Tertia Pars
Lecture 107: Logical Fallacies in Understanding the Incarnation

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What about hearing things you can't bear? To the fourth, it should be said, it was suitable for the disciples to be terrified and prostrated by the eternal voice, right? That there might be shown the excellence of that glory, which was then shown, right? And that it exceeds every sense and faculty or capacity of mortals, right? Too good to be true. According to that of Exodus 33, man would not see me and live. And this is what Jerome says upon Matthew, that human fragility is not able to sustain this greater glory. But from this fragility, men are healed by Christ, bringing them into glory, which is signified through this that he says to them, get up, not be afraid, huh? That's a good place to get to then, huh? Because then the next one is the part dealing with the passion of Christ, right? Which is the third part, I guess, of that fourfold division. We're going to have to wait to the fall to take this up again, huh? We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. We're going to have to wait to see you next time. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Praise for us. And help us to understand all that you have written. So, before we start up here with question 46 on the Passion of Christ, just a couple of things here. Would you agree to this statement, would you assent to this statement, that God became man? Okay. I notice in the thing on the Sculpility Incarnation, the quote from Augustine, God became man so that man might become God, right? Okay. So let's put that statement that you've all sent it to now, right, on the board here. God became man. Now, forgetting about that statement, right? Because if I was a follower of the Sophist, right, I would, or even the guy who's going to have a resisting audience, right, he would go into a lot of other extraneous things, right? And then, somewhat later, and you're not thinking about that at all, right, he would ask you this second question, right? Is the Holy Spirit God? What would you say? Okay, you'll assent to the statement that the Holy Spirit is God, okay? Syllagize to us, too, huh? God became man, the Holy Spirit is God, therefore, right, the Holy Spirit became man. Now, I know you want to assent to that, right? Okay. But doesn't it follow from the two things you admitted, right? Only in one condition, the equivalent. Okay, now, this is the one I asked you, right? There's obviously a mistake in this argument, right? Yeah. But if you ask somebody, what is the mistake, he'd probably be inclined to say that they would say what? Yeah. But is that, in fact, the mistake being made? Does the word God here, and the word God here, mean something different? If they did, then you'd be saying, well, one meaning the word God is the Holy Spirit, another meaning the word God is the Son, and another meaning maybe it's the Father, right? And these are the difficulties going to get into. Because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same God, numerically speaking, right? Okay. And so when God is said to the Father, we'd say the Father is God. We'd say the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Can the word God have a different meaning in each case? It would get you into even more difficulties, right? Okay. So the way out of this argument is not to say that the word God here has a different meaning, right? So what is the difficulty here, right? See? Now, would you admit that Jesus is the Son of God? Now, Son is not the one of whom he is a Son, right? So if he's the Son of God, then he's not what? God, right? Because the Son is not the one of whom he is a Son, right? Did you all read that? Yeah. That's the actual reason I'm here. No one is the Son of himself, right? So the Son is not the one of whom he is a Son. So if he's the Son of God, then obviously he's not what? God. God. The Jews are right. So here we're denying the Trinity. Here we're getting all mixed up in the Incarnation, right? Okay. Now, what's the way out of this, right? Yeah. Now, suppose it's kind of this Latin, you know, Latinism. But how would you express that in English? Yeah. Yeah. Now, when you say that God became man, right? The word God there stands for the Son of God, right? Okay. But notice, that's not exactly the same thing as the word God there means the Son of God. Because if you say, why can you say that God became a man? Well, because the word was made flesh, the word became a man, right? And in almost the same sentence, or at the same sentence, in different clause, we're told that the word of God is God, right? So if the word of God became man, it was made flesh, and the word of God is God, then somebody can say it some way that God became man, right? Okay. So, what distinction am I introducing here, right? Kind of an orthodox fellow, right? And when I say that God became man, right? I, when request, mean that the Son of God, or the word of God, became man. That's what I mean, right? Okay. So that God there is standing for the Son of Man, or Son of God, rather. Submective. But, that is not the meaning of the, what? Word God. So that my meaning and the meaning of the word are not the same, right? But the word is standing there for the, what? Son of God, right? That's kind of a subtle thing, right? Now, I don't want you to confuse this with the other case, right? We were talking before class began about the figures of speech, right? And Thomas, when he explains the figures of speech there in the commentaries and the epistles of Paul, there's one place, St. Paul uses the figure of speech called irony, right? Where you're saying just what? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And, you know, my example, you know, when I was teaching at Assumption, I'd say, if I come here on the weekend and I find you drunk under the table, and I'd say, what a fine example of an Assumption College student. You know, I don't mean that, right, huh? Didn't say it right away, right? I mean the opposite of what my words say, right, huh? Okay. But notice, that's a figure of speech called irony, right? And there's always a connection between what your words mean and what you mean, right? But what your words mean and what you mean are not the same thing. When I say what a fine example of an Assumption College student, I mean just the opposite of that, right? That's kind of a usual thing, right? I mean the opposite of what my words say, right? See? And sometimes people get mixed up, not so much with irony, but with the metaphor, right? So if you looked up the word pig in the dictionary, right, it might give as a meaning of the word pig, glutton, right? But then it's not really a metaphor if that was the meaning of the word. So when I call you a pig, using this as a metaphor, the word pig means a four-footed animal with a tail and a snout and certain characteristics that we all are familiar with, right? But what I mean is a jerk glutton. You're eating too much or something, right? Okay. So my meaning and the meaning of my word is not the same in a figure of what? Speech, right? I say that's a bad place, huh? That's what I call a metonym, right? Was the place really bad? No, the people who are living there or something, right, or conducting their nefarious business are bad, right? So I don't really mean the place is bad, but I mean that the people contained in the place are bad, right? So now this is something quite different from what we're talking about here, right? But notice that in both cases, the meaning of the what? Of the speaker, right? And the meaning of the word are not exactly the same, right? So the meaning of the speaker here, when I say God became a man, is what the word God stands for there, right? I could say the same thing in human things. You could say, I am the son of a man, right? You know, I'm not the son of just any man. I'm the son of Reno Victor Berkwist, right? And so a man there is standing for Reno Victor Berkwist, right? When you say I'm the son of a man, right? But is that the meaning of a man? One meaning of the word man is Reno Victor Berkwist? Or again, if you say, I am the father of a man, no? Well, then a man there is standing for Paul Thomas Berkwist, no? Or Marcus Berkwist, I guess. But Paul Thomas Berkwist the first one, right? Okay. But is that a meaning of man, Paul Thomas Berkwist? Kind of a subtle thing, right? So it seems to me, nevertheless, that there's something kind of common, right? To speaking figuratively and speaking this way here. And that is that the meaning of the word and the meaning of the speaker are not identical, right? Now maybe they're closer here than they are in the other case, right? Because one could say here, hey, the son of God became a man. The son of God is God, right? So God didn't become a man, truly, right? But nevertheless, there's a little difference between exactly what I mean and what the word God means, right? And the same way they speak of the son of God, right? And sometimes the scripture in the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of God, right? And what does the word God stand for there? You see, he's the son of God. And so far as they're one God, right? And they're breathing the Holy Spirit, right? So that's kind of a subtle thing you've got to, you know, see there to avoid being deceived by the sophist, right? But now, what kind of a mistake is being made here, huh? See? It's not the mistake that comes from equivocation, right? It's not from the word God having a different meaning in these two cases, right? So what is the kind of mistake being made here, do you think? If I think, no, how would it be that for me? I gave an example. I think I give it to people. I give it to my students. I give it to ordinances. It's kind of a clever little socialism. I'd say, a square is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. Do you agree? Okay. An equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral is a definition of square. Do you agree? And therefore, a square is a definition of square. Have you heard that before? No, I've never heard. Yeah. Or you say, man is an animal that has reason, right? Do you agree? An animal that has reason is a definition of man, right? So man is a definition of reason. Something wrong there, right? But it seems that it falls in those two statements that you've admitted, right? What kind of mistake is being made here, right? Well, the definition of man is man as known distinctly, right? It's not man simply, is it? So you're making the mistake of simply and in some respect, right? In some way, the definition of man is man, right? Not man simply without qualification, no. But it's man as known. And as known distinctly, right? And the definition of square is not the same thing as a square. It's not simply the same, right? But in some way, it is a square. It's a square in a qualified sense. It's a square as known, as known distinctly in geometry, right? There is a mistake of what? Simply and in some respect, I think. But what kind of mistake is this? Because this is not simply and in some respect. I hope you like that. Say that, right? I said, Holy Spirit, it's in some respect. Or in some respect, God became man. He didn't do that. I was thinking of that. Yeah? Well, I don't know if this is the right way to put it, but it seems that in the first statement, the speaker is using God in a figurative way, and the sophist is trying to force him to make that a political way. You know, this is not a figurative thing, huh? God really did become man. Because the Word of God was made flesh, right? Right. And we're told in the same sentence, almost, right? From the beginning was the Word, and the Word was for its God, and the Word was God, and then later on we're told that this Word was made flesh, just made a man, right? But in one use, God stands for one person, and in the other sense, it stands for the nature of the self. Yeah, yeah. So I don't identify standing for with figurative speech, right? Okay. But I wanted to point out that there's something similar, right, that is possible, you see, to mean something by your words, right, or by word, that that word doesn't what? Signify. Sounds kind of strange, right? So I say you're a pig, but what I mean is you're a collective, right? Even though it's time to read what the word pig means, right? Okay? So when I say God became a man, God stands for the Son of God, right? Even though that's not the meaning, right? But what it stands for is what I mean, right? Me, the speaker, right? That's what I mean, right? Even Augustine says God became man, so that man might become God, right? I was thinking about that, Dave, because we're going to come back to that, you know? I was thinking about how, what does he mean? Well, God really did become man, right? But did man become God, right? Well, my first thought was Christ, he's thinking about man becoming God, in the sense of partaking of the divine, right? That's us, right? But the man, Jesus Christ, he really did become God, right? And that's, and it's through his really becoming God, right, that we partake, you know? So that's more subtle, isn't it, than we realize at first, you know? Okay? So what's the kind of mistake being made here, right? There's perhaps hinge on the works, it's the beingness of the first statement, becoming is different from the beingness of is in the second. That's true, but here you're affirming. I mean, the subject of the first sentence, right, of the subject's second one, and here you're saying of this middle term that became man, right, so. I have to remind us of the kind of mistakes we've made. It seems like fishing, I say, why did I think of this, that I could go ask Mr. Dion, you know, and see what he thinks, you know, see, I've got an answer myself, but, you know, I'll check with him and see if he agrees with my answer, right, but now I'm on my own, right, and that's my current agent, right, but it seems to me that the fallacy involved here is the fallacy of the accident, which as Aristotle says in the book, that's the first kind of mistake outside of speech, right, and this is not a mistake in speech, right, since it has two different meanings, right, that would be the fallacy of the occasion, but what took place in the incarnation, right, was there a union of the divine nature with the human nature, the two natures come together and become one, no, they were not, the union was not in the natures, but they call it the hypostatic, right, the union was in the hypostasis in the person, right, if it was in the natures, then the Holy Spirit and the Father would have been, what, incarnated too, right, see, the divine nature had become somehow tied up with the human nature or turned into it like what the heresy says and so on, then the Father and the Holy Spirit would have been tied up with the human, right, yeah, so in a way, the divine nature, you might say, is what, accidental to the union, right, insofar as the union is not in the nature, or insofar as he has nature, but the union is in the, what, person, right, okay, but because he has a nature, he can be called God and is God, right, and if you can say God became man, right, okay, but the union between the Holy Spirit and the Son of God, they both have the same nature, in fact, they are both the same nature, right, but that's not what the union was made, right, but in their personhood, right, what makes them to be this or that person, right, they don't unite, they're distinct, right, and that's where the union took place, so the union didn't take place in what they have in common, the divine nature, but the union took place in what they don't have in common, the distinction of they're, what, persons, right, so you're confusing the accidental there, right, okay, the union's in the person and not in the nature. Is that God in the first statement is the first and then God in the second is the nature? Well, the word God, you see, is taken from the nature, right, and God signifies what has the divine nature, right, so what has the divine nature is both the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Father too, for that matter, but the distinction, right, is something that they don't have in common, right, the sonhood and the procession, as it's called, right, so they're not united in that in which the union of the human and divine nature took place, right, so it seems to me the fallacy of the, what, accident, next time Martin Murray calls me the phone out, I'll get him to go through this and see what he thinks, you know, he says, oh, you know, what I think I write there, you know, I think it's time to see where I put a mark or something, you know, that's a very important thing, this idea of stand score, right, and it comes up in phrases like the Son of God, right, and the difficulties you'd be in if you didn't, right, very subtle, I'm not going to go into it now, but just kind of warn you, you know, I think I've quoted this thing from one of the lost dialogues that Aristotle, the one about, should you philosophize? There's a whole bunch of versions of it, but basically what he says is, either you ought to philosophize or you ought not to philosophize, what do you say? If you say you ought to philosophize, then do so. If you say you ought not to philosophize, you're going to have to philosophize to show why not. So in any case, you must philosophize, right? Well, imitating the great Aristotle there, something a little more humble than that, I say, is it necessary to understand the word necessary? What would you say? Yeah, if you say it's necessary, you'd better do so, right? If you say it's not necessary, you're going to have to understand necessary to understand why it's not necessary, right? Okay. Now, applying that little thing here to the algebra, right, you may recall in the first question of the Summa, right, first article was what? Yeah, whether it's necessary some doctrine below, beyond the, you know, natural knowledge of man, right? Okay. So that's a question of necessary right there, right? Okay. And then Thomas gets a little bit in there, and he's talking about God, and he points out that the first thing we've got to consider is, does God exist, right? And he says, if you don't determine that question, you know, then the rest of theology is gone. Now, one of the arguments for the existence of God is based upon the dependence of the contingent, what can be and not be, upon what must be, what is necessary to be, right? And then the dependence of what is necessary to be through another upon what is necessary to be through itself, and that's God. So that's another place you've got to know about necessary, right? But now even the philosophers knew about the gods existing, at least the best of them, right? But now you come to the two beliefs that kind of really separate us even from the great Aristotle, right? And one is that there are three persons in God, right? Separates us from Mohammedans, right? And the other is that incarnation, that God became what? Man, right? Now, you could ask, is it necessary that there be three persons in God? Is it necessary that God became man? Well, you better understand the word necessary, right? Because both are necessary, but not in the same sense of what? Necessary, right? That there are three persons in God is necessary in the same way that three is a number that's necessary, or the square is a quadrilateral, right? Or a triangle has interior angles equal to two right angles, huh? God necessarily, what? Understands himself. He cannot not. It's not a matter of choice, right? And therefore, he necessarily has the thought of himself, right? If he has the thought of himself, he knows how good he is, and therefore, necessarily, he loves himself, right? So, we wouldn't know by natural reason that God is necessarily three persons, but with the help of Revelation, we find out, right? That God is necessarily that, right? So, God the Father didn't choose to have a son, right? And God the Father and God the Son didn't choose to breathe the Holy Spirit, right? But now, is it necessary that God become man in that way? That same sense of necessary. Now, Aristotle distinguishes in the fifth book of wisdom the senses of necessary, right? You have that absolute necessity we talk about, cannot be, right? And then you have necessity from a, what? Extrinsic cause. Either the agent. Either the agent. Either the agent. which is force right and then necessity from the what end and that's just divided into two meanings that without which the end cannot be achieved at all like it's necessary for me to breathe right and then without which one cannot go well could have steak and wine okay okay well you see that the father god the father has a son right he's not forced to have a son right okay and it's not to achieve some end right yes no it's that absolute necessity right like two is half a four but the incarnation is necessary but since was the son forced to become man no was it absolutely necessary not he chose to become man right i chose to become man but was necessary for the end well then what do both augustine and thomas teach about that augustine first and thomas following yeah yeah it's not the only way right it's not that we couldn't be redeemed uh or saved from our sins in some other way right but there was no better way to do it right okay okay just like i say you know is logic necessary well most of all it has been as difficult as thomas says right huh logic right and uh maybe you have to enforce that yes but no um uh but for the well-being of philosophy right these errors and so on how can you avoid these errors or recognize these errors you don't even know the kinds of errors there are right as boethius says the bad must be known to be avoided right so even the good man or even the good thinker has to know the bad in order to avoid it because right you know once i had a few quotes i'm always kind of questioning it but he said somewhere he said augustine says somewhere that uh the only part of logic risk teaching is the part on on mistakes and errors right i don't know if that's true but it kind of stuck in my mind anyway but so even the good man has to know you know even augustine you know thinks that's worthwhile um to uh know the kinds of mistakes there are not that you will necessarily avoid them all but if you don't know the kinds of mistakes you know that's what i'm kind of struck with modern philosophy never really seem to be aware of the mistakes you know very much kinds of mistakes so the two central mysteries of the faith right the two ones that really separate us from the mohammedans and others these are three persons in god right and that god became man right they're necessary in different senses of the word what was it necessary to understand the word necessary yeah to do these things well right so when we come back when we get through going through this right um we will we will uh following saint ensign there right belief seeking understanding right is theology belief seeking understanding what would you say is that a definition of theology i would say that it's a part of the truth about what theology is right it's not the whole truth about theology right for example theology is not only belief seeking understanding but it's also the defending of what you believe right both against the heretics and even against the philosophers right okay so if you look at thomas's treatise on the incarnation they'll say in the fourth book of the summa kind of gentiles you'll go through the passages and scriptures that the heretics have used to misunderstand these things right and to deny them and so on right and he'll show in a very overwhelming way the same way augustine does right that scripture is really teaching what we say uh we believe right uh so there he's defending the faith right against the the heretics right um you might say nourishing the faith too as they say and then he goes to the objections right from natural reasons saying it's impossible to be three persons in god right or it's impossible that god become a man right and he'll answer those arguments right well that's not so much faith seeking understanding as it is defending the faith right but defending the faith is certainly part of what theology is and it's kind of implied in the definition of faith by uh custom act right it's to assent while thinking about something right if you're thinking about something you're trying to understand it so it's in the very definition of faith and if it if you didn't think about it try to understand a bit but you're assenting to you would be denying your nature right i'm just a sort of man accustomed says would want to understand what he believes right okay he's got humility there you know so when you get through going through the life of christ here right his passion death and so on his clarification then we'll come back and do a little bit of that right and say there's really two different questions right one is why did god become a man and then taking into account what we are precisely here why was it that the son of god became a man rather than the father or the holy spirit because they could also become a man right but why was it appropriate for the son of god rather than the father or the holy spirit right and okay but now if you believe that god became man you must wonder what did he do and say and surprisingly also suffer right uh when he became a man right if you really do believe as we do that god became man you say this is a very strange and unusual what thing right and you'd be very curious you know to wonder what he what did and said when he became a man right and that's why primarily we go to the the gospels right because they're the main account aren't they of what our lord did and said and also suffered right he became a man right okay but in a sense thomas is is trying to understand right these things that we hear about in the four gospels right huh because the gospels don't always say well why did he do this you know okay i mean when he tells the apostles in advance and they hardly believe him you know he's going to go up to jusalem and he's going to die right and he's going to resurrect and so on and they hardly you know think he's think he's speaking figuratively or something and uh uh so don't get to the point of saying you know why are you going to die on the cross why don't you you know have your head cut off or something else you know so now thomas had divided this into what