Pints With Aquinas - 122: Aquinas' 4th proof for God's existence, with Karlo Broussard

Episode Date: September 4, 2018

Today I sit down with the one and only Karlo Broussard to discuss Aquinas' argument for God's existence from degrees of being. You're gonna love it. Remember! We're doing a contest this week. Three of you will win Karlo's new book Prepare The Way. To enter just link to this episode on Twitter and tell folks to take a listen. Be sure to use the hashtag, #PintsWithAquinas so we can see it. Get Karlo's new book here: https://shop.catholic.com/prepare-the-way-overcoming-obstacles-to-god-the-gospel-and-the-church/ SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

What's up? How's it going? I'm way too happy. I'm sorry if it's a turn off. As you know by now, I am back on the internet, baby, on the interwebs. And I wanted to say two things before we get into today's show on the fourth way. Number one, I am recording a seven-part video series for my patrons called Vodka with Dostoevsky, which is a crap name, let's be honest. But hey, vodka, Russia, you know, I just read The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment. I've read that before, but I'm reading it again. And many of you have been interested in this stuff. And so I want to share with you a lot about my time away from the internet. And then I just kind of want to help with you a lot about my time away from the internet. And then we want to, I just kind of want to help you understand, you know, a bit of the brothers Karamazov and

Dostoevsky in general. I'm not an expert in Dostoevsky, but you know, I've read a heck of a lot of him. And so, and I also just want to draw excerpts from his work and just share it with you because it's so beautiful. So again, this will be coming up over the next seven weeks for my patrons. Beautiful. So again, this will be coming up over the next seven weeks for my patrons. So please, if you're a patron, look out for that, would you? Because I don't want to be doing these videos. I'm literally drinking. Anyway, I'll tell you that another day. Okay. Second thing I want to tell you, are you ready for this? Do you remember a couple of weeks ago? No, maybe a month ago, two months ago. Do you remember how I told you to tweet at Dave Rubin? Do you want an update? Okay. We just got this from Dave Rubin's assistant. She said,

I received this email from person's name and want to follow up with you. Dave is still officially off the grid, but I was able to speak with him yesterday about your requests. We are currently booked up with the Rubin Report, but Matt Fradd is on our radar, and we will keep our eyes open for an opportunity when we might be able to make this work. We appreciate your enthusiasm and support. So that's the latest. So that sounds promising, although I have to say, as far as me getting on on the reuben report it's not the best that for the last you know three episodes i've been talking about the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood when dave is clearly a homosexual dude but dave reuben is also a super open-minded dude so who knows but i just

want to let you know about that if you want to tweet at him again to remind him to have Matt Fradd on his show, feel free to do that because it looks like we're getting close. All right. Today's episode is fantastic. So get ready. Okay, here we go. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name's 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 going to ask Thomas to explain his fourth proof for the existence of God, the argument for God's existence from degrees of being, and joined around the bar table with us is my good mate and fellow Catholic apologist, Carlo Broussard. Here we go. All right, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor

to discuss theology and philosophy. This was a fantastic episode. I just got done doing it with Carlo, who's an awesome dude, by the way. Seriously, like not only is he massively intelligent, he's one of the most joyful and humble men that I've ever had the joy of meeting. Seriously. He's got a new book out called Prepare the Way with Catholic Answers Press. We're going to be talking about that a little bit towards the end of today's episode. So stick around for that. But I want to let you know that we're going to be giving away three copies of this book for free. Doesn't

matter where you are, doesn't matter where you live, we will post a copy to your door. And again, there's going to be three winners in total. How do you get in the raffle to win, you might ask? Well, here's how. All you have to do is share this episode on your social media on twitter specifically so just take the url from pints with aquinas.com and or libsyn doesn't matter where just to promote this this this episode itunes i don't care okay and post it to your twitter account tell some people to listen to it. And the way we'll know that you've done it is I want you to use the hashtag Pints with Aquinas. Okay. We're going to go through, we're going to select three of you and those three winners will get a free

book. And if you didn't win, you still got to tell people about this amazing podcast. So, hey, that's a good thing too. All right. Here's the show. Enjoy. Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me, brother. How come we've done like a hundred and something episodes and you haven't been on yet? I have no idea, brother. That's a question that only you can answer, my friend. I'm glad you're finally on because I feel like you were really into Thomas Aquinas before, well, definitely before I was and definitely before other Catholic apologists were. So, while Catholic apologists were like parroting William Lane Craig, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Nothing wrong with that. He's amazing. Nothing wrong with that. You were digging deep into Aquinas and his five ways. Well, I was. I was doing what I could. I must say, Matt, that I am a bit of an amateur when it comes to Aquinas. I've only been studying him for a few years now. When I started working with Father Robert Spitzer and the Magis Center is when I started getting into Aquinas in a more in-depth way through the writings of Dr. Ed Fazer. So he was very instrumental in getting me to begin reading Aquinas more and more and trying to study his thought and his philosophy. And so that's when the flame really lit,

when I started working with Father Spitzer, introduced to Aquinas, but also primarily through the writings of Dr. Fazer. So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I love studying Aquinas, and in particular, I love studying his natural theology, his philosophical theology. It's a lot of fun. And so, hopefully, we can geek out a little bit in this episode. I'd say I really appreciate your humility. I don't think there's anyone who knows what they're talking about who says they're an expert in Aquinas. That would just be an imprudent thing to say, you know? Amen to that, brother.

Yeah, yeah. He's like Mount Everest. It's like, how do I come at him? And like, it's... Oh, man. I'll tell you what, in my research, in my research on the five ways, one thing that I concluded and realized is that, man, I'll tell you what, in my research and my research on the five ways, one thing that I concluded and realized is that, man, it's extremely difficult to come to a definitive conclusion on exactly what he's saying. There's so many various ways that you can approach his text. coaches' text, you know, and his five ways in particular, you know, you may come at it with

one angle, come at it at another angle, and even if it's not exactly what he's saying, you still have alternative metaphysical demonstrations for God's existence. You know, so you have a plethora of ways to demonstrate God's existence. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to chat with you about the fourth way today. As our listeners know, these are summaries that Aquinas talks about elsewhere, and these weren't necessarily original to Aquinas either, were they? different philosophers, of course, primarily from Aristotle. Many of the aspects of the five ways he's drawn from Aristotle, some from others as well. Avicenna, as you know, Matt, and other philosophers that preceded him. So, they're not totally original. There are some original aspects to it, I think, when you analyze the five ways and how he's making conclusions, putting things together, but the pieces that he's using, he's drawing from philosophers that preceded him.

Now, I asked you to come on here so we could discuss the fourth way. Just like, first of all, what do you think of the fourth way? As far as like, would this be your go-to one? Is this one of your favorite, one of your least favorite? Do you think it has significant problems? Do you like it? Well, here's the thing, Matt. When I think of the fourth way and simply follow the principles embedded in the fourth way and reason through them, it's one of my favorites because it brings out certain metaphysical principles that I think can be reduced to first principles of metaphysics, which provides a metaphysical demonstration. And I think all the five ways can do that. But the fourth way is unique and very interesting. Now, I will admit, Matt, that I find it a bit difficult to try to match up what I have going on or what I think is going on in my mind exactly with his text. So there's various different options on how to take them. So, for example, if you divide the argument up into two parts, you know, the more and the less presupposes the maximum.

I don't mean to catch off, but would you mind if I just quickly read it for our listeners who might not be aware of what we're doing? Yes, please do. And then, yeah, we can take off from there. Okay, sounds good. He says, the fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings, there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But more and less are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing

is said to be hotter, according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest, so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest, and consequently something which is uttermost being, for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, the most being. For those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it's written in the metaphysics. Now, the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus, as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore, there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection, and this we call God. There you go. Now, as you mentioned, it's definitely a summary. So, what's difficult about all of the five ways, but the fourth way in particular is certain metaphysical principles that

are operating in the background. So, I think the first thing to say, Matt, is to try and articulate what in the world is he starting off with, right? What is his datum that he's trying to explain, Matt, is to try and articulate what in the world is he starting off with, right? What is his datum that he's trying to explain? So, as you read, you'll notice Aquinas is starting off with, we make comparative judgments about things being more or less good, true, and noble, right? And as, you know, anybody who studies the fourth way will come to find out what Aquinas is dealing with is what we call in philosophy the transcendentals, right? Now, that's a, you know, a sort of a highfalutin philosophical term alert, right? So, what are the transcendentals? And that basically refers to those attributes of being in as much as something is a being,

right? So, anything is in as much as something exists, it's going to be good in some way. It's going to be true in some way. We can speak of it as being noble. These are properties of being, right? Qua being, insofar as something is a being. So, for example, true. The truth and and philosophy we would distinguish between logical truth and ontological truth, but truth as a transcendental is being as known by an intellect. So, it's intrinsically related to being. So, in as much as something exists, Matt, right? It has being, it has actuality. It's intelligible in some way. There's something there in the outside world that's real that I can come to know given the fact that I'm an

intellectual being, right? I have an intellect. I can know what is there. So, Matt, you are talking to me in this podcast, right? Or actually right now you're listening to me. And so, when I make the judgment, you are listening to me, that is a true judgment. My intellectual judgment corresponds to what is, what is really real, what is actual, right? And so, in as much as something is actual or being, there's intelligibility there. There's something to be known by the intellect. And this is what philosophers mean when they say that something, in as much as it is a being or has being, it is true because there's intelligibility to be known by the intellect. So, some things... Let's just pause there for a moment because some things are higher up on the chain of being. So, a man is higher than plant. So, do you want to say

that plant has less being than man? Is that what you're getting to? Yes. I do want to say that. Because there's nothing that has no being, because obviously something has no being, it's nothing. So, when you say something has to be intelligible, I guess there's more to know. Something can be more intelligible if it has more existence. Because, you know, the gardener, Matt, has more perfections, more things to be known about him, given his nature, than the plant that he's gardening with or in the flower bed, right? So, in philosophy, we would speak of that as a virtual or transcendental quantity.

So, we're not talking about being like, you know, physical quantity, like I have more weight than somebody else or more height than somebody else. But there is a transcendental quantity that can be spoken of when we're talking in the order of being. Precisely because the flower, it is a being, it's distinct from nothing, but given its nature, it has certain operations, certain activities, certain powers, right? But the gardener, in as much as he is a being distinct from nothing, given his nature as a human being, he has more powers, more activities, higher activities, such as rationality and volition, et cetera. Just as the flower has more power and activities than the stone beside it, say. Amen to that. So, in as much as the gardener has more or higher powers, more and higher powers,

it is more, the gardener is more perfect. There's more actuality. There's more being there. And so, consequently, there's more stuff to know about the gardener than the flower, thanks be to God, right? Like my wife is tilling the flower bed. There's more to be known about my wife than there is the flower. So, this is what Aquinas is getting at when he says there are some things more or less true. Now, the same line of reasoning, although a bit different, applies to the good. There are some things more or less good. So, let's look at my wife once again, the gardener, and is there a female version of the gardener? Gardeneress.

of the gardener? So, let's take my wife and the flower again. We make this comparative judgment just intuitively. We do this. We say, yeah, my wife is better than the flower. I just want to pause here a moment because obviously, like, we live in a society where people praise equality and condemn inequality. And so, this idea that some things can be better than other things might be a difficult pill to swallow. But it's important to realize that even those people who say, no, everything's equal, will say that, you know, human beings who are kind and tolerant are better than those who are close-minded and oppressive. And so, amen. And that's a more, that's a comparative judgment within a given kind of thing. So, you got one human compared to another human and judging those two humans insofar as they're being moral agents. So, one's a better moral agent than the other,

right? But not only do we make comparative judgments with regard to the same kinds of things concerning a good person versus a not so good person or the good flower versus the not so good flower. And that's actually the case in our flower bit. One flower is like dying and the other flower is flourishing, right? But we also make comparative judgments with regard to good and bad or better or worse, cross kinds, right? Cross categories. So, like, my wife is better than the flower. She is more good, to sort of use the technical jargon there, there is more goodness to my wife than the flower. Why? Because there is more being, right? My wife is more noble than the flower because she's higher up in the hierarchy of being. Right. More interior modes of agency. Amen. Less dependency. That's right. So, the activities are more imminent within the being itself, less dependent upon things outside of itself. The flower has no interior activity

going on. It's entirely dependent upon external things. Or as my wife, she's dependent upon some external things, but not entirely like the flower. So, she has imminent activities such as intellect and will, and these powers are what mark her ranking higher up in the hierarchy of being. So, this is what Aquinas means when he says there are some things more or less good. And you know, Matt, I wrote an article quite some time ago whenever the incident with Harambe came out with the silverback gorilla. You know, I remember coming across a particular atheist. I can't remember his name. His name is kind of difficult to pronounce, but he was the editor of Friendly Atheist. And his name is slipping my mind right now.

Yeah. And he acknowledged, you know, we're sad that we had to, you know, take the life of Harambe and put him down, but he was glad. He admitted of being glad that we saved the boy's life, the little boy who fell into the enclosure. Right. Hemant Mehta. That's his name. There you go. Hemant Mehta. There you go. Okay. So, he was...

So, he recognized that the boy's life was better than the silverback gorilla, right? Did he say as much? Yeah. In the blog, he... Well, he didn't say it in as much, but he recognized that it was... Let's see. I can't find the quote right now. But he was recognizing that the boy's life was, it was better that we save the boy's life than save the silverback gorilla's life. Now, I would assume implied within that judgment, he recognizes that the boy's life has more value than the silverback gorilla's life. So, even in that case, we intuitively recognize that some things are more good, to use the technical jargon then, to put it in proper English, better than other things, right? And this is what Aquinas is getting at.

So, the good, the bottom line here is talking about the good as a transcendental is that it's being, right? You have, we're talking, it's all reduced back to being. We're talking about being as desired and that's what the good is philosophically speaking. So, the truth is being as known by an intellect and the good is being as desired by a rational being with will, right? Of being able to desire being. So, that being could be considered as there's more being to be desired by the thing itself in regard to its desiring its own self-perfection. Or there's more being to be desired by another rational creature, such as me. I mean, there's more being to my wife to be desired by me than

there is in the flower. Thus, my wife is more good or better than, more desirable than the flower or the plant. Excellent. Yep. So, that's the datum that we're trying to explain. And what Aquinas wants to say, and as we'll get through it here in this session here, what Aquinas wants to say is he wants to try and articulate an ultimate explanation for why we make these judgments of more or less good, things being more or less true, more or less in being, and reason from that starting point. And he wants to argue that that datum, that gradation of being, and consequently goodness and truth, necessarily, metaphysically speaking, not probabilistically, but metaphysically necessitates a being that is simply subsistent being itself, subsistent goodness itself, subsistent truth itself. In other words,

God. And of course, that requires a lot of legwork, which hopefully we'll get to some of that here. a sock that smells the most, or, you know, why do I have to take in a most smelly thing, a most hot thing? Or like, for example, I can agree that you or I are taller than something else without having to concede that there exists an infinitely tall man. Yeah, and you know, this is some, I mean, I can understand the objection, but the objection indicates various flawed understandings of what Aquinas is getting at here. So, for example, Matt, you know, you bring up the example of the tall, you know, you're taller than I am, and that's a fact because I'm a short dude, and you are taller than I am.

And as you mentioned, it would seem that that would necessarily presuppose an infinitely tall man. Well, if you make that analogy, if you make that parallel, that indicates you're misunderstanding what Aquinas is getting at with, first of all, you can't have an actually infinite tall person because what you're saying is that you're ascribing actual infinity to quantity, and that's a metaphysical impossibility, as Aquinas would argue. You can't have something pertaining to quantity and matter that is that then which there is nothing greater. So, when we're talking about height, which has to do with quantity, which has to do with matter, it is impossible to even have an infinity of height. But isn't Aquinas using a qualitative way and talking about hot, what's hotter than something

else? That's right. But I would argue that when Aquinas is using... Now, first of all, he, you know, of ascribing the hottest within fire. Right. That, you know, he's mistaken in that. I like this, by the way. I just want a little side note there. It's not like we have to agree with all of his little analogies. That's right.

Because some of the things that he's using from his empirical observation, given contemporary science, we know are flawed. Right. I can imagine that'd be the first thing someone would bring up. You lay the fourth way out and like, this guy's a bloody dunderhead. He thinks that fire is the hottest, you know. So, it's important that we don't have to get, we can concede. Okay, granted, like this illustration that he uses isn't great, but the principle behind it, yeah. Yeah. And so, that would be the first way I would respond to that analogy. And with regard to smelliness, even, the smelliness would be the same thing. And in the sense that odor is one of the, you know, what we would smell would be one,

would fit within one of the nine categories of accidents, of Aristotle's accidents, right? So, you got substance, that's one category, then the nine categories of accidents. And so, smelliness is intrinsically involved within, you know, the idea of odor that's necessarily restricted to matter. You can't get beyond the boundaries of matter with regard to smell. So consequently, you could never arrive at some sort of subsistent smelliness itself as Dawkins seems to want to conclude. So that indicates that you're indicates that the objection doesn't even

get off on the right foot. So, there's a distinction here that needs to be like between substantial being and accidental being? Is that kind of what you're saying? Like, it doesn't work with accidental being? That's right, because the datum of the fourth way, Matt, is the transcendentals, which means they are being, and then of course its attributes of goodness and truth, are not restricted to any category of being, such as the nine categories of accidents. In the formal concepts of being, goodness, and true, there is nothing of imperfection within the concepts concerning their formality. So, they're not restricted in any way to any of the accidental categories of being. In fact, they transcend all categories of being and all individuals. You see,

that's why they're called the transcendental. So, in as much as anything, whether a substance or an accidents has being, well, then there's being, there's goodness, there's truth. And so, precisely because of this unique characteristic of being and its attributes of goodness and truth transcending all categories of being and all individuals, then you actually have the possibility, at least, the possibility of there existing a reality that is subsistent being, subsistent goodness, subsistent truth itself, because it would be transcending all the accidental categories, all individuals. So, because of its transcendental character, there's at least the possibility of having an infinite maximum of being truth and goodness.

Whereas the examples of smelliness and height, that's simply not possible because those qualities, that quantity of height and the quality of odor necessarily is restricted to those accidental categories of being, and thus you can't transcend, you can't get beyond. Now, concerning Aquinas' principle of more or less sort of resembling a maximum or approximating a maximum, this would be another way in which I would begin to respond to that objection is that I don't know if Thomas at that point in the argument is necessarily arguing that our comparative judgments of more or less for anything necessarily presupposes an absolute infinite maximum like he would be thinking for the transcendentals, right? I think what he's getting at is he's just using this principle of approaching a relative maximum.

So, if we take height, right? maximum. So, if we take height, right? So, you are taller than I am, and it doesn't necessarily presuppose infinite height. It just presupposes that I am less tall than you approaching this relative maximum. Whether there is a person who is maximum in height that we don't know of anybody else, right? We don't know of what that maximum height is of any human being that's the tallest in the world, right? Or maybe we do. But the judgment of height is simply as we approach a relative maximum. And as I said earlier, you can't have a person that which there is nothing greater concerning height because in actual infinity and height are mutually exclusive from one another. So, I think what Aquinas is getting at when he's talking about more or less approaching a maximum,

and I think Fazer's right on here in his work, Aquinas, when Dr. Fazer deals with the fourth way. I think what Aquinas wants us to get our intellect, sort of wants to get the juices flowing, right? And that is this. Consider the fact that we judge one triangle to be better than another triangle, right? triangle, right? So the triangle drawn on the stationery, on the paper, on a desk with, you know, a pencil and, you know, the tools that we need to draw straight lines. And then you draw a triangle on the back seat of the bus as the bus is bouncing up and down with the, you know, with a pen or something. The triangle that you draw on the seat, on the bus seat, is going to be less good than the triangle that you draw on the desk with a piece of paper and a pencil and the tools that you need. Why? Because the triangle that you draw on the stationary desk is going to approach triangularity better than, it's going to instantiate the universe or the nature of triangularity better than the triangle on the

bus seat. So, notice how whenever we judge these two triangles, one to be better than the other, we're judging it based upon the standard of what a triangle is. One approximates and approaches what a triangle is in its full sense better than another. So, just very, I guess, just to sum it up then, Aquinas is talking about being. And so, and these things like your wife and the flower and the rock by the flower are good in as much as they approach being itself? That's right. And that was my next step. So, when we compare two triangles, we're comparing them insofar as they are triangles. When I compare one plant to another plant, one better than the other,

I compare them insofar as they are plant. When I notice that the standard by which I am judging them or comparing them is being itself, right? And so, just as you compare a triangle insofar as what is fully a triangle or plants insofar as what it means fully to be a plant. When we're comparing beings insofar as they're beings, we're comparing them insofar as they are fully what it means to be a being, right? So, we go from more restricted to less restricted. Now, as the intellect makes this comparative judgment, right off the bat, we can see that it's at least reasonable that as you ascend the hierarchy of being of less good to more good, right? Plant to gardener, my wife, it's at least reasonable that there would be a being that's totally unrestricted. So,

the plant's more restricted than my wife, right? My wife is less restricted than the plant given her mode of being, her way of acting, her way of behaving, her way of being, right? So, it's at least reasonable that as we ascend the hierarchy of being, the intellect eventually comes to a reality that's absolutely unrestricted in being and not restricted in any way to this mode of being or that mode of being. To being a plant, to being a gorilla, or to being a human, but a reality that would be being itself, or its essence would be to be, subsistence being itself. Which is why Aquinas is so insistent on us not being able to know what God is, since we can't define God, right? That's right. We can only chop away this sort of via negativa, right, of chopping away

at these restrictions, right? Restricted in the plant sense, restricted mode of being in the animal sense, restricted mode of being in a body-soul composite, namely a rational animal sense, and restricted being in the sense of an angel whose essence and existence are not identical, but conjoined together, right? And then eventually arriving at this reality where we have a reality that is absolutely simple, where there is no distinction of essence and existence, but they're identical. And so, at this point in the argument where Aquinas is at, where he's saying, so there is something that is truest, noblest, best, and consequently uttermost being itself, right? And so, here's where the dilemma is. I'll be honest with you. I'm not quite sure exactly. I have two avenues that we could take

here and this might muddy the waters a little bit too much. But one avenue to take is there's a way by which we can arrive at uttermost being, metaphysically speaking, as demonstrable from the starting point of these gradations of being that we've been considering so far, right? And so, the question is, is Aquinas doing that at the end of the first part of the fourth way where he says, so there is a being, there is something that is truest, noblest, best, and consequently uttermost being? Or is Aquinas right there simply arriving at the conclusion of a maximum being in a dialectical way, like probabilistically, where the intellect just sort of leaves sense to it, and then demonstrates it metaphysically in the second

part where he says where the maximum of any genus is the cause of everything in the genus. Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you to help us understand. So, let's read it. The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus. Help us understand that, could you? Yeah, well, we have to back up a little bit. Okay, so, first of all, if we acknowledge that this probabilistic ascendancy to less restricted, less restricted, less restricted, wow, I get to, my intellect sort of sees intuitively that it's possible there's this reality that is totally unrestricted, right?

So it probably exists. But how do I know that such an uttermost being metaphysically exists? And I think this is where we have to come and we employ certain metaphysical principles. So, for example, Matt, and this is just a summary of it, which would require a little bit more explanation, but let's see how I can do here. In as much as we make these comparative judgments of my wife being more good than the flower, more true than the flower, more noble than the flower. I acknowledge that the flower is limited in its being, right? In as much as something can be predicated of something as more or less, I know that thing is limited in its being. Like the

flower, the flower doesn't exhaust the fullness of being because there's other beings that are higher than it, right? Harambe didn't exhaust the fullness of goodness. Why? Because there are beings that are higher in goodness, namely the boy's life that was saved. So, in as much as things can be graded in their being, I know that they're limited in their mode of being, existing in this way, not in some other way, right? Now, here's something interesting, Matt. Whenever we philosophically analyze beings that are limited in their mode of being, in philosophy, we say that they have their being per accidents. That is to say, their active being, which distinguishes them from nothing, is not essential. It's not identical to their nature, but it's extrinsic. So, any being that's

limited in its mode of being, that active being for that thing is distinct from its nature. Let's just pause there a moment because that. That's a very profound statement, and I want to just run at it at a different angle, if you could, for those who've just missed that, but are feeling like they're hanging on by their fingernails. Okay. Yep. All right, so being that is limited, you're saying, must participate. That's right.

Its essence must be different from its existence. Why is that the case? And here's the reason why. Many philosophers, there's a certain principle within Thomistic philosophy that states that, okay, and its nature was to be, well, then there would be no reason why its being is limited. For if it were to have it by nature, it would have it unlimited. Like, for example, no sense can be made in saying that a triangle has three straight sides, more or less, like triangularity itself. The essence of a triangle is to have three straight sides, not more or less. If it's less than three straight sides,

it's not a triangle, right? So something that whenever we're talking about the essence of something, you, a thing can't have that, which it has by its nature, more or less, it either has it or doesn't. So for example, you, Matt, you're a rational being, man. You're either a rational animal or you're not. It's not like you have more rationality or less rationality. Why? Because rationality belongs to your essence. That's what it means for you to be a human being, right? So, if the flower had being by nature and its nature was identical to its act of being and it had it per se, well, then there would be no reason why it would be limited. If it had it by nature, it would have it in an unlimited way. It would exhaust being itself, right? And there could be, it could not be graded relative to my wife, the gardener.

So, because of that, I know that that flower, and this is just one of the many ways that I know that the flower's act of being is distinct from its nature, but I think this is the portal that Aquinas is walking through in order to see how these things that are graded in being have being per accidents rather than per se. That is to say, their act of being is not identical to their nature. So, there's a composition, there's a metaphysical composition in that graded being there in that flower where its nature essence is distinct from its being or existence. And if that is the case, well, here's the beautiful part of it, Matt. And this is where I just started getting like a kid in a candy shop. I'm here. I'm feeling the same way. And whenever I, whenever I come to that point where there is a distinction, a metaphysical distinction of essence and existence or nature and the act of being, then that necessarily requires a cause outside of itself.

And we could talk about that some more if you would like, but ultimately it's going to require a cause. And the reason why it requires a cause, it requires a cause based upon, I think we can reduce that argument to first principles, because if there is no cause, then there would be no reason for why there is a conjoining of the essence in existence rather than not. And so, you're violating the fundamental principle of reason, the principle of sufficient reason. That's excellent. Yeah, because if there's nothing, so we have this thing, right? It's a metaphysical composition, essence and existence are conjoined, okay? And you say, well, there is no cause. It's just a brute fact that these two metaphysical components are conjoined.

So, what you're saying is that there is nothing to distinguish no unity of essence and existence from unity of essence and existence. But if there is nothing to distinguish no unity from unity, well, then you have no unity. Because where there is no difference, there is identity. So, you fundamentally are reduced to a first principle of reason and demanding that this conjoining of two distinct metaphysical principles of nature, act of being, essence, and existence necessarily requires a cause outside of itself. And then, of course, we're off to the races. If that cause is just like the flower where it's nature and active being or distinct and conjoined, it's going to need a cause in as much as it's causing the flower to be, right? of stuff here, but because we can't have an essentially ordered series of caused causes without a cause that is not caused, we come to a cause whose essence is not distinct from its

existence, but a cause whose essence is identical to its existence or its nature is identical to its active being. And that, Matt, is the maximum being, the being that is unrestricted, unlimited, absolutely speaking, that than which there can be nothing greater. That maximum being. And this everyone understands to be God. That, being. And this everyone understands to be God. That, amen. And it is that maximum being that so far right now, all I've said is that maximum being is, yes, we can say God, but that maximum being is what explains why that flower right here and right now has the act of being distinguishing it from nothing, right? Of conjoining

the nature and the active being, the essence and existence. Now, here's something interesting. I think what Aquinas, some scholars will say, whenever you go through that line of reasoning that I just went through, that's what Aquinas is saying in the second part. The maximum of a genus is the cause of all in that genus, right? So, therefore, the maximum of being, the maximum being is the cause of all in the genus of being, and genus being used in the common sense there, just in as much as everything has being. But here's something I'm wondering, Matt. I actually came across this this morning when I was thinking about it, to be honest with you. Sure.

I wonder, I wonder that at the end of the first part, Thomas metaphysically concludes this maximum being that we just reasoned to, starting from the graded being of the flower, right? graded being of the flower, right? And then in the second part, what Thomas wants to say is that that maximum being that's the cause right here and right now of the being of that flower is also the cause of all beings. You see what I'm saying? So, not only the cause of the maximum being, not being only the cause of that graded being, namely the flower, but also the cause of all things under the umbrella of being, except of course for itself, because it cannot be caused. It's subsistent being itself. So, in as much as something has being, and of course, having being is distinct from being being, if that makes sense to your listeners.

And I think if they study Thomas, they'll know that. But in as much as something has being, participates in being, like that flower. has being, participates in being, like that flower, well then that something is going to have this maximum being, that is subsistent being itself, the cause of its being. And so, possibly what Aquinas is getting at in that second part of the proof is simply to say that the maximum being that we know must exist metaphysically speaking, that we arrived at through the reasoning that I employed earlier, that being is not only the cause of just that one graded being, the flower that I started with, it's the cause of all things that have being. All things for which being is distinct from its nature or its active existence is distinct from its essence.

You just started thinking about that part this morning? That just popped this morning, brother. Because I was trying to, I'll be honest with you, I was trying to figure out exactly where that metaphysical demonstration fits. Because notice earlier I talked about how ascending up the hierarchy of being seems to be dialectical or probabilistic, right? And then saying, well, yeah, there's more or less approaching the maximum, more or less being, so we're going to get to this maximum being and unrestricted. And that's dialectical. That's not necessarily a metaphysical demonstration. And if somebody, if Thomas out there can show. And that's dialectical. That's not necessarily a metaphysical demonstration. And if Thomas out there can show me how that's a metaphysical demonstration, I'll be more than

happy to accept it. But so far in my intellectual journey, it seems dialectical to me. But obviously, I mean, Aquinas is all about metaphysical demonstrations, right? And reducing things to first principles. So, the metaphysical demonstration that I employed earlier, that is to say, if something is limited, then it has being paraccidents. If paraccidents, then a cause can't have the infinite regress and essentially ordered series of cause causes, therefore subsistent being itself. And I know that's what Aquinas, it seems that's what's working in the background. And so, if that's where Aquinas is at, at the end of the first part of the fourth way, then we have a metaphysical demonstration that subsistent being itself exists. That's a reality.

And then in the second part, simply wanting to say, well, that subsistent being is not only the cause of that one particular graded being we started with, but all things that have being. So, yeah, it's possibly either way. You know, he could be employing the metaphysical demonstration in the second part. And so, like some scholars, some scholars will say that the first part's dialectical and the second part is metaphysical. You know, some will say that the first part is trying to arrive at the maximum being implicitly, and then in the second part employing this metaphysical demonstration to make it explicit. And so, I'm simply thinking that maybe perhaps the metaphysical demonstration is, in the first part, just working in the background, arriving at something that is maximum being itself. And then in the second part, simply saying that maximum being is the cause not only of just this one thing, but all things outside of itself. So, that's fascinating. That's really great.

Thank you for sharing that. I want to do two things now. The first thing might seem a little unfair and I spring it on you. Suppose somebody is listening to this podcast and their kid just walked into the room and their kid is like 13, 14 years old. I want to ask you to sum up Aquinas' way, and just in a brief way, of course it's going to be insufficient because you're going to have to say it so briefly, but how would you basically argue the fourth way for God's existence to, say, a 14-year-old skeptic? Well, you see, I think, Matt, this is where sort of the dialectical approach can come in, you see? Because remember, when we're arguing for God's existence, in the inquiry into God's existence, it's not necessary that we always employ metaphysical demonstrations, although that's the best way, right?

But I think probabilistic arguments is a rational approach as well. So, I would start with the dialectical approach and say, hey, look, is mom better than the flower? Yes. Okay? Sure. Yeah. No. So mom has these powers different than the flower that are better, wouldn't you think? Don't you think it's better to be a human than a flower? And I must say, Matt, you point this out beautifully in your book, Does God Exist? The Socratic Dialogue. And so the 14-year-old says, yeah, I guess so. You know, mom's better than the flower and it's better to be a human than the flower, okay? And then I would try to explain to him, well, notice how the flower is like more confined, right? Can do less things than mom. Mom can do more things. Mom's not as confined as the flower. She can move all over the place. She can think about anything she wants. The flower

can't do that stuff. Now, 14-year-old son, or actually my son, Dominic, he's going to be 14 in a month here, so I can talk to Dominic. So, Dominic, if you can go from more limited to less limited, more confined to less confined. So, you got the flower, it's confined, it's limited. You kind of go up. Mom's less confined, less limited, less restricted in its power, right? Well, don't you think it's at least reasonable that there would be a being that's not confined at all, not limited at all, not restricted at all, but as like full power, right? And not limited to being in this place and not that place, not limited to thinking in this way and not that way, but a reality that

would be totally unlimited in its powers and in its way of behaving and its way of being. Doesn't that seem reasonable to you? I mean, just kind of going from more limited to less limited. I suppose even before we jump to completely unlimited, we could even ask the 14-year-old, theoretically, wouldn't it be possible that there's some alien life that's more or less restricted than even, you know, mum, you know? That's right. Yeah. I kind of skipped over the aliens there, but, and then, but notice you can even go higher and lead the 14-year-old even on the next step. So, if we postulate the hypothetical possibility of alien life who are superior in some way in intelligence, there you still have composition of matter and form, right? A spirit in matter. It doesn't have matter, but still is, but it doesn't have matter, but it's spiritual, a spiritual intelligence, but maybe an intelligence that's still restricted and limited in some way, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then go even above that with a spiritual intelligence that's less limited, and then the intellect ascending to the possibility of a reality that is supremely unlimited, absolutely speaking, in its intelligence. So, we just went from flowers to mum to extraterrestrial life to angels to archangels to God, you know? Like, yeah. So, okay. Yeah. Theoretically, the 14-year-old says, okay, yeah, that's possible. Doesn't mean that it is. Then what do you say? Right. And then we have to employ the metaphysical demonstration to say, okay, all right. Well, you see that flower right there. Yeah. Do you think it caused itself? No. I mean, and so I would ask my son, I would say, you know, why is it that the flower exists in that way? And why doesn't the flower exist in mom way? Now you might kind of get a blank stare right there, right? Because that's not an easy,

we don't normally think about that. But I think it does get the ball rolling and saying, okay, well, that flower, it didn't have to exist that way. It could have existed in another way. And so, we have to ask, why? Why does it exist at all rather than not existing? I mean, obviously, it's not like a triangle. And I would say, you know, son, can there ever be a time when a triangle doesn't have three straight sides? No. Because, I mean, if you have a triangle that's not three straight sides, guess what? You ain't got a triangle. Well, was there ever a time when that flower didn't exist? Yeah, it didn't exist a month ago or whatever, you know? Is there going to be a time when the flower won't exist? Yeah, it's about to

die right there, right? It's withering away. And so, I would ask my son, okay, so it doesn't exist in the way like a triangle has three straight sides, right? And so, I would try to explain to him that that flower doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be in the way that it is. So, in order to explain why it is rather than not, why it's this way rather than some other way, we're going to have to have some kind of cause, right? So, it's got a cause. It's got a reason for its being, for its existence outside of itself. I can't look to the flower and say, yep, the flower exists by its very own nature. It's going to need something outside of itself. And then I would walk my son step by step in trying to lead him to trying to realize,

look, just as you can't have that lamp suspended in midair and explain that the lamp is suspended in midair because of an infinite number of chains, you know, of links in the chain without a beam, right? Or you can't have an infinite number of interlinked train cars without an engine car, you can't have an infinite number of causes that are caused by something else without something that is not caused. And that uncaused cause is God. So, I would try to employ the image. Yeah, I would try to employ the image of the lamp, of the interlinked train car and say, hey, listen, no car in that chain of cars, of train cars, can give motion to any other car. Why? Because no car in the chain of series of cars has motion to give. You can see, sorry to cut you off, you can see why people do rely on Craig's arguments. They're

far less complicated. They don't involve this sort of Aristotelian metaphysical jargon. Like, just to say something exists, has a cause, you know, exists, has a cause. Right. I mean, it's a smart, I think it's probably a smart thing if you don't have much time. Would you agree that Aquinas' ways aren't the ones to jump to right away? But I feel like as I go through them, they feel more satisfying. Oh, yes, definitely. Because I would submit, like, for example, the Kalam argument, right?

I have my doubts. I used to think it was pretty solid, but I have my doubts. The philosophical version. Yeah, even the philosophical version, whether or not we can have, whether or not the infinite past, whether or not past time can be infinite. I used to be of the persuasion that it couldn't. I thought it was pretty solid. Now, do you have to resort to the B theory in order to escape it? Or can you agree with the A theory and still say it doesn't work? I think you can still go with the A theory and say it doesn't work.

Interesting. I think you can still go with the A theory and say it doesn't work. Interesting. Yeah, I'm still working through it. But even if, let's just say, Matt, and here's, I'm going to geek out a little bit in distinguishing between Aquinas' ways and the Kalam, for example. I think the Kalam is a persuasive argument, but I'm not quite sure it's as metaphysically sound as Aquinas' Five Ways. But let's just say, even if you can demonstrate the premise that their pastime cannot be infinite, that there must be a finitude of pastime. Okay. And you get to this creator, right? The problem you run into with that creator of the Kalam is that that creator is only a creator in theory, and that is to say a creator of

becoming, but not necessarily a creator in essay. That is a sustaining creator of sustaining something existing here and now. Whereas... So, you've got the watchmaker God, maybe. That's right. That's right. Whereas in in the five ways and in particular for this episode you know the fourth way the subsistent being the maximum being that you arrive at the conclusion it's not just amen it's not just a creator in fieri he is the cause and the sustainer of that graded mode of being namely the flower right, right here and right now, not just temporally in the past. So, that's kind of like one of the weaknesses that I would see in the Kalam argument in comparison to Aquinas' five ways. And I think, like, because Craig doesn't believe in divine simplicity, when people say to him, well, why is there only one God?

He has that very, He has that answer that doesn't feel very convincing. He just says, well, Occam's razor shaves away unnecessary beings. You just need one. And you're like, ah, that doesn't feel very convincing. And that's probabilistic. It's not a metaphysical demonstration, which can be reduced to first principles, right? Whereas when you're dealing with the uncaused cause of the second way, the unactualized actualizer of the first way, the absolutely necessary being in the third way, the subsistent maximum being in the fourth way, and the supreme maximum intelligence that's not directed by anything outside of itself in the fifth way, those causes that you arrive at,

which of course is all the same cause, but you can analyze, conceptually analyze the reality of the uncaused cause and deduce from that absolute simplicity and from absolute simplicity, absolute uniqueness. Recently, a couple of weeks ago, I posted an article at Catholic.com for our Catholic Answers magazine online where I gave a philosophical argument of why there can only be one pure essay. So if I arrive at the subsistent being itself of the fourth way and, of course, embedded within the conclusion of all the other ways, we can deduce from that that such an uncaused call, such pure essay, there can only be one uniquely, absolutely unique. And you hit the nail on the head, Matt, because that absolute unicity follows from absolute simplicity. So, if you take away absolute simplicity, well, then what are you left with? As you pointed out, some sort of probabilistic reasoning rather than a metaphysical demonstration. All right. Well, as we wrap up here, I want to just ask you three questions that have come into us from our Patreon supporters. Now, these questions I think you've addressed, but it doesn't hurt to kind of just answer it quickly. You know, these are very complex topics. Sometimes

having something said more than once, you know, can be very... So if you're okay, let's just go through this. Tom Dixon, who's been a huge supporter of Pints with Aquinas for a while. Tom, you're the greatest. Thank you. He says, This always seems, meaning the fourth way, quite tied to Plato's forms.

The according as they resemble in their different ways, something which is the maximum part is probably the most difficult to see. For example, four is more than three, but that doesn't show that there's some maximum quantity. So, I know you've addressed that, but you just want to say like less than a paragraph in response. Yeah. So, very quickly with regard to Plato's forms, I think Phasor's right on the money in his treatment of the fourth way where he talks about how Aquinas is employing, you know, the idea or the reasoning of Plato's forms in as much as you compare one triangle to another and you judge one triangle to be better than the other. It's based upon the standard of triangularity itself. It's based upon a standard that, you know, the fullness of what it means to be a triangle. I judge plant A better to be better than plant B insofar as what it is to be a plant, right? So, there is, you know, Aquinas, so to speak, is tipping his hat to Platonic forms and to Plato

in order to simply use it as a tool to get the intellect beginning to reason on how we make these comparative judgments of more and less. But I think where he departs from Plato and he begins employing Aristotelian principles in metaphysics is that when we judge something to be more or less concerning being, goodness, and truth, we necessarily are analyzing these beings as being limited and thus participating in being. And what Aquinas is doing in the metaphysical demonstration that I articulated earlier is what he's saying is that anything that participates in being, anything that's limited in being and thus is contingent upon a cause outside of itself for its mode of being, ultimately reduces in a cause that is being itself, you see?

being itself, you see? And so, that's where Aquinas employs Aristotelian principles in order to bring out the metaphysical demonstration of arriving at ipsum as a subsistence. And then, of course, concerning the quantity thing, I think this questioner, this inquirer is right on the money that concerning quantity, you cannot arrive at infinite quantity because that's a contradiction, right? You can't have an actual infinity of quantity or any of the other accidental categories of being. Right. Excellent. That was a great answer. Thanks. Brian Damerick says, how does Aquinas, and again, you've answered this, but again, you might just want to give a brief response. How does Aquinas get those things which he bases God's perfection on, and why does he exclude others? In other words, why does he choose being, truth, and beauty rather than evil, height, or smelliness as these characteristics that must have a maximum that points to God?

Also, how does he deduce that these maximum points to the same one thing rather than multiple things? All right, this is a huge couple of questions, and I think you've addressed the first part very well. Right. The second part we touched upon a moment ago. being, goodness, truth, and nobility is because those things in their formal denotation, in their formal concepts, they have no imperfection whatsoever, right? So, when we're talking about quality or quantity, such as smelliness or height, those necessarily have involved within their formal connotation imperfection because these are accidental qualities that inhere in something else. So, necessarily, they're imperfect because they're dependent upon the substance in which

they inhere. So, by virtue of their accidental essay, their accidental being, they're necessarily imperfect, right? And furthermore, they're restricted to, with regard to quantity, is restricted to material being. So, that's an imperfection. When we talk about goodness, being, truth, nobility, and nobility is just kind of like goodness and being and all of them kind of put together, what we're talking about are attributes of being that are not restricted in any way. They don't connote any sort of imperfection. For in and of themselves, they were perfect, and they're only imperfect in the flower because of the essence or the

nature of the flower that restricts the being, right? Rather than the imperfection being in being itself. So, because these transcendentals have no imperfections embedded within them, they transcend all categories and all individuals. And consequently, that is what Aquinas wants to say, hey, that's our starting point. And I'm going to tell you something, in as much as we have the gradations of these transcendentals in creatures, it's going to require the maximum of these perfections, namely God. Now, as to why there's one being that is maximum being, goodness, truth, et cetera, well, remember, the answer fundamentally lies in the idea that these are transcendentals. So, truth is not different than being. Truth is being. It's just looking at being from a different aspect as known. So, it's being as it relates to an intellect. That's what we call truth. When we're talking

about the good, we're talking about being, but as it relates to a rational creature desiring the being, right? So, these are transcendentals. So, in as much as we come to ultimate unrestricted ipsum esse subsistence, the act of being itself, right? Well, then it's ultimate goodness because being and goodness are convertible. It's ultimate intelligibility, as Father Spitzer used to say, the complete set of answers to the complete set of questions, right? Pure unrestricted act of understanding or intelligibility. Well, that's convertible with questions, right? Pure, unrestricted, active understanding or intelligibility. Well, that's convertible with being, right? And so, this is why we can say that the maximum in being, maximum in truth, maximum in goodness is one and the same being, which ultimately

is the same being as he arrives at in the other ways of the five ways. Excellent. Okay, final question, and this is more of a pastoral question, so I think it'll be a nice note to end on. Okay, beautiful. Kelly Brockett says, how do you approach this argument if you're talking to a relativist? Well, you can't. I think fundamentally, you can't, because the argument presupposes that there is some truth that we can come to know. Right. So you have to back up and get back to square one in order to demonstrate that there is truth that we can come to know. What that truth is, that's the question that Aquinas is answering in the five ways, namely God, pure intelligibility.

So, and of course, I would employ, you know, the method of showing the incoherence, the self-contradictory nature of the assertion that there is no absolute truth. That's self-referentially incoherent, right? Because then as much as you make the statement, you're assuming, you're making a truth claim. You're basically saying it's absolutely true that there is no absolute truth, which violates the fundamental principle of non-contradiction, right? And I think so, like, as you say, this is, I think a lot of people give lip service to the idea of epistemological or moral relativism, but I use that analogy earlier on. Usually the person that says everything's equal, there is no truth, still thinks that the person who is fair and just is better. You know, it's difficult to get around this. That's right. That's right. In fact, it's not

only difficult, you cannot escape absolute truth because it belongs to the very nature of the mind. The second act of the mind is the act of judgment. And in as much as you make an act of judgment and you say something is, you're making the claim that your judgment conforms to being and something in reality. So the only way there could be no truth is if there were no being, you see, and no intellect to know that being. And, of course, if you deny all being well then you deny yourself who's making the assertion that there is no being that's wonderful yeah yeah yeah so it's absolutely thank you thank you for being here with us today and matt you're welcome dude you're incredible this is this is fantastic and i'm so thankful you took the time to to do this

i i'm going to speak about this in the beginning of this episode in the introduction, but tell us a bit about your book for people who are listening and why they should get it. Yeah, so my book is Prepare the Way, How to Overcome, let's see, Prepare the Way, Overcoming Obstacles to God, the Gospel, and the Church. And so, basically what I do is it's the motif of John the Baptist, removing obstacles and preparing a way for the Lord who's bearing the gifts of truth in life, particularly for unbelievers and skeptics. So, I coached the reader, Matt, in strategies with Socratic questions on how to remove

obstacles to truth, God, Jesus, Christianity, and church. So, how can I believe in the truth when people believe so many different things? How can I believe in God when there's so much evil in the world? How can I believe in Jesus when I can't trust the historical reliability of the Gospels? And so, that's what I do. 34 chapters, removing 34 obstacles to these various topics, yeah. And so, again, people could go to shop.catholic.com, and I'll put a link in the show notes and just type in prepare the way, and you can get your excellent book. Congratulations, man. This is your first thanks man right it is and it certainly doesn't look like a breeze it's 360 pages yeah it's pretty substantial man it's pretty so you're happy with how it all came out

i am i'm very happy i'm very grateful to the team here at catholic answers who you know collaborated with me in producing it especially our editor editor, Todd Aguililloro. He is a champion. He's a master. Yeah, he really is. Amen. Yeah. So I'm so stoked about it and very excited.

And people are loving it, man. It's getting some good reviews. People who are interviewing me are loving it. And so I'm very grateful for it. I'm grateful to the Lord for his grace in being able to accomplish it. And so, yeah, man, just rocking and rolling. Awesome, Carlo. And I must say, Matt, thank you so much for having me on, brother,

because it was quite a delight to geek out on Thomas with you, brother. Thank you. Oh, how's your brain feel? Did you feel your IQ going up as you were listening to Carlo? I think I did. Thank you so much for tuning in to Pints with Aquinas. Hey, I want to say, if you haven't yet decided to support Pints with Aquinas on Patreon, maybe make that decision.

You know, if Pints with Aquinas is a blessing to you, if you're learning a lot from it, if it's drawing you closer to the Lord and you want to support this podcast because you want to not only keep going, but to get better and better, go to pintswithaquinas.com and there you can just click donate and you can give whatever you want. You want to give a buck a month, I guess 12 bucks a year. Can you afford that? Maybe two bucks You want to give a buck a month, like it's 12 bucks a year. Can you afford that? Maybe two bucks a month, maybe 10 bucks a month. Whatever you give, I give you free stuff in return.

And that'd be sweet, man. Thanks for thinking about it. Also, if you want to review us on iTunes, we really appreciate getting your reviews. It really helps us out a lot as well. And, you know, as I said in the beginning of this episode, we're giving away three copies of Carlo's book. All you got to do is share this episode on twitter with the hashtag pints with aquinas thanks so much for listening bye

too many grains of salt and juice best we be forwards or west For what's always secure Hollow me to deepen the new