Pints With Aquinas - 177: What is faith? (Apostles Creed #1)

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Over the course of the next few months we are going to go through Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the apostles creed.  Today we take a look Thomas' prologue in which Thomas discusses 4 goods that faith brings about. You can read text of that here. 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  

G'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Yeah. Hey, what's up? 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? In today's episode, we're going to be talking about faith and the four good effects that it brings about. Here we go. Hey, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a bar stool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. We live in a confusing day and age, don't you agree? I mean, look at our society. Apparently, we aren't sure what a man is, what a woman is, what sex is for, whether or not it's okay to kill a child in

the womb or to kill a human being if they become useless to us. A lot of confusion. And it seems to me too that there's a lot of confusion regarding the faith. And I think a little clarity would go a long way right now. And so what I've decided to do is to go through Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Apostles' Creed over the course of 13 weeks. And I say 13 weeks because there are 12 chapters in Thomas' commentary on the Apostles' Creed, plus a prologue about faith, which we'll be discussing today. Now, I do plan on having Father Gregory Pine episodes interspersed throughout these 13 episodes, but that's what I want to do. And just think about that. If you were able to get through those 13 episodes, you would

be consuming Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the creed, which is no small thing. That would be a really cool thing. My hope, too, is that these episodes will be less than an hour long so that they won't be too cumbersome for you. So today, as I say, we want to look at the prologue, What is Faith? and the four good effects that faith brings about. But before we do that, we should probably talk about what we mean by faith. Some people mischaracterize faith as if it means believing what you know ain't so. This is not at all what the Christian means when he talks about faith. When he talks about faith, you could think of it as, in some way, synonymous with trust. I trust a competent authority who is communicating something

that I need to believe, and that competent authority is God. Now, faith is a supernatural gift which enables us to believe what God has revealed. And the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that it is certain. Why is it certain? It says it's more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. So there's that competent authority who we trust. The Catechism continues in paragraph 157, To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience. But the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives. And I love this quotation from John Henry Cardinal Newman who says, 10,000 difficulties do not make one doubt. 10,000 difficulties do not make one doubt. 10,000

difficulties do not make one doubt. As you consider the Christian faith, you may have many questions. You may encounter things that you're not sure how to reconcile with other things. That is to say, you may have difficulties, but a difficulty is something different than doubting. 10,000 difficulties do not make a doubt. In paragraph 158, we read that faith seeks understanding. It is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the one in whom he has put his faith and to understand better what he has revealed. A more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens the eyes of our hearts to a lively understanding of the contents

of revelation, that is of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts so that revelation may be more and more profoundly understood. In the words of St. Augustine, I believe in order to understand, and I understand the better to believe. So faith is a supernatural virtue that's given to us by God, that's infused into us. You remember when Peter makes his proclamation of faith, and he says, you are the son of the living God. And what does Jesus say? He says, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father in heaven. So it's a good idea to pray for that gift of faith so that we might more easily believe

what God has revealed. So what is faith? Here's what Aquinas says, the nature and effects of faith. The first thing that is necessary for every Christian without which no one is truly called a faithful Christian is faith. Faith, he says, brings about four good effects. Let's look at what they are and then go through each of them. The first is that through faith, the soul is united to God. The second effect of faith is that eternal life is already begun in us. The third good of faith is that we get the right direction, which it gives to our present life. And the fourth effect of faith is that by it, we overcome temptations. And then we will get into each of these now and then see a little

bit more about what Aquinas has to say. Hey, I want to take a break and say thank you to Halo, which is an incredible app that will help you deepen your relationship with Christ and grow your prayer life. You know, those apps out there like Calm and Headspace that help you deepen your relationship with Christ and grow your prayer life. You know those apps out there like Calm and Headspace that help you meditate? The good thing about those apps is they're really well produced. The negative thing is sometimes they lead into, you know, new age ways of thinking. What's great about Halo is that it is just as professional as those other very professional apps, and it is 100% Catholic. I'll sometimes take the app into adoration and do a prayer session where I'll let it guide me through a 15 minute prayer session, Lectio Divina session.

It has Gregorian chant in the background. You can choose synth music if you want. It has a ton of content on there. Well, Hello wants to give you a month for free so you can try it out and if you like it, choose to get it. The way you would do that is by going to hallo.app slash Matt Fradd, hallo.app slash Matt Fradd. Try out the whole thing. If you like it, like I do and my wife does, get it. As I say, my wife and I use it. It's really helped us. My wife just turned over to me the other day and she's like, I really like this Halo app. I'm like, yeah, I told you it was awesome. And she's like, yeah, but I thought they were just asking you to promote it. I'm like, yes, but I promote things because I think they're awesome as well. Come on, I'm not a complete shill. So check it out. Hello.app.com. I'll put a link at the top of the show notes. Check it out. You

won't be disappointed. So that first effect is that it unites the soul to God. And by it, there is between the soul and God a union akin to marriage. So, Aquinas is saying here that faith is to the believer what marriage is to the spouse. So, just as faith unites man and God, marriage unites man and wife. It unites us. I will espouse you in faith, Hosea 2.20. When a man is baptized, the first question that is asked of him, of course, this is if he's old enough to answer, is do you believe in God? And if this isn't asked to the person, it's asked to his parents. Aquinas says that this is because baptism is the first sacrament of faith. Hence the Lord said, he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Pretty clear.

He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Mark 16, 16. Baptism without faith is of no value. Indeed, it must be known that no one is acceptable before God unless he have faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, we read in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6. St. Augustine explains these words of St. Paul when he says, All that is not of faith is sin. In this way, where there is no knowledge of the eternal and unchanging truth, virtue, even in the midst of the best moral life, is false. That's how important faith is. The second effect of faith is that eternal life has already begun in us. Why? Well, eternal life, what is it? It's nothing else than knowing God. This the Lord announced when he said,

this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent. This knowledge of God begins here through faith, but it is perfected in the future life when we shall know God as he is. Therefore, St. Paul says, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, Hebrews 11.1. No one can then arrive at perfect happiness in heaven, which is the true knowledge of God, unless first he knows God through faith. Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed, John 20.29. You know, what was interesting is I was preparing for this episode, I was looking up certain verses on faith and it quickly occurred to me that I need not do that because whenever Thomas writes, it reads like a Bible study. You can't go a couple of sentences without running into sacred scripture. So that's the second effect of faith. Here's the third good

that comes from faith. The third good that comes from faith. The third good that comes from faith is that right direction which it gives to our present life. Now, in order that one live a good life, it is necessary that he know what is necessary to live rightly. And if he depends for all this required knowledge on his own effort alone, either he will never attain such knowledge, or if so, only after a long time. But faith teaches us all that is necessary to live a good life. It teaches us that there is one God who is the rewarder of good and the punisher of evil, that there is a life other than this one, and other like truths whereby we are attracted to And we read in Habakkuk, The just man liveth by faith. And then Aquinas says,

This is evident in that no one of the philosophers before the coming of Christ could through his own powers know God and the means necessary for salvation, as well as any old woman since Christ's coming knows him through faith. And therefore it is said in Isaiah that the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord. This indeed is a good that comes from faith. Sometimes you encounter people who are very intelligent, but you listen to what they have to say about their beliefs about the universe, and they just seem thoroughly deluded. And even if you're really intelligent, says Aquinas, and you're able to study metaphysics and epistemology, and you come to the conclusion that there is a God, even if you're able to do that, it's quite laborious. And as he says, even with all the brilliant men that we've had that have lived prior to Christ, they were not able to deduce from the things around them, the way to

salvation. And this is why God reveals himself to us in the Old and the New Testaments, so that we can know with certainty who he is, what he is like, what is required of us. I love this line, right, that we need faith because it's evident in that no one of the philosophers before the coming of Christ could, through his own powers, know God and the means necessary for salvation. As well as, so that point there though, I mean, even if you were to collect together the wisdom of not just one philosopher, but all of them, they still wouldn't have arrived at that knowledge. And then he says, as well as any old woman since Christ's coming knows him through faith. And I think about my grandma.

I always talk about my grandma, Margie Harris, a beautiful woman if there ever was one. I devoted my book on the Holy Rosary at Ascension Press to her. If you have that, it says to Margie Harris, a good woman who helped me love the rosary more. That was my nan I was writing about. You know, I'd go into her house and she'd have her prayer books and her rosary beads. And she was not a philosopher. I don't even think she finished high school, but she knew more about God and what was required for salvation than Aristotle. So that is certainly a good effect that comes through faith.

Here's the fourth effect of faith. It helps us overcome temptations. In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 33, we read, the holy ones by faith conquered kingdoms. We know that every temptation, says Aquinas, is either from the world or the flesh or the devil. The devil would have us disobey God and not be subject to him. This is removed by faith since through it, we know that he is the Lord of all things and must therefore be obeyed. We read in 1 Peter 5.8,

Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, strong in the faith. The world tempts us either by attaching us to it in prosperity or by filling us with fear of adversity. in prosperity or by filling us with fear of adversity, but faith overcomes this, that we believe in a life to come better than this one. And hence we despise the riches of this world and we are not terrified in the face of adversity. This is the victory which overcomes the world, our faith, says the apostle John in 1 John 5 verse 4. And then finally, the flesh tempts us by attracting us to the swiftly passing pleasures of the present life. But faith shows us that if we cling to these things inordinately, we shall lose eternal joys. In all things, taking the shield of faith, it says, St. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 16.

We see from this that it is very necessary to have faith. Don't you just love how succinct Aquinas is? All temptations come from the devil, the world, and the flesh, and faith helps us combat those three temptations, or the temptations that come from those three sources. Okay, so those are the four goods that come about through sources. Okay. So those are the four goods that come about through faith. Okay. So those are the four goods of faith that Thomas talks about. Now let's respond to those who say that it's foolish to believe in what you can't taste, see, touch, feel, hear. Okay. This is what Aquinas brings up next in the prologue, the evidence of things that appear not.

Okay, so here's what he says. But someone will say that it's foolish to believe what is not seen and that one should not believe in things that he cannot see. I answer by saying that the imperfect nature of our intellect takes away the basis of this difficulty. nature of our intellect takes away the basis of this difficulty. Four, if man of himself could, in a perfect manner, know all things visible and invisible, yeah, it would indeed be foolish to believe what he does not see. But our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly. That's brilliant. Let's keep going though. We even read that a certain philosopher spent 30 years in solitude in order to know the nature of the bee. If, therefore, our intellect is so weak, it is foolish to be willing to believe concerning God only that which man can know by himself alone. And against this is the word of Job. We read in

Job 36, 26, behold, God is great exceeding our knowledge. Aquinas continues, one can also answer this question by supposing that a certain master had said something concerning his own special branch of knowledge, and some uneducated person would contradict him for no other reason than that he could not understand what the master said. Such a person would be considered very foolish. So, the intellect of the angels as greatly exceeds the intellect of the greatest philosophers, as much as that of the greatest philosopher exceeds the intellect of the uneducated man. Therefore, the philosopher is foolish if he refuses to believe what an angel says and far greater fool to refuse to believe what God says. Against such words are these words Whoa! That's brilliant. There is so much gold in that one paragraph.

Right? You speak to an educated man and you say, okay, suppose somebody comes to your class and they're trying to learn about this thing that you've spent your life studying. Suppose they don't understand it and conclude that you're wrong and just say, no, it's this instead. And they come up with some simplistic explanation that contradicts what you know. Wouldn't he be a fool? And the educated man says, yes, he would be a fool. Okay. be a fool. And the educated man says, yes, he would be a fool. Okay. But just like you as the philosopher, just like your intellect greatly exceeds the layman, the intellect of the angels in a far greater way exceeds yours. So just like you as a great wise teacher would expect a student to be humble and learn from you what he cannot yet know. So we all ought to be humble and accept what is revealed to us by faith. You know, sometimes people say faith is a crutch and it would seem here in this paragraph that Aquinas isn't going to argue, no, it's not. It's like, he's gonna be like, yes, it absolutely is. And you, and the reason you need it

is because you've got one leg or because like your legs don't work and that's why you need help. Right. So I love that line there, right? Like, yeah, like if, if man of himself could in a perfect manner, know all things visible and invisible, then yes, agreed. To believe things that he couldn't see would be foolish, but that's not the state that we're in right now. So it's almost like, in this sense, we are appealing to the skepticism that our modern world wants to cling to. I mean, forget the fly or the bee, which I thought were both great analogies. If we don't even know what a man is, and of course we do, but many people want to say that we don't. If we can't define what a human is, if we can't know what truth is, then, you know, shouldn't we agree that there's much we don't know? And since there's much we don't know, and since faith is, and since we need to know certain things in order to know how to live and how to be saved, this is why God has revealed things to us so that we can be certain in what we know about God. You know, also, I've spoken about this on previous podcasts, but it seems

like there's this new vogue trend that we're seeing in the Protestant world, but also in Catholic circles, where people say things like, look, all I know is God's a mystery. And they say that to avoid having to come down firmly on a particular proposition that will make them unpopular. What about gay marriage? All I know is God's bigger than me. Really? Really? That's all you know? Do you know that God's revealed certain things and that you can know them with certainty? So, very good. Aquinas continues, then again, if one were willing to believe only those things which one knows with certitude, one could not live in this world. which one knows with certitude, one could not live in this world. That's such a great line,

isn't it? Suppose I were to say to you, who are your parents? And you tell me who they are. I say, how do you know that they're your parents? How do you know that? Well, they look like you, but other people look like you. It's not inconceivable that someone could look like you and not be your parent. How do you know that they're your parents? What's on my birth certificate? Well, how do you know that wasn't concocted as some sort of big plan to deceive you or something? Well, I'll go get a genetic test and then I'll read it. Can you actually read a test like that or will somebody else have to tell you? Or do I know that my wife, Cameron Fradd, is not a Russian spy? And I say, yes. And you're like, do you know with certitude? And I'm like, yes. But if you were to continue to push, I suppose at some point I would say, look, I guess it's possible, right? I guess it's

possible. But since I see no evidence to think that it's true, and I see a bunch of evidence to the contrary, I'm within my epistemic rights to go on believing that she is who she claims to be. But Aquinas' point is, if you would only accept those things that you can know with certitude, then how would you live in the world? And that's the kind of pickle that Descartes found himself in. What can I not doubt? Well, I think, therefore, there must be someone doing the thinking, therefore, cognito ergo sum. I think, therefore, I am. I can know that. Yeah, good luck living your life like that. Aquinas continues, how could one live unless one believed others? How do you know my name's Matt Fradd? How do you know my name's matt frad how do you know i'm from australia you don't know these things

probably yeah and even if you're my mom who i don't think listens to this podcast but even if she does you might accidentally think that i am matt frad when really i'm just an imposter i'm not really matt frad my name is schlinken blablosky and i am good at impersonating Matt Fradd. How could one know that this man... Oh my gosh, guys. All right, shut the front door. Can I be honest with you? Before I sat down to record this podcast, I skimmed this section, but I hadn't fully read it. And now Aquinas is about to steal my analogy. Come on, Aquinas. Check it out. He says, how could one know that this man is one's own father? Therefore, it is necessary that one believe others in matters which one cannot know perfectly for oneself. We do this all the time. I step on an airplane. I see a dude with a hat on,

and he's in the cockpit, and I just have to trust that he is who he claims that he is and that he's going to take me where it says I'm going to be taken on this ticket that I'm holding. I have to, and if I don't, how would I possibly live, right? So it is necessary that one believe others in matters which one cannot know perfectly for oneself. And then Aquinas says, but no one is so worthy of belief as is God. And hence, they who do not believe the words of faith are not wise, but foolish and proud. So there you are. So the atheist wants to say to you, you are foolish for believing in God when the opposite is true. That if I refuse to submit to the one who is most worthy of my belief, I am an idiot. I am the proud one. As the apostle says in 1 Timothy 6, verse 4,

he is proud knowing nothing. And also we read in 2 Timothy 1, verse 12, I know whom I have believed and I am certain. And it is written, you who fear the Lord, believe him and your reward shall not be made void. Sirach 2.8. Finally, one can say also that God proves the truth of the things which faith teaches. Thus, if a king sends letters signed with his seal, no one would dare to say that those letters did not represent the will of the king. In like manner, everything that the saints believed and handed down to us concerning the faith of Christ is signed with the seal of God. What does that mean? He says, this seal consists of those works which no mere creature could accomplish. They are the miracles by which Christ confirmed the sayings

of the apostles and of the saints. It's the miracles. And if you remember, we've done an episode on Islam. And one of the reasons that Thomas Aquinas criticizes in a blistering fashion the false prophet Muhammad, one of that this is of God as the seal, the wax seal is a sign of the king's message. Aquinas concludes here by saying, if however, you would say that no one has witnessed these miracles, this is brilliant. This is brilliant. I love him. I love him. He is so logical and he anticipates your next objection so brilliantly that it's difficult to escape him. So I just told you about miracles and you thought, yeah, okay, well that's okay maybe, but I haven't seen them. Okay. Here's what Aquinas would say to that. It is a fact that the entire world worshipipped idols and that the faith of Christ was persecutors, as the histories of the pagans also testify. But now all are turned to Christ, wise men and noble and rich converted by the words of the poor and simple preachers of Christ.

Now, this fact was either a miracle or it wasn't. If it is miraculous, you have what you asked for, a visible fact. If it is not, then there could be no greater miracle. The whole world should have been converted without miracles, whole world should have been converted without miracles. And we need go no further. We are more certain therefore in believing the things of faith than those things which can be seen because God's knowledge never deceives us, but the visible sense of man is often in error. None of this, of course, is an argument for why we shouldn't study philosophy, even modern philosophy. But it is to say that we can know what is true. And in knowing what is true, we can rest and be happy and give praise and glory to the most trustworthy one, God Almighty.

So here's what we're going to do. We've looked at the prologue, What is Faith? so here's what we're going to do we've looked at the prologue what is faith in upcoming episodes we're going to be looking at belief in god the father almighty who created heaven and earth we're going to be looking at belief in jesus christ his only son our lord we're going to be looking at the fact that he was conceived by the holy spirit we're literally going to go through those 12 statements in the apostles creed and go through them one at a time. If you can stick with me, I think that you'll find that your faith will be greatly enriched. And if there are elementary elements to the faith that you are not yet solid in, that this might help firm up that foundation so that you can go on to think about other things, explore other things, learn other things,

and then build upon that foundation. All right. So I hope that that sounds good. Here's what I want to do. I'm going to take a few questions from my patrons, and then we're going to wrap it up for the day. Thanks so much for listening. Okay. A very big thank you to all of you who are supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon and who are getting all these awesome rewards in return, like signed books and stickers and Pints with Aquinas beer steins and book studies that we're doing together and all sorts of things. So thank you very much. First question actually kind of gets to that. This is from Penny Marchetti, who asks, when do you plan to have the Flannery O'Connor Book Club? Well, we began several weeks ago now, but if you're out there,

O'Connor Book Club. Well, we began several weeks ago now, but if you're out there, and by the way, it's been going absolutely amazing. It was a five-week course by Father Damien Ference, who's currently getting his PhD having to do with Flannery O'Connor. And so every week he would record a video and give you reading assignments. And it's been amazing to see the reaction that we've had from the patrons. It's just been like, there's like 60, 70 comments in the thread, people going back and forth, helping people understand what Father Damien Ferencz was talking about. And Father Damien Ferencz himself was in the comments section responding to y'all. But I want to point out, even though it would have been cool to have joined that course

from the beginning, if you become a patron today, you could go through those five videos and do the reading, you know, if you want to learn more about him. So you could do that, Penny you could go through those five videos and do the reading if you want to learn more about him. So you could do that, Penny, if you've missed out on that. Let's see. Lewis asks, if you were declared a saint, we'll pray for that, what would you like to be the patron saint of and why? I don't know. Is there like a patron saint of whiskey distillers? That'd be kind of cool. Or coffee makers? Oh, Danny Ryan, who is actually in my Exodus 90 group. That's cool. Hi, Danny. Thanks for being a patron and also in my men's group. You're awesome. You asked, compare Exodus 90 day 22 to this time. Okay. Yeah. So I did Exodus 90 before

stopped at day 22. What's it like this time? It's been a lot better, very difficult, but it was better because I was with a group of men. So that's that. Okay. Let's see what else we have here. Lawrence asks, what's your motto slash tagline? Am I supposed to have one? I don't know. I don't have a motto or a tagline. If I was to think of a scripture that would sort of sum up the work I'm trying to do here on Pints and the work that I'm doing abroad in these developing countries or that I will be doing shortly, it would be from, what is it? 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, I think. Yes, 10, what is it? 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, I think. Yes, 10, verse 5. And let's see here. Here it is. I just looked it up. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. So I think that's pretty cool.

Robert J. Comito asks, what's the difference between moral relativism and freedom of conscience? Comito asks, what's the difference between moral relativism and freedom of conscience? Okay, moral relativism is the belief that morals are relative to cultures, times, places, the idea that there are no objective moral facts. So when I say that there are objective morals, like duties, yeah, what I mean is there are objective moral duties, and these things are independent of what anyone thinks. So if you want to say, let's think of a truth. The sun is hotter than this match I just ignited, say. Okay. That's true. And it's true whether I want it to be true or not. And it's true even if the entire world thought that this flame coming off this match was hotter than the sun.

It's true that two plus two equals four, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. So moral relativism says that morals aren't like that. It's more like, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? It's kind of relative to the person or to a group or at a particular time and that sort of thing. Whereas when people talk about freedom of conscience, well, it depends. People could mean this and people often talk about you should never go against your conscience and that conscience is the final arbiter sort of thing. And in one sense, that's true. I mean, you should never go against your conscience. Like, suppose you actually thought that, let's just come up with a random wacky scenario, right? That buying a cat was a mortal sin. Now, it might be a sin, but it's probably not a mortal sin. But if you believed it to be a mortal sin to buy a cat, and that it would be, in so doing, you would be

rejecting God, then you shouldn't do it. And if you did, that would be bad. But the problem when people keep talking about conscience or, you know, my conscience says that abortion is okay. Well, what you're doing could still be gravely evil. And so you need to form your conscience and you're responsible to do that. You know, like you have a duty to do that. All right, let's see here. Jessica Foster says, I just ended a relationship due to purity issues. He didn't want to keep to it. Not really a question, but if you have any words of encouragement or advice to help me get through this generally horrible period, I would appreciate it. God bless you, Jessica. I imagine this is a very difficult time for you. It's never a fun

thing to break up a relationship with a person that you care about, especially if you had hopes to be married one day. But let me just say, if this person did not respect you and did not want to live a pure relationship, I imagine what you mean by that is like saving sexual activity until marriage, then it's a really good thing that you ended it objectively, even if subjectively it feels really difficult right now. So I'm really sorry for your pain. James Price says, my rector, who is a Jesuit at my old school, preaches openly against the church on homosexuality. Should I report him to the local bishop? Yeah, you should, at least to do your duty. Let's hope that the bishop's faithful and we'll do something about it. I think what you might do is two things

before you contact your bishop. Number one, contact the priest himself and tell him that he should stop doing this and that he's wrong to do this and that the church teaches something and he's a priest and he ought to submit to it. And if he doesn't, he's sinning grievously. And in preaching against the church's teaching, he ought to repent of that, go to confession, change his mind. Now, he might not listen to any of this, but I think that's sort of your duty first. Next, you might talk to the principal at your school or whoever is the head of your school. Hopefully, they'll want to do something about it, but also you should talk to your bishop. I think all three things would probably be a good idea. Cece asks, do you recommend any books for a 16-year-old boy? I'm specifically looking for

a book that has short stories of virtues, right and wrong, like highlights, goofus and gallant, but longer and interesting. Every morning we are reading Humility Rules, St. Benedict's 12-step guide to genuine self-esteem, great words of wisdom. A book like this, I can't think of a book like that off the top of my head, but I personally, and this is just my personal opinion, I don't like books that have an obvious moral to them. They're trying to teach me a neat little lesson. I would much prefer to give a 16-year-old a book like The Lord of the Rings in which valor and courage and honesty, truthfulness, these sorts of things are celebrated, you know, very clearly.

So you might get him that book if he hasn't read it yet. Let's see. Let's do one more and then we'll wrap it up. Skylar says, do you think the church could use a refocus on mystery? Yes, absolutely. Yes, definitely. Absolutely. 100%. Yes. But I'll let you continue. So much of the rich mystery of Catholicism can be found in the Latin rite, the extraordinary form, I suppose, is what you are referring to, and some of the older traditions of the church. I am a new Catholic as I entered the church last year. However, I often feel discouraged when I look at my parish and I feel that I don't see Catholics in love or awe. If you

don't think a lack of reverence or mystery is an issue, what do you think is the cure to the apathy lethargy that is so common among the laity? I struggle with this at times. Thanks, Matt. Long live the frad, all in capital letters. There you go. Yes, well, I couldn't agreeity. I struggle with this at times. Thanks, Matt. Long live the Frad. All in capital letters. There you go. Yes, well, I couldn't agree more. I think the reason many people are uninterested in going to Mass is because Mass has become like a little gathering where we shuffle about the place like it's a 7-Eleven and nothing's demanded of us. There is no mystery to encounter. Why would you want to go to a town hall meeting every week? That's essentially, I think, what some churches feel like. Say hi to your neighbor, get to know

each other. And there's something to be said, obviously, about worshiping together and knowing your neighbor, knowing who you're worshiping with and these sorts of things. But the felt banners and the bad music and these sorts of things, there's really not much in it, I think, to capture the imagination of men and women. We long for our desire for the supernatural to be taken seriously. And when it is met with felt, I don't know how else to say it, but ugly things, then I think we feel hurt. And so I think you're right to feel that way. I would recommend looking up in your area a parish that celebrates the Tridentine Mass, the Mass of Trent, the Latin Mass, or an Anglican Ordinariate. These are usually celebrated with great beauty. Or a Byzantine church.

Or finding a Novus Ordo that's celebrated really well. I know that some people have this desire to stick it out in a particular Novus Ordo parish to try and help reform the whole thing. My experience is usually these are futile sort of endeavors. And if you especially have young children, I don't know if you want them to have to put up with this when you could be exposing them to the beauties of the tradition. So you might do that. All right. Thank you everybody for listening to Pints with Aquinas this week. I hope it was a help. As I say, we're going to be going through the creed of the next 13 or so weeks, depending. And I know it's going to be a blessing to you. Do me a favor, would you? If you haven't yet reviewed Pints with Aquinas a favor, would you? If you haven't

yet reviewed Pints with Aquinas on iTunes, could you go and do that like this second? It doesn't take long at all. It's just a couple of clicks for you, but it means a ton to us because people then end up hearing about Pints with Aquinas when they're on iTunes looking for things like philosophy and beer and theology and saints and Christianity and things like that. So that'd be a huge thing. Thanks very much. God bless.