De Anima (On the Soul)
Lecture 131: The Will's Necessity and Freedom in Willing Particulars

Transcript
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Thomas says that our goodness is to God like a point is to a line. If he had a point to a line, the line is no longer than it was to begin with. So he had nothing to God's goodness. Or he says, our goodness is to God like a part is to a whole, right? But just as Dwayne Burquist and the arm of Dwayne Burquist is no more than Dwayne Burquist, so God in us is no more than God alone. You realize how kind of superfluous you are and how gratuitous is your existence. You have to be, there are all kinds of reasons to be thankful, but going down to it, it's so reasonable to be thankful and so unreasonable not to be. You know, the Dionysus says, for man to be good is to be reasonable, right? You realize how unreasonable it is not to be thankful to, you know, your God. I mean, your parents too, obviously, and your teachers, you know. Everybody said, I couldn't say, you know, but especially to God, whose providence is responsible for all these things that are up to you. So you had a question there about the Feast of the Holy Angels or the Garden Angels? Do you have that same calendar? We don't, but we, I mean, we're still a lot of rice. With that, we invoke them always when we start here, we have to. Yeah. 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 and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctrine. Pray for us. And help us to understand all its repetitiveness. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. So up to Article 2 here in Question 82, I believe. Yes. To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that the will of necessity wills whatever it wills. For Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names that the bad is aside from the will. It's just the will always wills something good, right? From necessity, therefore, the will tends towards the good proposed to it. The second objection. The object of the will is compared to it as the mover to the movable. In fact, in general, the heart, whether you mean the emotions or even the will, is a power that is what? Undergoes, huh? That is acted upon by its object. Just as the reason and the senses are acted upon, too. But the motion of the movable necessarily follows upon that of the mover. Therefore, it seems that the object of the will of necessity moves it, huh? Moreover, just as what is grasped by the senses is the object of the sense desire, so what is grasped by the understanding is the object of the intellectual or understandable desire or ability to desire, as we said. But pity this means there, right? Which is called the, what? Voluntas, the will. But what is grasped by the senses of necessity moves the, what? The sense ability to desire, right? For Augustine says, on the commentary in Genesis to the letter, that the animals are moved by what they see. That's true about the cat, huh? The dog, huh? Therefore, it seems that what is grasped by the understanding of necessity moves the will. Now, that's based upon a, what, proportion, this third argument, huh? And Thomas will be pointing out that the object grasped by the senses and the object grasped by the understanding are not to their respective powers exactly the same, huh? But we'll see that when we get to the reply. Well, the first two objections are looking at the will itself, kind of, huh? But against all of this is what Augustine says, huh? The will is that by which one sins and lives rightly, huh? Thus it has itself to opposites. Therefore, not of necessity does it will whatever it happens to what will, huh? Now, Thomas is going to reply to this. You all sit there? Yep, just going to hit this thing, yep. Take my sniffles down, so for posterity, huh? Your nose problem wouldn't be because of the dog at all, would it? No, no, I've had it for the last few days here, as you say. Okay. It might be psychosomatic because of correcting the exams. Yeah. It might be because of the chill here, especially if we get down to freezing. Psychosomatic means what? Psuche, affecting the soma, which is the body, huh? Oh, yeah. So it might be that that is, I don't know. Okay, I answer that it should be said that the will does not from necessity will whatever it wills, for the evidence of which it should be considered, and I'm thinking of comparison here, right? That just as the understanding naturally and from necessity, huh? So I think she'll call those, put those together and say, by natural necessity, right? That the understanding naturally and from necessity adheres to the first, what? Beginnings, huh? Okay. So likewise the will to the last end, as has been said already, huh? Now, that's a common comparison we've seen before, right? That the end is to the will, like the, what, axioms, huh? The kind of obvious beginnings of our knowledge are to the understanding, huh? We make use of that comparison for many reasons, depending on as many things. It says there are some understandable things which do not have a necessary connection to the first principles or beginnings. And that would be, for example, contingent propositions, right? Like, for example, it happens to be true that Berkwist is sitting now, right? Or you are sitting now, huh? And can, does that have a necessary connection with the statements that it's impossible to be and not be and a hole is larger than its part and so on? Does it follow necessarily from those? That I will be sitting here and not? No. No. And therefore, he says, for the removal of such propositions, right, it doesn't follow. That one is removing the, what, first principles, huh? In other words, I can hold on, right, to the hole being larger than the part and other things of that sort, whether I accept or reject the statement that I'm sitting, huh? That you're sitting or some other contingent thing, huh? Okay. But some statements, some propositions, are, what, necessary, which have a necessary connection with the first beginnings. And these are what we call demonstrable conclusions, huh? Like the conclusions in geometry that you have that follow necessarily from things that are seen to be necessarily true. And the removal of the first beginnings would follow from the removal of such things, huh? So if I denied one of the conclusions of geometry, I'd have to go back and deny one of the beginnings, huh? Because the conclusions of geometry follow necessarily from the, what, beginnings of geometry. Okay? Yeah. And he says, now, he makes a distinction here. And to these, the understanding of necessity is sense, right, to those things that follow necessarily from the beginnings, huh? When, huh, the necessary connection of the conclusions to the beginnings is known, right, through the deducing, or the deduction of a demonstration, huh? A demonstration, as you may recall from logic, is a, what, syllogism, right? Making us, what, know the cause, which it is the cause, and it cannot be otherwise, huh? But if you recall it, it's syllogismism logic, huh? It's a speech or an argument in which some statements lay it down. another follows necessarily, right? So if the premises or the beginnings from which you syllogize are also necessarily true and seen by the reason is necessarily true and then it sees that this necessarily follows from that then it's necessarily a sense to that conclusion, right? If it doesn't see them as following from them then it could, what? Possibly reject it, right? So if you talk to somebody say about some theorem that's somewhere along in geometry but they've never gone to the demonstrations and they haven't even maybe heard that Euclid or somebody else had demonstrated it, right? And you ask them, is this so? They might say, oh, maybe, I don't know. And I might be wishy-washy about whether it's true or not, huh? Okay? I mean, if you've heard the Pythagorean theorem and had never heard the demonstration or even heard that Pythagoras had demonstrated it you would, you might think, well, that maybe isn't so, right? Okay? Or that famous theorem that I like in book 2, huh? You know, where you can have, what? The same perimeter but more area, huh? Oh, yeah. And even less perimeter and more area. And people might, you know, tend to eject that, huh? You have a similar thing like that in Arrhythmic where you say that the sum of two numbers can be greater than the sum of the two other numbers but their product be less. And somebody who doesn't really have a mathematical mind might say, well, that doesn't seem right to me. If A plus B are greater than X plus Y wouldn't A times B be greater than X times Y? Kind of think that, wouldn't you? Yeah. You see? And so you might even think something false because you don't see the necessary connection with the things that you do know necessarily to be true. But notice, but it is not a sense from necessity before it knows the necessity of the connection with the beginnings, right? To demonstration, huh? Before the demonstration has been, what? Seen, right? Or understood, right? Then it doesn't necessarily adhere to those conclusions, huh? Not until you see that that follows necessarily from that, huh? And incidentally, you have something like that in theology and in the faith too, don't you? Because sometimes a person on some matter that has not been defined by the church, right? He is, what? Mistaken about it, right? That doesn't make him a heretic, right? Okay? But maybe in the course of time, they realize that this position there contradicts something that follows from the, what? Articles of faith, huh? And at that point, he would be, you know, starting to be heretic if he wanted to adhere to that, huh? Okay? But before he sees that connection, right? Then he could quite innocently maybe think that, right? Okay? Now he's going to make this comparison, right? He's going to say, just as there are some things that reason always necessarily sees as true, huh? Everybody sees them to some extent. other things, right? Have no necessary connection with those, right? And yet other things do have a necessary connection, but it has to be pointed out to a necessary connection by demonstration. So likewise, he's going to have those three things in the will, right? The will necessarily wills the last end, huh? You necessarily want to be, what? Happy. You don't necessarily, and you necessarily refuse the idea that you want to be miserable and rich, huh? Okay? Now, there are some things that are not necessarily connected with being happy. And so the will is not going to necessarily will those, right? There are other things that may be necessarily connected with being happy, but before you see the necessary connection, you suddenly don't necessarily, what? Will those, huh? So he says, likewise, huh? From the side of the will, right? There are some particular goods which do not have a necessary connection with, what? Beatitude, huh? Because without these, one is able to be, what? Blessed, right, huh? Okay? So did I have to put a tie on today? I think I necessarily willed to put a tie on today? You see? You know? Well, I don't see a necessary connection between my being happy today and having a tie on, huh? It seems to me kind of indifferent to my happiness, sir. You see, right? So do I necessarily will to put a tie on today? Are you going to put this particular tie on, right? Sometimes my wife gives me a choice between this tie and that tie. These two will go, you know, I can't always take the other tie, but, you know? And so, either tie will meet her stringent requirements of matching things, you know? But, uh, she gives me, uh, either one is acceptable, see? Okay? So I don't necessarily will one or the other, do I? Okay? So he says, there are some particular goods which do not have a necessary connection to the attitude because without these one is able to be blessed, huh? And the will does not inherit these things of necessity, right? It doesn't will them of necessity. But there are some things having a necessary connection to the attitude, huh? And those are the things by which, what, man adheres to God, right? In which, in whom alone, our true beatitude consists, huh? Okay? Now, sometimes people will think you don't have to believe, right? Right? If you will think that, But if you can't, uh, uh, love God without believing, right? Well, then you might say, hey, well, then believing is also necessary, huh? Okay? Or some, in fact, you could love God without loving your, what, neighbor or something of that sort, right? Um, you know, you might think, well, I can love one man and not love another man, right? So I can love one man without loving another. Why can't I love God without loving my neighbor? See? But maybe, um, later on you say that this is necessary, right? In order to achieve the end, huh? Okay. But nevertheless, before one has the, what, certitude, huh? Of the divine vision, huh? The necessity of this sort of connection, uh, excuse me, I must be not right. But nevertheless, before, right, through the certitude of the divine vision, the necessity of this connection is demonstrated, right? The will does not from necessity adhere to God, huh? Nor to those things which are of God, huh? So there might be some people in the world today, right, who don't see adhering to God as necessary for their happiness, huh? And therefore, they don't necessarily will to adhere to God, huh? Okay? Now, what does it say there in St. Paul, huh? Without belief, it's impossible to please God, remember that? And that's an often quoted text when you talk about the necessity of faith, huh? But there might be some people who don't see that necessity, right, huh? And therefore, they wouldn't will to believe as if this was something necessary for their, what, the attitude, Even though, in fact, it is necessary, huh? But he says the will of someone seeing God, huh? Seeing the very essence of God, the very nature of God, seeing God as He is or face-to-face, He of necessity adheres to God, right, huh? Yeah. Just as now of necessity we wish to be, what, blessed or happy, right? See, but when we see God face-to-face we realize only in this do we find our real happiness, our ultimate happiness, our last happiness, huh? And then when you see God face-to-face you cannot not will Him, huh? You see? It's clear, therefore, that the will not from, does not will from necessity everything that it what? Will, huh? Okay? And also Thomas is kind of manifesting that by a likeness to what you see and the reason of it. Reason, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any question about that, the body of the article there? Can you just review the basic points again? So there's, you said something about three points, right? Yeah, he's pointing out three things in the understanding, right? And then likewise three things in the will. But in the understanding, he's pointing out that there's some things that reason necessarily adheres to, and you can't really deny them. You can deny them in words, right? But you can't really, what, in your mind think they're not so. And these things are the very first beginnings of our knowledge, what they call the axioms, okay? Quick word for worthy, right? Okay? Other things, huh, may or may not have a necessary connection with those, what? Things that the reason necessarily accepts, huh? Now those things that have a necessary connection with that, reason doesn't necessarily think one or the other, right? Okay? So George Washington was the first president of the country. George Washington was not the first president of the country. I could think either one, right? Okay? But other things have a necessary connection with the things, huh? But you may or may not see, right, the necessary connection they have with it. In the case of the reason, that requires a, what, syllogism to call the demonstration, huh? Whereby you see a necessary connection. So there's other things you may or may not be, what, able to ascend to and not ascend to, or in some cases you may have to ascend to them because you see this follows, what, necessarily, right? Okay? Now the basis of the comparison is that the, not only that the will wills something of necessity, but what it wills of necessity is a last end, huh? But in a kind of confusion, right? Happiness, huh? Okay? Without maybe knowing exactly what happiness consists in, right? What's required for happiness, huh? But the idea is some kind of a, what, perfect good, right, huh? You see that even in the novelist, huh? Did you ever read Vanity Fair by Thackeray? That's kind of his greatest novel, you know, but the name Vanity Fair by Thackeray suggests something, right, about the vanity and the imperfection of happiness in this life, right? But at the end, you know, he says, you know, close up the box and puppets, you know, I mean, like the characters in the novel. And he says something like this. It's not exactly, but it's fairly close. Who in this world ever gets what he wants, he says. Or, he says, having gotten it is satisfying. You see? So, we're not exactly sure of what happiness consists in, huh? So, when I was a little boy, I thought my father, you know, was very foolish that he didn't fill the refrigerator with soda, huh? Orange and grape, root beer and so on, because with his money, he could afford to do that. And he could drink soda all day long and be a happy man, huh? Well, now, fortunately, my father didn't fill the refrigerator with soda. But if he had, I would have discovered, right, sooner or later, right, that this is not entirely satisfying, right? That there's something missing still, right? Even though the refrigerator is full and you can drink as much soda as you want to all day long, huh? So, as you go through life, you think, you know, if I could only get to that, huh? So, when I was in high school, I thought, I got kind dressed in the life of the mind, and said, oh, boy, wait till I get to college, right? But then you realize there's some problems in college, you know, and it's not all that you think it's going to be. And then you think, well, gee whiz, just when I get to graduate school, then I can really concentrate on philosophy like I want to do, and so on. But there's some problems in graduate school, too. And you say, well, now when I'm out of teaching, then I can really do the life of the mind. And the exam should be corrected, and other things should be done. And you realize that things are not, then you're a little bit discouraged now. I was correcting one of the exams here in the philosophy of nature, and, of course, we talk about Anaximenes, who said that air is the beginning of all things. And he's influenced by life, because there's a tendency, you know, in the early Greeks and in Homer and so on, to think of the soul as being air. Yeah. And the actual person kind of imagines it as being air, see? And, of course, in the course of my lecture there, I happened to mention how in Genesis, huh, you kind of express the infusion of the soul, metaphorically at least, by God breathing into the, what, clay, right? Well, anyway, on this answer he's talking about, Anaximenes, and he says, and we're comparing Anaximenes with Thales, who said water is the beginning of all things, right? And so, he says, Adam breathed into Eve air. He didn't pour water into her. The way that came about, wasn't Adam breathing into Eve, it was God breathing into the clay, the soul of what? Adam, you know. Some of these things make you laugh, other things make you want to weep, you know, sometimes, you know, the way they understand understand and misunderstand things, I should say. So, you're pursuing a happiness, but you're not exactly sure in what or where you're going to find that happiness, huh, see? And you don't realize maybe fully that it's only in God you're going to find this full or perfect happiness, huh? So, you know, the often quoted words of Augustine, thou hast made us for thyself. And our hearts are restless till they rest in thee, right? But very often, our hearts are restless, more or less, huh? Because they're resting or trying to rest in something that doesn't give you rest, something that can't satisfy you, huh? And so, until you really see that this is the only place your happiness is, you don't necessarily will be, son. But it's only fully when you see God as he is that you realize that he is the satisfaction of all your desires, huh? That he is your real happiness, huh? Okay? Now, there's some things that are not necessarily connected with your happiness, huh? Like my example of the tie there, right, huh? Okay? But when I go into the restaurant, you know, and they give me a menu there, and, you know, I know that salmon won't contribute to my happiness. That's opposed to my happiness, but, I mean, there's probably, you know, it's a good restaurant. There's several things I could eat, and I don't really see one of them as being necessary for my happiness. I could eat something, but I don't necessarily have to eat this meal or that meal, right? So there my will doesn't necessarily will one or the other. And, uh, but even though it seems to do have a necessary connection with my happiness, I don't necessarily will them unless I, what, see that, right? Okay? Now, the first objection was saying that, uh, the, as Dionysius says, the bad is, what, pre-ter-voluntatum, it's, uh, aside from the will. Okay? Now, what he's pointing out there, Dionysius says, that we never will the bad as such, huh? We will the good as such, huh? Now, what we will may, in many cases, be something bad, but we will it either because of the good that is in it, like I want to drink the delicious poison, not because it's poisonous, but because it's delicious, right? So not really willing, the bad is, the bad as such, right? Or, because it appears to be good, right, huh? My standard example there is the last drink at the party, see. And they say, you want another drink? Can you say yes? And then if you drink it, you know, you don't feel so good, and so on. You have to excuse yourself. More or less fast, huh? And, uh, did you want to drink that last drink to get sick to your stomach? No. No. You want that last drink because it seemed or appeared to be a way of continuing the good time or increasing the good time. And actually, it was a way of ending the good time, right? So you didn't will it insofar as it was bad, but because it was good in some way, huh? Okay. Now, sometimes it might be a more, uh, uh, difficult example, right? Because sometimes people seem to be out to break the law, see. What's the famous story? Is it, uh, Dostoevsky there, Crime and Punishment, right? Well, the young man sits out to, what? To, uh, murder some innocent person, right? Not that he has anything against this old woman or something, right? But just to kind of show that he's above the law, see. But there's a kind of a false appearance of good there, isn't there, right? If all of us, You guys are under the law, obey the law, but I'm above the law. Gee, I rise above all of you, right? That's kind of a perverse understanding, because this would not be the way to rise above everybody else to murder somebody. It's to go below most people who are not, you know, murderers. But he's pursuing it under a certain appearance of good, right? Okay? And likewise, say, if you rob the bank, right? Does a man rob the bank because it's unjust to rob the bank? No. No. I always tell that story of, I guess, this famous bank robbery that got caught a number of times. And out of curiosity, like the judge says, you know, why do you go around robbing banks all the time? And he says, well, that's where the money is. Don't you know that? But obviously he's pursuing the good there, right? Or suppose you, what? You annoy me, right, huh? And so I decide to get rid of you, huh? Well, am I getting rid of you because it's unjust and evil to take your life? No. No. That's a way of getting rid of annoyance in my life, huh? So there's some good, however tenuous and however weak it is, huh? And that is, what? Moving my will, huh? Do you see that? Mm-hmm. Okay. So Dhanisius is touching upon that, huh? Yeah. That's very important to see, huh? Now, how's Thomas going to answer that objection, right? Well, of course, the objection is saying, from necessity, therefore, the will tends towards the good proposed to it. But you have to realize that the object of the will is good in a universal way, because reason knows the good in a universal way, huh? And good extends to what? Everything in some way, right? It's one of these so-called, what, transcendentals, huh? Everything that is, in some way, is good, insofar as it is, huh? Okay? And so, it's not as if the good is just one thing, right? So I'm going to necessarily will something insofar as it is good, or appears to be good, or has some element of good in it, in some way I see it as good. But that covers what? An infinity of things, right? Okay? So, I'm not willing, for that reason, any particular thing that I might see as good, or might even be good, right? Because I must will something that in some way seems good to me, huh? Okay? I think it's when we call good a transcendental. They use the term transcendental because it... Transcends the tangenra, right? And fits being as being, huh? It's at the beginning of the day, the very Tati, that Thomas gives a nice... Distinction of the Transcendental, so, at the beginning of the... De very Tati, we can look at that sometime. I'm sorry, beginning of the what? De very Tati? The question is disputate, de very Tati, yeah. Where Fowling, you have a center, right? He gives a distinction between being, thing, right? One, good, true, and adequate, something, right? Okay? It takes a long time to understand, you know, why those are completely universal. But I just mention that because you've got to realize how universal good is, huh? It's out of so many different things and in so many ways, right? That the fact that you always will something under the aspect of being good or appearing good, right? It doesn't in any way necessitate you to go in this or that, right? Just as vice versa, there's nothing in this world so good that you couldn't consider it as bad in some way. Because anything, even like praying, right? Anything you do prevents you from doing something else. Yeah. So praying might prevent me from sleeping, right? It's good to sleep, right? Studying prevents the student from playing, right? Playing is good. You see? So in some way, I can see everything that you propose. I can see something bad. And therefore, I can kind of defuse it, right? Yeah. Sure. You see? Because it's such a universal thing. Okay? Now, the second objection. Moreover, the object... Let's just look at the pionist objection by kind of summarist here. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the will tends, is not able to tend towards anything or it tends towards nothing except under the what? Notion of the good, right? Yeah. Okay? But because the good is multiplex, right? On account of this, it is not determined from necessity or by necessity to just one of these, huh? Okay? So is the bully, huh? See some good in what he's doing? Yeah. At least the appearance of his superiority to those that he's able to bully without. They're being able to defend themselves. Now, the second objection. The object of the will is compared to the will as the mover to the, what? Movable. But the motion of the movable necessarily follows from the mover. Therefore, it seems that the object of the will moves it from necessity, huh? Just like I kind of move this class of necessity, right? Okay. What Thomas has said as well, yeah. But the mover's got to be strong enough to what? Overcome. Yeah. Overcome the resistance, right? Overcome the mobile thing, huh? Okay. So I have a hard time moving this building here, right? Moving that pillar over there. Mm-hmm. Maybe Samson could do it, but I don't know if I could do it. You see? So, Thomas is going to examine that premise that the mover necessarily moves the mobile, right? To a second, therefore, it should be said that the mover then, from necessity, causes motion in the mobile when the power of the mover exceeds the, what? Power of the mobile to resist, huh? Thus that its whole possibility is subject to the mover. But since the possibility of the will with respect to what? Good universally, right? And to a perfect good, huh? Its whole possibility, right? Is not subject to some, what? Particular good, right? And therefore from necessity. And therefore is not moved from necessity or by necessity by that, huh? I don't want to say by necessity in English, but the Greek Latin is X, right? From. And therefore is not moved by that from necessity, huh? Or of necessity. Do you understand that kind of the replies given to that second objection? You know how sometimes when they present, you know, something they want to sell to you, let's say, right? And they give certain incentives, you know, like, you don't have to pay the first month or you don't have to. Yeah, yeah. Whatever it might be, right? You get a rebate or whatever it might be, you know, but they kind of pull these things in, right? But then sometimes the salesman says, I'm going to make you an offer you can't resist. Well, matter of fact, you can resist it, right? But it's getting, what? Harder to resist, right, huh? Yeah. Okay. But I doubt if the car salesman could give an offer that I could resist, you see? But it's because my will is what? It doesn't exhaust the possibility of my willing, right? That's good, huh? I could will nothing more than this car, right? And I could will, what? Much more perfect things in the car, right? And my ability to will is much wider than the car, right? You see? So in the same week or the same day, they could be trying to sell me a house and a car and a computer, who knows what else, right? But my will is not, what? Exhausted by any one of these things, huh? Its ability to will is not, what? Absorbed, you might say, in the goodness of the car, the goodness of the house, the computer, these other things, huh? I can will many other goods, infinity of other goods, right? And I can will things much more perfect than this, huh? So this doesn't move my will of, what? So this doesn't move my will of, what? So this doesn't move my will of, what? So this doesn't move my will of, what? So this doesn't move my will of, what?