Thank you for this wonderful lecture. I found it very helpful in many respects. Is there a written copy anywhere I might read?

Thank you Father Barron for the enlightening lecture! You mention that Aquinas says that "God cannot be placed in any genus, even the genus of being." Does Aquinas consider ‘being’ a genus? In his ‘On the Principles of Nature’ he writes "'Being', however, is not a genus because it is not predicated univocally, but only analogically."(45) Does he write differently elsewhere? Either way, I don't think it affects the main point you are making here but it might be helpful to clarify. Thanks again!

Excellent! I love the philosophy you present here. You have such a talent for explaining Thomism clearly.

Does Thomas himself use the language of creatio contnua, and if so where? If not, where does the notion originate, and what are some resources where I can read more about it? While I intuitively grasp and like the notion, I need some help explaining it more precisely.

@ Kevin The paramount of creation in Genesis and therefore the highest being is the human being who is made in the image of God. Somewhere (source?) there is a story in which an angel becomes jeaoules on human kind because God makes them serve the human kind.

@ Kevin Adams

Congratulations, Fr. Barron, on this most exquisite effort. I think it is your finest lecture to date, and I've commented on in on my blog, http://currentcatholics.blogspot.com/2015/04/creation-without-causality.html

To Jon and Kevin, more specifically. Kevin asked, can an angel be discovered with a scientific experiment? → In short, the answer is no. Let’s explicate. The experiment will contain the apparatus and measuring units designed by us, comprehensible by us. Therefore that what could be measured by such an equipment will be already polluted with (A) observer effect (that means, we construct equipment based on what we already understand, and read results based on what we expect to see), and (B) inadequate calibration of the equipment to gather data outside sensory perception. → Then we come to the conclusion we cannot even start making such an equipment, for angels already are outside our sensory perception, therefore, outside our knowledge. We cannot even imagine the equipment needed to register their existence, nor how to make it calibrated so that we can understand the data objectively. → That is where we come to a Biblical point, that knowledge of above, can only come from above. That implies there must be prima causa — unmoved mover — because without it, nothing could be comprehensible at all. → It is a revelation from above, not a discovery from below. Below we can circle in darkness, until light comes from above, which of course evokes Bible verses from Isaiah and Matthew (‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’). Thus when in Genesis we read God created light within the creation, we can read it as such that God also gave capacity of understanding creation from within creation. It is intelligible. We get that understanding through rational thinking and science, who work inside the creation and the limits of our sensory perception, but cannot comprehend things outside it. → In the case of us living on Earth, we cannot understand things even behind the ‘vault’ (or sky, the visible universe), as the ‘light we see’, is trapped inside that vault.

In response to Kevin, barring a miraculous incarnation of such a being, no (and even barring such visions as they were, such as in tobit, they were only just a vision rather than a tangible reality). Science deals with material reality and if we accept the position that an angel is fully incorporeal being (one purely of mind, will, intellect, etc), by definition it is not subject to the rules of the scientific method, and seeing as it being a living being with it's own will, it cannot be expressed in the abstract even mathematically, but rather could only be comprehended in the mind philosophically or theologically.

You are on holy ground even when two or more are contemplating God. Even when people gather to listen to, for example, this talk on God are we on holy ground. The very ground is electrified to transmit the energy of the Lord to His created for the Love of one another and within that totally distinguished Love which the Father alone permitted.

May I recommend the book, "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene? When the author was discussing the speed of light, he used a loaf of bread as an analogy for the 4 dimensions of Einsteinian Spacetime. As I read it, I was struck at how similar it sounded to the Catholic understanding of how every instant of time is present to God who is outside of time and in eternity, and also to the notion of continuous creation. It occurs to me that this may provide some sort of common vocabulary with scientists. I also had a quick question.... Since God is not a being - even the highest being, that would leave something that is the highest being. Presumably, the highest being would be some sort of angel. Could that angel, at least in principle, be subject to scientific discovery?