Tertia Pars
Lecture 64: Adoption in God and Rational Creatures

Transcript
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Now, does it belong to just the Father? Because after all, the Father is one who adopts, right? Or does it belong to the whole Trinity? To the second, one goes forward thus. It seems that to adopt does not belong to the whole, what? Trinity. Tyler, I mean, yeah. Oh, I didn't do that sort of thing. But he had it taken in reference to the Father, right? So, we'll have to do that. Put that little steady hand there. For adoption is said in divine things to the likeness of human things. But in human things, to him alone does belong to adopt, who can generate sons. Which in divine things belongs only to the Father. Therefore, in divine things, only the Father is able to, what? Adopt, huh? So, what are you going to say about that, huh? Moreover, men, by adoption, become brothers of Christ. I think I've heard that in Scripture, right? According to that of Romans 8, 29. That he himself might be the first generated, right? Firstborn in many, what? Brothers. Doesn't he say after resurrection there, you know? Tell my brothers, right? He says to Mary Magdalene, I think it was. But brothers are said, those who are sons of one Father. Whence the Lord says in John 20, oh, there's a text I'm looking for, yeah. I ascend to my Father and, what? Your Father. Thomas says sometimes, you know, well, there's a little difference there. There's a Father of each of the, of himself and of us in a different way. Therefore, only the Father of Christ has adopted sons, huh? What those feminists would think about this kind of a consideration, I don't know. More of Galatians chapter 4, it is said, God sent his, what? Only son, his only son, that we might receive adoption as sons of God. Because we are sons of God, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying out, Abba, Bateh. Well, that's, don't be definitive, right? Therefore, it is of him to adopt, whom it is to have, what? A son and a holy, what? Spirit, huh? But this is only through the person of the Father. Therefore, to adopt belongs to the only person of the Father. I'm convinced, aren't you? Okay. But against this, it belongs to, what? Him to adopt us in sons, whom, yeah. Once it is said, Romans 8, 15, you have received the spirit of the adoption of sons, in which we cry out, Abba, Bateh. But when we say to God, our Father, this pertains to the whole, what? Trinity. Just as the other names, which are said of God relatively to creatures, as is said in the first part. Therefore, to adopt belongs to the whole Trinity. Didn't we have an article there about his Father said, first of all, the Father in reference to God the Son, or Trinity in reference to us, right? You know? And Thomas said, first of all, the Father to the Son, right? But there's also a sense in which it's said of the Trinity, the person to us. You know, in the Te Deum, you know, that prayer there, you have, in the first half of the prayer, you have Father said twice, right? But the second time it says in the context of Trinity, but is Father to be understood in the beginning as Trinity rather than God the Father is distinct from God the Son, God and the Holy Spirit? I think it is. But usually we take the Our Father, we take it as being, what, Father as being God, right? But you might say it's appropriate to the Father in some way, but it seems like it's, if you go to the definition of prayer, right, you define prayer as the ascent of the mind to God, right? Or asking God for suitable things, right? It doesn't say, you know, ascent of the mind to God the Father, and asking God the Father for suitable things, right? Okay. It's interesting, when Christ is explaining prayer there and he says, you know, if your son asks for this, would you give him that, you know, if you ask for an egg, you give him a serpent or something, or a piece of bread, you give him a stone or something. Well, if you, evil as you are, know how to give your own children good things, how much more will you have any Father? But what sense of Father is that, you know? It's God himself that's said to be our Father. You notice in the Mass, in the midnight, and then in that extraordinary form, it's actually geared toward the first person of the Trinity, our Father, and the prayers. It's more ambiguous than the notice order of lust of things, but it's interesting, you know? Otherwise, it's clearly the way the prayers are written. Well, our first prayers could be addressed to God the Father, right? Yeah. Praise him, you know, so there's a little ambiguity there, I think. But if the definition of prayer is correct, it's the ascent of the mind to God, and the asking of simple things from God, if God is in the definition of prayer, well, then it seems a prayer of prayers, which is the Our Father, must be understood as being addressed to God, not to God the Father in particular. But I also noticed that at the end of the can of the Mass there, before the Our Father, you know that everything is being, perhaps like God the Father, you know, through the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's kind of interesting, you know, like going back to the beginning of all things, huh? The beginning of the Son. It's one way that, I think it was one of the folks, or something, I can't remember, the beginning words of our Father as well, since everything in creation comes forth from God being the Trinity, as we call Him Father, but because we've been adopted by Him through Christ, we call Him our Father, especially Father to us, who are redeemed, but then because He has a fatherhood which is unique from all eternity, we say, our Father, who art in heaven. That's an eternity that's before everything. That's just a way to sort of explain three ways what you can understand God. The answer, that this is the difference between the adopted Son of God and the natural Son of God, right? That the natural Son of God is genitus, right? Non factus, I don't know, it's in the Creed, right? But the adopted Son is factus, mate. According to that of John, chapter 1, verse 12. He gave them power to become, what, sons of God. But nevertheless, sometimes the adopted Son is said to be generated on account of a spiritual regeneration, which is gratuitous and not, what, natural. Got to be born again, right, of water and the Holy Spirit. Once it is said in James, chapter 1, He voluntarily generated us by the word of His, what, truth, huh? You wouldn't say that God the Father voluntarily generated the Son of God. Okay, what's that? But we are. Because although to generate in divine things is private to the person of the Father, nevertheless, to make any effect in creatures is common to the whole Trinity on account of the unity of their nature. It's the same thing as our power. Because where there is one nature, it's necessary that to be their one virtue and one operation. Once the Lord says, and this is a text of tongues all the time. He's argued it's a heretics. Whence the Lord says, John 5, whatever things the Father does, these also the Son does. Similitaire, right? So not as a tool of the Father or something else, but equally, right? It's a principle thing. They fit through the same power. And therefore, to adopt men into sons of God belongs to the whole, what? Trinity. He's convinced me now. And this is my deal. I was talking about Abelard earlier, you know. They're saying, I guess, in the sick and nuns, sometimes Abelard leaves a thing unresolved, right? So it's like giving some of the objections and not resolving the question. And this was seen as a bad thing by the school of St. Victor, huh? So in that word, I thought he was just collecting the important science. Did he actually give an answer? Oh, Abelard? Yeah. No, I mean, they say that Abelard sometimes argues dial entropy as a word, but doesn't resolve the thing, right? Yeah. And as you said, I thought the nature of that work was just collecting the opposing sides. Well, it might be somewhat, but it kind of leads up in the air there. You don't go back to the Church Fathers and try to determine what the Church actually teaches, right? And then try to understand that. Well, the way Thomas speaks sometimes is if the Church Fathers were forced by the heretics to go into these things and defend them, right? But if left to themselves, they would have just kind of, what, worshipped them and admired them, you know, and not been so presumptuous as to try to understand them, you know? Yeah. So Lucastin says heresy is necessary for theology to develop, huh? Okay. Now, the first conjection was saying, well, in human affairs, only the one who generates adopts, huh? He says, to the first therefore it should be said that all human persons are not of one nature, secundum numrum. So my human nature is not individually the same as your human nature. And because of that, it's not necessary, because it would be for there to be one operation of all, right? And one effect. But this happens in divine because they have only one nature in number. And so Thomas says, you can't really say, you know, that God is the lowest species divided into the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Like man is the lowest species divided into Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, etc. Because there's really a different, what, man there, in the case of these three. But there's not three different gods there, huh? Just one God, just one nature in number. And therefore, as regards this, it is not possible to observe likeness everywhere, right? Once the Indian is, I was calling our attention, I think it's in the sophist of Plato, you know, likeness is a slippery thing, Plato says, you know, it's a dangerous thing, right? And that's why in the book about dialectic by Aristotle, the book of places there, the fourth tool is the tool of what? Likeness, right? But Aristotle calls it the consideration of likeness, it's a skeptic, I think it is, the Greek word, huh? Because you've got to, well, see in what way two things are alike and not exaggerate the likeness. That's in the way, the way our mind makes what? Mistakes, right? When I got a mind, God's got a mind, I reason, therefore God must reason too, right? Well, there's some likeness between my mind and God's mind, but, you know, if I really understand what way they are alike and what way they're not alike. Okay. That's where Aristotle gives maybe the tool of difference before the tool of likeness, huh? I said to Monsignor Dianna one day, I said, that's why he gives the tool of difference. He said, you're probably right there. I mean, because if you don't see the difference, then you're going to, what? Misuse maybe the likeness because you'll see more than it is. Yeah, like we are, so... Yeah, yeah, so he doesn't know who he is and he's covering himself, huh? Russ Limbo's taken to call him Obama the man-boy. Doesn't know what he's doing. To second it up to be said, that by adoption, we become what? Brothers of Christ as having the same father with him, right? Whoever in another way is the father of Christ and in another way is our, what? Father. When significantly the Lord says, a part, you know, says, my father and part he says, your father, right? Is it there's some distinction in the way he's my father and the way he's your father, huh? For he is the father of Christ by generating him, what? Naturally. Which is private to him, right? He's the only one who is naturally generated. But he is our father voluntarily by making something, right? Which is common to him to make and to the son and to the Holy Spirit. And therefore, Christ is not the son of the whole trinity as we are. So when he says my father and your father he means he means what he says and he says what he means. So my father is the first person to the trinity and your father is the whole trinity. Tell us to talk about that in the commentary and it gives us that point in John, you know? I've decided that John is the greatest book ever written so I'm going to spend the rest of my life to really get that book down. See? If I get to the point where I understand everything in it then I'll go on to Matthew maybe and see if I get everything. But there's so much in there, you know? Thompson would say you know in the curse. There are two ways of understanding this. Christendom says this and McCousin says this and he'll give you you know those two guys. No wonder he would trade the city of Paris for Christendom. To the third it should be said that adoptive sonship is a certain likeness of the eternal sonship, right? Just as all things which are done or made in time are likenesses of those things which were from eternity. For man is likened to the eternal splendor of the Father through the clarity of grace which is attributed to the Holy Spirit. And therefore adoption although it is common to the whole Trinity is appropriated nevertheless to the Father, right? as the author and to the Son as the exemplar, right? And to the Holy Spirit as impressing upon us a likeness of this exemplar, right? But this is what we call what? Appropriation, yeah. So remember that article on appropriation that right we should appropriate things to the Trinity, huh? Power to the Father and wisdom to the Son and goodness to the Holy Spirit and so on. I'm kind of struck by that when you come back to the creed we say in Mass like the Nicene Creed and so on and I believe in God the Father Almighty and I say that? Why is he called Almighty why aren't the others called Almighty? Well, it's an appropriation there, right? So even though that's kind of a subtle thing and it should be understood properly appropriated Appropriation, it's right there in the thing we see every Sunday, you know. You guys say that every day, the Nicene Creed, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's really important and necessary to understand appropriation, right? Thomas says that power is appropriate to the Father because, as Aristotle defined power, it's a beginning. He's supposed to all precipitate, but also by a negative way, too, that the, you know, the old man gets kind of, what, weak, you know, but you want to contrast the divine man who doesn't get weak at all. Like Justin says, we have sinned and grown old in our fathers, you know. Yeah, yeah. Just contrast God's Father with King Lear, you know. Some marvelous things. Now, whether to adopt is proper to the, or private to the rational creature, right? Or to be adopted, rather, huh? This is the passive, right? Okay, I got it. I know in my Latinx, sorry. Let me see, this is the passive. The third, then, one proceeds thus. It seems that to be adopted is not private to the, what, rational creature, huh? For God is not said to be the father of the rational creature, except by adoption, right? But the father is said to be, he said to be the father, even of the irrational creature, according to that of Job, chapter 38. Who is the father of the raven? Yeah. Or who generated drops of dew, huh? So, a little defense here of St. Francis there, right? That's what he's speaking there in the hymns there. Okay. Therefore, to be adopted is not private to the, what, rational creatures. Now, in doubt, there's some distinction there to be seen between the ways of the father of the raven and of us, but you can't expect Francis to bring out those distinctions, though, maybe, huh? Well. Yeah. Moreover, by adoption, we are called some of the sons of God. But to be sons of God in Scripture properly seems to be true to the angels, according to that of Job 1.6, in which day when the sons of God assist before the Lord. It's such a vivid scene there. The sons of God. Good to take that idea over there, huh? He's going to do this. Therefore, it is not private to the, what, rational creatures to be adopted. I don't know what he means by that. Does he mean just the angels would be sons of God? Or what? If the angels can be called sons of God, then it's enough to have an angel. I mean, the first argument was saying that there are things beyond the rational creatures, right? Mm-hmm. But no, the second one here seems to be saying that the angels were called sons of God, or rather than us, maybe. Well, maybe because there's a question about if it's private to us. Yeah. Yeah. So there's the things below us that are also below us. Yeah. We don't know. We'll see if he takes up the reply to that. Moreover, what is private to some nature belongs to all having that nature, right? Just as this is a great example of property in medieval logic there. As visible belongs to all men, right? So do all men laugh, huh? People laugh. But to be adopted does not belong to every, what? Rational nature. Therefore, to be adopted is not proper to the rational nature. Because there's several senses of property, right? Mm-hmm. Porphyry gives the property there in the full sense of what belongs only, always, and to every. But in some sense, to be a logician is the property of man, in the sense it belongs only to man, right? But not always. Yeah, no, no. Not for everyone. But against this is that adopted sons are the heirs of God, as is clear in Romans 8. But such inheritance, you know, whereby we have, what, the attitude of God himself, right? Belongs to only the rational creature. And therefore, it is private to the rational creature to be, what? Adopted, huh? Or it's a property of the rational creature to be adopted, huh? Well, Thomas says, I answer, it should be said, that the sonship of adoption is a certain likeness of the natural sonship, huh? Now, the Son of God goes forward naturally from the Father as the understandable thought or word of him, huh? Existing one with the Father himself, huh? So sometimes they explain those first words. In the beginning was the word. The word was in the beginning, meaning the Father. Okay, to this word, in three ways, something can be likened, huh? In one way, by reason of its form. Not over, by what? Its intellectual ability, huh? Just as the form of the house constituted exteriorly is likened to the mental thought of the artist, right? According to the species of the form, but not according to its understandability. Because the form of the house in matter is not understandable. It's got to be separated from matter before it's understandable, huh? As it was understandable in the mind of the artist, huh? And in this way, each creature is likened to the eternal word, huh? Since it is made through the word, huh? John says. Secondly, the creature is likened to the word, not only as regards the notion of form, but also as regards its, what? Intelligibility, huh? As science, which is in the mind of the student, is likened to the thought, which is in the mind of the, what? I have to teach you in college all these years, I wonder sometimes. And in this way, the reasonable creature, even according to his own nature, is likened to the word of God, right? In a third way, when the creature is likened to the eternal word, according to the unity which it has to the Father. And this comes about through grace and charity, huh? Whence the Lord prays in the 17th chapter of John, that they might be one in us, as we also are one. And such a likeness perfects the notion of adoption, because to ones who are thus likened or assimilated, there is owed eternal inheritance, huh? Whence is manifested to be adopted belongs only to the, what? Rational creature, huh? Not, however, to all, but only to the one having charity, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, as is said in Romans chapter 5, verse 5. And therefore, in Romans 8, 15, the Holy Spirit is said to be the spirit of the adoption of sons. So to the first, therefore, it should be said that God the Father is said to be, what? God is said to be the father of the irrational creature, not properly by adoption, but through, what? Creation, according to that first partaking of, what? Blankness. In so far as he's similar to the thought whereby he's made by God, yeah. To the second it should be said that the angels are said to be the sons of God by the sonship of adoption, right? Not because to them it belongs, what? First, but because they first received the adoption of sons. It was, I mean, that second objection, bringing the angels in as if they are adopted and are sons of God rather than us, right? And say, well, no, no, they received this sonship first, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because ipse primo, adoption of fideorum, which is it? Because they first received the adoption of sons. He's not saying that they are sons of God more than we are, as if they are. That's what I think he means. Non quia ipsis primo convenient, because it belongs to them. First to be sons of God in some secondary way to us, right? But the same are as much sons of God as the angels, right? Is there a sense in which you can call an angel a rational creature? Yeah, it's just like, you know, remember that definition of person, right? Individua substantia rationalis naturae. Right, and Thomas said, well, rationalis there is being used in a broad sense to include what? Yeah, and even, you know, divine, which is understandable, yeah. That's where you handle man like Boethius, right? In fact, he's quite a man, Boethius. I sometimes go out on them and say, Boethius is the greatest mind between Augustine and Thomas, you know. I think he could call him, you have St. Victor, but I don't know. Is he better than Boethius? In Boethius, he takes over Augustine's teaching on the Trinity and so on, you know, and assimilates it and so on. He says, Adoption is not a property falling upon nature, but falling upon grace, of which the rational nature is capable, and therefore it's not necessary that it belongs to every rational creature, but that every rational creature should be capable of adoption, right? Just like I say about logician, right? Okay. Doesn't belong in fact to every man, logician. I say that, you know, suppose the man is fighting the world, you know, his ideas, right? And the world's talking he's wrong, and he's still insisting upon them. You know, like poor Niels Bohr, you know, kept his paper locked in his desk, afraid to publish it for fear he'd be laughed at, you know. Niels Bohr. Niels Bohr, yeah. And some of the examples of that, you know, but suppose the man's really, you know, all day long he's defending his ideas and being told he's wrong. And he comes home at night time and his wife says, you know, dear, I think you're mistaken. Like the logical thing to say to him, you know, but I don't know if he needs that logic in his wife. Okay, now we're down to the fourth article here. For the Christ, according as man, is the adopted Son of God, right? As Christ is God, he's the natural Son of the Father, right? But what about this now? To the fourth one proceeds thus, It seems that Christ, according as his man, is the adopted Son of God. Well, that sounds reasonable, doesn't it? For Hillary says, speaking of Christ, the dignity of power is not lost when he adopted, what? The humanity of flesh, yeah? Therefore Christ, according as he is man, is the adopted, what? Son. Moreover, Augustine says in the book on the predestination of saints, that by the same grace, that man is Christ, and by which grace, from the beginning of faith, each man is a, what? Christian. But other men are Christians through the grace of adoption. Therefore also that man is Christ through, what? Adoption. And thus it seems that he is, he seems to be an adopted Son, right? Moreover, Christ, according as he is man, is a, what? Servant, huh? That goes back to the Philippians there, right? But is more worthy to be an adopted Son than a servant. Therefore, much more is Christ, according as man, an adopted Son. That's interesting, huh? Interesting argument. She's an ideological place, right? What is less apt to belong, belongs in something which is more. But against all this, what Ambrose says in the book on the incarnation. Ambrose is, what, one of the four or five great doctors of the Western Church. We do not say that the Son by nature is an adopted Son, huh? But we call him, what, to be by nature a Son who is the true Son, huh? But Christ is the true and natural Son of God, according to that of the first epistle of John. We might be in his true Son, Jesus Christ, huh? Therefore, Christ, according as he is man, is not the, what? Adopted Son, huh? Well, I think he's going to go back to the fact that there's a hypostatic union here. Why not? I answer, it should be said that sonship properly belongs to the hypostasis or the person, right? Not to the nature, right? So it's I who are the father, the son of my father, real Victor Berquist, and not my nature. Whence in the first part is said that sonship is a personal, what, property constitutes it, huh? But in Christ there is not another person or another hypostasis than the uncreated one, right? To which it belongs to be a son by nature. For it has been said above that the sonship of adoption is a likeness partaking of the, what, natural sonship. But that is not said participatively, which is said to be, what, per se. And therefore Christ, who is the natural son of God, in no way can be said to be the adopted son, huh? Nullo modo, that's pretty strong, dear Thomas, huh? You've written well, Thomas, to be told by the natural son. But according to those who place in Christ two persons, or two hypostasis, right? Or two supposita, nothing reasonably prevents the man, Christ, to be a, what, adopted son, huh? He's the fount of all grace, but he doesn't have grace. It's because of divinity, though, he's the fountain of all grace, though, isn't it? Because he has divine nature. Right, but he has grace in his human soul, he doesn't have grace in his divine. But there's only one person, but the person is the term of that nature. He's the human nature of the person. Okay, but, well, I guess my, my other thing to move with, I don't adopt the son of my grace. The fact that God is, he means grace. It's only a kind of adopt the son. So, then I think about the grace of Christ, well, his nature, it seems that nature doesn't have grace, so he might not have grace. There's some difference there. I mean, he's saying that, I think, basically, that son is the name of a person, right? Son is the name of a person, right? Oh, okay. So, since the person here is a natural son of God, then this person cannot be said to be the adopted son of God. Keep trying. It seems, what you're saying is like, we have grace because it's a gift that's given to us, but he has grace because it just overflows from his divine nature. It's hard to, kind of, my friend. But I see your issue is that, well, has humanity received grace? Now, look at the reply to the first objection, because to the first, therefore, it should be said that just as sonship does not properly belong to the nature, right, so neither does adoption belong to nature as such. And therefore, when it's said that the humanity of the flesh is, what, adopted, this is the words of Hillary, right, impropriate is lucutio, right? So Hillary was not mistaken, he just spoke improperly and correctly. Yeah. And he takes there adoption for the union of human nature to the person of the, what? To honest nature, right? He adopted his human nature, right? Yeah. Let's not repeat that way of speaking. Okay. Now, what about the likeness here that Augustine has? To the second it should be said that that likeness of Augustine should be understood as regards, what? It's beginning. Again, because just as without merits, huh, each man has that he'd be a Christian, right? So that man without merits had that he was, what? Christ. Here's, however, a difference as regards the end or limit. Because Christ, through the grace of union, is the natural son. But another one, through the habitual grace, is an adopted son. But the habitual grace in Christ does not make of what is, what? Not a son. Not a son. Not a son. An adopted son. But is a certain effect the shunship in the soul of Christ, according to that of John 1. We saw his glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Full of grace and truth. That's kind of interesting the way he saw that third objection, huh? To the third it should be said that to be a creature and also to be, what? But servitude or subjection to God, not only regards the person, but also the, what? Nature. Which cannot be said about, what? Sonship. And therefore, there's not a like, what? He said. If we can say God or Christ was subject to the Father in his, what? Human nature, right? He wasn't an adopted son of the Father in his human nature. Pretty important idea, the idea of person, right? I was told, you know, that when Deconic talked to Pius XII there, before the definition of assumption, right, huh? You know, his argument was that Mary would not be in heaven if her soul, her body was not joined to her soul. Because the soul is not, strictly speaking, what? The person. And so when you say that, you know, Peter is in heaven, right? That's a synecdoche. The soul of Peter is in heaven, right? So you're giving the name of the person to the part, huh? But the part is not the person. So if that was true about Mary, you know, then speaking non-figuratively, Mary would not be in heaven. It's pressed by the twelfth, I was told. But anyway. Okay, let's take a little break here now before we go on to the next part here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.