Tertia Pars
Lecture 48: Predication in the Incarnation: God is Man, Man is God

Transcript
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The son was a god, obviously. He's a hot stone, right? He's got trouble with the Athenian authorities there. And the way of getting at him at Pericles, right? Because he was a befriended him, Pericles. But Anaxagoras then said that this greater mind must be all kind of distinct from things. Because if it was mixed up with things, it could not, what, rule them, right? So when you tried to explain, you know, the thinking there of Anaxagoras, you have to bring out the more general statement that the ruler must be, what, distinct or separated from the, what, ruled, right? Now Einstein comes to the idea of a greater mind too, but it's what, mixed up with the universe, so he doesn't get as far in his thinking as Anaxagoras, right? So sometimes even Einstein will say his thinking is pantheistic, huh? Which kind of is the big danger of democratic thinking, according to De Tocqueville, huh? This is, yeah, De Tocqueville, the democracy in America, right? There's a chapter on that, right? A short chapter, but he says we see, you know, this pantheism in the French thinkers and the German thinkers. If you go through, you know, the Enchiridian symbol, or we get the official pronouncements of the church during the 19th century, especially, you'll see this German theologian being corrected for his pantheistic idea. Yes, that guy. And who was it, the card over there, the, Siri was it? Who was the card over there? Oh, he just took the Siri, yeah. Yeah, yeah, who wrote the book there. Yeah. Talking about how, you know, Hans Kohn and some other people. Bronner. Bronner, yeah. You know, they have so a pantheistic statement from time to time. So it's a tendency. But Anaxagoras rises above it, right? So you have to admire the great Anaxagoras, huh? When Thomas is in the Summa Congenitia, he's been showing how God is responsible, ultimately, for the distinction and order of things. You know, they often bring in the great Anaxagoras, huh? Okay. Okay, now, in the fourth objection there, the one that says things that are said absolutely, right, huh? are commented on the Trinity. He says that this name, man, is said of God, not by reason of, what, the nature of God, right? But by reason of the union in the person, right? Which union implies a, what, relation. And therefore, it doesn't follow that rule of those names, which are said absolutely, not relatively, of God from eternity, which is said of each person. So I always was worried about that idea of supposition, you know. I think probably the best way to translate it in English is to say standing for, right, huh? And I can say, I'm married to a woman. Not just any woman! So when you say, I'm married to a woman, a woman stands for Rosalie, my wife. So you can do that now with woman, you can do it with man. My father is, you know, I'm the son of a man, right? I'm the father of a man. I think what's got to be careful there is to realize when you say, when I say, I'm the son of a man, a man, or man, the word man, has not taken on a new meaning. Namely, we know Victor Burkwest, who's my father. It keeps the name it has, right? So this is something a little different than what, the meaning of the name, right? And so when you say, you know, that God is, what, a man, right? Or God became a man, right? You say, God there stands for the son of God, the word of God, right? When you say, in the beginning was the word, and the word was towards God, then God stands for the, what, father, right? When you say, God from God, well, in one case, God is standing for the son. In other case, for the father, right? It wouldn't be correct, you see, but somebody might, you know, get confused, right? And say, well, when we say God is a man, the meaning of God is the son of God. No. When we say, in the beginning was the word, and the word was towards God, the meaning of the word God is the father. No, see? Ex, verbi sanordi nati polatis. I'm putting forth those words in a disordered way, right? See? No, in both of those cases, right? The word God has the same, what, meaning, right? But in the one case, it's standing for this one who has the human, the divine nature. In the other case, for that one who has a human nature, right? Okay? When I say I'm the son of a man and the father of a man, it's not to say man, but it's not two different meanings of the word man, right? See? When I say I'm the son of a man and the father of a man, say, well, in one case, a man means my father, in another case, my son. Well, somebody might say it in that kind of careless way, but that would be really, what, wrong. False. You're one meaning the word man and you're another meaning the word man. You know? Obviously, I'm the son of a man. It's like with the prologue, when it says the word was towards God and the word was God and the same meaning. Yeah. You're an higher one. It's interesting this idea of standing for, but it's not that the word has taken on a new meaning. But now when you say that God became man, so that man might become God, if you're talking about us in the second part of that statement, right? You know? You are gods, like it says in the Psalms, right? And then, that's a different meaning of the word God, right? You know? Because you're partaking of that, right? Just like in the ethics there, reasonable can mean essentially reasonable, or partaking of reason, right? There's such a thing as a reasonable love. There's such a thing as a reasonable fear. There's such a thing as a reasonable anger, right? But these are reasonable in a different sense than my reason is reasonable. They're reasonable in the sense of partaking of reason, right? And so they're said by reason of a ratio to what is essentially reasonable, right? in the same way we are said to be gods because we in some way partake of the divine nature, right? Without having the divine nature as our nature go. And there you have a different meaning of the word, huh? I know I'm not God in the same... I mean, I ain't even God in the second sense, but I mean... I'm not God in the fundamental sense of God, right? Thomas has an article there where he even speaks of how the idols are called gods, too, right? They're false gods. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, says, you know, talking to these statues, he says, like, does a commandant talk to his house or something? This is a good way of putting it. Isn't the actually apostles there where they went out and they want to take Paul as being, you know, a god? Yeah, we just had a reading yesterday, you know? Yeah. Today, today. You can't believe people really thought of it, but they did. What's amazing is as soon as they wanted to do that and then the Jews came along and told them, then they wanted to kill them. Yeah. In one way, they want to worship, in the next way, they want to kill them. What was the distinction between the meaning of... Or is suppositum something treated in grammar or something treated in logic? Well, I suppose it would be logic more, you know. More logic, yeah. Grammar, he has to be too subtle for the grammar. Just a noun to him, that's all it is. You know how you make fun of the grammar in there, his comparison to logic, right? Equilateral triangle, green triangle. Exactly the same grammatical analysis of those two. Noun-big-modified badgative. The philogician. Oh, no, no. Equilateral is a species making difference. Green is an accident, right? No difference to grammar. Now he's your professor. It's bad for grammarians, but you. I am a stone? Fine, fine. Did you know any more that Aristotle touched that distinction? Um, not as explicit as in Thomas, you know, but Aristotle, I think, understands it. I mean, it's involved right away in the categories, right? When Aristotle, you know, first distinguishes the categories, he uses the concrete names, because they're all distinguished in comparison to what? Substance, huh? But then when he gets into that category, he may use the abstract name. Because, you know, if you say, in relation to, say, virtue to courage and temperance, right? In relation to virtuous to courageous and temperate, it would be the same, right? Then it would be different, right? But if you want to point out that these qualities are really something of substance, then you'll want to use the concrete word, right? Where it can be said, substance, huh? So you can't say the man is courage or the man is temperance, properly. But you can say he's courageous or he's temperate, huh? Or just, or something else. So now we're ready for the second article. Whether this is true, that man is God, well, it's appropriate to take up these two questions together, right? I don't know if even in English you'd say that man is a God, huh? I don't think you'd say that, huh? Only the jaw of witnesses say that. They do? Okay. That kind of might make you one God, right? Okay, the second one goes for it that it seems that this is false, that man is what? God. Why? Because the name God is incommunicable. But in the wisdom, chapter 14, the idolaters are reprehended, huh? For the fact that this name God, which is not able to be communicated, huh? They placed it upon what? Woods and stones, huh? Therefore, for a like reason, it seems unsuitable that this name God be said of what? Man. There's a little difference here in those two, but let Thomas spell it out, huh? Whoever, whatever is said of the predicate is said of the, what? Subject. That sounds like the great rule in the book on syllogism, the prior analytics, where Aristotle says, if what? A is said of all B, then A is said of whatever B is said of. So if animal is said of all dogs, then animal is said of whatever dog is said of. Okay? But this is true, that God is the, what? Father. Or God is the, what? Trinity. If, therefore, this is true, that man is God, it seems also that this is true, that man is the, what? Father. Or man is a Trinity. So man is God. God is a Trinity. Therefore, man is a Trinity. True? That sounds like a perfectly good syllogism, right, huh? So is the danger of these syllogisms, right? When they first discover the syllogism, they start, you know, fooling around with these things, and get into all kinds of troubles, you know, because of that syllogism. The Congress used to say, no, he's really convinced by the syllogism. But they say they get in trouble because of the syllogism. Moreover, in Psalm 80, it is said, there shall not be in you, what? A recent God? A God? But man is something, what? Recent, like something. Something new, yeah. For Christ was not always, what? A man, right, huh? Therefore, this is false, that man is, what? God, right, huh? But against this is what is said in Romans 9, chapter 9, Romans 5. From whom is Christ according to the flesh, right? That's talking about the man, right? Who is above all, the blessed God. And, yeah, it solves the question there, right? You can see how Gustin says, you need the epistles of St. Paul, right? He clears up a few things. But Christ, according to the flesh, is man. Therefore, this is true. Man is God. Now, Thomas is going to be more brief in reply, because the first question has cleared up a lot of these things. I answer, it should be said, that supposing the truth of both natures, right? The divine to it, and the human. And the union in the person and the hypostasis. This is true and proper, man is God, just as that other statement, God is, what? Man. For this name, man, is able to stand for, right? In the hypostasis, in the individual substance, of human nature. And thus, it is able to stand even for the person of the Son, which we say is the hypostasis of what human nature is in Christ. But it is manifest, however, that of the person of the Son of God, truly and properly is said this name, God, as is had in the first part. He is God. He is God. Whence it remains that this is a true and proper predication, man is God. Quite a clear mind as Thomas said. I was meeting there in that book on the doctrine of the church. I guess Urban IV requested both Thomas and Bonaventure to do an office for the Blessed Sacrament, right? For the feast, I guess. And according to the account there, when Bonaventure saw Thomas' one, he hooked up his own. Yeah, I've got to dig you that one. He had the humility. Okay. To the first therefore, it should be said that those idolaters that are attacked there in the Book of Wisdom, right, attributed the name of God to stones and pieces of wood, according as they are considered in their own, what, nature. Because they thought in them there is something of the, what, divine, right? We, however, do not attribute the name of God, or the God, the name of the divine nature, to the man according to his human nature, right? We don't think that the human nature of Christ is God, do we? We don't think he is God because of his human nature, right? Or because he has human nature, right? But according to the eternal suppositum, the eternal person, which is also by the union, the suppositum of the, what, human nature, huh? This has been said, huh? You remember my little, my little geometrical, see half of what this is, right? You know? You know, very, you know, very dislikeness, huh? Where this end point here is the divine person, right? And this line here presents, what, the divine nature, huh? Okay? And what happened? Well, if you make human nature, you would have, it seems, its own, what, end point, its own human person. This line represents human nature, but it has its own person. But what he did was to draw a human nature to his own person, right? So the same, what, person is human nature here subsisting in the same person as the, what, divine nature, right? Okay? Notice one line is not the other line, right? But they have the same, what, end point, right? Okay? And that, in many ways, falls short the way it is, right? But in one way, there's a little like this there, right, huh? Okay? I think it makes kind of some sense there, right, huh? To see that if that line is drawn over there, it has its own end point, right? But if it's drawn to the end of the first line, then it doesn't have its own end point, but there's the same point subsisting in both lines, right? Same point as the beginning or the end of both of those lines. And this is the way that human nature and the divine nature, you could say. Yeah, the unlikeness is there, too. I may get in trouble with that sometime. But it does illustrate something. We have it recorded. When my trial comes up. We'll submit to the CDF. When the Inquisition calls me in, yeah. What's this about? God being a lion. They make a lot of puns in my line, yeah. Okay, so, it should be said that the idolaters attributed the name of the divine nature, right? To the stones and to the wood, according as they are considered in their own nature, right? Because they thought in it there was something of the divine, right? We over attribute the name of the deity to man. We do not attribute the name of the deity to man according to his human nature, but according to the eternal, what, point there, right, the eternal person, which is also by union, the suppositum, right, of human nature has had been said, huh? Well, that's kind of what I thought, but he says a little better than I could say. There's beautiful words of Aristotle there in the Books of Wisdom where he says, we should try to say, what, some things better than our predecessors said them, and other things we should try to say as well as they said it. And Thomas is one that you usually say. If I can say it as well as he says it, I should be, what, satisfied, right? Rarely can you say it better than him, huh? It's just like in fiction there, you know, I told you how this one guy who had a photographic memory, you know, he challenged anybody to produce any line from any poet, anything in human life, you know, and he topped it with the line from Shakespeare, right? So it's impossible, you know, to say it better, it seems, you know, than Shakespeare, huh? At the end of his life, you know, Washington Irving says, ridiculous for us to claim any, you know, prize or honor, you know, Shakespeare, you know. He said it all, you know, he just, he can't, he said it so well, right? Even the things that you might want to express your own feelings, your own emotions at times, you know, is that I could express my own emotions as well as Shakespeare could express my emotions. That's what people say, you know, when they read Shakespeare, they say, hey, he's saying what I felt better than I could express what I felt. Beautifully like that. You know, my favorite example there is when the father says when Juliet is found apparently dead on her wedding day, you know, you know, death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field. How could you say more beautifully, you know, what it is, you know, this beautiful young only daughter, right, on the day of her wedding, being found apparently dead, right? Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field. You can't ruin that. You know, you don't even try. I notice when I read, you know, the English novels sometimes, they'll be quoting Shakespeare, right? And I notice that one scene I used to take from Dickens, you know, and of course, it's obviously borrowed from the line from Macbeth, you know. You can't, you can't prove. That's why I call Shakespeare the master of the English language, you know, just to prove upon that. What Mozart say about a melody, you can't define it, you know, you can just hum it. I always say my favorite piece by Brahms is his variations on a theme by Hayden, you know, beautiful theme by Hayden, you know. And he can vary each other, but it's basically Hayden's theme, huh? Okay, now the second objection there is really, you know, people would stumble over this, you know. If you can say that man is God, and God is the Father, or God is the Trinity, right? Well then, it seems you've got soldiers in there, right? Okay. The second, it should be said that this name, Father, is said of this name, God, according as this name, God, stands for the person of the Father. But thus it is not said of the person of the Son. When you say that the Son, or the Word, is God, God is not standing for the Father, is it? Okay. For thus it is not said of the person of the Son, because the person of the Son is not the person of the Father. And consequently, it is not necessary that this name, Father, be said of this name, Man, Man, about whom, or of whom, is said of this name, God, insofar as man stands for the person of the Son. So when I say, this man is God, God is standing for the, what, Son of God, right? When I say God is the Father, God is not standing for the Son of Man, the Father. Therefore, you're not really, what, following the rule of logic, right? The major term is not being said of the middle term, in the way the middle term is being said of the, what, minor term. Like when you say, you know, animal, dog, and dog, that one who certainly didn't have a vocationary, my wife and I got a big kick out of that. Who thought of that thing? Who thought of that thing? Who thought of that, uh... Well, I didn't even say it. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't sure when the community life was chasing the cats and so on. Interesting point of view to classify the fallacy here, though, right? Is it really a fallacy of equivocation, you see, or is it a different kind of fallacy of the fallacy of the accident? It's like a... When the equivocation doesn't have a different meaning. Yeah. Yeah. Okay? So, you are a man, a man is my father, therefore you are my father. See? When I say, you are a man, and a man is my father, um, does the word, words, a man, have two different meanings there? When I say, you are a man, and a man is my father, a man is not in the two statements standing for the same person. Yeah. So, you can't conclude you are my father, right? Right? Well, unless he's a priest. Well, okay. Okay. Now you're equivocating, now you're equivocating two cents of the word father, yeah. Father means something different. Now you're going, now you're going, now you're going to, now you're going to, now you're going to, now you're going to do that. Yeah, now you're going to do that, yeah. Those are the first two fallacies, you know, the fallacy of equivocation and the fallacy of the accident. The first in the two groups, right? They're from words and then from things, right? Yeah. It's interesting though. It's logic, you know? But you know, when you read the modern philosophers, they're never really talking about these kinds of fallacies, right? Like Thomas is always identifying them in somebody's thinking. Actually, they always are. They don't talk about them, they just speak them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even if you know these kinds of mistakes, you can still make them yourself, right? You see? But if you don't even know the kind of mistake and thinking about that kind of mistake and trying to avoid the kind of mistake, you're much more apt to be caught by that kind of mistake. Farabach says, you know, the human mind is infinite, the infinite is God, as the theologians say, therefore the human mind is God. So they say, we're not atheists, you know, we don't believe in God, we believe that man's mind is the highest divinity, as Marx says in his preface to his doctoral thesis, right? And he got that from Farabach, this essence of Christianity. There's an obvious thing, you know, a medieval, you know, any medieval philosophy would see right away that there's a fallacy of provocation there, you know, consider the possibility there might be a provocation in the word infinite, right? And it's addressed, you know, in the first... In the first book there of physics there, natural hearing, you have the same fallacy with the word infinite. Not those two meanings, but two other meanings. What's his name? Melissa Sino says that being has, what, no beginning, right? Meaning it has no beginning in time, right? And therefore it has infinite, it goes on forever, right? Whereas Stahl points out, well, you know, something, these are two different meanings than we're beginning. Beginning in time and beginning in your, what, magnitude, right? He mixes up the two, right? So he's making the same kind of mistake with the same word and two different other meanings. But my own teacher, Kisurik, I don't know where he got the text, but he maintained that Augustine said somewhere that the only part of logic worth teaching is the part of fallacies. I don't think exactly this is the part where the customer really said this, you know, but it's kind of interesting, you know. Now we come to the third section, I guess, right? To the third it should be said that although the human nature in Christ is something, what, recent, huh? New. Nevertheless, the, what, suppositum of human nature is not something, what, recent, but eternal. And because this name God is not said of man by reason of the human nature, but by reason of the person, the suppositum, it is not foul that we place God as something recent. It would follow, however, if we placed or posited that man stands for a created man, a person, a created suppositum, according as, according as it would be necessary to say, for those to say, who in Christ lay down their two, what, suppositum. So we can say God is man and man is God. Shall we take a break? Okay, okay, before we go to home with the vehicles. Article 3 here, whether Christ is able to be called Homo Dominicus. How's your English translations translated Homo Dominicus? Lordly man. What? Lordly man. Yeah, Dominus means Lord, yeah. That's a strange question. Oh, Augustine, he's responsible for it, I see, in the first objection here. To the third one proceeds thus, it seems that Christ is able to be, what? It's called Homo Dominicus. Dominicus is like an adjective, isn't it? Modifying Homo. He's the Lordly man. For Augustine says in the book on the 83 questions, one should be what? Consul to one? That those goods are expected which were in that what? Lordly man. But he's speaking about Christ. Therefore, it seems that Christ is Homo Dominicus. Kind of an argument from the authority of the great Augustine. Moreover, just as dominion belongs to Christ by reason of his divine nature, so also humanity pertains to what? Human nature. But God is said to be humanatus, huh? Was it made human? As is clear through the Damascene in the third book, where he says, humanatio shows that, what? Joining, which is to, what? Man. Therefore, for like reason, it can be demonstrably said, I suppose, pointing out, right? That that man is, what? Lordly, right? Moreover, just as lordly is said denominatively from Lord, so divine is said denominatively from, what? God. But Dionysius names Christ that the most divine Jesus, huh? Therefore, for like reason, it can be said that Christ is a, what? Yeah. So, I'm really confused, huh? And now in the said contra, it's what Augustine says in his book of retractions, huh? Some modern theologians don't do what Augustine has, because it's a marvelous thing. I did not see where there is rightly said that homo dominicus Jesus Christus, right? There, Augustine's having seen second thoughts, right? Since he is what? Yeah. I think it's kind of an emphatic. Sometimes, like, when it's in, somewhere in the psalm, but indeed I would offer sacrifice, or something like that. It's kind of an emphatic way to say. Since he is indeed Lord. He is indeed Lord. I remember Thomas talking about the confession of faith there, Thomas, after he sees the wounds and so on. And he says, what? My Lord and my God, right? And I know as a boy, many of us, you know, picked this up as something you say, the time of the consecration, right? After the consecration of that. And Thomas says, he says, my Lord and my God, he's professing the human nature as well as the divine nature. He can be said to be Lord, even according to his, what, human nature, right? So that's, you wonder about this, right? I mean, he'd be called Lord by his human nature. Why not Dominicus, right? Because the Lord is even stronger, right? If it's, you know, the, okay. Well, let's see if Thomas can make any sense out of this. I certainly can't. I answer it should be said, that as has been said above, when it is said, Homo, Christus, Jesus, huh? Incidentally, which of those names, Christus and Jesus, which signifies more his human nature? Yeah. Because as God, he's not, what, anointed, huh? But Jesus means Savior, I guess. And sometimes you have that word in the Psalms too, right? And you say, as God, he saves too, right? Maybe more so, right? You know? So, you know, I compare the two professions of faith there. There's one in the chapter 16 of Matthew, where Peter says, thou art the, what, Christ, the Son, the living God. Well, St. John, in the Gospel, has that same profession of faith. But since Christ is not present there, you know, he says, these things are written that you might believe, that Jesus, and he says that is the subject, is the Christ, the Son of God, right? That's the same profession of faith as Peter has. These guys are pretty close anyway, John and Peter, right? So, it's interesting that Jesus there is the subject of Satan, right? You don't say Christ is the Jesus, the Son of God, right? But Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And then you profess both the human nature and the divine nature, right? Like in Thomas' Dei Adorote, Devote, right? You know, in cruce, latibat solidaitas, atic latibat simonimanitas, amutaman, gradens, altcoin, compitens, peinu, gladfiti, latitum, impitens. Okay. As if the complete profession of faith has to include both the human and the divine nature, so use the word Christ rather than the word Jesus, huh? And when you use the pronoun as Peter does, because he's, you know, who would you say? About Christ, the Son of the living God. So Christ is more the name of the figure. So, homo and Christus are together here. So, when it should be said, that it has been said about, that when one speaks of homo Christus Jesus, one designates the eternal, what? Person, huh? The suppositum, which is the person of the Son of God, on account of the fact that there's one, what? Suppositum, right? One person of both, what? Nature, son. Now, of the person of the Son of God, it said, God and, what? Dominus, Lord, essentially. And therefore, it ought not to be said, denominatively. Because this would take away from the truth of the, what? Union. Whence, since Dominicus, is said denominatively, right? From Lord, right? The definition of denominative is, right, in the very first chapter, the categories, right? Whence, since Dominicus, is said denominatively from Domino, it cannot truly and properly be said that that man is Dominicus, but more that he is the Lord. Yeah. And on the shore, they didn't recognize him. As soon as John recognized him, he said, it's the Lord. Yeah. That's what he said. Yeah. It's not the Lordly one. If ever through this, that is said, man, homo, Christus, Jesus, there was designated a, what, suppositum that was created, right? According to those heretics, right? Who place in Christ two suppositum, two persons. That man could be called, what, Dominicus, lordly, insofar as he's taken over to partaking of the divine honor, as in historians, huh? Pause it, huh? And in this way, human nature is not said essentially, what, to be divine, right? But to be deificata, right? Which is, need divine. Not by the changing over of it into divine nature, but by its union to the divine nature in one hypostasis, as is clear through Damascene in the, what, period book, huh? So the first objection.