there was one attacker of the church said, you know, if we get rid of Thomas, we could really get rid of the church, you know? It's an exaggeration, you know, but it's one of the popes quoted this, you know, but he says, you know, that's not true. You couldn't get rid of the church, you couldn't get rid of Thomas, but it's a great testimony to the excellence of Thomas, right? That he said, you know, he thought he could. Moreover, in the exposition of faith in the symbol, in the creed, is contained in the creed. But in the symbol, though, is not laid down, what? Nunciable things, but things, right? For it's not said, I believe that God is omnipotent, but I believe in God, the Almighty, yeah? Believe in God, the Father Almighty. Okay, well, that's not a form, grammatically at least, of a statement, is it? Therefore, the object of faith is not something to be stated, but it's a thing, yeah? Moreover, to faith succeeds, what? Vision. According to that of the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 12. So, we see now through a, what, mirror, in a, what, darkness, enigma, right? But then, face to face, right? So, there's two ways that they speak of the vision of God, right? And one is in St. John's, right, epistle, right? Where he says that, we know when he appears, we should be like him. That's Antonio Bessiere saying. Because we like him already, right? For me, the image and likeness of God, and then, by grace, we're even more like him. But now, St. John says, right? If you know when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. As if we weren't like him before, right? But he's saying, you know, then we'll be like him, right? By Antonio Messiah. Because God knows himself, right? Through himself, right? And you can only see God as he is, if God joins himself to your mind, as that by which you see him, as he is. So, we know when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. But this other way of saying it, we shall see him face to face, right? It's kind of a metaphorical way, right? Of saying the same thing. Like they said about Moses, right? They talk to God like you talk to your friend. It's kind of a marvelous thing. So, we see now through a mirror, right? In kind of enigma, right? Not clear, right? But then face to face, right? But the vision of the fatherland, right? Potriere, is about the incomplex, right? Because God is called to get a simple. Since it's of the divine essence itself, right? Now, the second thinking about God, and when Thomas thinks about God in the two Sumas, he first thinks about whether God exists, right? And that's when he thinks out the pruses of God, right? And then he thinks about the, what usually calls it the substance of God, right? That God is simple, and he's not changing, and so on, right, huh? There's five things he says about God, right, huh? He's simple and perfect. He's infinite and, what, one, right? Those four things, and then that he's without any motion or change, right? And he calls that the, what, consideration of the substance of God, huh? And he goes on in the third thing to consider what God does, right? Both the doing that remains in him and the doing that extends to us making and moving us. And then those three things about God we share with Aristotle, too. He did those three things. And then the fourth thing is to think about the Trinity, right, which only we believers really think about. And the fifth thing is to think about the Word of God, a member of the Trinity. He made flesh, right? And all that follows from that, right, huh? You know? But in that order, they have those five things, right? Here he uses the term essence, right, huh? But usually he calls it the substance of God, right, huh? So at the end of the third objection, he says, but the vision of the Fatherland, huh, is of the incomplex, right, huh? Sensitive of the divine essence itself, huh? The divine nature itself, right? The divine substance, huh? Okay? Therefore also the faith of the way, right, huh? We're on the road right now. But against this, and this is an objection now, huh? Make one, you know, begin to think twice about what the objections have. Faith is in the middle between, what? Knowledge and opinion. But the middle and extremes are the same, what? Genus. Since, therefore, science and opinion are about things that are able to be stated, right, and enunciabilia, it seems likewise that faith is about things that can be, what? Stated, right? Mary is assumed to heaven. It's a statement, isn't it? And that's the object of faith. Since faith is about things that are statable, is something, what? Complex, huh? And that's the object of faith, right? And that's the object of faith, right? And that's the object of faith, right? And that's the object of faith, right? And that's the object of faith, right? well now feel the bounds around you you know that you really can't move you know it's interesting aristotle you know spoke also when he's writing the famous book on on tragedy and comedy and he says uh that uh two things is about the plot that homer realized a plot should have a beginning a middle and an end right and then he defines that then then later on he says the plot has two parts tying the knots and then untying them right huh and shakespeare has one character says well tying them must untangle this not i it is too hard enough for me to untie we have a hard time on time with these knots it makes us think more deeply about these things appreciate something you work for more that's what you overcome right now now i answer thomas says that things known are in the knower in the way of the what knower that comes under the more general proposition that things are in something but in the receiver right and the man of the receiver but it is its own way of the human understanding right the human mind's the whole way of of knowing truth huh that does this by putting together and dividing right but making an affirmative or a what negative statement right now so i say a square is a what quadrilateral or a square is not a circle right now that's my way of knowing truth right yeah what about squares and circles and all kinds yeah yeah yeah yeah god is what simple right god is perfect right yeah god is good god is good as itself there's nothing bad in god and then in the summa katra genti it is god is the good of every good marvelous right but they're all statements aren't they right either affirmative or negative huh so he said componendo right bringing together an affirmative statement or dividendo separating them in a negative statement right so he's using those words now god doesn't believe huh he's an unbeliever yeah sounds strange right then he loves us he's love itself right but he's not a believer and he has no hope yeah yeah and therefore those things which in themselves right are simple right huh our understanding knows in a certain what complex way right now i was speaking of that huh and i said that you know we show that god is simple right and it's in the form of statements right he's not composed in this way or any other way right and this is just the reverse of the way god knows huh as a divine understanding knows what in a simple way in an uncomplex way those things which are in themselves complex okay you know when thomas talks about the the angels huh as you go up you know from the lowest order of angels which our guardian angels belong to right to the archangels and all the way up you know the three hierarchies the angels get what simpler and more perfect as you go up which is not true about material substances a tree is more perfect than a what stone but a stone is simpler than a tree and a dog or a cat is superior to is better more perfect than a what tree but it's more complicated and a man is even more complicated and more perfect than the what yeah but the angels are just the reverse as you go up in the angels they get simpler and more perfect at the same time and so finally as approach guys i bet yeah he's completely simple and universally what perfect an amazing thing right so god knows simple i mean complex things in a simple way and we know simple ways simple things in a complex way yeah complex way yeah but a messed up if you are right and the more german you are the more complex yeah yeah yeah yeah so he's contrasting us with god right and therefore those things which are in themselves simple right the human understanding knows according to a certain what complex way right just as a converse will be the opposite way the divine understanding knows in a simple way right in in an incomplex way those things which in themselves are what yeah god knows everything by knowing what himself he's entirely simple so he knows all complex things and every creature is composed in more ways than one right he knows all these composed things in a completely simple way or we're just the reverse and we've got to know a simple thing in a composed way thus therefore the object of faith can be considered in two ways in one way on the side of the thing believed right and thus the object of faith is something simple uncomposed in complexism right just as the thing about which faith is had in another way on the side of the one believing himself right and according to this the object of faith is something complex by way of something enunciable right but i would say stateable right you can put into a statement huh so as thomas goes through studying god in theology right it's statements about god that we're making all the time about god god is simple that's a statement right god is not composed in this way god's not he's not composed of the body he's not composed of matter and what form he's there's no distinction god between the individual and the kind of thing it is but that's there is right thomas says you know if socrates was a man for the same reason he's socrates he'd be the only man there is i'm duane i'm also a man if i was a man for the same reason that i am duane i'd be the only man around that's where the angels are each angel right is the only one of its kind my first great teacher there at sirik there an undergraduate huh he said uh god hates equality no two angels are equal in their nature that raises a problem you know sometimes thomas talks about they say you know kind of hard for us to understand the love of the angels right because we love our own what kind right is it and uh we can love our own kind more than something's not our own kind right and uh what did the angels love each other as much as we love each other well thomas points out that the angels are very intellectual right and the more intellectual you are the more you love the what common good and the common good is what caused or by distinction of kinds of things than by many individuals of the same kind and therefore the angels because they love the common good so much they love each other more because they are not what equal right now but they're different kinds of things right marvelous thing right But the senses love only the, what, private good, right, of the common good. Truth is very much a common good, huh? Okay. So, he sees a distinction, right, huh? Thomas is always saying distinction that we don't, what, see, right, huh? This one guy studied with the Dominicans, you know, he had this kind of a way of saying, he says, never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish. Well, you can affirm and deny after you distinguish, but make sure you better do that first, right, see a distinction, huh? So, is the object of faith something simple or composed, right? Well, if you consider it on the part of the thing that we believe in, right, it's altogether, what, simple God. But if you consider it on the part of the, what, believer, it's something, what, composed, right? We have to, you know, try to grasp God by, what, statements, right, that we can prove to be, what, true, right? So, Thomas, he takes up the substance of God. He, what, shows that God is, what, simple or God is not composed, right? And then he shows that God is perfect and therefore good, right? And then he shows that God is, what, infinite, right? And God is one, right, and then the other thing he shows is that God is in no way, what, changeable, right, in no way moved, huh? And these are all statements, right, you know? So that's what you have to do to know this simple thing. We have to know in a, what, composed way, right? But in the case of the angels, they would know him in a simple way. Yeah, but not, but their natural knowledge of God would not be as simple as God's knowledge of himself, right? And, you know, as you mentioned before, God, by knowing himself, knows all other things, right? Now, the angels know primarily themselves, right? But in knowing themselves, they don't know anything else. So they have to have more, what, thoughts, you might say, yeah, more understandable forms besides their own substance, right? But as you go down in the order of angels, they require more of these, what, thoughts, right? They don't understand as well by those many more thoughts as the higher angels understand by fewer thoughts. So they are approaching God, right, huh? They still have a multiplicity of, what, of thoughts, right, huh? And so the knowledge is not as simple as God, right, huh? It's really not as, what, messed up as ours is, you know, as composed as our knowledge is, right, huh? You see, when an angel understands what a triangle is, he sees every property that belongs to a triangle, right? But I know what a triangle is, and I've got to go through a whole demonstration that the triangle has its interior angles, it's going to do right angles, right, and so on, you know? So I don't see, in knowing what a triangle is, everything that belongs to a triangle. I've got to go through another step here, you know, or steps. The warrior's process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why, you know, when Shakespeare defines reason as ability for a larger discourse, looking before an actor, well, discourse, you know, means going one thing to another, right? So you've got to go from one thing to another, right? But the angels know without eating discourse. In A fortiori, God doesn't make it discourse, you know, it's your dummies, right? You know? It's a joke about that, my teacher, there, and then the graduate concert there, you know, where she says, we're all bastards, you know? We're kind of mixed up, you know, half spiritual, half bodily, right, huh? You know, and we're just kind of an odd combination there, you know, of things, so, okay? You know, some of the Greek thinkers thought that the soul of a dog could go into a man, or the soul of a man is a dog, and they say that there was a Pythagoras, you know, saying, don't be that dog, recognize my friend, you know, and his soul is kind of the dog. Well, of course, Aristotle shows the impossibility of that, right, huh? But along the same line, Aristotle shows that Thomas says that the same thing is true even about the soul of my body and the soul of your body, right? The soul of your body couldn't be the soul of my body, and vice versa, right? That my soul fits my body, right, huh? Not only my body, right? So your mother and father, what, begin your body, right, huh? And then God creates your immortal soul to fit that body, right, huh? And so you didn't get your immortal soul from your mother and father, but you got the beginning of this body that God made a soul that, what, fits that body in particular. So unless your mother and father had repaired your body or begun your body, God would never have created your immortal soul, right? So you're very much indebted to your parents, not as much as, obviously, to God, but, you know, but they had done that for you, right? Kind of a marvelous thing to see, right, huh? To see, you know, the way, what is it, to me, to get married was the expression that they used, you know? But, I mean, you can see the way that we work together with God there, right? You can see the husband and wife there, again, a body, and then God creates a mortal soul that fits just that body, right, huh? So you and I get back somebody else's body, you know, at the end. Whoops! Yeah, yeah. That's consoling to know the joy, okay? Some, some slav's body or something. Marvelous, huh? Aristotle, the way he knew that, that the human soul didn't come from the mother and father. He says that, especially in the parts, in the generation of animals, yeah. It's a marvelous thing that he saw that, huh? But why the soul of a dog or a cat comes from its parents, as well as its body, huh? And, therefore, he says both of these things were opined among the, what, ancients, huh? And, and according to something, both are true, right, huh? Okay? You're believing something about something that is simple, but you're believing it in a kind of, what, complex way, right? The medieval, they get their references to crazy things here, but in the variety there, you know, for the, you know, the different opinions, but, anyway. Okay? Got time for another article or not? Do they reject and reply? Do they reply? Okay. Very good, sir. You used, I forgot you were still tied up. Please, help me, help me. Well, I don't know if I can help you, but I think Thomas can, huh? So, to the first objection, it should be said that that argument, right, proceeds about the object on the part of the thing believed, right? Not on the part of the way we believe it, right? Now, what about the, the symbol of faith? To the second, it should be said that in the symbol law, which we call the creed, right, and the things thrown together, are touched upon those things about which is faith, faith, insofar as to those things is what terminated the act of believing, as from the very way of speaking appears, huh? For the act of the one believing does not stop at the, what, is statable, but it goes all the way to the thing, right, huh? For we do not form statements, huh, things that are enunciable, except that through them we might have knowledge about, what, things. And this is true both in, in science, so also in, what, faith, huh? So I don't form a, a, a, what, complex statement, a statement that is complex, right, to say that God is complex, but to know that he's, what, simple, so much as I can know it, right, in this life, huh? I have to know it by negation, right, that he's not composed, right? Then I realized that.