Wisdom (Metaphysics 2016)
Lecture 4: Wonder, Wisdom, and the Divine Possession of Knowledge

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

page 4 there. Are those most of all about what comes first? Those from fewer things are more certain than those from addition. Now he's talking about the fact that the most universal involves less things to be considered, right? Well, O is larger than one of its parts, right? And it's much more what's certain than that water is H2O. It's a particular O in its parts, right? Notice the example he gives there, right? He has arithmetic than geometry, huh? Well, the simplest thing in arithmetic is the one, and in geometry it's the point. And they're both indivisible, but the point has more than the, what, thing to be considered. Where is it? Is it here or there, right? Why the one, right? So if you have three points, they could be in a straight line, right? Or they could be in the triangle kind of like, you know? But the three ones in the number three are, what, in a straight line? Or in the form of a triangle? No, but they consider those things, right? Now, I know myself from the study of geometry, right? When you read, you know, Euclid's elements, and you have a theorem, sometimes you have to distinguish what they call cases, because the lines can be placed in a little different way, right? And sometimes in the Heath edition, right, they'll give you, what, Proclus to somebody, distinguish the other cases, right? And they notice the Euclid's taken the most difficult case, and they let the easier cases go as dummies. But I scratch my head sometimes, they say, I wonder if I got all the cases I should have considered, right, you know? You know, there's some other way of arranging it, you know? And I realize I'm not as certain there as I am in a Wifmedicay, right, arithmetic, huh? Because I don't have to take in those counts, right? So Wifmedicay is more certain, right, than geometry. Well, the most universal, it's the least things to consider in one way, right? And the science, which considers causes as more fit for teaching, for those teach who give the cause of each thing. We've had that before. Understanding and knowledge for the sake of themselves especially belong to the knowledge that most knowable. Well, it's the cause that makes known the, what, effect, huh? It's the cause that explains the effect, right? So the causes are most knowable, right, in themselves, huh? And finally, that is the chief science and more ruling than the subordinate, which knows that for the sake of which each thing ought to be done, right? So the end, right? You direct everything towards the end. This over is the good of each and as a whole the best in all nature, the end of the whole universe. From all the aforesaid, the name thought falls in the same science. For it's necessary that this looks at the first beginnings and causes. For one of the causes is the good, and that for the sake of which, right? As Augustine says, because God is good, we are. Now, these first two readings correspond to what is the goal, really, of wisdom, right? The goal is to know not just any causes, but the very first cause are causes, huh? We'll find out if there's one or more than one. Get in there. Now, the second part of the premium is what kind of knowledge is what? Wisdom, yeah. I mentioned how in the epilogue, on the bottom of page five, huh? You'll recall what he has done in the two parts, right? But in the reverse order that he did then, right? You'll recall what he just did, because that was right close to us. What is the nature of the knowledge thought then has been said, and that's what we're going to see here in the third reading. And what is the goal of the investigation, right? And the whole knowledge over a road, that's my translation, yeah, the method does, must reach, right? Which is what, in the first two months. So let's look at the third reading now, huh? That it's not a making, or practical science, even more generally. It's clear also from those first philosophizing. For men both now and at first begin to philosophize through wonder. Now he touches upon the order of wonder. In the beginning, wondering about strange things close at hand. Did you ever read Einstein on wonder there? I guess his father brought home some kind of a magnet, you know, and he was kind of, one was aroused because there seemed to be no contact between the magnet and what it was moving. Something close at hand, right, huh? Then little by little, thus going forward, raising questions about the greater things. So you wonder about these things close at hand at first, right? And then about the greater things. It's about the changes of the moon, right? Of the sun and the stars, right? And finding about the origin of the universe itself, right? So it's kind of an order there in which your wonder grows, right? But the man in doubt and wondering thinks himself to be ignorant. So why are they pursuing knowledge then? Just for the sake of knowing, right? And Aristotle makes a beautiful comparison here between the philosopher and the philomuthas. Now the word muthas can mean myth, you know, or more generally story, right? Aristotle uses the word muthas in the poetics to name the plot, right? So he's saying the philomuthas is in some way a philosopher because the myth is put together from wonders. So you read the Odyssey, right, and all these wonderful things that happen, right? But if you take philomuthas there, it doesn't mean the lover of plots, right? Well, you could go back and say, now this is another sign that all men by nature desire to know, right? Because if you're reading a story or following a story and the writer is a good writer, right? You want to know what's going to happen, right? Are you going to do it because you're going to make or do something with that for a practical reason? You used to take the example in class, you know, you make the mistake of watching a movie on TV like, let's say, at 10 or 11 o'clock, right? And it goes on. You stay up beyond your bedtime, right? You're going to be tired tomorrow on your job or wherever it is, right? You're not going to be able to perform so well, right? You're not going to learn anything that's going to help you to work tomorrow by seeing how the movie turns out, right? But your wonder has been, what, aroused. So you're like a, what, philosopher, right? The philomuthos. But everybody is, to some extent, a philomuthos, right? A lover of stories and plots, right? So every child likes to have, you know, a story read to them or a story told to them, right? And they want to know what happens, right? And sometimes they have these things that are, you know, one week, you know, you have to wait from week to week and so on. The pairs of Pauline needs to show, you know, movie theaters, you know. And even Dickens' novels, you know, were installments, you know. And people are dying to know it. Don't let so-and-so die, you know. They actually read it, you know. Yeah, yeah. Now, a little thing here that's kind of interesting here. My teacher, Monsignor Dionne there, he quoted once, he said, well, Augustine, not Augustine, but Albert the Great, right? The teacher of Thomas Aquinas. He says, poetry, meaning fiction, he says in the Latin, dat modem ad morandi, right? It gives us the way of what? Wondering, yeah. In other words, you have to be, in a way, a philomuthos before you can be a philosopher, right? And that the, somebody of the excellence of Homer or Shakespeare, right, then, makes you a real philomuthos, right? And it disposes you for being a, what, philosopher. I said to Monsignor Dionne one day, would there be any Greek philosophers without Homer first? And he says, no. That's a strong statement, right? You know, and I know myself, you know, that when I first looked at the basic works of Aristotle, I used to have the Oxford, you've probably seen, one of them, McKeehan gave me the introduction and so on. And looking at all the detailed contents, the first book that caught interest was a book called The Politics, right? You know, it wasn't natural philosophy or, you know, it was The Politics, right? Because I was interested in politics at the time, right? Just to cart the air and so on. And the revelations of government coming out and so on. And these sort of things, and I was reading the wonder and so on. I was reading the wonder and so on. I was reading the wonder and so on. But I was not really a philosopher in the full sense, right? And I was a freshman in college, and I was in a special English class of those of us who knew our grammar and all this stuff. And the professor said, I've got to read some plays that Shakespeare probably didn't read in high school. And there was an occasion for me to get a complete edition of Shakespeare and read every play of this. You know, that made me a looking philosopher, right? But you could take this as second sign here, right? Like the delight in the senses, right? The delight in stories, the wonder about them, is a sign of what? Knowledge is good, right? And even knowledge for its own sake, right? Hence, if men philosophize to escape their ignorance, it is clear that they sought knowledge for the sake of understanding and not for any use. So he's saying that wonder philosophy is basically looking knowledge, right? It's not what? Practical knowledge, eh? No practical philosophy is what? Practical knowledge, right? That's not philosophy in the full sense. Then he gives a sign of this, huh? Second sign. What happened, the witness is this. When almost all necessary things and those for recreation and amusement existed, such knowledge began to be sought. So it is clear that we seek this knowledge through no other need, right? And he would give an example there, the priest there, right? I have to take the example of my family because my grandfather, Bergquist, right, came over from Sweden at the age of 12, right? He didn't have any education. He became the blacksmith in Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, a little town. So he didn't think he was going to be a philosopher, pursuing knowledge for its own sake, you know? Blacksmith is a kind of a rough job, right? He was strong, right? He had to obey him, right? Well, then he had, my father was, of course, the son of this man. He had other sons, too, daughters. And now, there was no high school in town. I think my father was thinking of pursuing knowledge, the son of a blacksmith, right? There was no high school in town. My father wanted to get a high school education, right? So he managed to go to Alexandria, Minnesota, at a high school. But he had to work his way through high school, right? He worked in a shop there, and he couldn't afford a room to sleep in. He asked the boss if he could sleep in the shop, and then the guy said, Yeah. So my father, finally, he got a high school education, and he got, you know, working with, he had an uncle who had a machine shop, right? So my father was kind of talented that way, you know? Didn't seem to rub off on me too much. And he'd read the advertisements, you know, and get to build the machines, right, and so on. Eventually, he worked his way up, right? And became a manager, right? And then when his company, when the old guys who ran the company or owned the company died off and their widows wanted to get rid of it, right, my father started looking around and finally started his own company, right? So I think my father was soon now for its own side. No, so there was no leisure there, right? Now there was a little bit of money, a little bit of leisure, right? My father thought it would be good for my brother Richard and my brother Marcus and myself to get as much education as we could, right? So high school and college, and he made sure he worked in the summer down the factory, but but he was, you know, so now he gets a little bit of leisure, right? So we all became, what? Yeah, philosophers, right? Well, that's what he's saying here, right, huh? You know? It's obviously this knowledge, right, for its own sake, right? It's only because my grandfather came over at the age of 12, right? It's far from him. My father, you know, he had no chance, you know, he didn't go to college, right, huh? So he was just going to try to make a living and make a better living than maybe his father had, right, and so on. So that's a beautiful sign, isn't it, right? Beautiful sign. Well, I give the example of the priests there in Quebec there, you know, two of my three best teachers there were priests, right, and Monsignor Dion and Father Boulay, right? But they had kind of, you know, a surplus of priests up there at the time, you know, for the thing that's been kind of going down in a sense. So some of these priests are kind of freed from, you know, the usual, easier work of the parish work. I think I always tell that story, you know, going over to see one of the priests in the parish here in Shrewsbury years ago, you know, kind of talks about some things about the CCD program, you know, and so on. So I went up to his room in the parish house, you know, and we were going to talk about it. That phone was ringing every half hour. And I said, how can a man, you know, pursue the, you know, when Quebec, you know, you had this kind of service of priests, so the mentors who were in the academic world in some way had little priestly duties, so to speak, right? Well, I like the priestly class, he says, down in Egypt there, right? Yeah, that's what our friend in Boston, there's so short a priest in his diocese, he's from the Fall River Diocese, the bishop, and he said, but there's nobody to replace him, because why? Because no diocese has enough priests to send somebody off for higher studies, they just can't afford it. So that's the first thing he says, right? It's looking knowledge, right? Now, if you want to speak Latin, you could say it's speculative knowledge, right? If you want to speak Greek, you could say it's what? Theoretical knowledge, right? Wisdom. If you want to speak English, it's looking knowledge. Specula, you still need to look, okay? Now, the top of page five, the second thing you see about this, that this knowledge is what? Liberal, right? Most of you don't know what that means, right? You've got to be very careful the word liberal, right? I used to always use that as an example when I was teaching logic, you know? One of the places, you know, for seeing for where there's many senses, it's got many opposites, right? So what's the opposite of liberal, right? What could be conservative, right? Or a liberal could be the opposite of what? Servile. Or a liberal could be the opposite of what? Stingy. Stingy, yeah. And those are three different senses of liberal, right? So liberality is the name sometimes of one of Aristotle's virtues, right? Virtue, concern, with money, and these things, right? And there you think a person is generous with their money, right? And so on. And then a liberal as opposed to conservative is a different meaning, right? And then we speak of the liberal arts and the servile arts, it's got another sense, right? So he's talking about liberal in the sense in which we speak of the liberal arts, right? The arts are pursued, you know, for the sake of knowing, like geometry or the quadrivium. The trivium, right? But as we call a man free that is for himself and not for another. So this alone is free among the sciences. For this alone is for the sake of itself. Alone, right? Okay. You can apply it to knowing God eventually, right? See God as he is. He is what? Free, right? Because it's not for the sake of what? Yeah. Thomas says, I consider the body so I can consider the soul, right? Consider the soul so I can consider the angels. Consider the angels so I can consider God. Now why do you consider God? That's it. Yeah. Yeah. If the slave doesn't know what his master is doing, all the slave has to know is what he's supposed to do. Yeah. That's the second thing he says, right? So it's speculative, theoretical, looking knowledge, right? They use the three languages there. And it's what? Liberal, right? Free, right? You have to understand liberal there. It's not liberal as opposed to conservative. Now the third thing he says, right? Hence it might justly be thought that it's not a human possession. You notice he gives us a reason that it's so free, right? For in many ways the nature of man is enslaved. Well, I have to feed this body every day, right? Don't you have to feed your body? And I got to, you know, give this body, you know, some rest at nighttime, right? So I'm kind of enslaved to my body and its needs, right? And I got to make the money to buy food, right? And I got to make the money to buy a bed, right? And I got to buy a, get the money to buy a house to protect me from the elements, right? So I'm enslaved to all these needs that my body has, right? Okay, and as they say about a house, you know, there's always something that needs to be done, you know? We've got a road, we've got a window. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's always something like that, you know? And then I got this car, and the car's got to be taken in to the dealer or something. It's got to be processed and so on, right? And the grass grows and so on. And so in many ways, man is enslaved, right? And sometimes we have additional slavery that's probably our fault, you know? I get enslaved to my passions, right? You know, and so the coward is a slave of his fear, right? The lustful man is, you know, slave of his lusts, right, huh? The grass of a man is a slave of his anger and so on, right? And so in so many ways, man is enslaved, right? Some are really slaves, right, in the historical sense. And thus, according to Simonides, now he's only a poet, right, huh? God alone can have this honor, huh? Man, however, is not worthy to seek knowledge for itself. Now, if the poets are saying something, huh? Because the Greek philosophers say the poets tell many a lie, right, huh? And the divine is able to envy, right, huh? That you're pursuing, you know, what is reserved for the gods. It is likely, especially, right, to happen about this, right? And unfortunately, all those who excel in knowledge, imagine Aristotle's students, you know, say, what about you? But the divine is not able to be envious, right? Aristotle doesn't get the reason here, right? But, you know, the envious man sees the good of another as what? He's evil, right? You've got to be kind of stupid to think that. And the divine is not able to make that mistake. And according to the proverb, poets say many false things. So you have the famous discussion of the poets there in, what, Plato, right, huh? Aristotle wrote a dialogue in the poets, too, but we've lost that dialogue, so. But no, it's kind of interesting. He introduces this sermonage and so on to the point that it doesn't seem to be a human possession, but a what? Yeah. I mean, say, human possession, Thomas points out, it doesn't mean that man can't pursue it to some extent, right? But a possession is something that I can use any time I want to. If I've got a ballpoint pen that's my possession, right? I can write whenever I want with that ballpoint pen, you know, okay? If I can't pursue wisdom all the time because I'm hungry or I'm sleepy or the car needs to be fixed or the lawn needs to be mowed or I've got to make some money or something, right? And so it doesn't seem to be a human possession, right? Okay. Well, if it's anybody's possession, it's God's, right? So it seems to be something, what? Divine. Divine, okay? And therefore it's going to argue that it's more, what? The most honorable knowledge, right? Nor must any other knowledge be thought to be more honorable. For the most divine is most, what? Yeah. God is most worthy of honor. And now he points out in the next paragraph that this knowledge is divine in two ways. There's two ways you could say that knowledge is divine. One would be because it's the kind of knowledge that God himself would have. And the other way it could be said to be divine is because it's about God himself. And this knowledge is divine in both ways. What more can you ask for? Right? Okay. Just like if you speak of natural knowledge, you could say knowledge that you have by nature, right? And knowledge of what is natural, right? Okay. It can be natural in two ways, right? Okay. You know, there's a horrible word in the academic world, humanities, right? But humanities are human in two senses, right? The humanities is the knowledge that human beings have, right? And the knowledge that they have about human things, right? Not to find things, right? So you have those two senses, right? Feminine knowledge would be a knowledge of what? Woman. And that's a woman to have. Well, you could have those two senses, right? But most divine is only in two ways. For that which God most of all would have, right, is the most divine of sciences. And secondly, if it were about divine things, right? But this alone has both of these. For God seems, and I said that because it hasn't shown it yet, and that'll be shown in the 12th book. But God seems to all to be among the causes in the beginning. So if this is a knowledge of the causes in the beginnings, right? And especially if God is thought to be the first cause, then this must be a knowledge about God, right? And who would know this first cause better than God himself? And so Aristotle adds, and such knowledge, the knowledge of the first cause of God himself, either God alone has, or most of all, he has, right? Either man doesn't have it at all, or he has in some very minor and perfect way, right? So if God is the best thing there is, and this is the most divine knowledge in both of these ways, right, then we can conclude, as he says, all other kinds of knowledge are more necessary than this, right? But none is better. Now he talks about what happens at the end, when a man comes to know the causes, right? It is necessary, however, to place the possession of this in the opposite for us, of the searches in the beginning. For all begin, as we have said, from wondering if things are thus, as about things that happen wonderfully by chance, right? Now notice, things that happen by chance arouse wonder, right? But they're not really the best things to know. We talked before a bit about the order of wonder, right? We wonder about things that are closer to you, right? And people wonder, especially about chance events, right? And you can see how the poet makes use of this, right? It makes a, what, chance event, right? You know, Romeo went to that house to see, what? Yeah. What a chance! He boasted with Julia instead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know it was in the paper one time, but I guess a guy hit a car in a car accident. And the other car was being driven by a girl, right? And in those days, you know, it wasn't, you know, this quick solution, right? It was a court, right? And so they had to go to the car all the time, and they got to know each other. They fell in love and got married. So I used to say to my students now, I don't recommend it. You can see a nice girl in a nice car that you run into her, you know? The idea that this will lead to marriage, right? Because it's not apt to do, I don't think. You're kind of annoyed if someone runs into you, I think, you know? And this was chance, right? I heard another story that was supposed to have taken place in, actually, in the parish house. They were in a hurry, and they bumped into each other. And it was not a very funny thing to bump into somebody, you know? They were going very fast. But that was the start, you know? Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. I remember at one time, it was in Quebec or something, but somebody was invited, you know, to out to dinner or something, they were going to meet someplace, right? He got down there, and the guy was... He goes in there and he goes in there and he finds a book that we are all looking for. I mean that is pure by chance, right? So, you know, something very good, something very bad could happen by chance, right? And there was this wonder, right? And Warren Murray was telling me about the guy there in Quebec there, he was taking an airplane flight, right? And he called a taxi and so on. The taxicab driver was inexperienced as he had to leave, right? He made the wrong turn, didn't get him to the airport in time, the airplane took off without him and crashed without him, right? You know, if he had had a good taxicab driver, a normal, experienced taxicab driver who used to going to the airport, he would have been on the airplane and that would have been into him, right? And so you say, you wonder about these things, right? So we can all think of things, but the polar takes something, you know, wonderful that is really, you know, strikes us, right? But that's what you're right, right? But then, about the turns of the sun, because that's not by chance now, right? That's something deeper, right? The turns of the sun. Or the incommensibility, the famous example from mathematics, right? That the diagonal and the side of the square are not commensable. You can't find something that will measure both of them, no matter how small you make it. It's, all these things seem wonderful to all who have not seen the cause, that something is not measured by the smallest. That's an example there, incommensibility. It is necessary, therefore, to finish in the contrary, and the better, according to the proverb, right? You come to know the cause. Then you cease to wonder, in a sense, right? Just as in these when they have learned. For the geometry would wonder nothing so much as if the diagonal were to become miserable. Right? Now, you've got to be careful there, because again, the word wonder has kind of two different senses, right? One sense of wonder can be admiration for something, right? And that doesn't correspond to ignorance, right? That's when you already know something, right? And the other sense of wonder is more like curiosity, you know, where you don't know something, right? Or you want to know it, right? So we're still talking about that kind of wonder, right? The wonder that gave rise to philosophy. The men thought themselves ignorant, right? Of why these things were so, right? They wanted to know why, right? And when they get to know why, then that kind of wonder starts to, what? Diminish, right? Aristotle knows in the 12th book that God is what? He is the first cause, right? He starts to know something about God, huh? Then he says, he compels our wonder, he says, right? That's the other sense of wonder, right? Of admiration, right? And that proceeds from knowing the excellence of something, right? He says, I'm going to introduce you tonight to the most beautiful girl in the world. Oh! I don't know who she is. The guy is, the guy is. The guy is going to find out who she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But once he sees her, now he knows her, right? And now he just has some kind of wonder, admiration, right? He's talking here about, you know, the wonder that is the start of philosophy, which was a sign that, what, entered the swing it out of knowledge, right? Because they were fleeing their ignorance of why it is so, right? And that ignorance will disappear once you know the cause, right? Now, like in the Pyramium to the Dianima, right? Hairstyle's an epilogue, right? And he recalls what he's done in the Pyramium, right? And usually in the recalling the last thing he just did, and then the first thing he did, right? And there are three things, I guess, in the Dianima. But here he recalls the thing he just did, right? What is the nature of the knowledge thought then has been said? It's looking knowledge, right, huh? It's liberal, right, in the sense we define, right? It's not a human possession, but a divine possession, and therefore it's the most honorable knowledge there is, right? Because it's divine in the two senses in which knowledge can be divine, right? And what is the goal that the investigation and the whole knowledge of a road must reach? Well, it's the knowledge of the first, what, cause or causes. Well, family, it's one or many, right? Hairstyle comes to the conclusion that it's one. It's with all the reasons. Then he quotes, what, Homer. The rule of many is not good. Let there be one. Beautiful. The way he quotes the man he calls the poet, huh? So what do you think of this premium, huh? Yeah, not bad, huh? And see, Nian gave a whole course on what a premium is. He took it so seriously, you know, huh? Please, you know, was it the, was it the, uh, they called it premium, right? Mm-hmm, and they're laughing at it. Yeah, yeah. They called it induction, all that dumb thing in it. Introduction means leading one into, so. You can have a whole course on introduction, right? Introduction to this, or introduction to that. But a premium is something, you know, like a prologue, right? Aristotle compares it to a prologue, you know, or even the orbiterium to an opera or something, right? The orbiterium to the magic flute of Mozart, you hear that. You know, the, what is it, the Sibelius sound, the famous composer there. He gave us an example, you know, of a musician who achieved exactly what he wanted him to achieve, you know? Which they don't very well, they often do, right? You don't, uh, Mozart had done that, you know, with the overture, right? Incredible. The overture is to those. My son, Poist, always played the overture to, uh, to, uh, Figueroa, you know? The piano and so. For some reason he got attached to it, you know? The overture to Don Giovanni, and the overture to Cosima Tutte, at least. But they really, you know, prepare you for it, right? Huh? But in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has, you know, a formal prologue, right? Which isn't the form of a Shakespearean son, right? It's got fourteen lines, and so on. Two households, both alike in dignity, you know? Fervor on a holiday scene, and so on. It's a beautiful thing, you know? But it prepares you the way, right? For tragedy, right? And for, you mentioned both pity and fear, right? The prologue, which are the emotions that are purged by tragedy, right? Pity and fear. Pity these people for the horrible things that happened to them, and you fear that these things could happen to you, right? Unexpectedly, right? So we don't meet again until when? First, first, first, first Thursday of September, or what? Is there some feast, some special feast there or something? It would be after, it would be after the eighth. It was the second Thursday. The first is on the eighth, it would be on the second Thursday. So maybe not until the fifteenth then. Fifteenth, okay, that's a Thursday, the fifteenth. It would be the third Thursday of September. Oh my goodness, you could probably left here and now. That's terrible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. talk a little bit more about wonder right now okay um sometimes i distinguish in the flosses wonder two kinds of wonder but they're very similar right wonder what and wonder what why yeah in aristotle in the book of the posturalytics says in a way what and why are both answered by knowing causes right more obviously the question why right now but what you know if you ask you know what is a uh yeah chair right now you bring out the cause of the chair intrinsic right plus the extrinsic you know cause sitting and so on right and so um you know there's a little a little poem you probably heard twinkle twinkle little star how i wonder yeah yeah that's a very very great huh good and uh look at that little poem there for a second what meter is it in the conic the conic said that uh you should have read good literature right before you do philosophy right now and uh now um she's writing in in the form of shakespeare and sonica right that's ambic right now you know my little device for remembering the four major ones at it okay so um it has two letters i and t and there are two meters and took it and the word it has how many letters yeah so an i am or it's okay they have what two syllables right but they're just reverse iambic the accent or the length you know in the greek but ours is the accent it's on the first or second of the two syllables yeah that time of year almost you know um so uh shakespeare's uh 150 syllables and sonnets right written in uh iambic pentameter right pente meaning five right so there's five feet five uh uh uh iams right five two syllables right and so it's called pentameter um now tokay is just the opposite right so in the tokay it the accent is on the first syllable right now a lot of times in tokay verse and they will not complete the last foot the last foot because our mind are going to end on the accent of things right but now they point out in shakespeare you know that he will tend to use the tokay meter more for um very solemn moments right very tense moments sometimes but for unusual creatures you know um so the witch is there right now i always quote that thing fair is foul and foul is fair hover through the fall and filthy air right give a lecture on that one time it's an anthems because he's talking about two mistakes right fair is foul the good is bad right and foul is fair the bad is good right and then the two causes of it hover through the fall and filthy air you're deceived you're thinking that the bad is good or the good is bad uh because your mind is in fog right or because your appetite is filthy and then but no that's it's okay right hover well hover the accent is on the first syllable hover through the it's more through than the the fog and filthy but then the last one is not completed right air right and uh so um the witches are more wonderful than ordinary human beings right you know you see what i mean and so um it kind of rouses your wonder there right this different meter now aristotle says that the ambic meter is closest to to daily speech and that we sometimes fall into dynamic you know not trying to be a poet we fall into without realizing it um so twinkle twinkle little star see you get uh four feet there but the last one is not completed right so you'd say this is texture or something like that you know okay in clinic with the last syllable not completed right but it's appropriate that you do this because this is about wonder right twinkle twinkle little star how i wonder what you are it's beautifully said right uh mozart has a has variations on this melody right which has other words to it besides this one you know that we have it from kindergarten or from from mother goose or whatever it is maybe you seem to have heard that sometime in my life i guess twinkle twinkle because you know you want to ask it as a star with a twinkle is that because of the atmosphere you know might be you know there's the atmosphere doing this right so uh but you're wondering why here in this case right but uh but you're wondering what it is right now thomas when he was a young student there he was known for saying what is god put it out in class what is god so the philosopher has this what wonder what and why that's really the kind of wonder he has right and wonder what is the wonder about the universal really you wonder what motion is you wonder what time is you wonder what places huh so on you wonder what the soul is right and uh you wonder why the human soul is immortal and the dog's souls is not immortal in the in the posture analytics aristotle distinguishes four questions right does it exist and then if it does exist what is it and then the question is this that if this is that if this is that why is this that right so when you speak about god the first question is does god exist right and if you answer yes he does exist then what is god right if this question is not um appropriate at this time uh please uh let me know yeah i ask ahead of time but i was wondering if today with the way the culture is going has um uh wonder been neutralized do you think do you think wonder could be used uh for evangelical purposes uh evangelize or do you think that it's been somehow neutralized or short-circuited the sense of wonder that needs one to finally seek god yeah it's kids the school doesn't really encourage wonder huh what they do right um thinking back to my geometry class you know in sophomore high school you know i wasn't very good at all you know and then when i was graduating from college because sirik said to me duane go out and get you kids elements and i said why go out and get you kids elements he said he didn't agree with me he knew i'd see the point after i said i read it you know huh and uh from time to time i go back and i read euclid you know huh but that really arouses us in what wonder you know these simple things a angle described in a semicircle is what it's always right yeah it's one of the wonderful things and the diagonal i mean you know in a right angle triangle the square and the side opposite the right angle is exactly equal to the squares yeah yeah and it's upsetting you admire about these things in geometry is the simplicity of them right there's a theorem in geometry there the straight line would be cut into equal and non-equal segments right is the rectangle contained by the equal segments or by the square which is going to be greater You would think. No, the square. The square, right? And how much more is it greater? You saw the square on the line between the points of section. It's so simple, right? You see? Maybe, yeah. Now, I was reading, and it was you guys before class here, you know. I was reading one of my, another one of my granddaughters, who says, let's give her a copy of the little white flower, one of St. Theresa Monsieur. Well, I had two copies of it, one here falling apart, and one in perfect condition, right? So, she got the perfect condition, right? But I was talking before class there about how Therese here is not like St. Anselm so much. We define theology as belief-seeking understanding, right? But this is hope-seeking what? Love, right? Love, right, no? But nevertheless, he touches upon these things here about God, huh? And she says here in one place, talking about her mistress and her mother's there in the spiritual life, our mistress was truly a saint, a perfect type of the first Carmelites. She had to teach me how to work, and so I was constantly with her. You know how they feel pretty rough coming in, you know. Who cleaned this? Don't you know how to clean a room? Don't you know how to dust out that? Anyway. Yet, kind as she was, beyond all I can say, and much as I loved and appreciated her, my soul did not expand under her guidance. Words failed me when I spoke to her of what passed in my soul. And thus, my time of spiritual direction became a torture and a real martyrdom. Apparently, understanding my difficulty, one of our former mothers once said to me during recreation, I should think, child, you have not much to tell your superiors. Why do you think that, dear mother? I asked. Because your soul is extremely simple. And when you are perfect, you'll become still more so. For the nearer one approaches God, the simpler one becomes. That's beautiful, right? So the more perfect you become, the more you become like God, right, huh? But at the same time, you become more, what, simple, right, huh? I think that's going to be the amazing thing there with God, right, huh? That his perfection is altogether, what? You say, well, how can that be? Because the fully formed man has to have this virtue, that virtue, this knowledge, this knowledge, this, this, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, you know? You've got to have many things to be a full man, right, huh? That's all his parts, as they say, right? You know? But God is altogether simple, you know? What's he going to strike us? I was reading Thomas there in the third volume of Summa County Gentiles, and he's talking about why these souls never become bored, huh? They say the same thing, right? And that's because they never, what, comprehend, huh? God, right, huh? And so they always are filled with wonder, right? And this is part of the wonder, right? See how so perfect a thing can be so simple. How it can be, you know, so unlike the things in this world, right, huh? Now, sometimes, you know, you find something, you know, like a very simple proof of geometry, that example, right? It kind of amazes you, right, huh? You know, what you can see is such a profound truth, interesting truth, so simple. But God has this, you know, most of all, right, huh? Shakespeare says, brevity is the soul of wisdom, right, huh? Something is smaller or shorter, you know? It's not even sized though, right, huh? That's kind of beautiful that they see this, right, huh? And I was mentioning, you know, I was reading a little bit later on in here. And she's saying, huh? I understood that without love, even the most brilliant deeds count for nothing. Far from doing me any harm, these gifts which our Lord showered upon me, drew my soul more closely to him, and made me see that he alone is unchangeable. That's interesting, huh? That's one of the main attributes of God, huh? Yeah. In the Summa Congentiles, the order is a little different than in the Summa, you know? But in the Summa Congentiles, you have five arguments of existence of God before you take up what his substance is. And the first argument in both Summas is from motion, right? But in the Summa Theologiae, there's two arguments from motion, right? There's only one in the Summa Theologiae, right? And even the ones that are, you know, common to the two, they're much more expanded in the Summa Congentiles. So when he takes up, you know, God's substance, the first thing that you naturally do is talk about being unchangeable, right? And then about his being eternal, right? And then you go on to his perfection and simplicity, right? But those kind of three fundamental things about the substance of God, right? But Thomas, you know, will separate out the unity of God, right? Which you want to emphasize in the treatise, we're going to talk about the Trinity later on. And then the infinity of God, right? But the simplicity of God, I mean, the unity of God really pertains to the simplicity of God. And the infinity of God, you know, it doesn't mean, you know, that he's overweight or spread out and all that kind of thing. But it means that his perfection is what? Endless, right? There's no end to his perfection, and Thomas will talk about that, right? And so the compendium of theology puts the unity of God with the simplicity, right? And the perfection of God, the infinity of God through this perfection sense, right, huh? She has those three things there, right, huh? Just kind of naturally she comes to them, right? And she doesn't give any reasons why God is unchangeable. So, yeah, let me ask a little trick question, right, huh? And if you're talking about the eclipse of the sun, right? And if you had never seen an eclipse of the sun, you'd say, what? Well, that never takes place, as far as I know. And the Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court, right? You know the story, right? He's about to be executed or something. And he looks at his little almanac and he realizes there's an eclipse of the sun, right? So he makes use of that kid out of this horrible situation. But anyway, suppose then you showed a guy the eclipse of the sun, right? Okay, so the first question is, is the light of the sun eclipse sometimes? Kind of a frightening thing, I suppose. Certainly a thing that arouses wonder, right? I was talking about how, I told you about this business friend of my father, his son, made his own telescope, and my father's company put it on a stand, and he had a little observatory, you know? And so we went out to the observatory one time, one night there, and we were going to look at the moon, you know, and his telescope, you know, and then the clouds came over and covered up the moon. So he turned the telescope on Saturn, right? And I haven't seen pictures of Saturn in the rings in, you know, astronomy books, but I've never seen it through a telescope. And he looks at the telescope, my God, it arouses our wonder, right? So when the first guy sees it in the eclipse of the sun, you might probably be frightened or something, you know, but suddenly there's wonder once you get used to it a little bit still. But then you wonder, why is the light of the sun being, what, cut off? Yeah. So somebody might wonder, does God exist, right? Now, after you've come to know in some way that God does exist, right, would you ask, why does God exist? Some might be tempted to do that, right? If God exists, why does he exist, right? It seems like a... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... It's like saying if the eclipse of the sun exists, why does it exist, right? But what's the fallacy in asking, why does God exist? What are you looking for when you ask, why does the sun get eclipsed? So why does God exist if you're caught? In the first case, God would not be the first cause, right? And he would have a cause that he doesn't have, right? So he's in danger, right? Now, if the other question is, does God exist, yes, then what is God? Does that make sense, right? But you find out that God is I am, who am, right? So is there a cause why God exists? Sometimes in conversation people, you know, everything has a cause, you know, just about everything does. Well for the lost part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what does it mean to say that I am, who am, huh? Why does he say that? I mean, this Moses asks him, you know, tell me who you are so I can, you know, tell the Egyptians and tell the people down there who, you know, who sent me. And he says that, yeah, why does he say that? He told, say, from Siena, you are she who is not, and I am who am, yeah. Right. Yeah. It's the same thing he told Moses, huh? Well, you see. Well, you see, someone asked me, who are you, Berquist? I'd say, well, I'm a man. You know? I'd say who I am, you know? See? See? So, he's asked what he is, right? By Moses. He says, I am who am, right? He's saying that his what? What he is, that is say his nature, his substance, right, is being itself, right? His nature, his substance is to be. There's no difference between to be and the substance of God, right? I've got to be kind of careful. You say, that's why he must be. You know, you've got to be kind of careful of these things like, you know, when you speak of statements, huh? And some statements like the, you know, theorems in geometry are known through other statements, huh? But there must be some statements that are known through themselves. Otherwise, you wouldn't know any statements, right? Right. Yeah. Now, what does it mean to say a statement is known through itself? Because you seem to be saying that the statement proves itself, right? Is that what you mean when you say it's known through itself, right? You mean that it's known not through another, right? Okay. Just like when you speak of the last in. It's what? It's for its own sake, yeah. Yeah. What does that mean? Yeah. It doesn't really mean that it's a bit of vision. It's for the sake of the bit of vision. That's its purpose. Because, you know, how we talked about before how to see a before and after you have to see a distinction, right? And one important sense of before and after is cause and effect, right? So, really, to have a cause and an effect, you must have a distinction between the cause and the, what? Effect, right? So, God cannot be, strictly speaking, the cause of his own existence, right? That's hard for us to understand, right? So, a little danger there to say, why does God exist, right? But if his substance is to be, right, then we can see that he must be, right? And he must be to himself, right? While the angels must be through God, right? Thomas is always quoting the great thing that Plato pointed out, that to itself is the cause of to another, yeah. I kept on thinking about this idea that it belongs to wise men to order things, right? And they said, well, God is wise, right? But not only is God wise and wiser than us, but he's wisdom itself, right? Because it's altogether simple, right? So, God and his wisdom can be two different things. But if God is wisdom itself, you must really be responsible for the order of things, right? And it kind of makes you see the providence, right, of God, or by your order of things, right? It comes, in a sense, from his, what, wisdom, right? It belongs to wisdom, to order, as Aristotle says here, right? And as you can see from what Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? It was something. I think there's some confusion there in some of those philosophers nowadays. Who is it, the guy? Yeah, yeah. People like that, if you're influenced by him, you know. They want to know why God exists, right? Well, you could say there's a reason why we think he exists. There's a reason why we think he must exist, right? But there's no reason in things why he exists, huh? Because then there would be in things a cause of his existence, right? No. But for him, to be God, is to be, right? Yeah. And therefore, he can't have any cause, huh? The statement of Vatican II would mean something to understand carefully when it says that man is the only creature God will for his own sake, for the sake of himself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what does Aristotle do in the rest of Book I after the premium? What do you think he does? Well, he recalls what his predecessors, right, said about causes, right, huh? And then shows that there's something more to be investigated here, right, huh? Now, why does he do that, right? The thing I noticed when I studied the modern philosophers, right, they'll often disagree with something that Aristotle said, let's say, and they will not recall what he said. They'll say something opposite to what he said, right? And they won't recall what he said and why he said it, right? And get a reason why the reason he had is not sufficient in believing that. There's nothing wrong with that, isn't there? Well, in the politics of Aristotle, right, politics, right? And this is, you know, political philosophy, right? Political wisdom, in a sense, right? Well, Aristotle's going to talk about, in one part of the politics there, about the best city. The city, he says, according to a prayer. Because you have to have unusual circumstances to establish the best city, right? But he considers, you know, before, right, the city that Socrates had proposed, right? And the cities that... And the cities that...