De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 7: Christ on Error, Ignorance, and the Road of Knowledge

Transcript
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So it's so interesting, you know, that you had a change there in Luke. That's more explicit, right? Now, what's similar to the three passages from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all begin with the fact that the Sadducees, right, came to Christ, right, and the Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. And all three passages say that, huh? On that day, too, he was approached with a question by the Sadducees, men who say that there is no resurrection. That's Matthew. Then he was approached with a question by the Sadducees, men who say that there is no resurrection. Then he was approached with a question by some of the Sadducees, men who deny the resurrection. But in each account, that's followed, noting that, by an objection that they give, showing the ridiculousness, right, of the resurrection, okay, or belief in the resurrection, right, the absurdity of the situation that would arise, okay? And the objection is based upon following, in good faith, the Mosaic law. And if my brother marries a woman, and he dies before his wife has any, what, children, then I ought to, if I'm free, to marry my brother's wife and raise up children in my brother's name. We said there were seven brothers. The first one married here, and he had no children, and he died. The second brother then, the father of Mosaic law, married here, and he died without any children. And so on through all of a sudden, right? Okay. Now, in the resurrection, he says, you know, because they all believe the resurrection, right? But they're trying to present you with a kind of a ridiculous position here. In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? Because they all seem to have an equal claim. No one has had children by her, so no one has to be a more claim to her than the other, right? Okay. Now, what Christ does is, and of course, assuming that there is a resurrection, right, okay, is to answer that objection, right? Okay. And he answers it in a similar way in each case, huh? That in the next world, right, there will be neither, what, marrying nor giving in marriage, right? But they will all be like, what, angels in heaven, right? Okay. So that's the answer he gives to their objection, right? Okay. But then he goes on to the root of their problem, which is to their denial of the resurrection, right? And then he quotes Moses, you know, I'm the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Well, he's the God of the living, God of the dead, and so on, right? Okay. So notice that Christ's order there, right? He first meets the objection, right? And then he goes to the root of their thing, right? Okay. And that's similar in all three. But this is not the main point here, but just an interesting thing here. He's talking about we'll be like the angels, right? There's an interesting difference. Because the one text says we shall be like the angels, right? The other text says we shall be what? Equal to the angels. That's kind of an amazing thing, yeah? You know? Let's show the difference a little bit here. Yeah. And Matthew says that they will neither marry nor be given marriage, but they will be what? Hosts as, right? Angeloi into Urano. They'll be like the angels in heaven, right? Okay. So that's the same. It's the same like the angels, right? Just the angels don't marry or give any marriage. So neither will we be in the next world, huh? Okay. Now, in Mark, huh? This is verse 25. For when they rise from the dead, they will neither marry nor be given marriage, but they will be host angeloi, right? As the angels in Toys Rannos. Same way. They like the angels, right? Now you come to Luke. Okay. 36. Yeah. Now, let's see. Again, I notice when they translate that thing about the commandment of love, right? They don't observe that distinction there. You know? There's just something to be understood from that. And in this particular translation here, see who Knox has, notice what he says here. He says, Jesus told them, the children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but those who are found worthy to attain the other world, the resurrection of the dead, take neither wife nor husband, mortal no longer, they will be as the angels in heaven are, children of God, right? Okay. Now, the Greek says, they're no longer able to die, but they will be, it's one word in the Greek, isangelo. Isangelo. So it comes from the Greek word, what? Isas, meaning equal. And he's what? Equal to the angels. The way Thomas only speaks of Genesis, is if the saints will fill up the ranks of the fallen angels, right? So some saints will be greater than some angels, some angels will be greater than some saints, right? But there's kind of an equality there, right? Issa. It's kind of interesting, right? It's kind of missed in the translation, huh? Okay. That's kind of a side to what I'm going to do here. Now, the Sadducees have made a mistake, right? They are in error. They're in error about the resurrection, again with, and secondly, they're in error about what would be the state of us after the resurrection, right? Okay. Now, Christ addresses himself to both of those errors, right? In all three texts. But does he label it as an error? Or say it's, you are an error. In all three texts. Well, in one, he doesn't say you are an error, although he gathered he realizes that, right? In one, he says you're an error. He starts off, right? In the other one, he says it twice. Okay. Now, in Matthew, it's mentioned once, right? Because after they go through it, there's, think about the seven brothers, right? Jesus answered them, you are wrong, right? You do not understand the scriptures or what is the power of God. Now, the Greek word there, not that you're wrong, you could, you know, not that I go by translation, but, what do you think the Greek word is? Yeah. 22 here, 29. Apocrythes, answering, right? Yeah, oh, Jesus, Jesus, even now twice, he said to them, planastha. Look at the Greek form there. Put it on the thing. Planastha, you were, not knowing, right? Me, Abilthez, not knowing, Tastrapas. The scriptures, the name of the Bible, right? Medya, nor, Tain dunamin, the power, right? To favor God, right? Okay? See, well, in Luke it just says, Jesus told them, the children of this world marry and are given marriage, right? It doesn't say you were, right? Although he's pointing out an error there, right? But now you get to Mark, right? Okay? Now, again, the translation here is not exactly perfect, and I'm going to point it out, but G.O. Knox too much is, well, Convert, right? My favorite quote from G.O. Knox is, he says, it's so stupid, he says, of the modern world to have stopped believing in the devil, but he has the only explanation for it. So I get you to respect him, right? Okay? But, and in the translation here, this is using the Knox translation, see this particular, the Harmony of the Gospels and the Knox translation. Okay? So it's called, it's very handy, nevertheless. So you get to it with the seven husbands. Jesus answered them, is not this where you are wrong? Do you not understand the scriptures or what is the power of God? Now, again, instead of wrong, I want to go back to, what, the word error. What's another, more important thing I want to point out here. Jesus said to them, Udia tutto, planastha, right? The same exact word, planastha, right? Okay? Okay? But there's something else that's added to the text there, right? That you don't have in Matthew, right? Matthew says, um, planastha, you're wrong, planastha, right? You do not understand the scriptures or what is the power of God. Okay? Now, what is the connection between there being in error and they're not understanding the scriptures or the power of God? Yeah. That's the cause of there being in error about the resurrection. Now, grammatically, I mean, you can maybe, you know, construe this in different ways, right? But, um, you know, there's error is not understanding the scriptures as though they might have other errors that regard, right? But the error he's talking about is there one about, what? Actually, there's two errors, right? One is, there's no resurrection, and the second is that if there were resurrection, we'd be like we are just now, again, we can do anything in marriage, in marriage, right? Yeah. Okay? You see? And, uh, they're in those two errors, huh? Because they don't understand the scriptures or what is the power of God, right? Uh-huh. See? But as you say, the Greek here just says panastha, you and error, right? You're not knowing, see, it's very, it's very brief. not knowing the scriptures or the power of God, huh? But in Mark, see, it doesn't say, he's got translated here, uh, is not this where you are wrong, that you do not understand the scriptures or what is the power of God? I mean, the Greek is not where. They don't imply that that's where they're mistaken. Right. The Greek says, uh, efe altoi soiesus, Jesus said to them, ou, is it not, dia tutu, huh? Dia, tutu, huh? Is it not through this, right? Or because of this, huh? See? The Greek words are, uh, is it not through this, right? That's your word, right? Okay. Not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, right? Okay. Now, as a recitillian, right? Okay. Um, if you go back to the text we looked at earlier, look at the Greek now, right? When Aristotle distinguishes the four kinds of cause, huh? In the second book, we saw the text in English, but Aristotle says, having determined these things, the fourth lexio there, excuse me, fifth lexio, having determined these things, we ought to, what? Consider now about the causes. Remember that text? How they are and how many they are in number, right? Okay. This is what he's about to distinguish the four kinds of causes, matter, form, whatever, right? And he's going to get the reason now he's going to take this up. For since the investigation is for the sake of knowing, of understanding, epe, regard to Edeni, current, for the sake of understanding, right? Is the pragmatéa, the investigation. But we do not think, right? We know each thing before we take the, what? Deity. The very same word that you have in the Gospel of St. Mark. Until you have the, what? Deity. You have a count of what to the through what, huh? Alatrum translates that poked or quit, right? But the Greek word dia, the basic meaning is what? Through or by, right? So, diity means what? Through what? From by the part. Christ Christ is pointing out to think what their effect is, right? Dia tuto. Through this, right? That you don't know the Scriptures and you don't know the power of God. That's why you're making this mistake about the resurrection and what happens because it's after the resurrection, right? It's through your ignorance of Scripture and through your ignorance of what? The power of God. Do you see that? See that same key word there, dia, right? Which means through or by in Greek, huh? He's mistranslated here when he says, what? Is not this where you are wrong? The Greek would be, is it not through this or by this that you are? That makes it clear at least not about the cause, right? And the other stuff goes on here. Edeni, huh? Let me just, I just read first here. Edeni means to understand upoteran, that's the word not before, right? Edeni putteran before, well, we think we don't understand before, heckas on each thing, prinan, la volen, before we take to deity, right? The deity about each thing. And then he says, tuto, tuto desi, to la volen, ten, protein a ti-an. This is to take the first clause, right? Okay? So he's explicit, right? We don't really understand the thing until we, what, know the deity, right? Through what, or by what it is, what it is, right? And that means it gets the clause, right? This phrase, it gets the, you see that? Okay? So no, so you compare the three texts, In all three texts you have the, the heirs of the, Sadducees brought out, right? And Christ, uh, refutes the, the two heirs, right? But in Matthew and Mark, and you're, and you're, and you're, and you're, In Mark, again, he says that you've heard, right? He doesn't say it again. He says it once, you know, without saying D.A.T., right? D.A.T.U.T.U. And then Mark, at the end, after he refutes both errors, and that's the way he translates it. Yet is a living man, not a dead man, that he is a god, right? That's the end of the second reputation. You are wrong, then, altogether. What did the Greek ask? Yes, our Lord, in the Greek, it allurates. Polu planastha, right? So it's the last words there in Mark 27, chapter 12, verse 27. He says, He's not the god of the dead, right? Ala zonton, but the god of the living, right? Okay, and then the next sentence is, Polu marcha planastha. So that same word, huh? Okay. So, this is said, not at all in Luke. Once said, what? Matthew, right? Without the D.A.T.U.T.O., right? Making explicit. And here it's said twice, right? But he says, Polu planastha. Now, that's interesting, right? And the polu, which means what? Much, you could say, right? They earn much because, of course, they're making two errors, right? They're mistaken about resurrection, about this. But also, you know, in retrospect, you think of what St. Paul says, you know, he's dealing with these people who denied resurrection, right? Or since they've understood some kind of, you know, calling of Christ's memory or something like that, right? And denied the literal resurrection, right? You know, he says, if Christ didn't rise, and we're not going to rise, then our faith is in vain, etc., right? It's really an essential thing in Christianity, right? You know, so the Greeks had a hard time accepting that we went to the Ariopagus, right? Ah, I have to talk to the resurrection, right? But, I mean, if you deny that, you know, which is so central, you know, if the night has the night of faith, he's saying, in a sense, right? It has a special prominence, the resurrection, huh? So, Polu planastha, right? Then you deny the resurrection. You are very much in error, right, huh? It's not just the number of errors they're making, right? That's Polu planastha. You earn much, meaning you've made many mistakes, right? Would you err about something that's as important as the, what? Resurrection, right, huh? And we don't redeem, we are redeemed and we don't rise, right? Now, next point now, what's the cause of error, right? Well, there's many things to be said about what the cause of error is, huh? Okay? But, let me suggest something here from the text of our Lord here, right? Okay? He said that you, what? Err, do this. That you don't know the scriptures, right? And you don't know the power of God, right? That you err because you are ignorant of something, right? Okay? Now, how fundamental is that in understanding the causes of error? Is that where you begin to show to what men are in error? And this is going to be very important for this book, Aristotle, because, although we're not going to be reading through the whole book one, right? If you read through the whole book one, you'd find out that you have all these different opinions of what the soul is. Some say it's water, some say it's fire, some say it's air, some say it's a number, some say it's the atom, you know? If everybody's got a different opinion as to what the soul is, either all of them are mistaken, right? Or all are one of them, right? In other words, most men are mistaken about what the soul is. Most philosophers are mistaken about what the soul is, right? And that's enough to, you know, it's such an important thing, right? To make you stop and say, just a minute now, we want to try to avoid error, we can, but everybody seems to be mistaken, right? And when Aristotle gets to the second book, we'll come to a very famous passage there, where Aristotle is talking about his predecessors, and he says, they tried to explain how man and the other animals know, right? But he says, they gave no explanation of how man and the other animals are mistaken, or an error. And Aristotle says, this seems to be even more common than knowing, right? So he says, if you're going to try to understand what is found in man and the other animals, you ought to try to understand mistake or error, because that's even more common than knowing, right? So he's kind of pointing out a sin of omission, you might say, on their part, right? That they gave you an explanation of error, right? But if you don't know the cause of error, as the great Boatheist says, and if you don't know the cause of evil, it's hard to avoid it, right? Right? How can you avoid disease if you don't know what causes the disease, right? You know? Okay? So how can you avoid error unless you, you know, it's going to be hard enough if you know the causes of error, right? And in this text, and we've got pretty good authority here, probably, there he seems to be touching upon ignorance as the cause of what? Of error, right? Okay. Now, let's try to understand a little bit. We didn't want to say that. Let's just put out ignorance as a cause of error. Maybe this is the place to begin. Now, let's try to manifest this by, I'm going to detect this here, by opposites, right? When I was a little boy, I think I learned something like this. And you probably did, maybe too, huh? I mean, it was something like in a prayer to have faith or something like that, you know? That we're supposed to believe God who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Remember that formula? No? Okay. Now, just take one part of that. God cannot be deceived, right? If you were to answer, you know, I'd try to give a simple or first answer to the question. Why is it impossible for God to be deceived? What would you answer? He knows everything. Yeah. That's in my mind right away, right? God cannot be deceived because he knows everything. Presumably, therefore, we can be deceived because, what? We don't know everything, right? Unless we're ignorant of something, we would never fall into, what? Error. Error, right? Okay. Now, get to be careful there, right? Because ignorance is not the same thing as error, is it? I'll take a very simple example here. Take my favorite syllogism here. Um, happiness is the end of life. The end of life is death. Suppose you're deceived by this into thinking that, hey, happiness must be death then, right? And this would be a mistake, an error, right? Happiness is death, huh? But, if I'm deceived by this, and some of my students are close to being deceived by this sort of thing, right? Um, one of the students is saying, you know, answering the question, why is it important to consider that the nature acts for an end, right? He says, well, I said, nature is bringing all things to an end, and you write a pessimistic view of the world. So, he's, he's got two different senses, right? Uh, what ignorance, if you're deceived by this argument, right? It's dia, ti, yeah? Through what that you're deceived? Ignorance of the different meanings of the words. Yeah, yeah. So, if you're ignorant of the different senses of the word end, right? In these two sentences, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Ignorance of the word end, right? Through your ignorance of the distinction of the meanings of the word in, you are what? You can be deceived by this, right? I gave an example of the word park, I deceive my students, yeah, I try to do a lot of it, but they see it, right? That they argue against the whole big grid of the park, remember that? Yeah, where animal is only a part of what man is, and they agree to that, and then they argue that. But animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, right? Okay, so the park sometimes includes more than the whole. Wow, I guess you're right. That's why I explained to them that you're mixing up here two different sentences of the word whole and park, right? The universal whole, right? Where animal is set of more than man is set of. And then the composed whole, the definition of man, which contains more than animal, right? That's a more difficult example than this one here, see? And this is something to see. Roger and Merrill said 61 hormones of the bat, the bat is a flying rodent. There you go, the flying rodent. People will not probably deceive that, because they can see the two different meanings of the bat, right? This is a little more difficult, right? Part of it is even more difficult. So you can see how there's some truth in saying that it's dia tuta, it's through ignorance, right? It's through you're not knowing something that you, what? Make a mistake or an error, right? But we have authority of Christ himself saying that, right? It's through not knowing and being ignorant of scriptures, right? And being ignorant of the power of God, that they make this mistake about, what? Resurrection, right? Partly because they don't see that this is really taught in scripture, right? And partly because they think the power of God is limited to what nature can do or something, that's like, huh? Okay? Yeah, many modern thinkers, you know, who, you know, commonly deny miracles because they seem to contradict the laws of nature, so-called, right? Well, as if God is limited by the laws of nature, you see? So you can say, you err, thinking there could be no miracles, because you are ignorant of the power of God, right? You think the power of God is limited to the laws of nature, huh? Okay, now, a little text here that I leave with you, just to bring it out this morning, I was thinking about this a little bit, it's entitled here, Pius X on the Causes of Error, okay? And it's taken from Pius X, Pius X, Pius X, Pius X, and the Modernism, and I did the Latin text here, and then the English translation of it, which I didn't make, but I mean, it's a translation that I found. To penetrate, I should be to the English text here, to penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism, and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, It behooves us, Venerable Brethren, to investigate the causes, the Deity, as I start to say, which have engendered it, right? And which foster its growth, that the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be opened to doubt. Now, he's going to make a distinction here, which is similar to the one that Thomas makes in the Discourse on Error there in the Epistles to Timothy. Have I given you those texts? I can maybe give them to you sometime. It's in his Commentary on Timothy, huh? But in that text, in the Commentary on Timothy, Thomas says that he divides the causes of error, ex partea petitus, on the side of the desire, and then ex partea intellectus, on the side of the knowing powers. Well, he's using a similar division here. And he says, We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two, curiosity and what? Pride. That's interesting, he calls those remote causes, right? Because they're in the, what? Will rather than in the reason itself. So they're called remote as opposed to proximate, huh? Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of our predecessor, Gregory XVI, and he refers back to the encyclical of 1834, St. Bill Ariknoz, who wrote, and he quotes Gregory XVI, A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason, when it yields to the spirit of novelty. Well, see, curiosity is always taking something, what? New, right, huh? Read Shakespeare on fashion there, and of course, in Greci dynasty, what he means. One touch of nature, he says, makes the whole world kin, that all with one consent praise newborn gods, G-A-W-D. Though they are made and molded of things past, right? And give to dust that is a little guilt, more law than guilt are dusted. So he says, A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason. There's a word aberration, it's got that root in there, error. When it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the apostle, it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know. And when relying too much on itself, it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church, wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of what? Error. And he goes on to pride, right? But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greatest way of the soul. First Thomas always referred to pride, you know, and he calls it the motter erroris, in the simulacum de gentiles, right? The mother of error. And when he talks about the cause of error, it's like sparte peritus, pride is that pride of place. But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greatest sway of the soul to blind it and lead it into error. And pride sits in modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its very aspect. It is pride which fills modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puts them up with that vain glory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge and makes them say, evaded and inflated with presumption, we are not as the rest of men. And which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelies even of the most absurd kind. It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect of authority even for the supreme authority. Truly, there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to modernism as pride. And those are the causes of deception, the two main ones, not the only ones, but the main ones. Ex parte appetitus, Thomas says, right? On the side of the desiring power. The side of the desiring power. Now he says, if we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of modernism, so he uses the term moral causes for that, right? The moral virtues are in the appetite, right? So it's really the same thing. I see Thomas is saying. If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of modernism, the first and the chief which presents itself is, yeah, is ignorance, yeah. See? It's like what Christ is doing in that passage here, right? You are, planasthera, you are, dia tuta, through or because of this, right? Not knowing, what? The scriptures and not knowing the power of God, right? Okay? So he's saying, the first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance. Yes, he says, huh? These very modernists who seek to be esteemed as doctors of the church, who speak so loftily of modern philosophy. The first and the chief of the church of the church of the church of the church, and show such contempt for sclasticism have embraced the one with with all its false glamour precisely because their ignorance of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize confusion of thought and to refute sophistry their whole system containing as it does errors so many and so great has been born of the union between faith and false philosophy now that is even more interesting that last phrase so this union between faith and false philosophy the latin says connubio i get the latin here is it um ex connubio that means marriage right in latin ex connubio autum false philosophiae cum fide elorum system totantis quere oribus so many of such great errors abundans or to hobbit right yeah i know it's talented uh theology in a way is what you know marriage of greek philosophy as best right with the thing but from this marriage of the false philosophy with the faith you get what you know where it's right okay so i'll give you that text you want a couple of tables um but just for the you know comparing the text from from the gospel right that ignorance is the first cause of what error okay but and be careful about that because even is not the same as error right and in what ways ignorance a cause of error what kind of a cause is it well when you study the bad and the kind of cause the bad can have right you find out that the bad can have only what is called in philosophy an accidental cause because everyone desires the good as such right okay now uh in the fifth book of wisdom Aristotle takes up cause of course he takes up accidental cause okay and there are many senses of accidental cause and um one kind of accidental cause is not really caused at all except in the estimation of men so if i walk into this house and all of sudden there's an earthquake so breakfast who called the earthquake but but really in a way i might be through the earthquake in that sense right just coincidence right okay i was mentioning my relative you know he came down to visit us in the twin cities and when the relatives died so i got back at the funeral home and then another time a month or a few you know came down again someone else died and everyone's saying to me at the funeral home you know you don't come down anymore so he seems to die but yeah that's that that you know okay now sometimes we say what happens to the cause is said to be a cause what happens to the cause is such we sometimes say as a cause of the effect right okay but yeah suppose you know the pianist happens to be a cook right well then we could say the cook played the piano right we could say the pianist cooked dinner but it's not through being a cook that he played the piano it's not through being a pianist that you know how to make dinner right okay so those two are not very important the first one i mentioned and the one on the side right you were taught by a white man you're taught by someone white so what you know and being white has nothing to do with what i teach i assume oh somebody kid here yeah that's a crazy word it is okay then you come to the kind of accidental cause that is called luck for chance right and that's where something other than what you intended happens right but somehow as we saw what you did right maybe you're going to be back so suppose i'm digging in the ground to plant a tree and i strike a treasure down there right you could say my digging in the ground led to my discovery of the treasure right was digging in the ground to plant the tree as such going to lead to finding a treasure no but you see in this case i would not have found that treasure if i hadn't dug in the ground to plant that right okay so that's a very common thing right suppose i'm aiming at the target i let go of the arrow and i miss the target i hit the tree next to the target would you say my aiming at the target was the cause of my hitting the tree i'm not very good aiming but uh the point is if i hadn't been shooting at the target i wouldn't hit the tree would i say but that was unintended right okay maybe i missed the target and it goes to the wood that hits you and that's you you know bad luck i wasn't trying to kill you right if i hit the target you know your back there right but in fact i would not have killed you unless i had the name of the target right okay but that you know especially if it's that may be um the case of luck or chance it's something that happens rarely okay but sometimes there's something not intended that happens frequently right so thomas gives the example of the man who drinks wine because you got a sweet tooth apparently in middle of the ages where you have candy around or i can satisfy that sweet tooth you got right well it's a sweet wine right so you drink the sweet wine to get the sweetness right but you so much love the sweetness that you get drunk see but that's not by chance that you get drunk because of the wine but your intention drinking it was to enjoy the sweetness of the wine not to get drunk right okay that's a kind of maximal cause there right something other than what you intended right happens as a result of what you intended right even though it was intended as such by you okay but sometimes it's just you know rarely right other times it's a common thing right now but the last thing and very important tangible cause is what they call the in latin the causa rainbow bins pochi bins causa rainbow bins pochi bins the cause be moving right what be this okay now the stock example of that is suppose um right and the roof came down on top of us well why does the roof come down because it's heavier than there right okay so my responsible for the roof coming down or was it gravity or heaviness or something like that was responsible for it but what i did was this poster maybe is preventing the roof from coming down right so i removed what prevented the roof from coming down so in that way i'm a cause of the roof coming down right although the roof as such comes down because it's weight so samson he pushes the pillars there right these are cows every moment pochi bins of the the destruction of the i don't know the christians or whatever they are okay um you see that right okay so in which of those four ways is ignorance a cause of deception as our great uh pius the tenth there shows us in that encyclical and with even more authority yeah our lord right speaks of their ignorance of scripture and ignorance of the um power of god as being causes of their at last they have, they're buried. What kind of clause is that? Perhaps the last one is if they had known the scripture of the power of God. See, if I saw the distinction of the two meanings of the word in that apparent soul, that would prevent me from being, what, deceived by that argument, right? If my students knew the different sense of the word part and whole, they would not be deceived by that sophisticated argument I give them sometimes. So ignorance is a cause removing the points, huh? A cause removing what prevents you, right? Now, when Thomas talks about that remote cause that he emphasizes there, pride, which Thomas also emphasizes, right? He says that pride is a cause of error in two ways. And one way it causes error is by taking away learning from others, right? From those greater than us, right? Okay? So he removes the humility necessary to be the student, the master, right? Okay? Now when you put yourself under a teacher, you know, you're not a human being, or even putting yourself under the church as a teacher, or the pope or the magisterium, right? You're putting yourself under somebody, right? Okay? And pride exists being put under somebody else, right? Okay? So pride makes one not listen to those who are bisoned in oneself, right? And therefore it removes what would prevent you from what? Making errors, right? Or what would, you know, call you back from an error, right? That you've already made, huh? Okay? So you can think, you know, maybe of many teachers that have called you back from an error if you're making your, you know, or if they explain something and they say, now watch out for this, right? You know, it's in danger, right? So in a remote way, pride can be a causa, remove ends, pour events also, right? Can you see that? Okay? But now, the other way that pride is a causular, Thomas says, is that pride leads us to apply our mind to something above our powers, right? He talks about that too, where I said, yeah. And so when I apply my mind to something I'm not really able to judge, and I'm easily, what? Deceived, right, huh? That's a different way, it seems to me, that the cause of the remote ends is probably that, huh? And we talked about curiosity, right? You know, where a person might apply his mind, let's say, to what's new and fashionable in the intellectual world, right? What's new and fashionable is often erroneous. Okay? So people apply themselves to what's new and fashionable and they end up in what air, right? Or, on a pride they try to judge something they're unable to judge, right? And it needs to be fallen to air, right? Now, in what way is pride in that case or curiosity a cause of deception? That's a mover? Yeah. But it is something like getting drunk when I drink the wine, right? so I can enjoy the sweetness of the wine. I've got a sweet tooth. I've got a sweet tooth. I don't know how I see this. You know, there's no candy so I've got to drink the sweet tooth. I have to get the sweet tooth, right? So I'm drinking the wine not for the sake of getting drunk, right? But for the sake of enjoying the sweetness, right? But it's not strange I get drunk if I pursue the satisfaction of my sweetness because the two are joined together, right? What's little bit like that seems to me in this case because when you apply your mind to something you can't really what? Judge or judge yet? You see? You try to do so. You're easily deceived, right? But you don't apply yourself to that because you want to be deceived, right? But you apply yourself to that because it seems interesting or because it's something that will give you some dignity, you know, that you can talk about these high things, right? So I consider these things are too high for me out of pride, right? Seeking excellence there, right? But it's almost necessarily attached to considering something above you that you make some mistake about it. Do you see that? So it's a cause of deception in another, what, way. So think about that a little bit, see? You know? When you read that text, you know, maybe Father can reproduce that, you know, okay? Now, when Aristotle begins his Sophistical Refutations, the book on Sophistic Refutations, and this is a book now about error, in a sense, huh? He's going to talk about the causes of error in the sight of language and outside of language and so on. He's going to get 13 different causes, right? Where the mind is deceived. One which is that, it's obviously the provocation that we simplify, right? Okay? When Aristotle begins that consideration, he's talking kind of in general about what the cause of deception is, huh? And there he says something different, right? Sometimes Aristotle and Thomas following him, they'll attribute somebody's error to pseudonymorance, right? Just like Christ does, right? But in the Scenic Refutations, Aristotle says that, following Plato in the, in his observation in the Sophist, that likeness is the cause of deception. Okay? Okay? Likeness is the cause. And Aristotle says, he gives me examples from things that look like gold or silver but not gold or silver, right? There's something they call fool's gold. You've heard about that, right? Well, fool's gold deceives the fool, right? Because it resembles gold, right? And you think he's rich now, right? He comes down and it's not, right? Or it's like, you know, a zircon. You see these zircons look like a diamond to me. I mean, it's my eyes, right? These great big zircons, you know? I'd say, it doesn't cost very much, you know, and you're on it. Oh, boy! It's a diamond my husband gave me, you know? So, and sometimes people, as a joke, you know, somebody's reading and they're saying, what's the beautiful zircon you got there? Oh! You know? The point is, the average person couldn't tell a part of the diamond with a zircon, right? So, there's all kinds of examples like that where you could be deceived, you know? People reading poisonous mushrooms because they can't tell a part from the good ones, right? And, so if you take the good for the bad, sometimes, or the bad for the good, or the true for the false, the false for the true, it's because sometimes the good in some way resembles the bad, or the bad resembles the good, right? Or the true resembles the false sometimes, right? And the false resembles the true, and so you mix up the two, right? So, you know, they deceive the Germans there, they've got an actor who looked like Montgomery, and he would actually imitate the mannerisms and so on of Montgomery, and so the Germans thought that Montgomery is down in Africa and up in England there, signing the Normandy landing, right? So, you're deceived by likeness, right? And if they put me there, they wouldn't be deceived because I don't look like Montgomery, right? I don't talk like him or his mannerisms and so on. You see? So, likeness is a cause of deception, right? A very common cause of deception, and the reason why that syllogism I gave you, it seems to be a syllogism, doesn't it? Happiness is the end of life, the end of life is death, happiness, you know? So it resembles a true syllogism, right? But it differs from it because it doesn't really have the same middle term there, right? You can see middle term in both. So now, in what way is likeness a cause of deception, see? No, it's the likeness, or seeing the likeness of two things would not deceive us unless we were ignorant of their, what? Difference, right? If the poisonous mushroom resembles the good mushroom, right? Seeing their resemblance is not going to deceive me unless I fail to see their, what? Difference, yeah. There's got to be that ignorance behind this, right? But you can see the likeness there is involved too, huh? So those who thought that the soul was the fire, right? They were deceived by the likeness, huh? Because fire seems to, what? To grow, right? Spread. Just like an animal, right? You know, takes in things and grows in size. Fire digests things, right? The living body digests things and so on, right? But those who thought of the air as being, you know, the soul, right? They're kind of being deceived by likeness there, huh? Now, come back to the word air, right, huh? You say air. The etymology of the word air seems to suggest that air is a result of the wandering of the mind, right? We wander into air, huh? But the word air comes from the wandering. But now, what kind of ignorance is the cause of the mind wandering? Why does the mind wander? But doesn't the mind wander because it doesn't know the road to follow? Well, if it knew the road to follow, right, then presumably it would follow that road, right? So knowledge over a road, huh? Is knowledge that follows a road, huh? And all of our knowledge, to some extent, is over a road. It's somewhere along the road, say, from the senses into what? Reason, right? It's somewhere, if it's a knowledge of reason as reason, it's over the road, reasonable guesses towards reasoned out knowledge, right? So on, huh? So if one is ignorant of the road to follow, huh? Then one's reason will, what? Wander, right? And therefore wander into air, right? So this is a particular kind of ignorance, right? That seems to be especially tied to the mind wandering. Do you see that? See, the philosophers didn't invent the word wander, did they? You know, it comes from non-experience, from ordinary human beings, huh? And so, but the word itself is suggestive of there being a connection between this disordered movement of the reason, and it's getting into air, huh? But now, taking what we learned from our Lord there, and from Pius X there, and what we saw by monodactio from the opposite, right? God cannot be deceived because he's all-knowing, right? There seems to be a particular connection between, what, wandering and a particular ignorance. Name an ignorance of the road to what? All right, okay. This may seem like a great excursion, as it is to some extent, on this premium of Aristotle, or from this premium of Aristotle, right? But now when we come back to the premium, what do you see in Aristotle, right? Well, you see, first of all, in the text before us, that he begins with the difficulty about what road should we take, what methodos should we have, to arrive at a definition of the soul, right? Is there one road to follow to defining all things, or must there be each thing its own road, or, right? That's one place we talk about knowing the road, right? That's where he begins, isn't it? So even before he gets into the question of what the genus is, right? And then when Aristotle goes on, take a second thing here, when he gets to talk about the soul and its parts, which means the parts of its, what, power or ability, they call the powers of the soul, the abilities of the soul, then he raises the question there, he says in number five there, right? Moreover, if there be not many souls, but parts, right? Now Plato spoke as if, you know, the plant soul is one thing in us, and the animal soul is something else, and a few different souls in us, and so on. Moreover, if there be not many souls, but parts, one must consider whether to seek first the whole soul or the parts, right? But it's difficult to determine how these parts are by nature different from each other. And whether one needs to inquire about the parts first, or the works of these, understanding of the mind, sensing of the sensitive. But if one seeks first the works, then some will be at a loss, and one must seek first the things that correspond to these, what we sometimes call the objects, right? Okay? Mostly he's saying it, right? He's raising three or four questions there. Should we consider the soul first, or the abilities of the soul? Should we consider the soul first, or the ability to understand first? The soul first, or the ability to sense? Or the soul first, or the ability to grow, or something, right? It's a question of before and after, right? Which comes before? And if we should consider the abilities, he says, before the soul, should we consider the ability to understand, or the ability to sense, or the ability to grow first? Or should we consider first understanding, and sensing, and growing? Because growing is not the same thing as the ability to grow, is it? Sensing is not the same thing as the ability to sense, right? So should we consider the ability to sense first, or sensing? The eye or seeing first, the ear or hearing first, right? It's kind of unique, maybe, that we have to know what understanding is, or sensing is, or growing is, before we can understand what the ability to understand is. The ability, right? And then he says, and again, if you should know understanding or sensing before the ability of these things, right? So should you know first understanding, or the understandable? Seeing or color first, right? Hearing or sound first. Eating and growing, or food first. Right? You see? Okay? So you're asking here about the soul, its powers or abilities, the acts of these powers or abilities, and the objects of these acts, right? And he's asking about the before and after, right? Does it go from here to here to here? From here to here to here? Or how, right? See? That's a question of what? The road you have to follow, right? The road in our knowledge is nothing other than a before and after in our knowledge, right? So does the knowledge of the objects come before our knowledge of the acts, or a knowledge of the acts before a knowledge of the objects? In other words, is seeing, sensing color, in which case you don't know what color is first, right? Or is color what is seen? Is hearing, sensing sound? And if you don't know what sound is, you don't know what sensing sound is. Or is sound what you hear? So you've got to know what hearing is, you don't know what sound is. Right? You see me? Okay? And is understanding what the ability to understand does? The mind does? Okay? The mind does not know what the ability to understand, right?