De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 75: Mystical Knowledge, Charity, and the Multiplicity of Souls

Transcript
================================================================================

In another way, he says, by way of knowledge, as someone instructed in moral science is able to judge about the acts of virtue, even if he doesn't have virtue. That's kind of interesting, right? That's maybe difficult, but it's possible. So, the first way, therefore, of judging about divine things pertains to the wisdom which is laid down to be a gift of the Holy Spirit, right? According to that of 1 Corinthians 2, verse 15, the spiritual man judges all, right? Whence also Dionysius says in the second chapter of the divine names, speaking about Herotheus, he was taught as not only, what, learning, meaning by his reason, right? But also as undergoing divine things, huh? Now, when you study love, you can see that patiyan's undergoing is much more true about love than it is about, what, knowing, you know, see? I often quote Goethe, a very beautiful quote from the poet Goethe, we are shaped and fashioned by what we love. And they tell the students, if you love disgusting things, you're already disgusting. If you love ugly things, you're ugly yourself. If you love beautiful things, you're already a bit beautiful. The second, however, way of judging pertains to this doctrine, according as it's had through study, huh? How those principles are had from, what, Revelation, right? So, um, notice the title given to Teresa is very interesting, huh? She's called the, what? Ecstatic doctor, mystical doctor. Yeah, yeah. Mater Spiritualium, that's what she's called. Mater Spiritualium, right? Spiritual doctor? The mother of spirituals, yeah. Oh. Yeah. Teresa possessed the art of expounding these same secrets to such a degree as to place her among the great spiritual teachers. It is not in vain that saint's statue, which is here in this basilica, because she was a founder, right? She's there. Yeah, you may have seen her statue there, you know. There is an inscription that describes her very well. Mater Spiritualium. Oh, are you doing the Bernini? Well, it's in the outside, I guess. I think it's one of those ones on the outside. I've never been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But notice, huh? I think she's called Mater Spiritualium and if it's in what Thomas is saying, you're a spiritualist homo. Yeah. You need katome, right? But by the inclination of the habit, right? Yeah. See? So, you could say that in this mystical knowledge, right, we're knowing through loving God, right? Uh-huh. It's, and the reason for that is because we love God if we really have charity. We don't always know whether we really have it, but if we really have charity, we're loving God as he is in himself. But by faith, and therefore by theology, we're not knowing God as he is, but we're knowing God as he is not. In the Vedic vision, we'll see God as he is. All right. You see, the text there, the text of St. John, it says we shall see him as he is, right? Uh-huh. That's referring to Vedic vision. Here we see him, what? Via negativa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We don't see him falsely, but we don't see him as he is. Um, so when you see God as he is, then we'll love him more than we ever loved him before. And then we'll be loving him through knowing him, right? As he is. But in this life, we, um, love him less, perfectly, than we will then, because we know him only through faith. That is very darkly, right? Right, no? But nevertheless, that faith is going to replace the Vedic vision, right? The charity is going to remain, as St. Paul says, huh? That's right. And so, um, we're loving God as he is. We're not knowing him as he is. And therefore, um, through the inclination of our will towards God, through the impression that God has made upon our will, right? Um, we can know him in a higher way, maybe, right? Than just in theology, right? And so, if the woman has a special gift for that, right? Yeah. It's because she must have a special gift for what? Charity, right? For love, right? That's something we're still recognizing in terms of the, of the, uh, what the woman is by nature, right? The woman by nature is more loving, more merciful, et cetera, right? I mean, there's all kinds of allusions to this in Shakespeare, but that's why, you know, they say, you know, Mary's the mother of mercy. Neil Hobbins in great new justicia, right? You know, but mercy there, tabla of love, huh? So, um, I had the impression, it's been so long ago since I had the text, but in the same issue of the Pope speaks where I got this from, you know, I think it must have been at the same time, maybe the same very issue. I had his address that he gave, at the Agustinianum in Rome, which is an institute, you know, for the study of the church fathers, but named from Augustine, right? It's kind of a principal one. So it is Agustinianum, and it was the occasion for Paul VI to say some words about Augustine. And there he quotes the words of Augustine, intellectum valde ama. Love the understanding very much, right? You know, the emphasis there was so different in contrast with, you know, Teresa of Avila, right? Um, let's see. Where did the wealth of her doctrine come to Teresa, right? Not doubt it came from her intelligence and her culture and spiritual education, from her letters, from her conversation with great masters of theology and spirituality, from her singular sensibility, from her particularly intense and habitual ascetic discipline, from her contemplative meditation. In a word, it came from her response to grace. Received in a soul that was extraordinarily rich and prepared for the practice and experience of prayer. It basically goes on here, it says, but was this the only source of her eminent doctrine, huh? Or ought we not to recognize in St. Teresa, acts, facts, and states, which did not come from her, but were undergone by her. That's just the same words, Thomas uses, or from Dionysius there. See? Herotheus, doctus, ets, non solum, dischens, that's what we're doing here, said at Patzians Divina, undergoing, suffering divine things, right? Of course, you know, both Teresa of Avila and St. Teresa of Assure, they both received this increase of divine love under the form of big woundage, you know? Yes. So the angel comes down, you know, there's a famous pinhead, I guess, representing that scene, and it happened to St. Teresa of Assure, she was leading, carrying the cross for the station of the cross, and that she had this, you know? Oh, yeah. And very, very, very interesting what she describes as being purist, We're undergone by her, things both endured and suffered, huh? Mystical things in the true sense of the word, things which have to be attributed to an extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit. That's not in terms of love, all right? So, numerous questions now arise. The originality of mystical action is one of the most delicate and complex psychological phenomena. Many factors can play a part in it, and they oblige the observer to maintain the severest caution. But the marvels of the human soul are manifested in mystical action in a surprising way. One of these marvels is one of the most comprehensive of all. It is love which has its fullest and most varied expressions in the depths of the heart. It is love which you must finally describe as an espousal, for as an encounter with a flood of divine love, descending to meet human love, which drives with all its might to ascend. It is the strongest and most intimate union with God, which it is given to a soul living on this earth to experience. It becomes light, it becomes wisdom, wisdom in divine things, wisdom in human things, but it's wisdom in that, one of those two senses that Thomas distinguished is there, right? That's why it seems that when he quotes Francis de Sales there, that life was nourished daily by intimate contact with God, even in oldest forms of mystical prayer, but that's tied up with charity. And St. Francis de Sales did not hesitate to say that women have a special capacity for it. He seems to be quoting the doctrine of divine love there, with approval, right? That light becomes life in a sublime manner for the good and service of mankind. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. I can leave this text with you. I'll look at it more. We'll get back to you. I don't think I still get that. I'll try to make some copy of it. Yeah, older. Amen. Amen, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and loom our bridges, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. And help us to understand what you've written. Amen, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I know what the other 13th says. You can learn more from a year of study of St. Thomas and a lifetime of the study of the Church Fathers. Yeah. That's true. That must be why you were going on so separate. Yeah, yeah. Are they accessible? People like me. Okay, we're up to the second article here of question 76. The second one proceeds thus. It seems that the understanding beginning, right? The understanding soul is not multiplied by the multiplication of bodies. But there is one understanding in all men. This is an opinion that you had with the veroism and some of these thinkers like that. And in a way, Plato leaves himself open for this opinion. This position that the, early Socrates' position, that the soul was the whole substance, right? We'll see that in the objections here, why there would be. Even the first objection there. For no immaterial substance is multiplied numerically in one species. There's not a number of what? Of the same kind, right? There's no two immaterial substances of the same kind. Okay? But the human soul is an immaterial substance. For it is not put together for matter and form, as has been said above. Therefore, there are not many in one, what? Species, yeah. But all men are of one kind, of one species. Therefore, there is one understanding, understanding principle of all men. And notice, Plato, in a way, saw some of the truth about immaterial substances. Because in the world of forms, as the name indicates, as I mentioned before, sometimes they badly translate or transliterate that word. Or, I'll say, the platonic ideas. With a capital I. Yeah. Well, of course, idea in English has a much different meaning than idos in Greek. Because idea in English means either what? The thought or the image inside the man. But Plato's talking about a form, right? That's what three-quared idos means. A form that exists by itself, right? Apart from material things, right? And apart from our mind. And so the world of forms is a world of immaterial, what? Substances. And there's, in Plato's understanding of these forms, there's no two forms of the same kind. So Plato, in a sense, sees something of the truth. The angel. Of what the material substance is, like the angels, or like God for that matter. Okay. That there can't be two of the same kind, huh? The same kind of immaterial substance cannot be multiplied numerically, right? Okay? Now, the other thing that Plato saw was that in an immaterial substance, like his forms, there's no difference between the individual and what it is. That Gabriel, huh? And what Gabriel is, are the same. And Raphael and what Raphael is, is the same, huh? Okay? Now, in material things, huh? Not only in things that have sensible matter, like natural things, artificial things, but also this kind of imaginable matter that you have in mathematics, where you have part outside of part. In material things, what a thing is, and the individual, are not altogether identical. So there's something in Socrates, or in Plato, or in you, or in me, right? Besides what a man is. If Socrates and what a man is, we're identical. Socrates would be the only man, huh? Mm-hmm. And to be a man, and to be Socrates, would be the same. Now, how is it possible to have many individuals of exactly the same kind when you have matter, or when you have the continuous, huh? Well, think back to the first theorem there in Euclid, on a straight line to construct a what? Equilateral triangle. Equilateral triangle. If you recall, the way he does it is to take successively each in-point of the straight line, Yeah. and with that in-point as a center, and the line as a radius, to construct a circle. Circles. And then... Okay? Yeah. So you have two circles of exactly the same, what? Size even, right? Exactly the same shape, right? How do they differ? Position. Yeah. One's here, and the other's there. Okay? Because the continuous, as you know from one of the definitions of the continuous, that whose parts mean it a common boundary, the continuous has part outside of part, right? So what is continuous, or the continuum, if you want to call it that, make a noun out of it, has part outside of part, and therefore if you have enough of this material, you can make many individuals of the same kind, one here, one there. So we could have many window panes here of exactly the same kind, same size and shape, and so on, because you have enough glass. And so you could roll out a sheet of glass, right? And you have part outside of part, and you can cut the glass, right? If it's big enough, into enough window panes to fit that whole window over there. In the same way, Grandma can make a number of what? Christmas cookies. Sugar cookies. At Christmas time, right, huh? She rolls out the dough, right? It's something continuous with part outside of part, and she can stamp this part with her little cookie thing, press, and this part, and this part, and this part, right? And she'd keep making exactly the same cookies, right? Because she has enough dough, right? Until she runs out of dough. So it's matter is subject to quantity that is said to be the cause of there being many individuals, possibly, right? Of exactly the same kind of material things. It's like that in mathematics, huh? Because there you have the continuous, right? And therefore, proud side of part. So you could have two triangles exactly the same shape, right? Even the same size, one here and one, what? There, right? And that's why, as I mentioned, there was kind of a side there in modern physics, huh? When the theory led them to say that electrons come together, they lose their individuality, right? because you can't say one's here and one's there. And so there's no basis to say that they are distinct. way. way. And so there's no what? Individuals, huh? So you take away matter, you take away the continuous. We saw that when we studied the material nature of our mind, right? That the understanding, reason itself, is not what? Continuous, right? And it's not in the continuous. But then there's no basis to have many individuals of the same kind. And therefore you have only a difference now of what? Of kind, huh? A difference of form. And a difference of form is going to be a difference of what? Of kind. So, now Plato's in kind of, or Socrates in, if one man holds these two positions, he has this inconsistency. If he holds that there are many, what, human souls, right? Yet the human soul is a complete immaterial substance, like the forms are, then there should be only one. See? Well, as we learned before, the human soul is not a complete immaterial substance, that somehow or they've got imprisoned in a body, right? Like a man puts on his clothes and shuffles off his clothes, you know, shuffles off this mortal coil, as Hamlet says. But the human soul is the, what, form of a body, right? And so therefore there's a, what, basis for the distinction between your soul and my soul, huh? Because your soul is made to be the form, substantial form, the first act of your body, right, huh? And likewise my soul, right? Of my body, huh? Even if you and I were identical twins, see? Your flesh and my flesh would not be the same, huh? And because you have enough flesh, enough bone and so on, we can have many individuals of the, what, same kind. So my soul is made for my body, and your soul is made for, what, your body is. So there's a basis there for, in what the soul is. It's the first act or substantial form of a natural body, right, composed of tools, okay? So there's a basis in its being proportion to this body, right? That matter can in some way not be the cause of its individuation, right? But corresponding to its individuation, huh? Yeah. It's not that the body is the cause of my soul being an individual soul, right? But my soul individually differs from your soul because my soul is proportioned to my body. Right. My soul fits my body and your soul fits your body, huh? Um, take a comparison, I don't want you to probably extend this, right? But, you know, if we had two bolts and two different nuts, right, and one nut was bigger and one nut was smaller, right, huh? The bolt that fitted the bigger nut would not be the same as the bolt that fits the, what, smaller one, right, huh? But yet if you separated the, the, what, bolt from the nut, the bolts would still be, what, distinct, right? Even without the nuts, right? But because they're, what, they fit different ones, huh? Okay? So my soul doesn't fit your body, and your soul doesn't fit my body, see, huh? Okay? So when it comes time to thank God, you thank God for having created your soul, right? Then you thank God for having your father and mother meet, right? Since your body was produced, right? The flesh and blood out of which your body was made is not the flesh and blood out of which my body was made, huh? Okay? So in a way, we don't know, you know, fully what Plato or even Socrates thought, but these two positions, though, are not really, what, compatible, right? The one that sees in the forms that in immaterial substances must differ, complete immaterial substances, in kind, one from another, right? So there's new, there's no two of the same kind, and then the thought that the human soul is a complete immaterial substance, huh? By its very nature, huh? Yeah. That is a haka-liquid. Yeah, a haka-liquid in a complete sense, yeah. A material substance would be a haka, same thing as calling a haka-liquid? Well, haka-liquid, in the full sense of the word, is a complete individual substance, right? Oh. But in some respect, you can say the human soul is a haka-liquid, because it can exist by itself, right? Yeah. But it's naturally the form of a body, right, huh? Yeah. So it's not a complete... But in the error... What I say, I say the error comes is, why in the world of forms, right, which are immaterial substances, why are there no two forms of the same kind, see? Well, Plato saw the truth there, right? That an immaterial substance, what it is, an individual, would have to be the same. And therefore, if there is a multiplicity of immaterial substances, they are much always different kind. And that's why I was making a little joke there, right? If the angels were to get together for their independence all, right? They'd say, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that no angels are created, what? Equal, right? See? There's no two of the same kind, huh? And one is always greater or lesser than the other. And Thomas, I think I mentioned now, Thomas has an interesting answer to an objection, you know, that says, wouldn't the angels love each other more if they were equal? Oh, huh. And Thomas has a very interesting answer to that, right? Uh-huh. He says that the more understanding a substance is, huh, the more it loves the common good, huh? That's the basis of its love, right? No, so in charity, I love you because I love what? God, right, huh? And because God is the, what? Common good of the whole universe, huh? So one angel loves another angel primarily because he loves the common good. And the common good is served more by this distinction of kind, huh, than it would be having several individuals of the same kind, huh? That's part of the problem in human society that we're too much alike, huh? So who should rule and who should be ruled? Right? Now between me and the dog, huh, it's pretty clear that I should do the ruling. The dog should be ruled, right, huh? See? Or me and the horse, right? The horse should obey me. The horse should go where I want to go, right? But in the case of human beings, you see, it's not so clear who should be ruler and who should be what? Ruled, right? So the order of the universe is more seen than the angels, huh? Which differs in kind, huh? So they love each other more, big and equal, because they see this contributes more to the common good, and they love most of all the common good, okay? Interesting. So if they see that truth there in the forms, well then if you think of the soul as being a complete immaterial substance, right, there couldn't be two souls of the same kind. So because the human soul is capable of existing without the body, right, there is some element of the truth, obviously, in thinking of it as a material substance, but it's not a complete substance and it's naturally a part, the better part, obviously, right, of the body, right? I mean, of the man, rather, okay? But still it's a part of a, what? A complete substance. And that's why, you know, the resurrection is so much in harmony with the natural desires of man, huh? Okay? So this objection, you say the human soul is an immaterial substance. You're not thinking of it as being different than any other immaterial substance. You're thinking of it as being another, what, more or less complete immaterial substance, huh? And the second objection. Moreover, the cause removed, the effect is removed, huh? The cause withdrawn, right? So the effect is withdrawn. If, therefore, by the multiplication of bodies, human souls are multiplied, consequently it would seem that the bodies being taken away, that's what happens in death, the multitude of souls would not remain, huh? But from all souls there remain only one soul. Which, of course, is heretical, right? But there would perish, right? The difference of rewards and, what, punishments, huh? Okay? Now, that's what's giving a little kind of a homely likeness there to the nut and the bolt, right? Okay? Which I didn't mean to what? Or extend that likeness, right? See? But you can say that nuts and bolts are made for each other, right? See? And this bolt fits that nut, and another sized bolt fits another nut, right? Okay? In that sense, they're relative to each other, right? And yet, the two bolts could exist, right? When they're separated from the nut, huh? The nut is screwed off it, right, huh? Okay? So, it's not as if the distinction of the two bolts, right, depends upon the, what? They're being screwed into the nuts. Nevertheless, they are, what? Relative to different, what? Bolts, yeah. But the existence is not, right? And Thomas argued from that way in the reply to the objection. The unity of a thing falls upon its existence, right? So, if the soul can exist without the body, then its unity, right, can be without the body, right? But nevertheless, its unity and its distinction among the souls is because they're apt to be the forms of different bodies, right? And numerically different bodies. Now, the third objection. This is another one that you have from the Averroids, right? If my understanding is different from what? Your understanding. And my understanding, then my understanding is a certain, what? Individual, right? And likewise, your understanding is an individual. Because particulars or individuals are things which differ in number and come together in one species or kind. But everything that is received in something is in it by the manner of the receiver, right? Yeah. Therefore, the species of things in my intellect in your would be received, what? Individually, right? Right. Which is against the definition of the understanding which is, what? Which knows universals, right? Yeah. Okay? As the Poetheus says, the thing is singular when sensed and, what? Universal and understood. As Aristotle said, the proper object of our mind is the what it is. So, that's something sensed or imagined, and that's something universal. What a chair is, right? It's something universal and common to many. And what is square is, is common to many, huh? Okay? That's an interesting objection. My individual mind, right? Is going to receive, what? Things individually, right? And not universally. But notice, if there is one immaterial substance that we all are, this kind of crazy position, that would be an individual, right? And so, none of these immaterial substances would know the universal, huh? You wouldn't save what he's trying to save, huh? In your position. It's a little bit like that famous thing in natural philosophy, where change, inductively, is shown to be between contraries or opposites. It's the wet that dries out, huh? It's the dry that is moistened, huh? It's the hard that is softened, and the soft that is made hard. So it seems the hard becomes soft, and the wet becomes dry, and so on. And so, Heraclitus says, well, then hot and cold, and wet and dry, and hard and soft are the same thing. And day and night are the same thing, right? Because one becomes the other. And if you become something, you are it, right? And if you say the hard cannot be soft, then the hard cannot come to be soft, and therefore the hard will always be hard, and there will therefore be no change in the world. So He's admitting that day and night are the same thing, the hard and the soft are the same thing, the wet and the soft are the same, because otherwise there couldn't be change. And He could point out, well, if hard and soft are really the same thing, then there would be no change from hard to soft, wouldn't there? Or from soft to hard. So in trying to save change, He again, what? Takes away change. If day and night are the same thing, there would be no change from day to night or from night to day. Well, something like that, right? He's saying that an individual, right, cannot receive something universally, or knows something universally. The ones who receive an individual must be individual. But that same objection would apply to this separated substance, whether it be just one. That would be an individual too. So it wouldn't know the universe either. So He's trying to say that my understanding and your understanding are one and the same, because if they weren't, your understanding would differ individually from mine. We had two individual understandings there. And therefore, they couldn't know the universal. But if that argument is good, then that one immaterial substance that understands for all of us would be an individual too. And it couldn't understand the universal. So He's trying to save a knowledge of the universal by this denial of our, what, each having an individual mind. But even Rachel's got an individual mind too. And Gabriel does. So, moreover, the thing understood is in the understanding, understanding, you know? In English there, we have to use the same letters, right? To translate that, huh? How do you translate that? Moreover, the intellect, that means the understood, right? Yeah. Is in the intellect understanding, right? You can do it that way there. But in English, the word for intellect is what? Understanding. So, it's in the understanding, understanding. But understanding there is used to name the faculty, the power, the ability, right? First. And then the act, right? But in Latin, it's a little different, schematically, right? But in English, you would spell it the same way, huh? Well, what he says exactly is, further, the thing understood is in the intellect which understands. Yeah, oh, you can do it that way to avoid the thing, okay? I guess so. I say, well, I want to follow exactly the way the Latin goal is, right? Right. You say, the understood is in the understanding, understanding. Is that the way it's understood? Yeah, it's in the understanding, understanding. But two different senses of the word understand there, right? Right. Because one case, you're saying, the understood is in the ability to understand. Right. One is understanding, right? Mm-hmm. People can puzzle forever as to how to translate these exactly, right? Yeah. So, me, the Latin, you have to worry about that, you know what he's saying. Okay. If, therefore, my understanding is other from your understanding, right, it's necessary that other is what is understood by me and other what is understood by what? You. Sometimes you get the modern philosophers arguing in this way, right? Yeah, sure. Like I was saying there, you know, they say, the modern philosophers can't say, it's a scandal, he says, at the end of the 18th century. It's a scandal that philosophers have not been able to prove the existence of the external world.