Pints With Aquinas - 163: How was Aquinas educated? How should our kids be? W/ Steven Rummelsburg

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

In today's episode I chat with my mate Steven Rummelsburg about: - How Aquinas was educated. - The problem of public (and many Catholic) schools today. - The beauty of Homeschooling. --- 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

three quick things before we get into today's show number one tomorrow on the matt frad show i will be interviewing pro-life logic ninja stephanie gray stephanie gray i think is the most articulate pro-life activist on the scene today bar none and i think that this conversation if i can say it with humility and and i mean in all, will be the best interview you have ever heard on abortion ever, ever, ever. Okay. So please tune into it. I'm going to throw a link in the show notes. Click that. I'm going to be watching it with you. It's going to premiere tomorrow night at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. So I'm going to be watching it with you, conversing, conversing with you throughout the entire chat. Okay. So it's not a live chat or else I wouldn't be able to chat

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Okay. Here's the show. G'day. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we are joined around the bar table by my good mate, Stephen Rummelsberg, to discuss Aquinas' education

and what he has to say about teaching. 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. Pretty epic episode today. I think for a couple of reasons. One, we were both drinking. It just made it a lot more cash. And by cash, I mean casual. It's as casual as the word cash when you think about it. At the end of the episode, both Stephen and I were both like, I'm so sorry. Was that kind of all over the place and things like that? But maybe it was a little, but it's the kind of conversation that you have over a drink when you're with a friend.

And I consider Stephen a good friend. And so it was just a nice chat. We begin by talking about education in general, how Aquinas was educated, the disastrous events that are taking place in public schools and many Catholic schools. We talk about the beauty of homeschooling. We talk about how many people today seem to be doing away with logic and science and instead are getting behind this ideology of the LGBT stuff and all sorts of stuff besides. We live, it's, it's, we live in interesting times. So some of this is just him and me having a drink and just griping about the state of the world. Um, and then we're also reading Aquinas. And then towards the end of the episode, I asked, uh,

Steven, what book he would recommend that I take to Australia. Now, full disclosure, he would recommend that I take to Australia. Now, full disclosure, this is one of those episodes that I recorded a while back. So I was just in Australia. I'm back in America now. I recorded this before I went to Australia. One of the questions I asked him is, what book should I dominate in Australia? I'm going to Australia for six weeks. I'm traveling. I'm speaking. in Australia, right? I'm going to Australia for six weeks. I'm traveling. I'm speaking. What book should I just crush while I'm there? And his answer surprised me. So I think you'll find that conversation interesting as well. Anyway, I hope you're doing well. Oh, before I forget, we have begun uploading weekly classes on Dante's Divine Comedy from a scholar in Dante. So if you're a patron, be sure that you're not missing these because I'm doing this just for you guys. To buy this

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is the place kind of we're all coming together. So if you're a patron, be sure that you go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd and that you're engaging in these divine comedy discussions. Also, if you want to be a patron, obviously you don't have to be, do whatever you want. But if you want to be a part of what we're doing here with Pints with Aquinas and the Matt Fradd show, Bible history podcast, all this stuff, you can do that, right? Like you could give back if you wanted to, if these shows have been a blessing to you when you do you get a bunch of free stuff in return just one of those things is access to these 15 really well produced lectures on dante's divine comedy sound good to do that go to patreon.com

slash matt frad or if you hate patreon you can give to me directly at pints with aquinas.com slash donate if you want just saying it's an option for you all right here's the show get a beer so i'm not alone actually i'm not drinking a beer i'm going to explain to you what i'm drinking in a moment you're going to be very disappointed in me here we go steven rummelsberg g'day g'day Stephen Rummelsberg, g'day, g'day. G'day. How's it going? It's great, Matt. How are you, friend?

I am excellent. So I went downstairs to look for something alcoholic to drink, and I didn't want to drink straight-out whiskey because it's only four in the afternoon here. So I have put together a weird concoction, which is actually quite delightful. It's a kombucha with a bunch of limoncello and ice. I know that sounds super gross. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm sure there are worse things to drink. I'm sure of it. I'm not even going to pretend. That does sound awful. I'm trying to pretend.

What are you drinking? I'm having a Smithix Irish Red Beer. Like a man. Well, I'm inspired by Peter from Ireland. Yes, that's right. I'm inspired. Cool. I love the red beer. A lot of people have commented on that episode we did on the Matt Fradd show and it's drummed up a lot of conversation. I've met more than a few families who have either pulled their children out of school or were seriously considering it due to what you had to say. And they were thrilled. They were thrilled. It was almost like they were given the permission to do what they already knew to be true, but everyone else said they were kind of going overboard or something. Right. Well, thanks be to God.

Yeah, indeed. Speaking of schooling, I mean, one of the things we want to talk about today is Aquinas, what he had to say about teaching and how he himself was taught, how that differs from modern education. Maybe as a way to get into that, for those who aren't familiar with you or what you do, introduce yourself to our listeners. Yes, I'm Stephen Jonathan Rummelsberg, and I'm happy to return to talking to Matt Fradd, this time on Pints with Aquinas. And I'm a school teacher. I've been teaching about 28 years, and I've taught almost every grade from kindergarten through seniors in high school. And at the moment, I'm teaching at John Adams Academy, which is an American classical charter school. Very cool. It's an American classical charter school.

Very cool. And teaching is my life, and I'm deeply concerned and troubled about where education is today. Yeah. Now, I guess sometimes it's easy to be romantic about the past. We look at these gigantic figures like Aquinas, and we might be tempted to think that everybody was that smart because they were given this idyllic education. But of course, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of millions of people who lived that we perhaps don't remember. So, but I guess all things being equal, would you say that the education Aquinas got was superior to ours? And if so, how? And if so, how?

That's a difficult question to answer because it gives the impression that there can actually be a comparison made when in fact there can't be. So this is a hard thing to say, but what's going on today in education isn't anything like what Aquinas experienced. And I wish I could over exaggerate that, but I can't. But I think today we ought to try to understand why there was such a difference between what's going on today and what Aquinas got to receive. So he was sent at the age of five to Monte Cassino as a oblate. So it's actually cool. Aquinas would have worn the Benedictine habit as a five-year-old, which is pretty cool.

It wasn't until he was about 17 that he left the order. He had never made official kind of vows, so he was free to do that. He joined the Dominicans, but he would have had that education in Monte Cassino. What would have that looked like? Well, that education would have been a typical middle-age liberal arts education. And it would have consisted very simply of something like grammar, logic, literature, things like that. They would have used something like the Bible, the Vulgate Bible, to study grammar. They would have studied Latin. They would have used something like the Bible, the Vulgate Bible to study grammar. They would have studied Latin. They would have used Latin to study grammar as well.

But when we say things like grammar and logic and rhetoric, those words today don't have the same significance that they did back when Thomas Aquinas was at the Monte Cassino. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you would ask me, like, what's grammar? I'd be like, it's the way you write so that it's coherent. Like you can put your commas and stuff in the right place. And I would keep saying like throughout my sentences like that. As would we all. Yeah. Unfortunately. Maybe kind of give us a brief synopsis of each of these

grammar, logic and rhetoric. Because what is this called? There's a word for these three. Sure. The grammar, logic, and rhetoric would have been called the trivium, which is the three liberal arts that help us cultivate literacy and expression. And the idea of these three liberal arts was to master the three orders of reality, meaning what is there, what is a thing, what are things, and to master thinking, which is a cantillogic, and to master language, which is about rhetorical expression. Wow, fascinating. Right. How did you put that? Three levels of reality?

Oh, well, I would have said the three. So if you said, what's the purpose of an education? It would be to go from the darkness of error into the light of truth. And to be in the light of truth would mean to see what is truly there. So if we're going to see what is truly there, then we have to encounter and understand the nature of reality and the order of the created cosmos, which is in hierarchical order. The medievals really understood the hierarchical order of the created cosmos in the world. So to master the order of thought would be able to think clearly about what is, whereas to master the order of language would be able to articulate what is thought about what truly is. And the first one I said, reality would be to master what is actually there, to know truly what is there, not just what we perceive, but to, to,

to grasp instances. How would that be under the umbrella of what we're talking about? Like grammar isn't necessarily concerned with the external world. It's about, I guess, what, communicating it. Well, logic is thinking about it. Rhetoric is how to express it. What am I missing? Well, so the modern notion of grammar, the overarching problem with all of these subjects and liberal arts, as they're called even today, is that in this age of scientism, we've reduced everything to its material constituent parts. And we've denied essences and formal and final causality. And we'll talk later

about what that means. But the real issue here is that when we take a thing like grammar, we say it is the eight parts of speech and punctuation so that you can write properly. I mean, it literally means letters or literacy in the Greek. I didn't even know that. I didn't know that. Eight parts of speech. I don't even know what that means. Okay, we'd be talking about nouns and verbs and adjectives and adjectives, those things, conjunctions and prepositions.

Those types of things are called the parts of speech. And today, people would say that's grammar. And they would be only materially correct. They would not be formally correct. So for an example, have you heard of Elias Donatus? No. He's a very famous grammarian. and he's a guy we ought to know because he was St. Jerome's grammar tutor. Wow.

Yeah, amazing guy. And Aquinas would have encountered him in his primary education. And so just to try to put this in perspective, Donatus has attributed to him two works called the minor arts and the major arts. And he's talking about grammar here. So in grammar, in the minor grammar, he talks about the eight parts of speech and punctuation and things like that. But in the major grammar, he's talking about stylistic things. He's talking about exegesis, about literary devices, analogy, metaphor, etymology, all these amazing higher art forms of grammar. So it would surprise most people to know that grammar truly is about those things at its highest. It is about exegesis.

That's the highest grammatical concern to demand from a work what it's truly saying. And it's significantly, I mean, I know the point of this particular podcast is not just to kind of go on about how desperate things are. But by goodness, I can't help it. So here we go. When you look around and you chat with people about the nature of reality and something like maybe guys shouldn't be cutting off their penises and then beating the crap out of women in sports. Maybe that's not okay. And they freak out and call you transphobic. It's like, okay, give me an argument.

It's almost like we're done with the whole reality and the science thing. And now we're back to ideologies. And that's an extreme case. But I mean, even slogans. So if somebody says, love is love and i say well yeah of course but but what what do you mean by that well i mean that men and men should be able to you know okay well you need to define love for me and you need to tell me why sodomy is is good you know and and as soon as you kind of prick open another example would be and i talked about this

on a matt frad show i did with any hickman like black lives matter now somebody says to me black lives matter and i'm like yeah well of course like all lives matter they're offended because i didn't understand what what they were trying to say and i say oh i'm sorry well what what did you mean and they say well i mean there is systematic racism in the united states and you go whoa okay well explain that to me then because that sounds like a lot to prove. And very often people have no idea. It's like slogan has replaced thought. And we don't know how to think anyway. That's kind of what I'm getting at here. Yeah, it's a newspeak reductionism. Yeah, it's Orwellian newspeak. And it's the same with

grammar. Grammar is almost as offensive as the whole Black Lives Matter movement, speak. And it's the same with grammar. Grammar is almost as offensive as the whole Black Lives Matter movement and what that truly means. So it's, it's, uh, I'm done. I'm done pandering to the insane left. I'm done trying to make friends with them. I feel like it's, it's the analogy I can come with, with is this. It's like, I remember once I was in Houston, Texas, my wife and I were at a pub and I went outside and I started chatting with this homeless guy and I bought him a beer and we were chatting. And as I was chatting, I gradually became aware of the fact that he was hammered drunk. I had no idea. In the beginning, we were just, I didn't know he had been drinking before he was chatting

with me. He seemed to kind of make some sense. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, you're wasted. And then I left. And I kind of feel like that's been my relationship with the world, right? The world has tried to tell me about equality and abortion and contraception and, you know, and I'm like, okay, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then, and then I'm like, oh wow, like you're in, you're drunk. Like you're insane. You're not making any sense. And I just, I think I need to, I think I need to go. The world's drunk. There's

no doubt about it. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it. And, you know, that makes me think of probably the biggest impediment in this modern age besides scientism is the idea that modernity is essentially an attack on all interiority. Modernity is an attack. Sorry, you say these wonderful sentences, and I want to try to understand them. Modernity is an attack on all interiority. Is that what you said? What does that mean? Right. That means it's an attack on nature. So if man has a soul, the modern reductionism, scientism, and the materialism particularly denies that man has a soul. And so that denial eliminates the deep intellectual discussions and the free will morality that we have.

the deep intellectual discussions and the free will morality that we have. So at that point, you become a subjectivist and you get to name and claim anything you want. So what we see today especially is that I think by default, we are all encouraged by subjectivism and relativism to be our own priest, prophet and king. And if we're our own priest, prophet and king, then we way the truth and the life for ourselves yes and we don't have to we don't have to do the intellectual and moral work to discover those three orders or to master them so we've been okay i'm using the word educated in a bastardized sense we've been been educated into insanity. I'm being dramatic. I'm being hyperbolic. No, it's worse than that. Education is just the wrong word. We've been conditioned into insanity and conditioned to believe that being conditioned

is to be educated. Oh, that's a good bumper sticker. Yeah. Let's make a bumper sticker. That's a great line. Yeah. Put it right over those coexist bumper stickers. Yeah. Let's make a bumper sticker. That's a great line. Yeah. Put it right over those coexist bumper stickers. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So in Aquinas' day, it was about, and again, we're generalizing, but at its best in the 13th century, you know, Catholic Europe, at its best was about trying to understand the nature of reality. It was about trying to understand the nature of reality and kind of making sure that our lives match up with that and our thoughts might match up with that.

Yes. To cooperate with nature, if you will. Yeah. That would be helpful. And that would be fleshed out by Thomas Aquinas' work on the teacher. Yeah, I want to get to that. That reminds me of G.K. Chesterton who said something to the effect of an open mind is good to close down on something solid. Right. And maybe that's the difference, right?

In Aquinas' day and his education, here is something solid for you to close down on. Whereas today, I mean, give us a horror story or two. Oh, no, I can't give you anything but horror stories just about. But going on, G.K. Chesterton says, an open mind is like an open sewer. Wow. Right? And that follows what he says about clamping down on something solid. He says, an open mind is like an open sewer.

It wasn't meant to take in everything like a sewer, right? Wow. So horror stories abound. Yeah, oh it's good stuff from gk you know something else that i was brought to mind on the impediment to try to draw out with this is i'm sorry let's backtrack you were asking about horror stories sure but you i mean this is a conversation you can also go wherever you want yeah you have to answer me um it might be too depressing it's pretty depressing i'm trying to i'm trying to think of instances that have been – Well, let me – while you're thinking about it, let me tell you what happened to me the other day.

I was giving a talk at – where was I? Oh, gosh. I travel so much. Louisiana. And I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be sympathetic to parents when they tell me they have no other option but to send their kid to this school where they're being exposed to porn or if the parents are smart enough not to give their kids a smartphone right and they send them to school then they're making the the ipso facto by the fact that they don't have a phone they're becoming social outcasts and so it's like either you don't give your kid a phone because you're a good parent and you kind of clued in or you don't give them one and then you send them to school with everybody

else who's looking at screens and so i got these parents telling me their kids are buying phones off eighth graders and stuff you know these good kids who are just super pressured you know and now downloading snapchat and trying to be part of the conversation and so i was like take your kid out of take your kid out of school just homeschool him and she said well how could i do that i said well who cares just stop having them feed your kid poison and just what if you just read to your kid just do that and they said well what if i just what if i homeschool them and then what i'm just gonna send them off to university and i just felt i had to say this i looked at her i'm like why would you send your kid to university?

I was like, let's just go all the way here. It's like we have to, in a totally what feels like a post-Christian age, why do we keep thinking we need to look like the age around us? Like why not question it all? Like why not, and I mean question all authority, but why would you send your kid to a university unless you had a really good reason for doing that? It's a tidal wave of peer pressure. It truly is. Yeah.

It's a tidal wave. It's immense. It's amazing, the momentum. And the kids that I meet who are homeschooled are so well-rounded and so cool. Like I went out to dinner just yesterday with a kid who's 16. He's been homeschooled his whole life. His parents wanted me to chat with him about something. And I just remember like looking at him and like, wow, you are very blessed because you are very articulate and you can look me in the eye without looking

away and you don't have a phone. So you're not looking at that. And I just find you very engaging and very, and that's very attractive. Right. And I think he was kind of a little upset at the fact that he felt he might have been a little sheltered. And I don't know, maybe that's true. But I just want to say to him, oh, man, you're so blessed. Yeah, the world's lying about the effects of homeschooling. It's propaganda, so it's everywhere. But homeschooling is very, very good and very important.

I mean, the school ought to be an extension of homeschooling, but it's not. It's its own indoctrination camps. I just want us to feel uncomfortable with the question. So if there's people listening and you're thinking, Matt, I cannot homeschool my kids. You understand? Maybe that's true. I just think we should all make it that idea. Like, why not do it?

We should face that squarely and allow it to make us uncomfortable. Like your parents might think you're crazy. My parents think I'm crazy. But like, just face it and wrestle with it. I agree. As Chesterton says, it's a thing worth doing badly because it's so important. If you did it poorly, you do way better than what's going on in the schools in general, just in general. Now someone will say, well, I'm just thinking, well, but Aquinas' parents sent him off to the monastery at five. Right. It's a different age, though, I suppose.

I'm not sure if anyone would show an importance. Oh, absolutely. Contrary situation. Right. If a parent wants his child to be in tune with reality and nature, that would be a good reason to send them to a place where they would educate you and train you to do that. And that's what they did at Monte Cassino, at many of the medieval schools. So it would be a different story if we sent our children off and they came back edified in truth, right? Or even literate. To be honest, we are cultivating illiteracy. And that's a horror story in itself. The kind of illiteracy we cultivate ourselves in and most teachers are formally illiterate. And to me, that's a horror story.

And more interestingly, if you try to have discussions with teachers about it, more often instead of engaging in a conversation, they will take offense. I don't have many conversations with teachers that go well. I have a partner teacher right now, Miss Carolyn Javier, and she is a soulmate. She and I, we're on the same page, and it's delightful to come to work and be with a faculty of friends, but it's super rare. In 28 years, I've had two friends on the faculty like this. I've had two friends on the faculty like this. Yeah, well, so we've spoken a little bit about how Aquinas may have been educated and how that was night and day to what's happening today in our schools. And for those who are listening and want to hear kind of more about what's happening today in our schools,

I'd say go check out my YouTube video with Steven Rommelsberg. You can watch it. It was like a two-and-a-half-hour interview. It's also on the Matt Frad Show as a podcast. You can listen to it. But can we move on and talk about Aquinas did he did he talk about teaching at all yes oh he sure did he's talking well on the teacher he essentially is talking about teaching and if you read most of his works these are effects that you can trace back and see methods of teaching so what is how we have to be taught. What is that for those at home? What is On the Teacher? What's that? On the Teacher is a set of four questions from the Disputed Questions on Truth.

He has four articles from question 11. And so he asks, can a man or only God teach and be called a teacher? And that's a very primary question and probably the one we ought to stick to the most as we talk through this. But he also asks, can a man be his own teacher? Now, just, I want to stop a second. I want to make sure I'm looking at the right thing. Questions. Is this, it starts with the chapter 11 or book 11? It says question 11. Yeah, the teacher. Okay, got it. And the four articles are, can a man or only God teach and be called teacher? Yeah. Got that one. Okay. The third article is very interesting. Can a man be taught by an angel? That's such a cool thing to think about. And such a cool question. Yes. And then

the fourth one is, is teaching an activity of the contemplative or the active life? Excellent. Where would you like to start? Well, I'd like to start at the beginning. But maybe could we circle back and talk a little bit more about why this would not be accessible? Yeah. So for an example, if someone were to read these things today without any other alternate kind of training, it wouldn't make sense. It just wouldn't make sense. And it brings to mind, if anyone's interested, you can pull up this very, very short article by Blaise Pascal called The Art of Persuasion. And in it, he gives some really neat rules for rhetoric and persuading things. But in the middle of it, he points out that Rene Descartes and St. Augustine said the same words. They both actually said, I think, therefore I am. And what he pointed out

that was so interesting is that he said, Descartes built up a whole metaphysics around that saying through methodological doubt. And Augustine said that with a completely different metaphysics. And the difference between what the two meant by it was the difference between a living man and a dead corpse. That's what Blaise Pascal said. And he's quite right. So if you were to read Aquinas without an understanding of his education in natural physics and metaphysics and epistemology, then it's likely that it really wouldn't make sense. So that makes it a little bit difficult in the first place to read. And so very few people are trained in that sense. that sense. Now it's not impossible to do such

a thing. I mean, even on your own, if you were to turn to Aristotle and Augustine and the great teachers, this, this thing is recoverable because it's natural and we all desire to know we want to encounter truth. So with that in mind, if I can give one more quote, you know, I was thinking in the Screwtape letters, C.S. Lewis beautifully points out in letter 27, he has Screwtape talking to his worm, worm tongue, wormwood, wormwood, yeah. And he's talking about how he is encouraging the guy to read books, read books, because it really won't matter. He says, he is encouraging the guy to read books, read books, because it really won't matter. He says, quote, the only only the learned read old books, old books, and we have now so dealt with the learned that they have all men are least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. Yeah. And so that's so

true. Of all the people in the world, the professors in general are least likely to acquire wisdom. Because what we've done in this inverted world is is now we train ourselves to judge the great books instead of allowing the great books to judge us so i think these are impediments that have to be thought about before we dive in and talk about what um what aquinas is going to teach us yeah so that's the end of my my spiel on that no that's that makes a lot of sense right so um but beautifully i mean to ask the question about on the teacher there's so many considerations for example if uh the modern world denies that man has a fallen nature as well so if we deny that then what th Thomas Aquinas says isn't going to make sense either.

Yeah, kind of, I heard recently somebody say, when you don't have metaphysics, all you're left with is politics. And so if there is no God and there is no original sin, then theoretically society is perfectible through government, presumably. Right. Yeah. And we have to turn to Marx for that. Mm-hmm.

Right. It's all about power and control. Mm-hmm. That's a desperately ugly situation. What's ironic is when you hear these neo-Marxists talking about the strength, strong and the weak and the oppression of the weak by the strong, strong and the weak and the oppression of the weak by the strong. Why is it that all of these people seem to have no problem with the mother and father paying a hitman to kill the weak child within her womb? I don't know too many Marxists who are also radically pro-life. It's interesting.

Right. Well, and that's another thing we can't have a conversation about. It just came out in the news today that some pro-choice person said that a baby who survives an abortion is out of the womb and alive is not a baby. Yeah, this is insanity. This gets back to what we were talking about before about the transgender thing. It's like we're no longer interested in truth. It's finally, like, it feels like for years, people tried to battle against Christianity by pointing to science. And now it's like many of those same people have abandoned reason altogether. Although I'm not sure if that's entirely fair. I think a lot of the people who are part of the new atheism movement have also sort of rebelled against this leftist agenda and have found themselves in the sort of Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris camps. Right. Because, I mean, to be an atheist was about not being bloody politically correct in a sense.

It was about saying things that were uncomfortable, even if they went against whatever believed to be polite conversation. Right. And so it's been interesting seeing the death of the new atheism and seeing it morph into something else. Anyway, I digress. Are Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson on the same camp? They disagree about many things, but they definitely have sat down to dialogue on several occasions and seem to have a lot of respect for each other. But even in that,

even in that, say, Sam Harris is very critical of Islam, I think the question was raised about IQ and race and whether some races have less of an IQ, generally speaking, than other races. I think the answer to that is no. But I think what Sam Harris was saying, he was just investigating the question and was totally shat on because of that. Right. And so people are abandoning the left for the same reason people said they abandoned Christianity. Namely, they were told, don't ask hard questions. Leave your brain at the door. That's interesting. The more the better.

Yes. Anyway. Yes. Well, the left is dogmatic, more dogmatic than any religion I know of. Totally. It's very religious. When you look at the creed and what it is we have to believe, it's nothing compared to what you must believe, all the false truths you must tell yourself. Right. Anyway, now I'm just moaning again.

Right. All right. Do you want to read any of this or do you want me to? I'm looking at the second paragraph here. If a man teaches, he does so only through certain signs. Where do you want to pick up? Well, you know, the first 18 paragraphs are the objections to the idea that man can have a teacher. So we might want to go straight to that. That's crazy. 18 objections, 18 objections. And they're all interesting. If you at them. We may not have time for those.

So I thought we'd go to the heart of the matter. And if you go to where he says on the contrary. Yep, I'm there now. There are six little paragraphs. And I think particularly – well, let's just first – let's run the end game. Just to say this. Man can have a teacher. Men can teach other men.

That's the conclusion. I hope that's not a spoiler alert, right? Okay. But it's important to understand why, I think. And I think if you go down to paragraph six of the On the Contrary, something very, very beautiful said. If you want to read that, that would be a great place to start. Augustine says that just as the earth was watered by a fountain before the coming of sin and after its coming needed rain from the clouds above. So also the human mind, which is represented by the earth, was made fruitful by the fountain of truth before the coming of sin. But after its coming, it needs the teaching of others as rain coming down from the clouds. Wow, that's beautiful. Therefore, at least since sin came into the world,

man is taught by man. That's really beautiful. That's really beautiful. You want to explain that to us? I'd love to talk about it. To begin with, you can see that he's making allusion to the fallen nature of man, which is either a fact or not a fact, right? And it is a factor in education. Before the fall, there was no need for education because man's appetites were in right relationship to the right use of reason. They were subordinated to the right use of reason. And man had preternatural powers. He was connected by grace to God. And he just he knew what things

were. So there was no need for an education in the Garden of Eden before the fall. And that's an interesting point. To not begin there is to sort of change the rules of the game. And so the other thing you notice is that Augustine here is making an allusion to the interior landscape, which in other places he calls the earth, the land. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, Augustine points out that the meek shall inherit the earth. That earth is self-possession of the inner landscape, sanctified and perfected. And just like after the fall, one of the consequences was to farm in the hard dirt, this inner landscape has also been harded. Right? And so where it was irrigated by internal springs, which is the grace of God, now it needs rain showers to water and soften the earth so that the sower might plant the seeds and we might cultivate an inner landscape that is fruitful and abundant.

So it's so beautiful because it really gives not just the full image of what an education is supposed to be. I think it harkens back to Jesus' parables, agricultural parables, about how we grow in grace and in virtue and in intellect. So I think it's really loaded, and it's beautiful, and it's poetic. But it gets us off on the right foot if we agree right yep yep for sure is there any of these objections here that you thought were worth looking at and seeing one of his responses uh well you know what i didn't

prepare for that exactly because what what what a what a quantist does is he'll take a partial truth and he'll insert it in a way that's sort of ill-weighted. So a lot of what he says in the objections, they're true, except he gives them the wrong weight, meaning he gives an emphasis where it doesn't belong. And we might just want to get to the heart of the matter. Sure. Because I don't know what – I don't even know how long this is going to be or supposed to be. We've got about 30 minutes left. Okay.

Yeah, if you'd like to talk about one of the objections, that'd be great. If not, we can jump into the reply. Yeah, why don't you feel free? Okay. You lead us. You know this stuff more than me. I haven't actually read through this the whole way. Okay.

Wow. It's worth reading again and again and again if one is interested in teaching. And I think even if one wants to be a homeschooling parent, this is worth a lot of reads to understand what he's getting at here. Because if you leave this encounter knowing what a teacher is, it's a game changer, huge game changer. So his reply, just the first sentence, he says, Just the first sentence, he says, there is the same difference of opinion on three issues, on the bringing of forms into existence, on the acquiring of virtues, and on the acquiring of scientific knowledge. And this sentence alone sets up the fact that in the next few paragraphs, he's going to set up two extreme and unreasonable suppositions about education, and then he's going to correct it. So there's even somewhat of an objection in here. But just what we've read here, I believe, is very difficult to

decipher. So on the bringing of forms into existence, what we're doing is we're making an allusion to something that's not often used in schools today, the four causes to understand a thing. And, uh, you guys write about that beautifully in your, your book on metaphysics, you and Dr. Delfino. Um, someone needs to be, to be in possession of an understanding of, uh, the four causes to begin. And even at natural physics and the natural sciences to talk about the bringing of forms into existence, because we're talking here about motion and about change and about substantial change and substantial unity and form and final and efficient causality.

And that's a lot to bring up, wouldn't you say? Indeed, and I love that right alongside that and sandwiched in between scientific knowledge, he has the acquisition of virtues. Right. which isn't something people send their kids to school for it's we don't even see it as being on the same plane oh they do send their kids to school for the virtues oh really oh sure for the tolerance okay equality truly these are the these have replaced the virtues. And there may be more backlash from things called intolerance and inequality in the schools than there would have been even for certain lack of virtue in the medieval schools, if you know what I mean.

because I see what you mean. I suppose parents would be happy if they knew that their school was cracking down on bullying, say, and talking about why we all had to treat each other with respect. And this is obviously good. But then I've also heard, and I don't know if this is a generalization, that when parents are informed as to their child's bad behavior, they often take the side of their child. Oh, yes. And I don't know if that is kind of illustrative of what's taking place on a wide scale or not, but that's just kind of what I'm hearing. On a massive scale. And I wonder how that fits into, you know, I send my kid to acquire virtues, and then my kid is said to have done something wrong or has done something bad, and then the teacher's wrong because of that. Again, I do feel

like maybe we're generalizing a little bit, but... Oh, I don't, I'm not sure. I think that's fairly widespread at this point, if not nearly universal. Yeah. So how does that fit together? Send your kid to acquire virtues, but he's not virtuous, so he's punished, but the parent can't accept the fact that he's not virtuous well okay so when i was sort of being tongue-in-cheek about the virtues the truth is there's no such thing in an education as an education that is not moral so education by its nature it's moral because that treats it's one aspect of man so if the school if the school creates an arbitrary set of virtues which most have and the kid breaks an arbitrary set of virtues,

it is almost normal that a parent would protect their children from arbitrary and unjust justice. So the lines really blurred that even if it were to be a just punishment, the probably rightful knee-jerk reaction is to protect your kids from some arbitrary tyrant who's going to hold your kid to a very strange and abnormal standard. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, in a good school where they did promote virtues, I think you'd have far less parents protecting their children from natural and logical healthy consequences for poor behavior. But it's gotten so out of control that you almost universally have parents protecting their kids from any such thing and in fact making excuses for them so that they don't have to suffer the

consequences uh but it's a confluence of things because we are so emotional as well and we believe that the highest thing is to not have our children hurt rather than to have our children be good this wasn't the case generations ago but if you were to ask parents, would you rather have your kid good or happy? They would say happy, probably, or they would think about it for a while. Right. Why want them happy? Because if they're happy, they'll do good, and that's sort of an inversion. Yeah. Because in the Middle Ages, we'd know that when you are good, you will be happy. Yeah, right. So goodness precedes, moral goodness precedes deep happiness, whereas happiness does not precede moral goodness. Right. So it's a huge problem.

Yeah, I do love that acquiring virtues in them, but that's ethics. That's the moral sciences. And as well, he makes a nod to the intelligence, the intellect, the philosophy. So yeah, that's a big statement right there. Now, and this reply is kind of long. I don't want to just start reading it. Yeah, let's not read it. Maybe you want to pick out certain things or at least help us explicate it without us reading it. Right. I can try to do that. What he ends up doing, as I said in the next few paragraphs, is he says there are two extremes. So man, on the one hand, is liable to think and assert, maybe as Plato did with his theory of the forms, that all perfection

is learning is beyond. And so all learning takes place from an external agent, right? When you discover that the perfect forms are in a transcendent state or beyond, and that our acquisition of them depends solely on our ability on the external exposition to the forms, that's one extreme of how we might think about, you know, imitating our way to virtue or, or, or being educated. Does that make sense? On the other extreme to the left, you might have a guy like Democritus, the atomist, who says in all atoms is the potential for it to be all things. And by internal mechanisms, all things come to be depending on certain things. So you have this either purely internal explanation of nature and how things become new substances and new forms.

And then on the other extreme, you have Plato's forms where you have an external locus. And beautifully, what Thomas does is he says there's a golden mean in the middle of those two things. And this is the part that I think is a little bit tricky if we don't have natural physics and metaphysics and a proper epistemology to discuss it. So what he ends up saying is that internally, by nature, we have a passive potentiality, a passive potential and an active potential for learning. And so I'll try to explain what that means, sort of. He says our active potential to learn means that by our sense experiences and intellectual contemplation and by the agent intellect, we can, on our own, discover new knowledge. And he compares it to the medical doctor who says it's true that naturally your body can heal itself. Right. He compares that to the active potential for encountering truth.

And so he says there are many instances where as we observe and contemplate and use our intellect that we can discover new truths because by the agent intellect, we can discover first principles. And from those first principles, we can discover new truths and new knowledge. And he calls this discovering as distinct from being taught. And it is distinct. So he says the passive potential means that we have the capacity to know certain high things, but we are in need of aid. We are in need of an art or a science or in instruction and coaxing and work with someone externally to help us fulfill and bring to fruition this new knowledge. So like an example of things that we come to know sort of intuitively, once you understand what is meant by whole and you understand what is meant by part you understand that the whole is greater than the part right because i'm seeing here he's saying these are either complex as axioms but an axiom would

be a whole is greater than the part i assume he says or simple as the notions of being and that i guess could be whole and then part but he but i suppose he's talking about the one and the maybe the true i'm not sure right and i think in terms of simple he may be making a reference to the soul as a simple substance okay meaning not come not complex uh rather than easy easy here um but right does that does that make Yeah, so he says the mind is led from these general notions to actual knowledge of the particular things which it knew previously in general, and as it were, potentially, then one is said to acquire knowledge. This is very Aristotelian. I'm thinking of his physics. Right. Yeah. Right. Where are you? What paragraph are you on oh sorry yeah so i'm rule g

oh gosh i'm right in the middle here it begins with therefore in all that i'm not sure are you online yes that's right no i've got therefore in all that has been said we ought to hold a middle position between these two but i was reading the last couple of sentences there i got the mind being led yes mine is led from these general notions to actual knowledge of particulars. Right. Beautiful. Now, I'm wondering what does he mean by that? Is this kind of what Aristotle was talking about where the kind of one in the many? So we come to know what tree is by encountering particular trees?

capturing particular trees? No, we come to know what tree is by the agent intellect that shines light on universals and essences. We come to know what a tree is so that when we see others, then we particularly come to know a tree. A general notion is it leads to actual knowledge. So if you were to fly to another country and saw a tree you wouldn't be surprised by it you would already know what it is even though you haven't seen that particular tree right okay so wow that's it's it's so deep and complex i can see it working the other way around like the reason i'm able to form the concept of tree is by encountering at least more than one tree oh absolutely and you see a tree and then another tree and by encountering at least more than one tree. Oh, absolutely. And you see a tree and then another tree. And by your particular experience, you reason back to a general principle of tree-ness. Yeah. Yes. And that too is, is enlightened by the agent intellect, the light of truth

that is intellectual, that thing that separates us from the beasts. Yeah, this is, this is, this is thick stuff. It really is. It's worth reading again and again indeed yeah to understand um now here are we talking about the active potential where we discover well i mean maybe explain for me and our listeners the passive intellect and the active intellect well from what oh well active active intellect or agent intellect is the thing he calls that that light of truth yeah that we all possess to some degree um the passive intellect is that capacity we have that um privation that is capable of being fulfilled by our sense experiences being brought into the higher reasons of conception.

Right. So I'm thinking of it just like epistemology in general. So correct me if I'm wrong, but the passive intellect receives the images. Yes. And the active intellect deciphers and kind of calls them forth and recognizes them are you confusing the perceptual reception with the conceptual reception probably so there's passive reception in the intellect but there's also passive receptivity in our senses right which form phantasms or sense exactly that's what i'm confusing right yeah right so we so we get sense impressions and then with those operated on by the agent intellect then we can then we can discover principles or

generalities general truths universals essences and substances which the senses cannot perceive the senses can only perceive accidents right an individual in instantiation in particulars right actually absolutely so we need to go up into those higher that higher conceptual intellective work or or even receptivity or contemplation to to either discover new knowledge or by arts be taught so all of this this is, sounds pretty complicated, but I'm sure somebody much smarter than me could kind of break it down and say, here's what he's saying. And wouldn't, why isn't it the case that people are learning this in schools today? I mean, presumably people are coming to know the essence of things. Oh, naturally, yes. They know what a tree is and

yes, they aren't discouraged from affirming the essence of things right i mean this all sounds extraordinarily basic in a sense well this is basic and but if you don't get this right it probably leads to ruin i suppose yes it's already ruinous there there there is not learning that considers the higher conceptions even though it happens naturally and when when um thomas when aug. And when Thomas Aquinas uses his analogy of the physician, he makes the point that when there's healing that needs external help, that the physician cooperates with nature. And the very fact is that today, we do not cooperate with nature. That's a really good analogy. I think I'm just now fully trying to grasp that,

just as the physician works with nature to bring about the health of the body. So the teacher ought to work with the natural to bring about the health of the mind or the, to bring them out of ignorance into, into, into knowledge. That's exactly right. And, you know, Sir Francis Bacon exhorts us to conquer nature by applied science. So the efforts in school in general are on the false assumption that man's nature is malleable and that the school can shape man into anything it needs to solve its social problems. And I know many would object to that generalization, but I would love to hear an argument to the contrary.

to that generalization, but I would love to hear an argument to the contrary. It sounds very devious, as if there were people at the top pulling the strings, knowing full well what they're doing. Is it really that intentional, or is it something most people just go along with, and there isn't this kind of big grand conspiracy? No, I think it begins with the atheist. I think it begins with a guy like John Dewey, who says, you know, man's nature is to have no nature and man has no soul and the whole point of schooling is to solve social problems. And they find a way to make it palatable. They find a way to make them say, well, we're just getting these people jobs and getting them employed and making our country healthy. I don't think it's intentionally conspiratorial at all. I think it's just what happens when we cultivate atheism. It's the working out from a particular premise. And again, that's what we're seeing kind of in the Democratic Party right now. If you want to say

that it's okay in certain instances to kill the life of an unborn child, then it only makes sense that now people are being consistent and saying, well, you should be able to kill live children. Sure. It's like the working out of insanity from a particular premise that you began with. Right. And we're watching it unfold before our very eyes in New York. And then Peter Singer's rationalization that you ought to be able to kill them until they're three. He's like, finally.

People are finally realizing what I've been saying is true all this time. He's the prophet of the modern atheist age. Yeah. We're going to be killing three-year-olds in 20 years. I don't doubt it. I mean, we want to kill children born now. It's really something else. So I think it's the working out of

things rather than some conspiracy and people see material benefits to it, but that's the highest and maybe the only consideration. And this gets back to what I said a moment ago. If there is no metaphysics, the highest we have is politics. That's right. How to govern society, how to, as you say, if children are malleable,

if people are infinitely malleable, we need to impose certain things from the outside upon them to create the utopian society. Correct. And I think like, this is something Christians have been saying for a long time as well. And this is something that atheists have scoffed at, but we're pointing out the natural consistency here.

Like if, if, if God does not exist, then we, then man is an accidental byproduct of nature. Right. And he comes from nothing and he goes to nothing and therefore is what? And they say, well, great and powerful and stares in the face of nothingness and doesn't blink.

And you're like, bullshit. Yeah. He is nothing. He comes from nothing. He goes to nothing. He is nothing. This is just a cosmic accident. And if it is, that's when it seems to me that you have the kind of power from the strong to the weak thing.

Yes, of course. Then you just have that mass manipulation from media and universities and people in politics, perhaps, who are no longer bound by consistency or truth. Right. Untethered completely. There's no ground. And everything's arbitrary. So it doesn't need to make sense. so it doesn't need to make sense. Now, presumably you would imagine, I mean, there were some great Muslims in the Middle Ages, and obviously Christianity turned to some Islamic philosophy

or Islamic-influenced philosophy. Yes. Presumably you think what they had was significantly better than what we have today, though you don't think they have the fullness or even the correct, maybe, revelation. Averroes and Avicenna, those guys that translated aerosol, yes. Well, at least intellectually, certainly. And not that there weren't errors in it that I think even Thomas corrected, the interpretations. I think Peter of Ireland corrected some of those

things too in the metaphysics. There had to be a return to sort of a Western understanding of Aristotle, even though the Muslims had translated them. But yes, it was prevalent. And what was interesting where in the kingdom of Sicily, where Thomas was raised, there was, it was really, of Sicily, where Thomas was raised, there was, it was really, what's the word? I almost said multicultural, but that's not what I meant. There were Muslims, Christians, Jews, all mixed together, all living together. It's very cosmopolitan. And so it's like one of those, you know, the Greeks, Greeks and Miletus, they were in a shipping lane and they saw cultures from all over the world. And you know these are very fertile grounds intellectually for growth and i think that's part of what we saw there

is kind of an openness to all these interpretations where the end was truth and it was just a very vibrant intellectual scene very unique thomas was there like when when truth is our goal in a sense we become brothers and sisters. Right. Especially if we don't feel threatened, if we don't think we have to give up something. You know, like so there were many kind of Islamic philosophers who weren't necessarily faithful Muslims. Right. Yeah.

Well, they were generally Europeans in conquered lands that had been forced. So what happens when you don't have truth to aim towards, which kind of unites us in this constant pursuit? That's the thing. Like, I don't know if anyone would define modern education as the pursuit of truth, which is immutable and... Oh, I think public school teachers would, very oddly, but they wouldn't know what they were saying in general. But it's obvious and evident that, of of course it's not the pursuit of truth or we wouldn't have the

relativism and the subjectivism that drives really even Bloom's taxonomy. It's incredible. What is that? What's Bloom's taxonomy? Bloom's taxonomy is the gold standard in the public schools for what they call higher order thinking skills. And it's an irony lost on almost everybody that they are purely material, concrete, measurable, quantitative discussions of what the highest kind of thinking is. And so, I mean, even taxonomy, the scientific ordering of the higher thinking is, um, is interesting, but they have rules about saying everything you do in these activities that make higher level thinking accessible has to be quantifiable and measurable. Well, that excludes the higher intellect, and it also excludes free will. And no one's capable of admitting that, but it's what follows. And Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist and a progressive educator. So it's what the public school is used

to make pedagogy, to make methods. So this is way too difficult to do in this episode, but we believe that there was a much better way to educate human beings by introducing them to the natural world and to reality and to lead them out of the, that darkness of ignorance into truth, which is immutable and there, whether or not we like it. Yes.

Um, how do we regain that? And maybe not at a public level, because I don't see that happening at least anytime soon without serious things taking place. So how do we regain that in the home and in our group clusters of friends? I imagine the only chance is the small homeschooling communities like Regina Chelly and homeschooling parents that disconnect themselves from being beholden to the standardized tests and the standards that are imposed on them and really getting back to the original metaphysics and physics and epistemology that Thomas would espouse. It's really the only way to return to basic philosophical truth is the key. You've got to return to metaphysics.

You've got to return to metaphysics. You've got to return to the truth about man. What is being? What is being? What is act and potency? Those things are necessary. What are the four causes? So if you look at the modern school, it is conspicuously absent of a philosophical matrix. The philosophy doesn't enter into the picture. Whatever they're calling logic isn't logical, and whatever they're calling philosophy isn't philosophical, because everything they do is practical. And philosophy is not practical, it's theoretical. Yeah, someone wrote this to me yesterday over YouTube. They said they feel really inspired to study philosophy. They're just worried about getting a job afterwards. And I

want to say, well, yeah, that's definitely not why you would study philosophy. Right. And paradoxically, studying philosophy in the true sense would prepare you for any job. Yeah. Truly, it would prepare you to encounter reality as it is. And I would much rather have everyone educated in a philosophical way and then worry about training later because that's a great way to build up society in a healthy way. Yeah, we have to start somewhere. So yeah, I would say grassroots.

Hopefully people start talking about this. Hopefully people get revolted by what the schools are actually doing even though it doesn't appear to be that revolting to many. even though it doesn't appear to be that revolting to many. I think they just passed a law in the UK or are about to so that our children will be taught that kind of transgender dogma. Yes. Oh, I think they signed that in here, didn't they? I'm not sure. Oh, the new sex ed curriculum is, as we mentioned on our interview, just devastating from kindergarten through 12th grade.

That alone is a reason to take your children out of the public schools um it's devastating public schools and that might be true but aren't most catholic schools like catholics yes push back on me i'm asking yes no you're right no absolutely the vast majority of catholic schools are doing exactly the same thing that the public schools are and they're doing something like an add-on of a theology class or having a weekly mass, which those are really nice things. But in truth, they're not add-ons. It's the matrix of what the school ought to be. And that was the matrix of Thomas's education as well, an education in piety, and it was religious. And all education is religious. Even the secular atheist education is religious.

It's just very subtle. I just looked this up right now. British Muslim parents oppose LGBT lessons in primary school. And I'm just now thinking there was a debate that was done a while back between Peter Kreeft and, oh gosh, I forget. Everyone out there is screaming his name, but I forget. The question was, who's the greater threat? The kind of secular culture or Islamic culture? Oh, right.

Robert. Yes, I saw that. Anyway, Kreeft. One of his students. It was a student. They did Thomas More. Yeah. I thought.

Yes. Let me see here. Debate. Peter. This is great for podcasts. I have seen that debate. I've seen that. Debate. Peter. This is great for podcasts. I have seen that debate. I've seen that debate. Robert.

Spencer. Robert Spencer. Yeah, I think Robert Spencer trounced him. Yes, he trounced him. And Peter Kreeft admitted it at the end, which was very noble of him. It is very noble. He's a very humble dude. Very, very good man.

But you have to, when you look at things like this and you say, well, I I mean you've got these Muslims who are kind of joining the side of everyone else on the side of reality. So in this sense, I see them as valuable allies. Yes. Unlikely bedfellows. Right. Right. No, I don't see the way out, but I wish. Now the public schools, there are some new public

charter schools that are very, very good in theory. They have very good theoretical frameworks. The school I work at has really solid theory. It's beautiful. It has a great vision and a great mission, and it grounds itself in these principles Thomas would espouse because we want to go back to the classical education received by our founding fathers. That's a viable alternative. The difficulty is that in practice, the teachers, the pool of teachers you can choose from have all been secularly trained, and that makes life difficult. Yeah. I'm looking at this Wikipedia article, LGBT rights. What does that mean? We don't even know what we mean by rights. Right. Rights have no significant meaning anymore. What is the UN list of human rights? That's

a great place to look to discover that we don't know what rights are anymore. I didn't realize there was a buggery act in 1533. I may have heard that before. Same-sex sexual activity was characterized as sinful and under the buggery act was outlawed and punishable by death. LGBT rights first came to prominence following the decriminalization of sexual activity between men in 1967. Wow.

This is going to... This whole agenda is either going to push christians like yes it is sinful buggery is sinful transgenderism is not you know is we're dealing with people who are sick emotionally and mentally sick it's either going to push us to kind of start saying things that are incredibly unwelcomed or for us just to kind of cave in and give up christianity and reality yeah and get buried get buried it seems like the transgender thing i think there's a lot of victims where there was just a study where these kids it's noticeably higher that people identify as transgender after being on social media where this is encouraged i remember when i was in grade 12 i flirted with the idea of pretending I was gay because it was kind of becoming cool.

Right. Because I was a weird kid. Like I was kind of awkward and no one liked me anyway. But, I mean, if I felt that, and it was just like a hint of something in me. Like, yeah, obviously I wouldn't do that, you know. But if that was in me then, my gosh. I mean, that's just how you become a hero immediately. Right.

You're right. You see the 12-year-old kid who comes out and the whole world applauds him. It's just bizarre. We're in a tough time right now. It is tough. And hopefully it galvanizes us. Hopefully we get galvanized. What do you say to people then who say you shouldn't be creating Christian subcultures?

We need to be evangelizing the world and going out into it and enough of this bunker talk as if it was a dirty word. Well, I mean, we're called to be salt and light in the world and the bunker Christian would be a thing we're forced into, not a thing that we would choose to disengage, I would think. It's a risk to speak publicly now and it's getting riskier and riskier. So I don't know. I'm not really familiar with the bunker culture, but I do know that we ought to be salt and light,

and I do know that we ought to hunker down together and unify in truth, in Christ's truth. I do know that. Is that bunker culture? Well, it depends who you ask, I suppose. Right. It's almost like how, I kind of feel like it's kind of like how we used to treat the word like traditionalist, like we used to say it like it was a dirty word. Right. It's almost like how I kind of feel like it's kind of like how we used to treat the word like traditionalist.

Like we used to say it like it was a dirty word. Right. And then we were like, well, okay, but what if it just means like traditions? Okay. And like,

I would rather not have pizza and Coke masses. And right. And it's kind of like that now it's like, well, bunker mentality. Well, what do you mean by that? Well,

you shouldn't just be kind of like closing yourself off from the world. Okay, in what sense do you think that I'm doing that? Right. And then the other thing is like if there's a storm outside, it's probably a good idea to bring your kids in for a bit. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. No, that's true.

And I think the point is that if guys like you and me are considered bunker people, we're pretty public about it. That's right. Traveling the country, speaking. Yes. And that thing about being salt and light, that doesn't mean use your children to be salt and light. Our job is to raise our children, protect them from all this stuff going on in the world. And then when they're adults, they'll be the salt and light. Not to send them into battle. Right, right. Not to send the children into battle. Our job is to protect them, to protect their

innocence and we are in dire need of a recovery of innocence well i um i'm headed to australia next week yes you are and i want to ask you something i think this is going to be a blessing to other people too what book should i take to australia and dominate while i'm there i'm there for six weeks i have in front of me, I've read the Divine Comedy, but I want to read it again. I have it in front of me, you know, all of them, Inferno, Purgatory, Paradiso. I'm wondering, should I take that and that be the thing that I dominate? What would you recommend for me? Have you already dominated the trilogy, the whole thing?

I have read the whole thing. You've read the whole thing? You know what it's like. I don't think I a few more than a few anecdotes to you and maybe a line here or there i don't remember hardly any of it you know i remember certain scenes of it like satan frozen in hell at the bottom and things like that but so that's why that book is more dominating come back to that you know my suggestion for you would be read and dominate the confessions okay by san. Augustine. The Frank Sheed edition. Do you have that version? Why do you think the Frank Sheed edition is the best?

Peter Kreef thinks that too, but when I've read that next to the Image edition, I like the Image one better. I haven't seen the Image edition. You like Frank Sheed's, huh? I like Frank Sheed's. Yes, it's poetic and it's beautiful. There's something about knowing his devotion too too, that's helpful to me. And he's Australian or at least lived there. Is he?

Well, there you go. I think so. Maybe he was from Australia and then moved to England. Okay. Yes, I knew he was in England. So have you dominated the confessions already? I have dominated some of it. So that's no.

Some of it. Okay. Do you want to know a book that I think it would be amazing to dominate? Okay. St. Augustine's none of it. Okay. Do you want to know a book that I think it would be amazing to dominate? Okay. San Augustine city of God. Oh my gosh. Stop saying that. Cause God said that to me recently. Yeah. Yeah. City of God is a, it's, I felt so moved to read that recently. And I had a few encounters with people and I'm like, oh gosh, I should read this. You should read that. It looks so overwhelming. Oh, it's not. It's a joy.

It's a roller coaster. Oh, definitely. Oh, my God. I mean, the Confessions is beautiful. It's very accessible and moving and a joy to read. Is the City of God really like that? I look at that. It just looks like a dusty tome.

No, no. It's worth reading. It's amazing to consider the timing of Rome falling and what Augustine's writing. And the stuff he brings up is just phenomenal. It's so human. It's so down to earth. It really isn't an old dusty tome. What should I read?

Which translation? I'm looking at Mystical City of God. Oh, that's not her. That's someone else. But do you have a particular translation in mind? I don't have a favorite. And I know somebody knows what the good one is. So I'll look into it and find out from someone really smart what the best one is, and I'll send you a note.

I've got to buy it before I leave. But City of God, dominate. All right, I'm going to crush it. Yeah, and Matt, I want to thank you for having me on, and I wish you guys safe travels, and we'll talk when we get back. Yeah, indeed. All right, God bless. Thanks a lot. God bless you.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much for listening to Pints with Aquinas. I hope you enjoyed that show, you big, beautiful bugger. Hey, can I ask you to do something for me since I just gave you this awesome show and have enriched your life immensely? Could you review Pints with Aquinas on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts?

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I mean that. Have a good one. You look good. Have a good day. You deserve it. too many grains of salt