Pints With Aquinas - 101: What is predestination? With Fr. Thomas Joseph White

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we're joined around the bar table by Father Thomas Joseph White, who is a Dominican priest, to discuss the issue of predestination. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. Good to have you with us. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. As I already said, we're going to be joined around the bar table today with Father Thomas Joseph White.

Starting point is 00:00:43 He's a Dominican priest. He teaches at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He's a convert to Catholicism. He did his doctoral studies at Oxford University, where his research focused on Aquinas' metaphysics and arguments for the existence of God. He's written a bunch of articles and books. His latest book is The Light of Christ, An Introduction to Catholicism. All right, so many of y'all have been asking me to do a show on predestination, but I just, you know, I'm super underqualified to discuss this at any depth, and that's why I decided to get Father Thomas Joseph White, who clearly isn't underqualified, to discuss this topic.

Starting point is 00:01:21 So I think you're going to really enjoy it. I want to say a couple of things, of things before we get into today's show. We have started a couple of Pints with Aquinas chapters. You'll remember we're starting these around the country, around the world. So if you want to start a Pints with Aquinas chapter, if you want to be a chapter director, all you got to do is go to pintswithaquinas.com, click on PWA chapters, and you can apply there. But right now, we've got one in Idaho, one in New York, and one in Wisconsin. So one in Moscow, Idaho, one in Rochester in New York, and one in Onalaska. Is that how you say it?

Starting point is 00:02:02 Onalaska in Wisconsin. So these people are meeting at pubs, they're reading good books, they're drinking beer, and they're just becoming good friends with each other. So it's super great. So maybe if you live in those areas, you could go to Pints with Aquinas, you can get all the details there for those groups and where they're happening. Yeah, that'd be fun. I also want to say thanks to everybody who has begun supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. You know, I know I say this a lot, but this is a fully fan-funded show. I don't

Starting point is 00:02:30 have like one or two big donors that are forcing me to say or not say certain things. That's the beauty of Patreon. I kind of had the freedom to just speak the truth of the Catholic faith, whether or not it offends people, and it doesn't matter. So a big thanks to all of you who support me. If you want to start supporting Pints with Aquinas for $10 or more a month, here's what I will send you for free. You'll get a free copy of my book, Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas, which I will send and ship to you. You'll also get the e-book. So as soon as you start supporting, you can get that e-pub version immediately and start reading it. You'll get exclusive access to our ongoing series, A History of Philosophy Podcasts. So, this is something new that I'm doing with

Starting point is 00:03:09 Father Chris Prachashko. We are reading through this huge history of philosophy, and we're getting together every month to discuss it. And it's going chronologically. So, we have the first episode already out. It's a two-hour discussion on the pre-Socratics. Next week, we're going to get together to have another two-hour discussion just on Plato. And so, if you want to learn more about philosophy, this will do. But again, it's a private one just for patrons. So, you'll get that. You'll also get access to weekly free videos. You'll also get access to our ever-growing library of audiobooks and audio content, right? So, maybe there's a lot of papal encyclicals that you wish you could read, but you don't have time to. Well, if you're driving in traffic,

Starting point is 00:03:48 now you can listen to them. We're putting some of them up. They're getting professionally recorded. They sound fantastic. You get access to bimonthly. Look, I'm not even going to tell you the rest of the stuff you get. You get a lot of stuff, but that's just my little way of thanking you for being a faithful Pints with Aquinas supporter and making sure that this show happens. If you want to support the show, go to pintswithaquinas.com and click support. That'll take you to our Patreon page and yeah, just support for 10 bucks or more a month and you'll get all of those goodies. So thank you very much for those of you who are supporting and those of you who will. So, okay, how do we square? Let's just say a little bit about predestination before we get into today's show. So, you know, here's the basic question, right? Like, do I have free will? Okay,

Starting point is 00:04:30 do I have free will? And if I do have free will, does that mean that God doesn't have a perfect predestined plan for my life? Or does that mean if, you know, if we all have free will, does that mean that God doesn't have a perfect, have a perfect predestined plan for mankind? All right. So, the short answer is that God does have a predestined plan for your life and for all of our lives, but it actually involves our free will. So, here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say. this is paragraph 600, to God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of predestination, he includes in it each person's free response to his grace. In this city, in fact, both Herod

Starting point is 00:05:21 and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness. So, Aquinas has a lot to say on predestination. Just a quick little word count here. He mentions it about 430 times in the Summa Theologiae, and that includes in the contents. So, if you don't understand what it is, or you don't know how to reconcile it with free will or whatever, you're going to hopefully have a much better grasp on it by the end of today's show. I also want to let you know that I have a really cool surprise for you at the

Starting point is 00:06:11 end of today's show. Father Thomas Joseph White is one of the founding members of a wonderful bluegrass band, which you may have heard of by now, called the Hillbilly Tomists. So as I say, special thing happening at the end of today's show, so be sure to stick around. You'll see what that is. Okay? Get a beer and enjoy the show. Father Thomas Joseph White, good to have you on the show. Thank you, Matt.

Starting point is 00:06:41 Great to be here. Yeah, this is terrific. This is the first time you and I have ever spoken. This is true. Yeah. And here. Yeah, this is terrific. This is the first time you and I have ever spoken. This is true. Yeah, and I understand that you are from Georgia. The great state of Georgia. Do you know that's where I live? No. Where are you, in Atlanta? Just north of. Yeah, I was in Cumming for a while, and now I'm spending a bit of time up in Clayton.

Starting point is 00:07:01 Well, you have a Georgian accent, really. Yeah. I always joke when people tell me that I don't have a Southern accent. I say, yes, I bloody well do. It's just a lot further South than yours. Right, a real Southern accent. So, you just came out with a new book, and I saw on social media that you were out and about giving talks in England and talking about the book. I can't wait to get it. Tell us a bit about it. The book is called The Light of Christ, An Introduction to Catholicism, and it's basically a kind of, you might say, succinct or short Catholic theological introduction,

Starting point is 00:07:34 or an introduction to Catholic theology, Catholic thinking about the doctrine of the faith, what does it mean to be a Catholic intellectually. The book's not written for specialists, it's written for the average person. It does presuppose that you're interested in really thinking about the, you know, the theology and philosophy of the church, but I try to present it in an accessible language. And so it goes through a kind of sketch. I mean, the first chapter is on faith and reason, the harmony of faith and reason. The second chapter is on God, one infinity. And the third chapter is on creation in the human person. Fourth chapter is on God, one in Trinity. And the third chapter is on creation in the human person. Fourth chapter is on the incarnation, to say God becoming human, and the atonement.

Starting point is 00:08:12 And the fifth chapter is on the church and the sacraments. Sixth chapter is on the social doctrine of the church. And then there's a chapter on the last things, on, you know, final judgment, purgatory, heaven, hell. And the recreation of themos. So it's a kind of thumbnail sketch of the whole. It's only about 330 pages. Well, that's, I guess, long in a way, but for all that material, that means it kind of covers things quickly, and it allows you to kind of read any part of the book independently of any other part of the book. The book is written for seekers. It's written for people interested in Catholicism who may have fallen away from the church, thinking about coming back. There's a lot of conversation

Starting point is 00:08:48 with Protestants and Protestant concerns or objections to Catholicism. There's a lot of concerns about science and religion that relate to modern atheism or skepticism. So it's a kind of all-comers book. And it's also written to give friends who want to know more about Catholicism. That sounds amazing. I'm going to go buy two copies as soon as this interview is done, one for me and one for an evangelical friend. How do I get it? Is it just on Amazon or where should I go?

Starting point is 00:09:11 Amazon is the most efficient way to get it. It's terrifying how Amazon has taken over the world, isn't it? I mean, it's so easy to just say go to Amazon and then all of a sudden we complain that there's no other options and we all have to feed the beast that is Amazon. Anyway. Well, if you're an author, you maybe feel differently's you know no other options and we all have to feed the beast that is amazon anyway well if you're an author you maybe feel differently you know because you're i mean that's an author you kind of like it that's true i guess it's the publisher that loses out somewhat anyway it is accessible i mean there's other ways to get it of course

Starting point is 00:09:39 and you can get it through amazon's uh other monolithic competitor which is walmart and a lot of other ways. Oh, really? That's cool. Who published it? Catholic University of America Press. Oh, good. Oh, that's terrific. Yeah, I look forward to getting it. I'm excited to talk about today's issue on predestination, what that means, reprobation, what does it mean, what does the elect mean? What does double predestination mean? This is a question that a lot of people have asked me about, and I know sort of a couple of Twitter-length answers to give to people, but when they start pressing in, I start to not really know how to explain things well. And so that way, I'm excited that you're

Starting point is 00:10:20 here because you'll not only be helping our listeners, you'll be helping me as well. So why don't we start off with some pretty basic definitions. What is meant by predestination? Well, okay, so the first thing to say about predestination is it is a concept that's in the New Testament, and it is a teaching of the Catholic Church. At least there are teachings of Catholic doctrine about predestination. Some Catholics think it's not even really a Catholic thing, it's only in Calvin or in Protestantism, and that it's alien to Christianity, to Catholicism, excuse me.

Starting point is 00:10:51 But that's not the case. I mean, the most famous writer on the subject was St. Augustine in the 5th century when he wrote against the Pelagians, and it's a standard theme in medieval theology. So the idea of predestination is basically the idea that God, from all eternity, wills to bring people to salvation and gives them the grace and the means necessary so that they can be brought up the pathway, you might say, to salvation, with God taking the first initiative and, as it were, having the first responsibility for their salvation. So, because of predestination, God's eternal commitment, as it were, to give us grace, we praise God for taking the first initiative for our salvation. That's the basic idea.

Starting point is 00:11:36 Okay. Maybe it would help to sort of flesh this out if we contrast it with Calvinism. So, usually when people talk about predestination today, they tend to contrast, say, Calvinism with Arminianism. I know there's other things to talk about, but why don't we just quickly talk about Calvinism? That's their view of predestination is usually summed up by the helpful and acronym TULIP. I wonder if it would be helpful to kind of go through this and see where Aquinas would agree and disagree. Yeah, we could do it that way. Yeah, I mean, what we should do is talk about first a little bit what, yeah, so let's talk about some of the things that,

Starting point is 00:12:14 there are two basic versions of predestination that exist in the modern world that are different than the Catholic vision. They're slightly different in some ways, majorly different than others. One is the Calvinist view, and the other one is the kind of reaction to Calvin that you get in Karl Barth, who argues that everyone will be saved. So here's the two different views. I mean, in Calvin, so he's a little bit subtle, and then there's the Calvin's followers. So when we talk about Calvinism, you know, often we're talking about people like actually Theodore Beza, who really is a full-blown double predestinationist. But basically, the sketch would go something like this. God has willed from all eternity to save certain people, the elect. He's chosen them. That's what

Starting point is 00:12:58 electio means in Latin, choice. God's chosen or elected to save certain people in light of the merits of Christ's death. He will offer grace to those people and really only to those people. Now, Calvin argues that God's grace is irresistible. So if you're offered it, you will not resist it, and it will be effective in you. And so people who aren't changed by the grace of Christ, well, the reason isn't because they resisted the grace or refused it. It's because they didn't receive it. So, you know, there's really a kind of idea that God gives a kind of infallible or necessarily effective grace to people that will convert them, but he gives it only to some, and those people will be saved. Now, the other side, here's a couple more ideas of Calvin.

Starting point is 00:13:40 One is Calvin rejects the medieval idea that you find in Aquinas and other people, that there's such a thing as implicit faith, that you can believe some things and implicitly in believing those things, you believe other things. The point being that Calvin says, basically, if you don't believe explicitly in Jesus Christ before you die, you will be damned. Okay. Basically, it takes a line like that. So then the point is that really it's only the visible members of the church or the visible members of those who understood Christ and received his election in an obvious way that are saved, or some of them. that comes from Calvin is that the reprobate, those who are not receiving grace, in a certain way, Calvin refuses another medieval idea, a distinction between what God wills and what God permits. So in other words, it's not that God permits. So the Catholics teach God gives grace to everyone, but permits some people to refuse it. He doesn't cause them to refuse it.

Starting point is 00:14:44 Calvin just says, no, God just wills not to give grace to some people. And then when they're reprobated, they're reprobated in view of the eternal glory of God's justice and wisdom. Okay, so that's where we start to get the double predestination, that God wills to elect some people, and then he wills to glorify his own justice and wisdom to reprobate others. And it's kind of a double movement of choice. You choose some for election, you choose some for reprobation. Okay, so that's Calvinism said too swiftly, a little bit too quickly, okay? Then you get Barth who reacts to that in the 20th century, says, no, we should believe,

Starting point is 00:15:17 okay, we should believe that God's election is necessarily effective. He will elect some people to predestine some to salvation, and his grace works necessarily. But what we should believe against Calvin is that God has elected all people, and so all people will be saved. And that's the whole idea of universal salvation in Greek, apokatastasis panton, this universal reconciliation of all. And that traditionally the Catholic Church has rejected that as an error too. Okay, so these are the two kind of visions of predestination. God will save everyone, or he's going to just choose some people to save, they'll necessarily be saved, and other people he's sort of chosen to reject. And so because Catholics look at all that and they're bemused, they say, well, we don't believe in any of that, and Catholics don't believe in

Starting point is 00:16:02 predestination, at least in that way. But that's all actually not the traditional doctrine of predestination. So we have to go back and get, like, what are the key elements? And here, actually, it's Augustine, and then it's a thing in the 6th century. It was already a major council of the Catholic Church called the Second Council of Orange, where they rejected the idea of double predestination. And so basically from Augustine and then the Second Council of Orange, you get a fundamental teaching that you find in Aquinas and Bonavent grace and being conformed to Christ, asking God for mercy, receiving the sacraments, all that's kind of preparation of God's antecedent work in us.

Starting point is 00:16:55 Like God takes the first initiative and he predestines us to eternal life. But when we refuse God's grace culpably, like when of our own guilt and of our own responsibility, we turn away from grace, that's not God's will. That's just something God permits. He allows people to separate themselves from him. So he doesn't will their reprobation. You might say fundamentally he wills to offer grace to people, but he allows some people – there are some people that god allows to resist or refuse his grace and in light of their own perseverance in the refusal of grace they are

Starting point is 00:17:33 separated from god or you could say reprobated but it's not that he wills he does will the salvation of all but he permits mysteriously permits people to return away from the grace uh offered to them okay so then that gives rise to different Catholic theories. There are different theories in Catholicism about pre-estination, but they all work from that idea that if you are saved, you have only God to praise fundamentally because God took the first initiative. But if you are lost, if you turn away from God, you have only yourself fundamentally to blame because you've turned away from the mercy of God.

Starting point is 00:18:06 So within those two bookends, there's some room to play and think about what it might mean. And I don't think we ever defined this, but when we talk about double predestination, what that means is God, like the Calvinist view, God predestines some to heaven and predestines some to hell. So this is something you're saying that obviously obviously, Catholics can't believe. So, we can believe... You know, what we hold is that God never wills an evil directly or indirectly. He doesn't will moral evil. So, He's not, like, moving the will to evil, and He's not moving the person to the state of damnation or alienation from Him. Yeah. So, I guess Calvinism would say that God from all eternity decided who He would save, who he would damn, and that Christ's death is he died solely for the elect, whereas… That's interesting.

Starting point is 00:18:53 You know, that's a controversial thing in Calvinism. Calvin, I don't think, says overtly that Christ died only for the elect. But like Beza and some of his disciples do say, if I'm not mistaken, yeah, Christ died only for some people. And like, that's a heresy in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church condemned that against the 17th century French sect, a Catholic sect called the Jansenists, who held that Christ died only for the elect. And the church holds no, God, Christ died for all human beings, and God offers the possibility of salvation to all, but he tolerates or accepts that there are people who turn away from his grace. Okay, so I'm looking here in the Prima Pars question 23 on predestination, and it sort of seems to make sense to me, right, that

Starting point is 00:19:38 his main answer here under does God predestine people is, well, all things are subject to his providence, and it belongs to providence to direct things towards their end. And then when it comes to reprobation, as you say, that's not so much a willing on the part of God that a soul would be damned, but just God permitting that some would fall away. Yeah, exactly. Now, here's the issue, okay? The issue in Catholic theology where there really is difference of opinion and argument, but different positions are allowed, is that basically Augustine posits, and Aquinas follows him in this, that there is something like a principle of predilection. That's to say, if God offers the grace of salvation to all, but some people really kind of go up the path and they cooperate

Starting point is 00:20:25 with the grace and then other people god permits mysteriously he allows or tolerates that they turn away from his grace there is a way in which god seems to love some people more because he's given them i mean in the end they have a higher degree of grace and so aquinas does kind of go this direction it's a it's an option that's very traditionally Augustinian, that there are people predestined to receive the kind of, you might call it the predilection of God's grace that will either preserve them from sin, or if they fall into sin, move them effectively to convert their lives so that they eventually will turn up the pathway toward eternal salvation. In the case of the reprobate, what Aquinas holds is that God gives them the grace sufficient to be saved, and they really can be saved, but if they turn away from him, God allows it in that case and doesn't necessarily then reignite them. He might give them new offers, but eventually at some point

Starting point is 00:21:23 he lets them basically persevere in their refusal. So why does he let some people persevere in their refusal and other people he kind of, you know, continually re-invites them or stirs them back up? There's a kind of predilection there. Now there are other theories in the Catholic Church like, you know, Molina, who's the famous Jesuit thinker, who argues kind of like God gives the same amount of grace to everybody and he waits and sees what you do with it and then if you use it well he rewards you but that view has a lot of um difficulties of its own because it then seems to suggest that in a way god's like giving you know um an initial deposit down positive deposit of money or you know you could say filling the tank of the car

Starting point is 00:22:05 with gas, and then he waits to see how you drive the car, how you use the money deposited, and then he rewards you or punishes you based on your own merits and capacities. That's the concern. Because where for Aquinas, really, God always is taking the first initiative, but you can turn away from it. And why does he allow some people to turn away from it? While in other cases, he kind of um you know there's a way in which he he gives them the grace to to kind of um always stay faithful or return to fidelity and that's for a client it's just a mystery like why does god permit the soul freedom to turn away he says well it's a sort of mystery of justice god is like just towards human

Starting point is 00:22:42 beings and their freedom and so he respects their freedom and he respects their capacity to turn away from the good. But he doesn't really kind of, you know, as it were, give you the final answer because he just thinks that that's a kind of mystery of God's permissions. I remember sitting down with a Calvinist pastor in Ireland. And this is when, this is years ago, the first time somebody ever laid out the tulip idea to me. And his idea was that, yeah, from all eternity, God has chosen to damn some and save others. And I just thought to myself, my goodness. So you're saying like your two-year-old son out there who's playing in the kitchen, you're saying that from all eternity, God could have decided to damn him to hell and there's nothing he could do about it. And he went, yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:24 Well, I mean, it has the satisfying fact of submitting everything to divine sovereignty. And that's why people embrace it. They believe that the fundamental truth is the divine sovereignty or the sovereignty of the divine will. And, you know, everything else we see is basically passing and contingent. And we've just got to get ourselves under the divine will and accept that that's like the ultimate reality but the divine will is also a wise and good will and so the catholic church says well listen we have to look back at the original designs of the divine will it's interesting

Starting point is 00:23:55 to say actually to note that augustine differs from the the calvinist position you just laid out because augustine says in the beginning god willed to give adam and the first couple the first human community grace in so they can live in friendship with god he did not create anyone for damnation and so augustine denies that god has willed anyone for damnation from all eternity and he says it's only because of the fall and subsequent to the fall that god has drawn out of the fallen humanity some who are predestined and elect. So Augustine is like – for Augustine, predestination is like a rescue mission to draw out many from the humanity that's turned away from God together in the original sin and in the continued sins of humanity. He doesn't think that he's actually like willed people to hell from all eternity.

Starting point is 00:24:47 But there's a kind of Calvinism that goes back and puts it back up in the divine will. But the more mainstream view is closer to Aquinas and then later people like Alphonsus Liguori and 20th century Thomists and John Paul II, which is that God really actually, and 20th century Thomists and John Paul II, which is that God really actually, after the fall and the catastrophe of human sin, does get, because he intends to redeem the world in Christ, and Christ died for all, he gives grace in some way, some hidden way, to all human beings. And there's a way then in which God does really offer the possibility of salvation to all. Now that can be refused. And in some,

Starting point is 00:25:25 it's going to be effective in a much more intensive, deep way for their salvation and beatification, and those are the predestined. In other people, it's going to be resisted and refused, and those people, you might say, are reprobated in light of their own choice to turn away from Christ. Okay. So, then the Catholic Church teaches that all can be saved. In fact, Scripture tells us 1 Timothy 2.4 that God desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. Now, that doesn't mean we'll necessarily be saved, but what does the Catholic Church teach about the universal possibility of salvation? Yeah. Well, I mean, this is still under a lot of discussion by Catholic theologians, but it seems that the Church got this kind of discernment, particularly in the 17th century, by thinking more deeply about the challenge of Protestantism and then Jansenism and thinking about the core idea, did Christ give his life for all human beings?

Starting point is 00:26:19 If he did, if the new Adam gave his life for all the fallen children of Adam and Eve, then there's got to be a way in which grace is approaching all human beings. Now, the church also rejects Pelagianism, which is the idea that you can save yourself by your own natural powers because you're a good person and you tried hard and you did the right thing. The church teaches you can't be saved by your own natural powers without grace. Salvation comes through grace alone, working in our human hearts and minds. So, if Christ died for all and salvation comes our human hearts and minds. So if Christ died for all, and salvation comes only by grace and from the grace of Christ, then in some way, Christ's

Starting point is 00:26:51 grace is offered to all. Now it's easy to say how that works for the baptized. It's easy to say how that works for people who have the seven sacraments. It's even, in a way, easy to say how that works for the ancient Jews who had the ancient covenant, the sacrifices, and the law, which all anticipated Christ, and they lived in faith in the Redeemer to come by living in faith in the law. But what do you do with people who are out there, you know, the holy pagans of the Old Testament, like, you know, the people mentioned like Job or Noah, these major biblical symbols, these figures that symbolize kind of pagan humanity who are friends with God in grace, they're talked about as heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. So there, the medieval theologians said, well, look at, I mean, just like the Jews of old could explicitly believe in the God of Israel

Starting point is 00:27:37 and implicitly believe in Christ who was to come because they believe in the God of Israel, so the holy pagans of old, like Noah, because they believed in God and God's providence, by faith had the grace to believe in God and know God implicitly. They believed also, therefore, in Christ and in what God's providence would do for their salvation. So Aquinas thinks grace is offered to people outside the visible church, but it is grace from Christ and oriented to Christ, and it's oriented to the Catholic Church. That's why you get people who are like, you know, for example, prayerful Hindus or Muslims who find their way to Catholicism, and they say, well, you know, I kind of felt like

Starting point is 00:28:16 when I discovered Christ and then the Catholic Church, I really came home. I found what was like motivating me from within the whole time. Just like Protestants who take the Eucharist, become Catholic and receive the Eucharist in confession, say, well, you know, I really felt like I came back into the fullness of Christianity. Well, so in an extended way, a lot of times when people are coming into Catholicism from non-Christian traditions, not previously baptized, that's that implicit faith. They believe in something, believe in God, but more than a natural belief, there's a supernatural instinct of Christ's grace pushing them toward the Catholic Church. And we see it, you know, retrospectively. Well, that means there's a kind of secret history.

Starting point is 00:28:55 There's a secret history of God's grace at work in the world. And John Paul II talks about this, especially in the beginning of his beautiful encyclical, which everyone should read, Veritatis Splendor, which is, you know, 20 years old this year, I think, or 25 years old. And Veritatis Splendor basically talks about the human being as receiving, every human being receiving grace in his or her moral conscience, so that when we confront questions of good and evil, we're already, in a certain way, being invited by God into a deeper friendship with the truth and the truth about God. And so there's kind of, you know, the theologians get into arguing about how can this happen? Can this work in a person who's an atheist? Can this

Starting point is 00:29:34 work in a person who's an agnostic? Can this work in a person who's a Muslim? Can this work in a non-Catholic, etc., etc.? And, you know, there's legitimate argument about that. The church doesn't really hem you in very much about, like, what you have to believe. But, you know, there's a legitimate argument about that. The church doesn't really hem you in very much about what you have to believe. But, you know, basically the idea is that there's some way in which grace can instigate conversion and change in any human heart because Christ died for all human beings. Right. So if it's, you said it's an in-house debate among theologians in the Catholic Church today whether or not all, maybe if I'm putting words in your mouth, that all can be saved? Well, no, I say that all are offered.

Starting point is 00:30:09 Okay, there you go. There's the distinction. Universalism. All are offered the possibility of salvation. Then there's the debate about how all might be offered the possibility of salvation, and then there's the debate about whether one may believe that all will be saved. Now the first issue whether all are offered grace that i mean the only question there that i think really is left hanging now is

Starting point is 00:30:31 the question of limbo because there are people still believe you know in limbo that children who die before the age of reason without baptism are in this painless state that really isn't damnation or beatification that's limbo and you have the right to believe in limbo so there's still an argument about limbo but basically most people will be on board for some version of uh of the church's teaching that that christ that because of the death of christ god offers the possibility of salvation to all then you get into debate about how he does it and that you've got a huge amount of range of interpretations and then i mean different ideas about that and like how can god work through like can god work through islam or is islam fundamentally kind of an obstacle

Starting point is 00:31:10 to salvation is it mixture because some things in islam seem opposed to the truth about christ and other things could dispose to the truth about christ you know there's like legitimate huge argument about islam and it's like subtle. It's a really hard question. Then you've got the third issue, which is, can we hope that all will be saved? And on that, you know, you've got Hans Urs von Balthasar who argued that. That's a much more controversial claim, because traditionally the Church argues that the reality and threat of hell are real, and that though all are offered the possibility of salvation, it's also the case that many refuse grace, refuse salvation, and Christ warns us of this reality of those who turn away from God definitively. So, you know, the traditional teaching is that

Starting point is 00:31:56 hell is a real eventuality for some people, and we need to be very concerned about our own salvation and that of others. Can't we do both? What do you say to somebody who says, can't I be concerned for my salvation and that of others, and at the same time be a hopeful universalist? It's at the limit, I think, of permissivity. I mean, yes, you can. I mean, I don't think Bell Star is outside the spectrum of Catholic doctrine. But the danger we need to warn people about is presumption, because it's very easy to go from hope to despair or hope to presumption, the two extremes of hope. So, you know, it's good to be—we should not despair of the salvation of others. We should pray for, ardently pray for, the salvation of others, and we should evangelize.

Starting point is 00:32:47 But we also should not be presumptuous by, you know, sort of claiming that, well, you know, God's good, it'll be okay. That's not the real revelation of the New Testament. We have to be docile. Right. It's funny. We can get into these sort of philosophical vortexes, can't we, where we start speculating, and then you go back and read the New Testament, and it can be like cold water splashing in your face, because who spoke more about hell than anyone else? It appears that Christ did. Like 30 times in the Gospel of Matthew, He warns us about it. So, I mean, obviously,

Starting point is 00:33:17 it's the origins of the teaching on hell, they come from one person, that's to say the Lord. It's the Lord who tells us that about hell and he's dying so that to save us from hell so you know we have to be like malleable and docile to what jesus christ himself instructs us here's the other thing we live in a liberal age of like you know where we have placed huge emphasis on a person's sincerity their conscience their interior um integrity those are like well you know even if i don't agree with you i think it's really important that you you follow you second thing and so our temptation is to say well you know as long as you're sincere you'll be saved and that's

Starting point is 00:33:56 actually taking a human measure uh and that's a kind of not so hidden pelagianism you know as long as it's not even it's not even they have to become a good person at least the pelagians believe you had to become a moral and virtuous person by your own powers uh's not even that you have to become a good person. At least the Pelagians believed you had to become a moral and virtuous person by your own powers. This is just believing you have to be sincere in whatever you're doing. And then as long as you're coherent with yourself, God would never condemn your subjectivity and sincerity. But that's not what Christ says in the parables. You know, you have those people who say, did we not visit you, Lord? And then he says, I never knew you. And they can't believe it. They can't believe he doesn't take their subjectivity seriously.

Starting point is 00:34:29 You know, so the New Testament teaches us, like, to be sober. We're going to have a—we're all going to take a cold shower in purgatory or at the final judgment because we're going to see, like, a lot of the stuff we thought was okay wasn't so okay. And it doesn't mean we need to live in fear of God, in a kind of unhealthy, morbid fear. But it does mean we have to kind of respect the fact that he's the judge, and we're sort of poor things looking for God's mercy without presumption. So I think my fear about the Balthazar line is just that it leads people to an undue degree of presumption. But I don't think you want to go the other direction a kind of neo-jansenism where you say oh well we better despair of the majority they don't look like

Starting point is 00:35:09 they're keeping their you know they're not up they're not up to snuff not like me yeah people out there it's almost like in an age such as ours that the temptation is to fall one way or the other i mean this was true back in the 17th century. I think Blaise Pascal kind of bent towards Jansenism. We see, was it Francis de Sales who also at different points believed what if he had been predestined? He was terrified, yeah. Francis de Sales was terrified of his own damnation, and he resolved the crisis spiritually by abandoning himself to the divine will. It's normal to get vertigo. It It's normal to get vertigo. It's very normal to get vertigo when you think about all this.

Starting point is 00:35:48 And, you know, it's important for people to realize you don't have to solve all these problems to be a good Christian or a good Catholic. This is like a heady, difficult, dizzying question. And you can have, like, good idea intimations about it, but you don't have to have conquered all of this to be saved. You can just follow Christ, take the sacraments, try to ask God for mercy, and then we'll see exactly how the whole predestination thing worked out on the other side. I mean, I think it's important to believe, to make acts of hope in God's power to predestine us. I should be saying to Christ, Lord, I believe in the power of your predestination. I want you to save me. I hope in your salvation. Help me to follow your divine will.

Starting point is 00:36:31 Let me never be separated from you. But that, you know, but I don't have to like say, oh, Jesus, you know, I better understand everything about predestination that could ever be thought or else I know you won't really take me seriously. I mean, that's crazy. It's like we're like little children trying to understand something really hard. But on the other hand, it actually, it isn't a bad spiritual discipline if you like have a balanced ideas of predestination. It does reinforce a strong sense of the goodness of God, his mercy, competence in divine providence, and a sense that, you know, God will never forsake us unless we insist on forsaking him. that, you know, God will never forsake us unless we insist on forsaking Him, although we can forsake God, and so we should be sober about our own, you know, walk with Christ and not be

Starting point is 00:37:12 presumptuous. You know, so I think it can be a good spiritual discipline. Pete It can be an antidote to despair or presumption, thinking about these things. Yeah. But so, I can really see that. I mean, we live in a kind of a liberal sort of age where people say, well, all that matters is you're sincere. And then, as you say, we tend to oscillate between two extremes. We either say, well, therefore, all will be saved, the kind of universalism, or more of the Calvinistic sort of Jansenistic type approach where we actually like this idea of like rigidly defined lines. Some will be out, some will be in. And it doesn't depend on you, really. You don't have to do anything. It's just, you know,

Starting point is 00:37:46 once saved, always saved. When you receive the grace of faith, you're justified by faith alone, and then you can be pretty much as bad as the next guy, but you just happen to be chosen. But I suppose the one thing that we have to say is, if we are saved, we can't say, well, it was my doing. And if we are damned, we can't say, well, it was my doing. And if we are damned, we can't say, well, it was God's doing. Exactly. That's the Catholic doctrine. That's a good practical point of examination conscience. When I am able to cooperate with Christ, I give the praise to the Holy Spirit because God has given me the grace to be faithful. If I sin, I don't look at God and say, oh, you didn't give me the grace necessary. This is your fault. No, I take responsibility because it's me who's turned away from the light. I turn my mind away from the light,

Starting point is 00:38:29 and I let my will submit to the seductions of whatever. And I loved what was not God more than what was God. And so then I need to go back and use that as opportunity to discover more deeply the mercy of God. But I don't need to waste time blaming God. And that's really the Catholic wisdom. You know, praise God for His grace, accept soberly the responsibility of the human being for human sin. So, I imagine someone's out there right now and they're thinking, okay, God is eternal, right? He doesn't experience time like we do, like progressively. He sees it all at once. And so, let's just suppose I am going to be damned. Then it follows that God created me knowing I would be damned. Why on earth would he do that? And why can't I blame God for that?

Starting point is 00:39:11 Yeah, okay. So this is another huge problem. And you're right. It's totally connected, which is the problem of divine knowledge or divine eternal knowledge and how God's eternal knowledge, which encompasses, as it were, time, because God knows all the effects of his creation. How does that not, you know, basically override free will or determine free will in such a way that effectively we're

Starting point is 00:39:31 just, you know, puppets or cogs in a machine and God is just making everything happen through determination? Well, there's a lot of different sides to this problem. I mean, one first thing to say is here we do really have to accept that we have limited knowledge. I mean, we know God exists. We know he's not, traditionally, I would say, the church teaches God is not in time. He's not himself subject to kind of temporal development. God is eternal, and he does cause everything to be, but he doesn't cause evil. So what Aquinas says is God does not will moral evil from all eternity. He never wills it. He doesn't will it directly or indirectly. He's not playing a game with us where he's trying to get something out of our evil.

Starting point is 00:40:10 He just tolerates it or permits it. But he does permit it from all eternity in the sense that, and this is hard to say exactly what this is, but we know it's true from the Bible and from common sense. Like our sins don't surprise God. God is not learning from us, oh, gosh, you committed a sin. I don't know what sin is. I don't know what sin is. I don't know what that is. I'll have to, like, study that more. You know, God knows from all eternity that Judas is going to betray Christ. But God doesn't ever, does not in any way cause Judas to betray Christ.

Starting point is 00:40:37 And that's really, it goes with this parallelism I've been talking about, about, like, you know, God giving us the grace but God not being responsible for sin. You know, God knows from all eternity that Judas will betray betray the Lord but he in no way causes him to and even you see Christ saying to him you know even up to the last moment kind of inviting him to repent or be truthful and not to betray him so there's a way in which God can invite us to salvation in Christ and yet know from all eternity that we're going to refuse him, and he's only permitting it from all eternity. Now, this is where Thomism is quite different than Calvinism because Thomists talk about the eternal permissive will of God, that God has created us in such a way that he gives us what Aquinas calls a contingent human freedom. Like we're really free. We're not moved by necessity. Aquinas says if anybody says the human free will is moved by necessity,

Starting point is 00:41:29 like a machine or even like an animal or a vegetable, a vegetative reality like a tree, that is heresy. He uses the word heresy. He says the human will is not moved by necessity by God or by anybody else. The human will is a contingent reality. He means by that we're like really spontaneously free, deciding, choosing kinds of beings. And like human beings are really radically free, but they're sustained in being by God, the creator. So God sustains us in existence as

Starting point is 00:41:56 free creatures. So you might say God gives us our contingent freedom because he creates us and sustains us in being at each instant as the kind of free contingent thing we are. Okay, so then he knows from all eternity he's going to permit us sometimes to turn away from him, but he's not causing that to happen. That's kind of the beginnings of the answer. And then you get into things, yeah, but okay, doesn't he, because of the predestined, he chooses some, and then others he reprobates, so is he kind of making them and you know quince just kind of follows the logic i've been laying out uh and he says well you know

Starting point is 00:42:31 the predestined god does take the first initiative from all eternity he predestines the saved from all eternity true there's a predilection for them but the reprobate he he he intends to give them the grace of salvation the grace is sufficient for them to sell to be saved from all eternity and they really you know are not there's no uh necessity that they refuse those but from all eternity also mysteriously permits them to turn away and he respects their freedom when they do so we don't really understand what it's like to see this from god's point of view because we're in. But we know that God is innocent of human beings turning away from Him, and that He is the first source of their salvation when they receive grace and are saved.

Starting point is 00:43:15 Yeah, beautifully put. How does this, how shall we've talked a little bit about this, but how should this affect our spiritual lives, knowing these sorts of things? What would you say to those right now who are struggling with scrupulosity, say? Okay, well, so let me say a general thing and then think about scruples. So the general thing is the practical intellect works in like doing things in time. It's different than speculative intellect where you kind of try to understand the big picture, the mystery of the theoretical truths. What we've been talking about here is theoretical truths.

Starting point is 00:43:48 When I'm in the practical order of my spiritual life, I need to figure out how can I concretely touch the mercy of God regularly in my day-to-day life. And so like if I'm presuming that God loves me, which is right, and that he's going to – I know he's going to offer me the grace of salvation. How can I have contact with that? Well, you know, the no-brainers are like, you know, prayer to Christ, going to the sacraments, especially confession and communion, trying to live the moral teaching of the church with hope that you can make progress. And when you fall, with hope in the mercy of God. And when you fall with hope in the mercy of God, praying to God's divine mercy, having a devotion to the mercy of God, and trying to be merciful in one's own life, like living in hope in the mercy of God. That's a kind of school of spirituality.

Starting point is 00:44:41 And I tell people sometimes they need to make seven short acts of hope a day, like every two hours or every four hours. What does that look like? Every two hours or every four hours. What does that look like? Well, it's like you get to your, you finish your commute, you get to your desk at the office, and you sit down in your chair and there's a cubicle. You don't have to get on your knees in front of everybody. You just, for a moment, you just say for 30 seconds, Lord Jesus Christ, I hope in you as my Savior. I want to devote my day of work to you. I believe in your providence.

Starting point is 00:45:01 I trust in you. I trust in your mercy. I trust in you to forgive my sins. I'm going to try to forgive other people's sins. I want to live in your mercy. And I want to hope in you and hope that everything that happens to me and everything I do can be a means that can conduct me toward sanctification and salvation. I'm going to use everything you give me today to try to be conformed to the mystery of the cross and the resurrection. I hope in you. Hope is the fighter's, you know, hope is the fighter's virtue. It's the boxer's, it's the spiritual boxer's virtue.

Starting point is 00:45:29 You get punched by the devil, you punch back with hope. And the way you do that is not to talk to him, but to talk to Christ. Glory. I hope in you. And, you know, it's the perseverant fighter's virtue. You have to develop that, like, boxing kind of stance of hope all through the day. That is excellent. I imagine this is one of the theological virtues we perhaps focus on intentionally the least. That's what I was going to say next. Nobody talks about this theological

Starting point is 00:45:54 virtue. They talk about faith and charity, but actually hope is the fighter's virtue that gets you through the fog of war, as it were, in day-to-day life. And there is fog, and you do breathe in the poisonous gas, and there are blows. You're taking blows, but you go back, and you fight with hope, and it's how you grow in the spiritual life. And because it's an undernourished virtue, people don't know that's one of the things they really need. Now, as for scruples, I say as a Catholic priest know, Catholic priests all see lots of people struggle with scruples. Scruples are actually a lack of hope, because the scrupulous person is, they often have a sensitive conscience, and they're a good Catholic, but they want to, in a certain way, control the conditions of salvation in such a way that they never have to live by diving out into out into the the safety net of god's mercy they

Starting point is 00:46:46 want to like basically go to confession and not commit another serious sin and live in certitude that they're not in danger of damnation and then they commit like a venial sin typically a venial sin and like well it could be a mortal sin so now i'm not certain so now i've lost my stability so now i'm going to go back to confession and i'm going to make my confession again so I can have, like, you know, certitude. And then they make me go into confession every day because, you know, at least once a day they have, like, some, I don't know what, you know, some little thing happens, and they think they may have, you know, committed a moral catastrophe even though it was a venial sin. Well, the thing that's going on there is they've lost their certitude, and it's bothering them. and it's bothering them. And the answer, the practical answer is to make acts of hope and not worry about whether, you know,

Starting point is 00:47:28 not to get overly scrupulous about whether that venial sin became a mortal sin, but just have to radically trust in the mercy of Christ and live with the kind of vulnerability that He is your Savior and you can't save yourself by going to confession every day. Oh my gosh. I love how you put that, the radical vulnerability. I can't help but think of a marital relationship, right? In which I love my wife. I seek to do good by her. I apologize when I mess up. You know, sometimes you wonder, did I say something? Did I just offend her? You're not really sure, but you're not trying to control the relationship. You know, I need you, my wife,

Starting point is 00:48:04 to tell me every hour that I'm in great standing with you. You know, there's this vulnerability there. That's a great analogy. That's perfect. I mean, the thing is that basically the scrupulous person stops treating Christ as a person and starts treating the sacraments as a kind of rule book and as a kind of machinery. So, I'm going to like make sure I get stamped regularly or I play by the rules and then God's going to have to do good by me. But there's actually a lack of deep trust in God as a kind of machinery. So I'm going to make sure I get stamped regularly or I play by the rules, and then God's going to have to do good by me. But there's actually a lack of deep trust in God as a person, because you're so scared of God that you're basically kind of just trying to make sure you play by his rulebook and you resent it when it doesn't work out. And I think often those cases, Christ intentionally withdraws the graces of more perfect moral virtue in people. So they have to

Starting point is 00:48:43 kind of live in hope. And they sort of see, ah, I can't do it all. people so they have to kind of live in hope and you know they sort of see i can't do it all and then they have to go back to confession uh with a kind of deeper um vision that they're actually talking to christ he's their judge he's going to judge them and they can't control him and he may you know in the end abandon them but it's actually more profound to begin to trust unconditionally in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in the mercy of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That's the core, you know, insight. And there, the Society of Jesus, against the Jansenists, preached this.

Starting point is 00:49:16 You know, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the way forward in confidence and love. My understanding is this revelation of Christ of the Sacred Heart, I understand it to be a response to Jansenism, because I've read that Christ was sometimes depicted on the crucifix with his arms not outstretched, but kind of placed vertically as if he was holding a small amount of people, the elect, not wide open. And that's part of the reason. That's the Jansen's cross, because they believe he died only for the elect. And that's why the Jesuit church program in France in the 18th century is to make, you know, you go to Paris today,

Starting point is 00:49:47 you see all the, you know, anti-Genesis crucifixes, Christ with the arms wide open. And, you know, Margaret Mary received those visions at the height of that controversy, and it was, you know, understood that this was precisely to teach people that Christ loves you. He is the one that can be trusted. I mean, it's our hearts that can't be trusted. He's trusted. So we need to like, you know, I sometimes say scrupulous people say, what you need to do is you need to fall over the cliff into the fire. You need to just let yourself fall over the cliff into the fire of the eternal love of the heart of Christ and burn in the fire of the love of Christ. You know, because there the fire of the love of Christ, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:25 because there's like a feeling they can't, you know, like they're trying to control and they won't let go. I'm like, no, no, no, let go, but let go into the trust in the mercy of the sacred heart. Anyway, that's the kind of image. That is so beautiful. That's blessed me tremendously. So, I appreciate you saying that because, yeah, we live in a, this isn't a sitcom we're involved in. This isn't even necessarily a drama. It's more than that. It's a war live in a, this isn't a sitcom we're involved in. This isn't even necessarily a drama. It's more than that. It's a war movie, in a sense. You know, we're all at battle, and we are all tempted to lose hope. And so, how important, I love that. Seven times a day, you suggest to people, make some sort of act of hope. Yeah, I think so. 30 seconds, seven times

Starting point is 00:51:02 a day, and then you start to build up the habit. That's a Thomist principle, right? If you do it regularly, you'll start to build up the habit. And then when you're like feeling whatever, I mean, depressed or discouraged or despairing or whatever it is, or just like maybe lacking in zeal, you just, you hope in Jesus. You make an act of hope and you start kind of getting back into the fight. You know, I tend to be more of an emotional person than my wife. My wife is much more analytical than me. And sometimes I'll be seeing something in an emotive sort of way and she'll remind me, she'll say, that's not actually how he meant it. Or you shouldn't take that personally.

Starting point is 00:51:39 You know, when the kids do that, they're not saying such and such. And I find I have to distrust my heart and put my trust in her because I trust that she sees things more clearly than I do in that moment. And similarly, we could say, even in those times where I believe myself to be wretched and damned, that God doesn't love me, that I can't trust him, we could do something similar and say, well, I know that you're God and I'm not. And so you see things clearly in a way that I don't. And so I trust in you, Lord. And I know that you want my good and I trust in that and I praise you. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff.

Starting point is 00:52:16 So practical. I really appreciate it, Father. Thank you so much for being on the show. And thanks for all your good work. I'm beginning to hear more and more about you. And then maybe as we wrap up here, tell us a bit about the Thomistic Institute. The Thomistic Institute is a project of the Dominican order based out of Washington, D.C. at the Dominican House of Studies. And what we do is we put on secular campuses, we put on Catholic academic events, philosophy and theology and the Catholic tradition at the most secular campuses in the country. We have about 28 campuses in the United States. We've also just started in London, in Oxford, and in Dublin. And what we seek to do is bring the kind of depths of the Catholic intellectual tradition to contemporary young people who are often actually very interested in theology, but they have no access to it at their universities. We have very active

Starting point is 00:53:05 chapters at Harvard, Yale, MIT, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Duke, UVA, UCLA, Berkeley, and a whole bunch of other places. So like last weekend, we had a conference on Christianity and liberalism. Are they compatible? At Harvard Law School, we had about 200 people there. It was a tremendous event. We had a lot of debate. And what I saw were the future of young Christian intellectuals in this country, both Catholic and Protestant, who were there, who were using Aquinas as a resource to think about the common good, human rights, how Christians can argue from a Christian point of view about our identity in a democracy, about human dignity, and that kind of thing. We're trying to give them kind of the tools to be good Christian intellectuals in our contemporary world.

Starting point is 00:53:55 Do you think, you say you do these at secular colleges, do you think that there's a new interest in spiritual things and the God question, in the sense that perhaps the new atheism has burnt itself out a little bit, and people are a little kind of tired of it. And maybe those who had claimed to be atheists after reading one of the Four Horsemen have decided it's not as clear cut as that after all, and maybe willing to take another look. Oh yeah, there's definitely, I mean, I would say it's a minority, but it's a substantial minority of people who feel like the kind of common secular line they're getting from, you know, let's just call it secular liberalism, isn't sufficient. It's too ideological, it's too narrow, it's not open-minded enough, and it's not answering

Starting point is 00:54:33 some of the deep questions. And there's interest and curiosity in religion, including among people who are, you know, previously completely unchurched. So there is a more, I think in the millennial generation, there is, they're less religious statistically, but they're actually, they presuppose, they don't presuppose that they know what Christianity is nearly as much as older generations. And so, there's actually a kind of interesting curiosity. The other thing is that at this point in the secular universities, there are very few openly Christian professors. And as a result of that, there's really little, very little academic knowledge of Christianity. But these kids know that they should approach a subject like this intellectually.

Starting point is 00:55:17 So if you really make theology proper available to them, they take an interest in it. I mean, some of them really definitely do. So I'm optimistic about that. available to them, they take an interest in it. I mean, some of them really definitely do. So, I'm optimistic about that. I wouldn't say it's like the majority movement in our like secular campuses, but it's an important minority of people interested in theology. I also think people are really interested when we talk about St. Thomas, because I think, by and large, the Protestants did a better job than Catholics, generally speaking, at responding to the new atheism, whenever they responded to it well, but they aren't necessarily carrying the

Starting point is 00:55:49 nuance of Thomistic thought into those discussions either. And so, I've seen this new interest in the idea of divine simplicity, for example, and arguments for God's existence that aren't based on the finitude of the universe and things that maybe something like William and Craig would debate. They find something new in Thomas and they're willing to take another look at it. Well, I think Aquinas is a much better way to go to argue against the new atheists and the old atheists, the grand old atheists like Hume and Nietzsche and Freud. You know, the other thing I've noticed on campus is the talks we have that get the most kind of turnout, or at least it's galvanized a lot of interest are on science and religion.

Starting point is 00:56:26 So you have the story that's told that modern science does away with religion. And I think a lot of people think that that may not be right at all. So when we bring in speakers to talk about the compatibility of the modern natural sciences with Catholic Christianity, we get a good turnout and people are interested. We get people who are not religious who come to that to see if they've gotten Christianity right on these issues. So I think that's where a lot of the energy is because the new atheists invested a lot of energy in arguing that science was on their side. And actually it's not at all obvious. In fact, I think it's not at all the case but if you can have someone in a sophisticated way from a tomas point of view for example show that it does a significant amount of work for you in turning the tide

Starting point is 00:57:11 it's like the achilles heel of the new scientists if you show that actually to be a scientific realist you kind of need to be a metaphysical realist and to be a metaphysical realist you need to wonder about where being comes from and that opens you up to the problem of you know monotheism and the creator and intelligibility in nature. So there's a lot of interesting pathways there for us. Excellent. Hey, thanks again for your time, Father Thomas. It's great to have you with us.

Starting point is 00:57:35 All right, Matt. Thanks so much. Great to be here today. All right. That was great. Thanks so much for sticking around to the end of the episode. I hope you learned a lot. As I said, I got a special treat for you if you stuck around to the end of the episode,

Starting point is 00:57:48 but you did, so well done. I mentioned that Father Thomas Joseph White was one of the co-founders of the Bluegrass group, Hillbilly Thomists. Well, here's a song just for you that they said I could play you called Poor Wayfaring Stranger. So if you like this, if you like me and you like bluegrass, be sure to check them out. Again, Hillbilly Thomas. I'll throw up a link in the show notes so you can check them out. So instead of listening to my sister play music, because by the way, I've got a million and one people will say to me, who's that music? Like that music that's at the beginning and the end

Starting point is 00:58:24 of your shows that I really like it. Where do I find it? That's my sister, Emma Fradd. You need to check out her band, by the way, Heaps Good Friends. They're doing really great things in Australia. Yeah, getting a lot of success there, Heaps Good Friends. But anyway, too many band recommendations all at once. Here is Poor Wayfaring Stranger by the Hillbilly Thomists. And if I'm not mistaken, Father Thomas Joseph White is the banjo player. So get on your rocking chair, get a whiskey and enjoy. Chat with you next week.

Starting point is 00:58:52 I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger Traveling through this world below There's no sickness, no toil or danger In that bright land to which I go I'm going there to see my father and all my

Starting point is 00:59:32 loved ones who've gone on I'm just going over Jordan I'm just going over home I know dark clouds

Starting point is 01:00:01 Will gather around me I know my way is hard and steep But beauteous fields arise before me Where God's redeemed

Starting point is 01:00:23 their vigils keep. I'm going there to see my mother. She said she'd meet me when I come. I'm just going over Jordan I'm just going over home අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger Traveling through this world below Thank you. land to which I go I'm going there to see my father

Starting point is 01:02:32 and all my loved ones who've gone home I'm just going over Jordan. I'm just going over home. Thank you.

Pints With Aquinas - 101: What is predestination? With Fr. Thomas Joseph White

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