Pints With Aquinas - 59: How do I better acquire knowledge?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Pints with Aquinas depends on your support. If you're an awesome person and want to prove it, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the Patreon banner, and there you can learn how to support the show for as little as $2 a month. Every dollar helps, and we are grateful for your support. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 59. I'm 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? In today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas, how do I better acquire knowledge? Thanks for joining us yet again at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Huge welcome to all of the new listeners. It's good to have you with us. Pints with Aquinas has been going on now weekly for over a year. And that's exciting news for you if you've just listened, because that means there's, you know, dozens of great podcasts that you can listen to. You know, if you listen to NPR Politics or if you listen to some other podcast that has to do with events of the day, you're not going to scroll back and listen to older episodes. But what's cool about Pints with Aquinas is that every episode revolves around a question that Aquinas answers in one of his works. Most usually, we look to the Summa Theologiae.

Starting point is 00:01:43 So, take a look. Here's some of the questions we've done, right? What do you think of Islam? And if that's not controversial enough, what do you think about wet dreams? Believe it or not, Aquinas answers these sorts of things. We talk about logic and argumentation. We talk about why there are seven sacraments. We talk about what's the deal with relics. We talk about why we call Mary the mother of God. So much stuff. So, scroll back through and listen

Starting point is 00:02:13 to it. Today, we're going to be asking Aquinas about how we can better acquire knowledge because Aquinas is clearly the man who was able to dictate on different topics to several secretaries at once. So, he would probably be someone we would want to ask, you know, how do I better, you know, study, learn, acquire knowledge? in this episode is share something that he apparently wrote to a fellow friar, Brother John, who wrote to Aquinas and asked him that very question, how I better acquire knowledge. And Aquinas gave him 16 points. He said, if you want to better acquire knowledge, here's what you should do. That's pretty cool, huh? Now, to be honest, it's doubtful that Aquinas wrote this. We're not exactly sure. It might not be authentic, but either way,

Starting point is 00:03:11 I think it would certainly represent what Aquinas thought. So, whether it's authentic or not, great advice. advice. Number one, if you want to set about acquiring the treasure of knowledge, this is the advice I pass on to you. That you should choose to enter by the small rivers and not go right away into the sea because you should move from easy things to difficult things. Such is therefore my advice on your way of life. I think that's great advice because it can be very overwhelming when you, say, walk into a library and see shelves and shelves of philosophy books, all these different philosophers, theologians, you know you should know, but maybe you don't, or maybe you're not as well read in them as you think you should be. And that can be really overwhelming.

Starting point is 00:04:15 And I like this advice to like begin with what's manageable. I worked at Catholic Answers as an apologist for three years out in San Diego. And I tell you what, man, working for them, you very quickly understand how little you know. Because, you know, you're in the lunchroom with Jimmy Akin, Tim Staples, Carl Keating, and these guys know a ton. And you can't just throw out random bits of information and hope that they're true at Catholic Answers, you know, because then they'll laugh at you and be like, oh, Matthew, you must have meant the year 392, did you? You said 393. You're like, crap. Yeah, I guess I meant 392. Like, you can't pull anything over them is my point. But I remember, you know, starting off there and wanting to know everything. Like, how do I get on the radio and start answering all of these questions that you all get fired at you? And I was sitting in Carl Keating, who's the founder of Catholic Answers.

Starting point is 00:05:09 I was sitting in his office one day and he said to me, Matt, pick one topic at a time. You know, for example, he said, like, pick baptism. Does baptism regenerate the soul? Look into the scriptural evidence, the patristic evidence, the arguments as to why it might not be the case and the counter arguments to those objections. And I did that. I became obsessed with that topic, you can ask my wife, for, you know, several weeks. And I feel like today, I could do a pretty good job at talking about that issue. But whatever it be, right, it maybe has nothing to do with faith or religion, but I like that idea of entering by the small rivers and slowly acquiring

Starting point is 00:05:52 knowledge because I think one, that will train us to be good studious learners and it also not overwhelm us all at once. Here's the second thing he suggests if you want to learn how to acquire knowledge. I suggest, says Aquinas, you be slow to speak. Now, I think we could say perhaps two things to this. One, you should be slow to speak because you don't know nearly as much as you should know or you think you know. Now, I know that's sort of ironic given that I run a podcast in which I wax on about Aquinas and his teachings. So, I've said it before, let me say it again. I don't consider myself a Thomist in the sense of being an expert in this area of Thomism, okay? I consider myself an amateur dabbler who has a

Starting point is 00:06:46 passion for truth and happens to love Aquinas. And I'm coming alongside with you and I'm saying, let's read Aquinas together. But I think that's very good. We should be slow to speak, you know. We should allow others to speak, listen, learn from them. But also in being slow to speak we can have a sort of inner solitude or recollection right as opposed to just bantering uselessly we talk about fasting yeah well one thing you and i could do is fast from speech i don't mean be awkward when someone speaks to you and you ignore them but i mean you, choosing to speak when it's necessary. But other than that, sit back, let other people talk, you know. Number three.

Starting point is 00:07:34 And he says, I suggest you slow to go to the room where people chat. So in other words, don't spend a lot of time in idle gossip, in places where idle gossip is encouraged. Like if you want to be a student who retains knowledge, then don't distract yourselves with all of the topics of today and useless chatter that really doesn't build up the intellect of the soul. Number four, embrace purity of conscience. That's a really good one, I think.

Starting point is 00:08:18 I mean, let's just think of a couple of sins, right? Let's think of the sin against sexual purity and the sin against envy, okay? So, if I am looking at pornography every day or once every two days or whatever, then a couple of things are going to happen. One, I'm kind of eating into the time that I could be using to read good literature, good books, study, but I'm also dulling my intellect. but I'm also dulling my intellect. The one who is addicted to pornography finds it very difficult to concentrate

Starting point is 00:08:50 and to find interesting all this text on a page because we become accustomed to this constant novelty. I mean, forget for a moment the fact that pornography is intrinsically evil and will damn our souls to hell, potentially. I'm just talking about the fact that when we get addicted to it, all of a sudden, all of reality becomes sepia-toned, you know, and if you've been hooked on porn, you know what that's like. You know, you shut the laptop lid, turn off the phone, go into real life, and everything else seems boring.

Starting point is 00:09:23 turn off the phone, go into real life and everything else seems boring. Think of envy, right? If I'm wasting my energy envying somebody because they know more than me, well, that's just not the spirit to learn with, right? I should want to be a seeker of truth for the sake of knowing truth, not for the sake of seeming intelligent. Let's see, number five, do not stop making time for prayer. Why is that? Because it is true, right? That God is true goodness and beauty, truth, goodness, and beauty. But if we stop making time for prayer and we are trying to become intellectuals, then we remove God from the place He ought to have in our heart, right? We dethrone Him as it were, and we start seeking truth for some other sake, like I mentioned a moment ago, to be seen as brilliant or something.

Starting point is 00:10:27 Number six, love to be in your room frequently if you wish to be led to the wine cellar. Now, that wine cellar is, that brings us back to the Song of Songs. And some have interpreted the wine cellar as the truth that God wants to give to the soul that is intent on discovering it. So, love to be in your room frequently. In other words, block out all of the distractions and to be with yourself. I don't know, I'm going to try and say something here, and I haven't thought it through, so it may come out a little confused.

Starting point is 00:11:04 But here goes. thing here and I haven't thought it through so it may come out a little confused but here he goes an object can be intimately united or associated with another object in as much as it has interior life so if I put two bricks together there's no sort of intimacy. There's no recognition of the other brick by brick A, say. There's no interior life when it comes to a brick, when it comes to a phone, when it comes to a box, when it comes to a light bulb. But then there are animals that have something like intelligence and the higher up they are on the chain of being like a dog say it's you know a dog can show affection to another object or it can act hostile to another object right but a flea doesn't seem to be able to do that you know or a ladybug or even a lizard, you know, at least some lizards.

Starting point is 00:12:07 But men and women, by virtue of the fact that they are self-determining, right, have an interior life, can be connected with the external world and all the objects within it in a way that no other being can. Right, do you agree with that? So, wouldn't it follow that to the degree in which we cultivate the interior life, we'll have a better sort of intimate union and understanding and appreciation of the objects around us? Does that make sense? Now, what is the interior life? The interior life is that conversation that goes on within us when we're alone, you know. This is actually why I don't let my kids listen to a lot of audio books when they're going to sleep. I love audio books, right? And you can get some great audio books. but I want them to be in silence. I want them laying in their bed and thinking. That internal

Starting point is 00:13:12 conversation, right? That's supposed to lead to this internal communion with God. But we can kill the interior life with a million and one distractions with Twitter and Instagram and you know, porn and the latest celebrity mag, whatever. So, when Aquinas says love to be in your room frequently if you wish to be led into the wine cellar, I think that's a way of saying be alone with yourself, cultivate the interior life. cultivate the interior life. Just recently, I made the announcement that I was considering leaving Facebook. It was amazing how many people, and maybe you were one of them, because I had a lot of comments. People like, no, don't do that. Like, what's the matter? What happened? Like, it's okay. It was almost like I was committing suicide.

Starting point is 00:14:04 And my thought was no i just don't want to be i don't want the distraction anymore like yeah i get i have like 30 000 25 000 whatever followers but who cares it was a big distraction for me now i haven't cancelled it one thing i did do is i gave my iphone to my wife and i said would you please go into settings and block the downloading of apps on my phone? Did you know you can do that? It's really cool. You can actually make your smartphone a dumb phone, as it were. So, if you would open up my phone, right, there's no Twitter app, there's no Instagram app, there's no Facebook app, there's no Chrome or Safari. I didn't just want to go get

Starting point is 00:14:44 one of those like clip phones because I like having directions, right, on or Safari. I didn't just want to go get one of those like clip phones because I like having directions, right, on my phone. I like being able to get my airplane boarding pass or whatever. But this is a way for me to have to be alone with myself and to limit distractions. You might consider doing something like that. Yeah. I mean, for you, maybe you don't want to do that altogether, but maybe you say, okay, I'll just, I'm going to give my phone to

Starting point is 00:15:09 a friend. I'm going to tell him to like set up, you know, put a password on here, block downloading of apps, and then I'll just delete a couple of my social media things. Cause then I can still use social media, but I got to be in front of my computer, you know? So that was number six, love to be in your room frequently. If you wish to be led into the wine cellar. Number seven, show yourself to be likable to all or at least try. I'm not sure why that would be conducive to gaining or acquiring knowledge, but oh, I think this might be it because in number eight, he says, pay no heed to others' affairs. Okay. So, he's essentially saying, I think, like, don't get caught up in gossip. Be likable to people, he's saying, like, don't be just shut off from them and cold, but don't get involved in issues that really don't concern you,

Starting point is 00:16:01 because in doing that, you're distracting your attention. Number nine, he says, but do not show yourself as too familiar with anyone because too much familiarity breeds contempt and will slow you in your studies. So, I mean, I think it would be wrong to think, right, that Aquinas is saying you shouldn't have friends. If he is saying that, Linus is saying you shouldn't have friends. If he is saying that, then I think we could rightly disagree with him. But no, I mean, there are friendships that you have that I have, and these people inspire us to be better, to act better, to study more, you know, these sorts of things. But I think, again, what he's saying is don't become too familiar with the trivial aspects of different people. Like, we do get really sucked up into gossip, don't we? Like, what happened with him? What happened with her? Why is he doing that? Has he left the priesthood? Are they still together?

Starting point is 00:16:55 Yeah, don't be concerned with that, he's saying. These things, he says, will slow you in your studies. Number 10, don't get involved in any way in the deeds and words of worldly people. So, if you're or if I'm one of these people that read, you know, People Magazine, stop doing that. Like, honestly, like really what good can come from it, you know? I think that just trains us in superficiality. I mean, you might disagree. That's what I think, you know, and I'm right. No, just joking, but I am, but I'm just joking, but okay. Let's go to the number 11. He says, above all, avoid idle conversation. Do not forget to follow the steps of holy and approved men. So, you notice this number 11 comes

Starting point is 00:17:43 after, you know, we just read 7, 8, 9, 10, which had to do with, you know, don't become too familiar with other people, be likable to other people, but don't get involved in their affairs. Okay. So, 11, it sounds like he's sort of rounding it out and saying, look, above all, so maybe he's saying like, here's the main point, avoid idle conversation. Do not forget to follow the steps of holy and approved men. So, reading the lives of the saints and not making excuses for ourselves, like not looking at the parishioners in our particular church and saying, how can I be like them? And there might be people in our parish who are worthy emulating, but rather looking to the saints and doing as they did. Number 12, do not consider from whom you learn. And Aquinas' point there is, I think, don't be arrogant. You know, we can learn something

Starting point is 00:18:35 from everybody we encounter, be that homeless person or a young child or a senior citizen or an atheist or someone we disagree with, do not consider from whom you learn, right? Be humble and learn, right? There's always something to learn from people. One thing I've begun doing when I chat with people who I disagree with strongly is I just ask them questions almost like someone who's really selfish and I'm looking for any gold I can get. In other words, I'm not asking them questions to trap them. I'm really trying to understand their point of view. Like, why do you think that? What about this? And it's as if, again, I'm not using a Socratic dialogue to sort of, you know, do a judo move on them and be like, ha ha, here's why you're wrong.

Starting point is 00:19:25 I'm trying to learn from them. Not, of course, in any way that would compromise the Christian faith, but just trying to learn. We can learn from anybody. Number 13, Aquinas says, but commit to memory what is said that is true. Commit to memory what is said that is true. Commit to memory. What is said that is true. You know, memory is a forgotten art, isn't it? When I was a kid, I probably knew the phone numbers of, I don't know, a dozen or more people. Today, I know my number. I know my wife's number. I know my parents' number because they've had it since I was a kid. That's it. You know, we don't memorize a lot. And I think, you know, I have a lot of respect for my Protestant brothers and sisters who do seem to be very intent on memorizing Scripture.

Starting point is 00:20:15 My children go to their homeschool, but they go two days a week to this kind of classically educated school. It's called Regina Celli. And it's amazing what these kids, my kids are being forced to learn. Poetry, the Baltimore Catechism, Greek, Latin. They're like sponges, you know. Commit to memory what is said that is true. We'll talk a little bit about that later. Number 14, work to understand what you read and make yourself sure of doubtful points. Work to understand what you read and make yourself sure of doubtful points. So, what I do when I read a book is I always read with a pen. And if while I'm reading,

Starting point is 00:21:00 I don't understand a point, I don't just glaze past it, I put a question mark in the column so that I can ask somebody who knows more than me, like, what does he mean by this? And this line here, and make yourself sure of doubtful points. You know, there are a few things as exhilarating in the Christian walk of first, not fully understanding a particular doctrine, maybe having doubts about a particular thing, and then pursuing that doubt into the ground. I mean, I mentioned baptism a moment ago. You know, there were times in which I was thinking, you know, golly, baptism, you know, maybe it's not as big a deal as the church makes it out to be, you know. Well, did the early church, what did they think about it? That sort of thing. And I pursued it.

Starting point is 00:21:47 You know, I read the church fathers. I read the Protestant reformers. I pursued it into the ground and I made myself sure of what was once a doubtful point. But again, going back to Aquinas' first point about entering the small rivers and not going right away into the sea, you know, you might have several things about the Catholic faith that bother you, or the Christian faith if you're Protestant or whatever. Rather than trying to just ignore them all, which is not a good idea, rather than pursuing the whole thing at once, which might be, you know, unreasonable, choose one of them and then pursue it, you know, see what Aquinas says about it. Go to Catholic Answers and see what they have to say at catholic.com. Two more points. He says, put whatever you can into the cupboard of your mind as if you were trying to fill a cup. Put whatever you can into the cupboard of your mind as if you were trying to fill a cup. I don't know exactly what Aquinas meant here, but for me,

Starting point is 00:22:53 it's like, recognize that you have an incredible capacity to memorize things. And don't be afraid to commit things to memory, right? Don't be afraid to think that, oh, well, if I do that, maybe something else will get pushed out the other side of my ear, you know? Like, no, fill it up with good things. It's like, I think it was St. Paul who says, whatever is true, good and beautiful, think of these things. And finally, 16, Aquinas says, seek not the things that are higher than you. I'm not sure why, I mean, I suppose that seems pretty self-explanatory, but maybe one thing he meant there was recognize your intellectual limits. So, sometimes in trying to be studious, in trying to acquire the treasure of knowledge, we want to sort of encompass everything,

Starting point is 00:23:46 but recognize that there are things that are beyond you. You know, if, for example, if you understand God, that's a good sign that it's not God that you understand, but a figment of your imagination. There are things that are above you and above me. And that kind of gets back to his first point, you know, begin with the small rivers. And then he concludes by saying, follow the steps of blessed Dominic, who produced useful and marvelous shoots, flowers and fruits in the vineyard of the Lord of hosts for as long as life was his companion. If you follow these things, you will attain whatever you desire. Farewell. All right, so there you go. There are the 16 precepts. I'll be sure to throw them in the

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Pints With Aquinas - 59: How do I better acquire knowledge?

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