The Law in General (Aquinas 101)

[@Littlemermaid17]

These vids are brilliant and needs more views. Please keep producing them, God bless 💚

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks so much! We're delighted to keep turning them out!

[@kateyutterback646]

Thank-you. We enjoy these short teachings & always look forward to the next installment. 🙏🏼✝️💙

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Cheers! All the best to you and yours!

[@iqgustavo]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 📚 Aquinas' Treatise on Law expands our understanding beyond conventional legal concepts. 00:40 🌟 Law is about rational order, teaching, guiding actions, and measuring them against the common good. 02:03 🧠 Law is an ordination of reason, a reasoned plan for the common good, not mere commands. 03:01 🌐 The common good is a higher, sharable end unlike private goods; it's an aim for societies, teams, and more. 05:18 🌌 Four main types of law in hierarchy: Eternal Law, Natural Law, Divine Positive Law, and Human Law. 06:12 🌅 Eternal Law is God's divine plan for creation, an ordered reflection of His glory. 07:06 🌿 Natural Law imprinted in creatures inclines them towards proper acts and ends, humans participate through reason. 07:55 📖 Divine Positive Law comes from divine revelation, guiding humans to supernatural good. 08:25 ⚖️ Human Law is specific, aimed at the common good of communities, and exists on various levels. Made with HARPA AI

[@mattisonhale6227]

Theology teacher using this in 2023. Fantastic work.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

We're so glad to hear it, and we hope it's helpful for you and your students! May the Lord bless you!

[@BeanieQuestOfficial]

One of the more intellectually stimulating exercises I did was making an outline of this section of the Summa. Thanks for this helpful video.

[@kristindreko3194]

Thank you for this video! May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you!

[@alexanderlazowski7562]

Thanks! ¡Viva Cristo Rey!

[@f.furthest]

This is the best explanation of Aquinas's law!! Thank you!!

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks so much for your kind words, and for taking the time to watch and comment. May the Lord bless you!

[@kathycongrove1042]

Excellent teaching. You make it so much easier to understand.

[@thepriorylibrarian1455]

Wonderful teaching back in life. Great lecture, fully loaded with facts as only a Dominican can :)

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@athanasia_6496]

A Big help!! To me🙆‍♀️

[@drew1784]

Have you made a video covering Aquinas distinguishing between the moral, ceremonial, and judicial law; and why the latter two do not form part of the new covenant?

[@Pedro-uo7ss]

This is superb!!! Thanks!!

[@ThomisticInstitute]

You're welcome! Thanks so much for watching.

[@iqgustavo]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 📚 Aquinas' Treatise on Law expands our understanding beyond conventional legal concepts. 00:40 🌟 Law is about rational order, teaching, guiding actions, and measuring them against the common good. 01:33 📏 Law serves as a rule, measure, and guide for human acts, ensuring they align with the standard of the common good. 03:01 🍕 The common good is a sharable, noble end unlike private goods; it's shared and pursued in various activities. 05:18 🌌 Four main types of law are arranged hierarchically: Eternal Law, Natural Law, Divine Positive Law, and Human Law. 06:41 🤔 Eternal Law is not just in God's mind but imprinted in creation, directing beings to their proper ends. 07:30 🤝 Human participation in Eternal Law involves reason, guiding actions toward ultimate ends, even in communities. 07:55 ⚓ Divine Positive Law comes from divine revelation, guiding humans toward supernatural good. 08:49 ⚖️ Human Law is specific, applies within jurisdictions, and directs communities towards their proper common good. Made with HARPA AI

[@davekushner5340]

I've had so much confusion on what the common good is; I gained so much clarity from this. Thank you once again! One question though, if the Divine Law is something we would not have been able to figure out on our own, through nature and reason that is, wouldn't at least some of the Ten Commandments not be part of that? It could be my presupposition based on what I already know, but I think, through natural law, we can come to know that murder and maybe even theft are known by nature under justice.

[@Lerian_V]

1961 The Law of Moses expresses many truths naturally accessible to reason... 1962 ...Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments. "God wrote on the tables of the Law what men did not read in their hearts" - St. Augustine (En. in Ps. 57, 1: PL 36, 673)

[@unassailable6138]

Fr Dominic could you please teach us the about the intellect, will and passions.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Here are some videos on the subject: 1. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGPCpWqkjJuAkLM 2. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4Xdf3qLeK-eo5Y 3. kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5_TqpZ4p7p1abc

[@unassailable6138]

@@ThomisticInstitute Thank you, I will watch them now.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

@@unassailable6138 Cheers!

[@bobpolo2964]

Lately, I've been reflecting on John 15:14, where Jesus says, "You are my friends if you do what I command." What is friendship? What is the fundamental basis? I would argue that the basis of friendship is mutual recognition. Two people reciprocally seeing themselves in one another. Think about your closest friend, the one you relate to the most. Is he/she not an extension of yourself - manifested likeness? God's law expresses the very essence of the Creator, His relational nature with moral qualification. To obey God's law is to reflect God's image. Disobedience of God's law is a distortion of that image, a violation of the friendship. This explains why God was at odds with His covenantal people: when He saw them, He didn't recognize them. Importing this logic to John 15:14, Jesus is essentially saying, "You are my friends if you participate in this relationship by imaging me." Participation is essential to our union with Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is why the Father smiles when He sees the redeemed. Because when He sees us, He sees His Son. And who is His Son? The very image of God. Therefore, when God sees us, He sees Himself; and when we see God, we see ourselves. Mutual recognition. The basis of friendship.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Here are a couple of recent lectures and videos that deal with the question: 1. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYnEh4KViMl6l7M 2. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKCadWxvjsh-i5o 3. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZC9aWWMYtyNbJY 4. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fYvZeWiKg9R_p7c

[@alexandrepereira3902]

Excellent

[@suzannofal6429]

thank you for the wonderful explanation, do you mind also sharing where your hoodie is from?

[@avitalalef9947]

Thank you! I'm jew, either way - i love to study about political philosophy

[@matildetessi8680]

me encantó!

[@stahu_mishima]

well, yeah he's technically right but also that whole point is based on assertion that the one ruling is good, and has a common good of their subjects in mind. you can just gain power and order by fear and brutality. you can gain power to make others do things for you by deceit and intrigue. or by conquering and killing. or (as Thomas Aquinas thinks it's by default) by legal and just rule. but that's really just one of the various options and you can see it in history as well as today.

[@SoyElta]

Even Michael Jordan who was undoubtedly the greatest basketball player of all time; realized he had to pass the ball for the common good of the team.

[@jackhat6936]

Speaking as a lawyer myself, I never view law as merely a series of commands. I tend to view law through Hegelian philosophical terms and I see it as the actualization of concepts that develop dialectically within society. Law is the embodiment of social, political, philosophical and historical development. A concrete example that I can think of is the legal concept of limited liability of incorporated companies is a legal concept that has developed out of the social and historical needs of capitalism. As capitalism and the way we organize ourselves economically begins to evolve this legal concept will be re-interpreted and revised to cope with changing social and economic viewpoints.

[@kevinphillips150]

But if capitalism is not understood as a means of an economic system either for or against a social good, what good would capitalism be if it does not promote private property and individual ownership for the common individual?

[@johnteron7020]

Good...

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you!

[@matildetessi8680]

TE AMOOOOOOOOO

[@colinriches1519]

Assertion after assertion. Aquinas made a lot of assertions, backed up by nothing more than a viewpoint. It's very simple, many humans desire power. One way to gain that sort of power is through fear. If you convince people that are used to being blindly led that there's an invisible, omnipotent being who wants you to do x, y, z, etc. (a list of things the priest wants) you put yourself in a position with all the command of God, but none of the responsibility. You don't have to be smart to see through this. Just honest with yourself. For those worried "What if it IS true?" ask that same question to the multitudes of gods that have risen and fallen before you arrived on this planet. Nobody owns you. You can be free from religion and the suffering the clergy like to put children through. Your children can be safe from those pedophiles.

[@michaeldonohue8870]

Hi Brothers! I was wondering how we might deal with this objection If there is no possible world in which God wills other then to create this world, then this world is necessary There is no possible world in which God wills other then to create this world .: This world is necessary As I understand it right, God chooses certain things by virtue of His single act of being, knowing, and willing (i.e His nature) but unless we introduce randomness into the decision making process, it would seem God is always determined to pick according to His nature in every possible world, which entails modal necessity, and thus everything is necessary, no? I mean indeed, by God being omnibenevolent, the world He creates would necessarily have to be the best possible world (in terms of benevolence) and thus the world created would be necessary in its content, and indeed if God could instead have acquired an equally good result by not creating it, then we have a dilemma. God creates the world for goodness effect 100 God does not create the world for goodness effect 100 And suppose that the "goodness effect" incorporated the totality of His nature, if we have two choices then the only way in which God could choose would be some random choice, because there is no objectively better choice, and so either we take that horn, or we say that there is in fact only one set of events with goodness effect 100, in which case God necessarily has to actualize them, but then that would make everything necessary because by God existing in every possible world, so too would that set of events. How would we deal with this? It is of course the Modal Collapse objection, but slightly nuanced. And also, how does Act and Potency change if Eternalism is true? Is it something that must be denied?

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Great question! St. Thomas addresses these concerns in the Prima pars in questions 19 (aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-19#FPQ19OUTP1) and 25 (aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-25#FPQ25OUTP1). Ia Q. 25, a. 6 is especially apposite.

[@michaeldonohue8870]

@@ThomisticInstitute Hi Thanks for the reply! These questions were quite helpful, I still am slightly confused however. Aquinas affirms that God in Q25 A6, reply to objection 2, that God can create and not create. Aquinas also affirms two kinds of necessity, absolute necessity (like His intellect and will aligning to His divine goodness, like a man aligns to an animality) which is where the predicate is contained or defined in the subject and thus almost tautological in some respect, and then necessity by supposition. I don't fully understand the latter and was hoping you might help with that, but in any case... Aquinas says: Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition, for supposing that He wills a thing, then He is unable not to will it, as His will cannot change. Here is the crux of the issue for me, "For supposing that He wills a thing". For me, whatever He wills has to align with His divine goodness and perfection, and so if we were to take the reductio a contradiction would arise. So doesn't that mean that if God can create or not create, and neither one of these realities adds to the divine goodness, then how could God possible have a medium by which to choose between the two? It becomes a completely random choice no? But if it isn't a random choice, does that not presuppose that creating (a posteriori) must be better then not creating? And thus if that is the case, and creation is more inline with the divine goodness, then surely that means it's not only necessary because God can't change His will, but it is also absolutely necessary because His will is "preset"? And apologies... if you have time just one more question :P With regards to act and potency, how is that real distinction affected by a B-Theory of time/eternalism being true? Surely if everything is ontologically real independent of whether I can see it spatially, then everything on eternalism, is also ontologically real independent of whether I can see it temporally. In other words, as far as I understand it, on eternalism, everything that is ontologically real is actual, and so from our perspective whilst there exists "potentials", change is not a becoming, but rather a progressing into something already actual. And indeed, if God exists, would that not truly be the case, according to the Catechism "All moments of time are present to God in their immediacy..." thus the universe IS like that 4D Block because God is present everywhere both spatially and temporally and so everything IS actual.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

@@michaeldonohue8870 In reply to the first, the nub of the issue is the indeterminacy of the will. Here you might consult St. Thomas on freedom of exercise and freedom of specification in IaIIae Q. 9 . . . here he's speaking of human volition, but some of the insights can be applied to God. You might also consult the literature on Buridan's ass. As for the second, the nub is the issue concerns eternity. Here the tradition is largely a response to the thought of Boethius at the end of the Consolation of Philosophy. Here, eternity is not so much a matter of sempiternity as it is of "whole and simultaneous possession of endless life. That discussion sheds a lot of light on your question. Hope those are helpful resources!

[@michaeldonohue8870]

@@ThomisticInstitute Thanks very much I'll check these out! Just with regards to Buridan's ass, so what precisely is the run down on this? If God has to choose between creating, and not creating, like Aquinas says, and God retains the absolute fullness of His nature in both, then do we have an inclination as to what means God used to measure His decision? And if in fact there is just a straight up better world, does that not make that world necessary as it retains the absolute fullness of God's nature? This Consolation of Philosophy seems quite interesting, much learning to do! God bless.

[@christinetuthill8249]

Law is internal?

[@ThomisticInstitute]

St. Thomas teaches that law and grace are external principles of human action, but the new law (evangelical law) is just the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, so in that sense it is internal.

[@christinetuthill8249]

@@ThomisticInstitute Your quarantine lectures have been life saving for me. Took me away from the craziness and brought me to a sense of sanity. And what I am learning! WOW!

[@ThomisticInstitute]

@@christinetuthill8249 Delighted to hear!

[@nixx569]

what is fraud??? 1:40

[@endofscene]

He should be wearing his hood (for the common good)

[@byron8657]

Thanks Dominican Fathers for Explaining what is a Natural Law and Eternal Law and Divine Positive Law the Ten Commandments and the 4th Kind of Law the Human Law k! More of this kind of videos but about the Common Good the ordinary common people living day to day toiling day and night for survival without education as for the many third world Asian countries only understand one meaning of the Common Good. Common Good for them is that they can provide themselves their families and their communities as well of their basic needs to make ends meet toiling day by day for food and to have a roof above their heads and clothes to wear to battle the elements of nature k!

[@estebanmoeller]

Legge means law in italian haha