Well, today we're talking about supernatural wisdom.

And really the theme here is three wisdoms.

The first wisdom we talked about yesterday, or I spoke about yesterday,

in terms of philosophical wisdom, that rises up to metaphysics

as in a way the highest and most powerful deepest consideration of what is

by the light of natural reason. So I wanted to just start off by saying I hope that it was

evident why it's important to talk about this. It's not just because

we're interested in clarifying what Aquinas means by metaphysics or something like that,

but rather that, and I think, I hope it was also clear as we did some of the, well, real philosophizing in the Q&A yesterday,

that when you move to the highest philosophical and metaphysical considerations,

you're moving into a zone that has a great deal of power for understanding,

and that even though we're dealing with abstractions,

nonetheless can be very rich in intelligibility and in meaning.

So when you talk about what is goodness and what is evil,

or what is perfection, what is a cause,

or perhaps how all things besides God are some composition of essence and existence,

or of act and potency.

In other words, when you're talking about what is, or distinguishing

what is and that it is, you begin to see that these kinds of considerations are foundational

for every discipline because they pertain to the consideration of being as being.

And so they have a kind of universality. And if you want to understand the whole from the highest possible perspective,

if you want to understand the causes of things and the reason for things,

...