Tertia Pars
Lecture 29: Qualified Being, Knowledge, and Grace in Christ

Transcript
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Did I come to be? No way. If you leave this room, will you cease to be? Yeah, so you would say it, wouldn't you? When I came into this room, I came to be in this room, which got qualified, right? Sometimes I'll say, qualified, right? You see the difference between substance and action, right? When I leave this room, why cease to be? I'm going to say, shoot me out there or something, right? But I will cease to be in this room. I cease to be sitting, okay? You see how that distinction comes there, right? The same way in act and ability, right? Are there chairs in the trees out here? Yeah, you have to add it there, right? You wouldn't say without qualification, simply. But there's so, right? Now, I mentioned before how in the famous dialogue called the Nino, which is an introduction to Elijah, Nino was saying you can't know what you don't know. Can you know what you don't know in some way? Yeah. And Nino doesn't see that distinction, and Saktis can't really bring it out either. He gets into trouble. Example, I told you there, I was just in class, and I'd come into class and I'd say, I don't know how many students are in class today, right? And yet I can direct myself to what I don't know with the greatest of ease. So I don't know how many people are here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now, I directed myself to what I didn't know. There were eight students in class, right? But, did I in some way know what I didn't know? I knew I didn't know the number of students in class. I knew I was looking for the number of students in class. And that was enough to tell me to count. You see, Nino was saying, you can't know how to get to what you don't know. Well, and the answer to that is, well, if you know it in some way, right? You see? I told you an example of this though. I used in the class when I would talk about this mistake, you know, and I'd take a young lady and I'd say, do you know my brother Mark? And she'd say, no. And then I'd say, now, do you know what a brother is? Yeah. Do you know what a man is? Yeah. I'd say, that's where my brother Mark is. So you do know him, right? But in some way, she knows my brother Mark. And every man in this world, right? Every brother. In knowing what a man is and what a brother is, right? But that's not to know him by the Mark. Simply, is it? It's a very imperfect way of knowing him, right? So this distinction comes up all the time, right? And I notice when I talk about wisdom, Aristotle will say sometimes, you know, that simply speaking, only God is wise. Wisdom is an out that God himself has. So is first philosophy wisdom then? Yeah, yeah. But now if you're talking about the parts of philosophy, then first philosophy is wisdom simply, because it's about all things. And natural philosophy is that wisdom? Well, it's a wisdom about natural things, you could say. Or ethics is a wisdom about human life, right? But you wouldn't call it wisdom simply, right? So if you're comparing first philosophy to ethics or natural philosophy, first philosophy is wisdom simply, and ethics and natural philosophy only in a, what? Secundiquid. If you compare even first philosophy to the knowledge of God, right, then God's knowledge is wisdom simply, and man's knowledge is only a very qualified sense, right? So, important distinctions. So it's possible for something to be said to be something simply in one context, right? And not simply in another context, right? And in the strictest sense, only God simply speaking is what? Infinite, right? But other things can be infinite in somewhat qualified ways, right? But see, that is a kind of distinction that comes over and over again in philosophy, and so the whole philosophy. In logic, for example, Aristotle says that an empty beam is a syllogism, a syllogism, tis. It's a syllogism, what? It's a quindum quid, right? It is something of the syllogism, but not fully or perfectly, right? If grace is a partaking of the divine nature, it's not the divine nature. Divine nature is infinite. If grace is only a partaking in some way of the divine nature, can grace be essentially infinite like the divine nature is? And yet, the partaking of the divine nature in the soul of Christ, right, might be the, what? Fullest, right? Yeah. Because the grace you receive is proportioned to your end, he says, right? And the end of grace is to unite us with God. And since there's no greater union with God than that is being joined to God in person, right? Then the grace that corresponds to that union, or that makes one suitable to reach that goal, right? Must be the, what? Must be the fullness of grace, right? But then he speaks of this other distinction on the side of the subject, right? And, you know, it's interesting, you know, how different Thomas is from what, you know, the contemporary theologians say, right? Where Christ doesn't know who he is and doesn't know this, doesn't know that. But he's saying that Christ has the fullness of knowledge, right? Because he has his bit of vision, right? And he has the fullness of grace in the moment of his, what? Conception. And that's because the perfect is the source of all the things. So Christ is the source of all these things for us. He's going to have these things in the beginning and in perfection, right? We can be full of grace in that second sense, though, how we can have, at least the time we've had, all the grace to which God is, what? Calling us, right? He's the Father of the heavens, right? And so he's calling us to this heaven or that heaven, right? Can we go back to the cherubim? Maybe we'll be down there with the angels, right? But our cups will be full. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the second objection here, huh? It's referring now to the, what, infinite, what? Power of God, right? Okay. Now, this is very subtle what I'm just saying here. He makes a distinction here, right? In some sense, you have to admit, right? That God can always make more, right? To the second, therefore, it should be said that although the divine power being infinite is able to make something greater and better than the habitual grace of Christ, right? Nevertheless, he's not able to make something that would be ordered to something greater than the personal union to the Son who is only begotten from the, what? Father, right? To which union sufficiently corresponds such a measure of grace according to the definition of the, what? The divine wisdom, huh? Is made, huh? And that's what belongs to wisdom. You know, we often go to our style of everything he says it belongs to a wise man to order things, right? But it also belongs to the perfection of reason which is wisdom to, what? what measure things right okay so he's admitting here in some way that there could be a greater grace right but could the grace of christ be increased not exactly in glory okay and in one sense he could not make what a grace of the order to something greater than the personal union right so no matter how much you guys try to get grace you're not going to equal the habitual grace that christ has in his soul right huh i mean part of your presumption i mean right i mean you read that presumption right because you're not ordered to that great a union with god that the human nature of christ has with god right you're not ordered to what a personal union with god you're ordered to see god as he is face to face right and some of you more clarity than others okay and so you get a grace that is commensurate to clarity a vision that is for ordaining right so we're interested to see how we are hey you're higher than me now i was thinking about this this thing you know envy there i said where was i reading it uh i think it was in the gospel saint matthew there's a special reference to envy there right because partly knew that they had delivered christ over out of envy and partly because you have nothing wrong with the land right you know and and uh so uh attacking a good man right and so on it's out of envy right you see so why is it you know if if you see more clearly than i do right huh or vice versa god why is it that you or i will not envy the other guy right why will i rejoice that you see god more clearly than i do if you do right why will i do that sir well you know it's kind of a human point of view but one thing that strikes me is that the distance between the the highest angel right the lowest angel and the clarity which is the god right that's as it were nothing in comparison with the clarity of which god sees what himself right thomas talks in that pre-communion prayer right the clarity of the divine knowledge right so that uh um it's like you know um if one girl is a little bit more beautiful than other girl right she might be envious of that that's all there is is the two of them you know famous story of snow biting the seven dwarfs right you know the queen of the mirror mind was beautiful of all and she always said yes the mirror right but now it's saying no something so it's a beautiful story about envy i think it's a very it's a very good uh you know moral in that whole thing but um if uh one girl is just a little bit more beautiful than another girl and then there's a third girl who's you know just tremendous right is are these other two girls going to be envious of each other or you know look it's like nothing compared to somebody who's reading you know you know yeah but they're kind of ridiculous to to uh to uh uh be envious of god right that wouldn't even make any sense right uh even in universal right see and uh see but the other thing that's perhaps more important is kind of a point that thomas makes um that the more understanding you are the more you love the common good right now god is a common good of the kingdom of god but next to god is the order of the universe or the order of what the kingdom right so if you love the common good more than the private good then you will love the fact that you do not equally see god right face to face because there is an order then like there is in the angels right now right and that is the what common good that is next to the common good which is god himself right thomas is often refers to what aristotle points out in the 12th book of wisdom now i was thinking about this this phrase the kingdom of god it actually has two meanings right one uh meaning by the kingdom of god the order society of those who see god face to face right and then there's definitely the kingdom of god which the whole universe can be considered his kingdom right now okay um when aristotle's talking about that second sentence he says that he compares it to the army right now and the whole army is ordered to what victory right like douglas mcgarthew said right in war there's no substitute for victory well that's the common good that's what it's all about right okay so all said so um but aristotle says that the order of the whole army right it's ultimately to victory but the order of the army one for the other right is on account of victory right so he says the order of the whole universe is to god but then next to that is the order of things universe one to another right and that's because of the order to god right okay now this guy here you know thomas aquinas um i don't know what metaphor to use i told you my old teacher is to say compared to aristotle would say i got the brain of an angle worm brain of an angle worm and i could say compared to thomas aquinas i got the brain of an angle worm uh but uh uh uh i'm under him right now what's wrong with the academic world is among other things i love the problem but uh my own experience in the academic world is that everybody's trying to do his own thing and there is not very what worthwhile most of all what they're doing right yes well i'm going to try to do my own thing i'm trying to do what thomas is doing right and uh thomas is trying to do what augustine is doing and so on right and the church fathers and so on and so uh but the order between me and thomas here is an account of the order that we both have to what to god right now he's going to help me to understand god better and uh and god bless him for doing that huh thank you when i get there too i know he's going to think of me but uh what did uh what would the great say when he heard that thomas had died you know the light of the church has been extinguished strong words uh saint albert the great yeah it's interesting i always compare albert the great and thomas to heiden and mozart because the older man recognized that the younger man who was to some extent you know learned from him right was now what transcending him right and uh find and it's to me a beautiful example of a man free from envy right i see no envy at all in hiding respect to mozart though he recognized mozart had transcended him right and when mozart wrote the the quartets that he later on dedicated to heiden right the heiden quartets heiden came to mozart's father he says as an honest man before you and god your son is the greatest composer known to be right you know he's and uh you had that same thing with with with uh august i mean uh albert and and thomas right i would recognize thomas as exodus there perhaps with paedon aristotle too if it's true you know paedon's supposed to go into the school and see aristotle was always alone there in school one day and he said well he's a whole school by himself notice thomas is seeing a distinction here now in the second objection then the second then it should be said that although the divine power is able to make something greater and better than the habitual grace of christ he seems to be admitting right in that sense but that doesn't mean you could increase the grace of christ because he had the fullness of the grace he is going to have right according to the prefixing of the divine what wisdom right but there's no way you could not make the greater grace right you could not ever make one that is ordered to something greater than the personal union to the only begotten Son from the Father, to which union sufficiently corresponds such a measure of grace according to the definition of divine wisdom. So the divine wisdom says, I will give this human nature, right, that's going to be taken from the Blessed Virgin, right, I'm going to give this human nature a grace that is sufficient, right, and makes suitable this human nature to be united to my own Son, right, in his divine person, right. Now he's going to give this woman marriage, right, not that grace, it has to be less than that, right, but he's going to give her a grace that makes her suitable to being the mother of this man, right, and even your mother or my mother, right, can't be called to that high an end or goal, right, and therefore your mother or my mother, wonderful as they may have been, right, or are, they could not have a grace, what, equal to that of Mary, right, huh. Is it surprising to you that he says the grace of Christ could be greater, even though the final cause of that grace is so, you know. Yeah, yeah, but you kind of respect there for the fact that grace is basically a partaking of the divine nature, right, and the divine nature is infinite, so you can always partake of it more, right, and the divine power which produces this grace, or gives this grace to us, right, is infinite, right, yeah. So God has the power to assimilate you more and more to him, right, okay. Now the third objection is this text from Luke there about the who, right, age and wisdom and so on. He says that in, to a third it should be said that in wisdom and grace someone is able to progress in two ways. In one way according to the, what, habits of wisdom and grace, huh, being augmented, right. And in this way in Christ, there could not, Christ could not, what, go forward in these, huh, to more. In another way according to effects, right, in so far as someone does wiser things and more powerful things, right, huh. And thus Christ progressed in wisdom and grace as an age because according to the progressing of his age, he did more perfect works that he might show himself, what, to be a true man, right, both in those things which are to God and those things which are to men. If he showed this in kind of an exterior way, right, huh. Okay. Now, you know, this is one of these ways that speaking the scripture has, you know, where Thomas has to explain the way of speaking. Was it like when he took, was it Abraham, sacrificed his son, right, or Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, but God stopped him from doing so, right? Doesn't God say something like, you know, now I know you love me or something, right? Okay. Well, is that to be understood that God didn't know before? And he said, I'm going to say this guy really loves me. You see? Well, that's obviously a false understanding of God. God's knowledge is complete. Okay. So, the way Thomas understands that is that it means that now I have made known, right, to you and to others, right, that you love me. Okay. And something like that here, right, you see? Did he grow in wisdom and grace as he did in age, right? Or did he, what, make these known, right, huh? By what he did in an exterior way. That's the way Thomas understands that, huh? But those ways of speaking, you can see how a person could obviously misuse them, right, or misunderstand them, right, huh? Yeah. I was just wondering, in the text here, it almost sounds like he was saying, you hear that it's Christ, in order to make himself appear more like man, and that he's growing, he needed it. Kind of like he pretended that he was growing with him from the outside. That's something this thing was saying. Yeah, he didn't show this because that would be kind of an impediment of people to believe in his being a man, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he would appear, if he, you know, started spouting metaphysics or something, right, from his thing, people would think he's never a human being. Right, right. You see? So he didn't want to unnecessarily, but… He wouldn't appear morally. …scandalized him, right, or let him, yeah, yeah. He put on a good show when he was twelve. Yeah, he did, he did, yeah, there he did, yeah. And that's the thing, I never fully understood that I was trying to get de-connected, you know, but he didn't, you know, go into that much of me, you know. I was always kind of puzzled with that, right, because it seems, you know, that even if he must be about his father's business, right, you know, he could have told his mother and father, you know. Yeah. It's a little hard to understand, you know, that thing, but maybe somewhere in the church there's some explanation of that that seems kind of unnecessarily worrying his mother, you know, like a mother would worry her father, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's Article 13 now. Whether the habitual grace of Christ followed upon the what? Union? To the 13th, therefore, one goes forward thus. It seems that the habitual grace in Christ was not subsequent to the union. For the same thing does not follow upon itself. But this habitual grace seems to be the same thing with the grace of what? Union. For Augustine says in the book on the predestination of saints, that that grace comes about on the beginning of faith in any Christian man, by which grace that man from the beginning was made, what? Christ. Of which to the first pertains to habitual grace, the second to the grace of union. Therefore, it seems that habitual grace does not follow upon union. You know, obscure the text there. Could it be an anointed Christmas or made Christ? We say that grace by which from the beginning of faith any man of that son becomes a Christian, right? Which would be some by habitual grace. By that grace that man from the beginning was made Christ, right? So it seems to be talking about the flesh, right? More of a disposition goes before perfection in time, or at least an understanding. But habitual grace seems to be a disposition of human nature for the, what? Personal union, huh? Therefore, it seems that habitual grace does not follow upon union, but more what precedes it, huh? Like we were saying before in a previous article that because it's ordered this in, right, of the personal union, therefore he had, what, this amount of grace, right? Yeah, so wouldn't that do? Moreover, the common is before the private, huh? But habitual grace is common to Christ and other men. But the grace of union is private to Christ, huh? He alone has the apostatic union. Therefore, according to the understanding, habitual grace is before the union itself. Therefore, it does not, what, follow upon it, huh? But again, this is what is said in Isaiah chapter 42. 2. Behold, my servant, I have, what, taken him up? After which it says, I gave my spirit upon him, which seems to pertain to the gift of habitual grace. Whence it remains that the taking on of human nature and the union of the person, we see that the habitual grace in, what, Christ, huh? Thomas says, I answer it should be said that the union of human nature to the divine person, which we said above was, what, the very grace of union, huh? That's why he doesn't have a special consideration, the grace of union here, because he's already taken up the incarnation, right? That's the reason he gave them right at the beginning. He's going to distinguish three graces, the grace of Christ as an individual man, the grace of Christ as the head of the church, which will be in the next question, right? Then the grace of union, because we've already talked about the grace of union and talking about the incarnation itself and how that takes place. So he says, the union of human nature to the divine person, which above, we said, was the very, what, grace of union, right? We see the habitual grace in Christ, not in the order of, what, time. So there's no time in which he was, what, incarnate before he had the habitual grace, right? But the order of nature and, what, understanding, right? And this for a threefold, what, reason, huh? First, he says, according to the order of the principles of both. For the beginning of the union is the person of the sun, assuming, what, human nature, who, according to this, is said to be sent into the, what, world, huh? That he took on human nature. But the beginning of, what, habitual grace, which is given with, what, charity, huh? Is the Holy Spirit, who, according to this, is said to be sent, that he inhabits the mind by, what, charity, huh? So the Holy Spirit can't in himself change when he inhabits you, right? It comes to you, right? But he said to come to you by reason of the gift of, what, love, if he gets you, huh? He's in you by a new, what, effect it is, divinity. But now the sending of the sun, according to the order of nature, is before the sending of the, what, Holy Spirit. Just as in the order of nature, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and what? Yeah. Just as I love the Holy Spirit, right? Proceeds from the Son and the Father in the order of what nature? Remember how Gesson speaks of the order in the Torah, right? So the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, right? So therefore the, the, and mission, remember how the Holy Spirit and the Son are both said to be sent, but the Father is not, right? So those persons that proceed from another are said to be sent, right? So if we understand the Son is proceeding from the Father before the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, right? Then these two sendings, right? Christ is sent into the world, he becomes incarnate, right? And he, what, gets us a big show of grace through the Holy Spirit. Well then one should be before the other, right? It's kind of a subtle thing. So the mission or the sending of the Son, according to the order of nature, is before the mission of the Holy Spirit. Just as in the order of nature, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the, yeah, the love of the Holy Spirit, yeah. Whence the personal union, by which is understood the mission of the Son, is before, in order of nature, habitual grace, by which is understood the mission of the, what? Holy Spirit, huh? You see what he's saying there now? He's saying just as the, we understand the Son is proceeding, what, from the Father, right? Before the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, right? So the mission of the Son, right, in his incarnation, is understood as being before the mission of the Holy Spirit and the giving of grace and the ritual, grace to the Son, right? Uh-huh. Okay? Second, one can take the reason for disorder from the relation of grace to its cause, huh? Because grace is caused in man from the presence of divinity, just as light in the air from the presence of the, what, Son, huh? Whence it is said in Ezekiel chapter 43, the glory of God entered, what, Israel, right? Through the oriental, eastern way, right? And the earth was splendid from his, what, majesty. But the presence of God in Christ is understood according to the union of human nature to the divine person. Whence the habitual grace of Christ is understood as following this union, just as the splendor of the Son. It's a little bit in that text from St. John earlier, too, right, huh? Because he's only begotten of the Father, right? Then he's full of grace and what? Truth, right? Third, the reason of this order can be taken from the end of grace. For grace is ordered. Truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, truth, to acting well, but actions are of what? Individual substances, supposita, right? Individuals. Whence action, and consequently the grace ordered to action, right? Presupposes the hypostasis, the person, what? Acting, right? The acting person is, John Paul said, but the hypostasis is not presupposed in the human nature for the union. You don't have a human hypostasis there, right, that has to be pushed out of the way, right? And therefore the grace of union, according to understanding, precedes the what? Yeah. I was saying that the individual who acts is presupposed to his action, right? But the habitual grace is ordered to what? What one's going to do with this individual grace, right? Right? So just as the person is before the action, right? So the grace of union whereby one is a person, right? There's no human person there, right? Is before, instead of before the grace whereby one is ordered to act and doing some things, right? I think therefore I am, said Descartes, right? So you have to be an individual substance before you can do anything, right? Even though, even if you always did something, right, you're still an order there of nature, right? Understanding, right? We understand that something is before it can do something, right? But I want to say person here by the hypostatic union here, right? And this is the same thing as the, what, grace of union, huh? So that's understood as before the grace whereby you are disposed to, what, do something, huh? They're convincing me, Thomas, yeah. Difficult, huh? But notice the second argument there is pretty clear too, isn't it? The reason of this order is from the relation of grace to its cause. But grace is caused in man, obviously, from the presence of, what, the divinity. As light in the air from the sun, right? And there's even a text there from Ezekiel that, therefore, it compares, right? God to the, what, sun, right? So the presence of God in Christ is understood by the union of human nature to the divine person, right? That's the grace of union, right? Once the habitual grace of Christ is understood as following upon this union, just as splendor follows upon the, what, the sun rising up from its bed, right? That's what happens. It's in French there, secouche, or something like that, when the sun goes to bed. It sets, huh? And the first one is a little more difficult, huh? But still, that's the order, right? It reminds me of the metaphor of fire, huh? Fire is sometimes a metaphor for the divine nature. And then the light represents the divine understanding. And the heat, the divine, what, love, the divine power to change things. But sometimes you take fire as being a metaphor for the trinity, huh? And then the substance of the fire represents the Father, right? And from the Father there proceeds both light and, what, fire? Because both the sun and the Holy Spirit proceed from, what? Yeah. But in a way, you see light as, what, proceeding from the fire before the heat, right? So the fire, or the fire through its light, giving rise to heat, right? And sometimes they apply that also to faith and charity. And they say, well, the sun enlightens the world before it warms it. So God enlightens our mind by faith before he warms our heart by, what? Charity. Charity, yeah. So, it was kind of interesting things there, right, huh? So if we understand the sun is proceeding from the Father before the, not before in time, like that, so that the Holy Spirit can then rise from the Father and the Son together, right, huh? Well, then the coming into the world, right, the proceeding of the world, you'd understand the Son's proceeding into the world before that of the, what, Holy Spirit, right? What did Christ say, you know, that's, I need the Holy Spirit, won't come, right? Yeah. That's an order, right, huh? So Christ coming into the world is before, in a sense, the Holy Spirit's coming in fully, like he does with the Pentecost, right? Mm-hmm. So the mission of the Son into the world, then, which is by his incarnation, right, is before the mission of the Holy Spirit, giving him, what, grace and love, let's go to the schedule of grace, huh? I rest my case. Well, Thomas rest his case. Quote it, quote it right there. Yeah, yeah. Now, the first objection, huh? Nothing follows upon itself, huh? And the objection is saying habitual grace seems to be the same thing as the grace of union, right? According to this text of Augustine. To the first, therefore, it should be said that Augustine there calls grace or names grace the gratuitous will of God, right? In fact, gratuitously giving us, what, benefits, right, huh? And on account of this, it is the same grace, he says, by which any man becomes a Christian as the grace by which, what, Christ is made a man, right, huh? Because both are by the gratuitous will of God without merits, has been done, right? Okay. Yeah, that comes into the explanation of the word grace sometimes, huh? That grace is something, what? Yeah, something gratuitous in God's part, right? It precedes in the merit, right? So sometimes when they translate grace as favor, they want some of these new translations, right, huh? But that's not entirely outside the meanings of the word grace, right, huh? Because I say, you're in my good graces. We see that sometimes. I think people say that sometimes, right? In more secular circumstances, right, huh? I do something, you know, and I get into your good graces, right? See, now you're inclined to do good things for me, right? Or, you know, to favor me in some way, right, huh? You see? So that's the meaning of grace there when you say, well, just as I don't deserve the grace that God gives me, right, huh? So human nature, Christ didn't deserve, right, to be joined to what? The divine person, right? That was gratuitous in God's part, right? There was a great favor, you might say, that God bestowed upon human nature that he joined to his person, the person of the Son, right? You see? So this guy is mixing up two or three different senses of grace, right? Shame on him and his objection, right? But as the philosopher says, the most common mistake is the one for mixing up the senses of a what? Word, huh? I told you that I would teach the Shakespeare's definition of reason there, and then we go into Aristotle's text there, the basic senses of the word before, right? And I go through the four central senses, before in time, right? Before in being, before in the discourse of reason, before in the sense of what? Goodness, right, huh? Okay. And after...