Pints With Aquinas - 77. 10 Books by or about Aquinas you need to read

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I'm Matt Fradd. Today I want to share with you 10 books by or about St. Thomas Aquinas that I think you should read. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I would usually pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Today, however, I want to do something maybe a little more elementary. Rather than going through one of Aquinas' articles in the Summa Theologiae, I thought instead what we could do is suggest ten books by or about Aquinas that I think everyone who wants to become a follower of Aquinas, a disciple of Aquinas, so to speak, should read. I've had so many people write to me through Twitter and Facebook and everywhere else. And they've said they want some episodes that are a little more elementary, like how do we get into Aquinas? And so that's what today's episode will be about. Now, before I get underway, I need to give a huge shout out to Brian

McCaffrey. Brian is one of our Protestant listeners, one of our many Protestant listeners. And he called up a few times and left a voicemail and just said how much he appreciated the show. a voicemail and just said how much he appreciated the show. And he was so kind, he actually sent me a bottle of bourbon. So he wrote to me and said, would it be okay? And I said, yeah, I think that would be okay. And so he sent me this beautiful bottle. I'm holding in my hand right now. Barrel bourbon, cask strength, 56.5 alcohol. There you go. So Brian, cheers to you, mate. I really appreciate it. It's so good to have people listening to this show who want to learn from Aquinas, who aren't necessarily Catholic. As I've said many times in the past, many of us can learn from St. Thomas Aquinas, not just Catholics. So it's awesome to have you, Brian, as a listener,

and to all of our other Protestant or non-Catholic listeners, you're very welcome. Also, a new segment on Pints with Aquinas that I'm going to be starting each week. Actually, I'll be starting now and then be doing each week is Q&A. So, many people write to me over Instagram, Twitter. You know how all these different social media feeds have their own inbox? If you've written to me over these, my apologies, but I cannot respond to all of the messages that I get in. I don't know how anyone can respond to all of the messages that we get in. Like it used to be just email, right? And now people are writing over Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and blah, blah, blah. I can't get to them all. So apologies, I'm not intentionally ignoring you, but I thought it would be really cool to respond to these questions that

many of you have at the end of each episode. So that's what I'll be doing today. So if you have a question, I want to hear from my Patreon supporters. If you're a Patreon supporter, you may ask me a question. Just go over to the page, patreon.com slash PWA. Ask me anything you want. It can have to do with coffee or bourbon or trees or theology or philosophy or my favorite book or what I'm watching on Netflix or whatever. And I'd be happy to answer it. So stick around after today's episode, we'll do our first Q&A series. Exciting. So Thomas Aquinas, huh? I love him. You do too. But how do you begin to read him for yourself? How do you begin to learn more about him? Because Aquinas is like Mount Everest, right? Like, how do you come at it? You know,

he wrote voluminously on so many issues. He wrote more than most of us will read in a lifetime. And how do you even begin to approach him? So, here's 10 books that I've read. I mean, there's so many books out there, right? On Thomas Aquinas, many obviously I haven't read. And so, I thought, well, I want to share 10 with y'all, but I only want to share like ones that I've actually read myself or have read a good chunk of. And so, here they are, okay? The first one, and by the way, if you're looking for the links to all of these, just go to pintswithaquinas.com and you'll see it as a blog, 10 books by or about Aquinas you need to read, and you can find all the links there. The first one is Aquinas' Shorter Summa by St. Thomas Aquinas.

So, you've obviously heard of the Summa Theologiae. We discuss that every week on the show. But did you know that Thomas wrote a shorter and much simpler version of the Summa Theologiae? What's really great about this book is it isn't a dumbed-down version of the Summa by some admirer of St. Thomas Aquinas, right? This is a dumbed-down version of the Sumer Theologiae by Thomas himself. Isn't that awesome? So, you know that he summed up his thoughts correctly since they're his thoughts. Cool, huh? Again, that's Aquinas' shorter Sumer. The second book I would recommend you read, and by the way, I should say,

The second book I would recommend you read, and by the way, I should say, I've put these 10 in the order of easiest to hardest. So, you know, when we get basic training in philosophy or theology, this is a book that you can understand. The second book is the Aquinas Catechism. The Aquinas Catechism, again, this one is by Thomas Aquinas. It's essentially a collection of homilies that Aquinas gave in Naples, I believe towards the end of his life. So, these homilies are Thomas's reflections on and insights into like many of the prayers that we pray very often, like the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Sacraments, as well as the Our Father and the Hail Mary. So, I'd recommend getting that. Again, these are homilies that Aquinas is giving to lay people, right? So, they're not difficult to understand

at all. All right. Third book I would recommend that you read is Guide to Thomas Aquinas by Joseph Pieper. This is an excellent book. It's short, it's well-written. Joseph Pieper is a philosopher, and it's a great place to begin. So let's say you know nothing about the milieu into which Aquinas was born and raised, the 13th century Europe, essentially. If you know nothing about his philosophy and you want to learn more, this is really a good place to begin. He gives a great biography. And as I say, a really helpful overview of the 13th century. I think many people, when they think of, say, 13th century Italy or 13th century Europe, they have a really romanticized understanding of what that was like. And it's just not true,

actually. I mean, there was a heck of a lot of turmoil during the 13th century and within the church, right? You've got the threat of Islam. You've got these new mendicant orders, like the Dominicans and Franciscans. Like these came about in the 13th century and they were really revolutionary, but also really kind of scandalous. And they were a response to particular heretical sects in the church who were basically showing how corrupt the church was at the time, right? And so they began living really austere lives

and really prayed a lot and these sorts of things. And so, you've got this really rich and in many instances, corrupt church, right? There's no point sugarcoating that. There was a lot of corruption in the church then as there is today as there was back when there were 12 apostles, right? Like one of the 12, you know, handed Jesus over to be crucified. That was kind of scandalous. So, what do you do? Like, how do you combat a heresy that's trying to out-Christian you? You know what I mean? But at the same time, has many heretical opinions. Well, that's kind of why these mendicant or these beggar orders arose. Like, prior to this time, you've got the Benedictines, you've got the monks in their monasteries, you don't have quote-unquote monks

going out into the world, much less begging for their own food. But this is what began to happen as a way of accepting what was good in these heretical movements and meeting them there and saying, yeah, you're right. We need to pray more. We need to fast more. We need to be more serious about being Christians, but at the same time, not adopting their heretical views. Anyway, so he talks about all of this, and I think you'll find it really good. Here would be a companion to that third book. Okay, so the third book, again, was Guide to Thomas Aquinas by Joseph Pieper. I literally just read this book last week by G.K. Chesterton. It's called St. Thomas Aquinas, the Dumb Ox. This is a really good book.

It's similar to Pieper's book, but whereas Pieper writes as a philosopher, Chesterton writes as he usually does as a sort of poet. All right. Now, I've heard but can't verify that the way this book came about is that Chesterton asked his secretary to go to the library, the public library or whatever it was, and bring back all the books she could find on Thomas Aquinas. And I heard that Chesterton read all of them and then wrote this very excellent introduction to Aquinas. So if you love Chesterton and you want to love Aquinas more, you'll definitely want to read this book. There was something Chesterton wrote at the beginning of this book that made me think of this podcast, Pines with Aquinas. We're just trying to find it here.

Here it is. It's the very beginning of the introduction. He says this, this book makes no pretense to be anything but a popular sketch of a great historical character who ought to be more popular. Its aim will be achieved if it leads those who have hardly ever heard of St. Thomas Aquinas to read about him in better books. Love the humility of a brilliant author and intellect like Chesterton. Now, I'm not a brilliant author nor a brilliant intellect, but I did think that what Chesterton just said sums up my desire for this podcast, right? I could say this podcast, Pints with Aquinas, makes no pretense to be anything, right? But a popular sketch, a popular overview of a great 13th century Catholic philosopher and his thought, right? And that the aim of this podcast will be achieved if you listen to it

and then go on to listen to much better podcasts about Aquinas than this one. And if you go on to read much better books, right, until you get to the point where you're like, oh my gosh, Matt Fradd and what he has to say. Yeah, that's great. But I mean, I've advanced from that. Like that would just be the bomb. Anyway, so it's a beautiful book. And so I would strongly recommend that you check that out. Again, St. Thomas Aquinas, the dumb ox. Okay. Five and six. I'm going to put these together and you'll see why. The first one is called A Shorter Summa by Peter Kreeft. So, stick with me here. Okay. Stick with me. You listening? Listen. A Shorter Summa by Peter Kreeft is a summary of a

summary Kreeft wrote on Aquinas' summary of theology. What? That's what Summa Theologiae means, right? A summary of theology. So, a short assumer is a summary of a summary Krafft wrote on Aquinas' summary of theology. Now, what I mean by that is Krafft wrote another book before a short assumer, and that's the sixth book I want to recommend. It's called Assumer of the Summa. All right. So, Assuma of the Sumer is a summary of Aquinas' summary, but then people loved Assuma

of the Sumer by Peter Kreeft and said, we want you to simplify it even more. And so, then Aquinas wrote Assuma of his Sumer of St. Thomas Aquinas' Sumer. Anyway, so Assuma of the Sumer, that was his kind of first attempt to sort of make a summary of Aquinas' Sum Theologiae. It was very well received. As I say, people wanted a shorter version of it. And so he wrote that book. So there's two books again, A Shorter Sumer and A Sumer of the Sumer. Kreeft is an excellent writer. He's a philosopher at Boston College. He kind of writes, I really do feel like he's a modern day Chesterton or modern day Lewis. You know, when you read his stuff, it's so entertaining. And so, I can't recommend them highly enough. Okay. The seventh book I want to recommend after I have a drink of this delicious

whiskey. Brian, you rock. The seventh book is, forgive me for the plug, but my upcoming book, okay? It's called Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas by yours truly and my co-author and philosopher, Robert Delfino. Now, this book is set to release soon. I'd say probably at the beginning of 2018. Okay. We're very excited about it, like seriously excited about it. Like, put it this way, if you've read a hundred or it felt like a hundred different explanations of Aquinas' five ways and have found yourself either confused or dissatisfied or both, this book, please God, will remedy that. All right. The manuscript has received really excellent reviews from philosophers like Peter Kreeft, Edward Fazer, and apologist Trent Horn. So, stay close, okay, to us here at Pints with Aquinas, and I'll

let you know when it drops. Yeah, you could just follow Pints with Aquinas on Twitter, follow Pints with Aquinas on Facebook, you know, follow me, Matt Fradd, wherever you want to follow me. And as soon as this releases, we'll be sure to let you know. It's like, you've probably heard about it. I said it's a Socratic dialogue, but like basically what happens is there's two characters, Lucy and AJ. Okay, Lucy is the Christian, AJ is the atheist. And one day, AJ walks into this coffee shop and he's wearing this shirt that says, I'm an atheist, debate me. He runs into this Lucy and she basically says, wow, that's a really cool confrontational shirt you've got there. And they get into this dialogue. Now, I did post an episode way back when on the first way. In the book, it's much more expanded and sophisticated. So, you know, even though it's a Socratic dialogue and we've tried to make it as fun as we can, right? Um, there are definitely parts that are quite dense, um, but I'm sure you can handle it. Um, okay. So anyway, looking forward to that one. All right. Uh, the eighth book I want to recommend

is Aquinas, a beginner's guide by Edward Fazer. By the way, uh, Edward just, uh, agreed to let me interview him on Pints with Aquinas coming up shortly. I'm really pumped about this. What we're going to do is go through Dawkins' quote-unquote refutation of Aquinas' five ways and let Edward just respond to Dawkins. Faisal is an excellent philosopher, and he's got a new book out, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, or something like that. And I've read a bunch of it, and it's bloody excellent, really is. Anyway, but this book, Aquinas, A Beginner's Guide, is excellent. But don't let the name fool you, okay? It's a beginner's guide. While it is a book for people who aren't philosophers,

it's certainly, you know, it's not necessarily light reading, but if you stick with it, you'll learn a lot about Aquinas and his metaphysics. Phaser is one of those philosophers who is both brilliant and also a gifted writer. And what I mean is he's able to take incredibly complex concepts and then break them down in a way that's understandable. He actually offers a great explanation of Thomas's five proofs for the existence of God in this as well. Aquinas, a beginner's guide. All right, two more. I would say get a copy of Thomas Aquinas' Selected Writings. This is a book edited by the late Thomist Ralph McInerney, and it'll give you a holistic experience of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, all right? So,

you know, Aquinas wrote a lot of different things, and you want to know, well, where do I start? Well, this is a good place to start because it's selections of his writings from all different works of his. And McInerney offers short but incredibly helpful introductions to each of Thomas' texts. All right. The tenth book or books, I suppose, that I'd recommend that you read is the Summa Contra Gentiles. The Summa Contra Gentiles. This is by Thomas Aquinas. So, when people talk about the Summa, quote-unquote, they're referring to the Summa Theologiae. But the Summa Theologiae isn't the only Summa Thomas wrote. He also wrote this one.

In English, it could be translated as a summary of the faith against the unbelievers. The reason I think you should dive into this text, and by the way, I have not by any means read all of it. I've only read sections here and selections here and there, or sections here and there. So, the reason I'd say start reading this is that it's very apologetic in nature, right? So, whereas the Summa just tries to give a summary of, you know, of Christian theology without necessarily writing in a way that sort of defends those who hold other creeds, this one does. Like, it's actually very apologetic. And so, it's, you know, for that reason, I think it's kind of more exciting to read, by and large, than the Summa Theologiae. Also, this is the only Summa that was completed by Aquinas, right? I mean,

his masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae, was famously left unfinished due to this mystical experience that he had towards the end of his life. If you're interested in learning about that, by the way, that mystical experience and how he didn't finish the Summa Theologiae, check out the very first Pints with Aquinas episode that I ever did. So there you go. There are 10 books by or about Aquinas that you should read. Again, if you are thinking, you know, where are the links? Where do I get these? Go to pintswithaquinas.com. And one of the recent blog entries is just that, 10 books by or about Aquinas you need to read. And yeah, you can click the link and get a book and get cracking. All right, now we're going to do what I said we'd do at the beginning of the show,

Q&A. The first question comes to us from Brian McCaffrey. Yep, that's the friendly Protestant who sent me this barrel bourbon. So let's see what Brian has to say. Matt, this is Brian McCaffrey, a friendly Protestant in North Carolina. And I've got a question for you in regards to Mary. I've so enjoyed Pints with Aquinas and learning more about the Catholic faith. And one of the things that listening to the podcast in regards to the Immaculate Conception, and one thing that I would love explained, because I'm just completely ignorant, is Mary, I know you talked about St. Francis,

not necessarily knowing exactly when Mary was sanctified or given the special touch of grace to be made holy. I hope I am saying that correctly. My question is, how does that work as far as Christ? If God can make someone holy without Christ's death and blood, then why is Jesus' death necessary? then why is Jesus' death necessary? I guess, hopefully I did not butcher that question, but that's just one that came up as I was listening,

and obviously there's a very good answer to that from the Catholic faith, and I would love to hear it. Thank you very much, Brian, and thank you very much for supporting Points of Aquinas on Patreon. Yeah, great question, and this is actually one of the reasons that Aquinas denied the Immaculate Conception. Of course, the Immaculate Conception had not yet been formulated by the church. If it had of, he no doubt would have accepted it. What Aquinas said was that clearly we know Mary was without sin, but we don't know when. Like, when was she sanctified in the womb,

right? So, that's the thing that this very thing that you seem to be wrestling with, Brian, is what Aquinas was wrestling with. And the way to... Because here's your thought, right? Like, someone might say, like, in Luke chapter 1, where is it? Verse mid-40s or thereabouts, you know, you've got Mary saying things like, you know, my soul rejoices in God my Savior, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. So, if God's her Savior, well, how then was she saved? You know, and as you said, if God can just save anyone or sanctify anyone, why was Christ's death necessary? Well, typically one way of responding to this or answering this question has been, you know, there are two ways that one can be saved. And we're not here talking about salvation,

just in general. Okay, so let's think about this, right? You could be saved sort of medicinally or preventatively. So, you can be saved after the fact or even before the fact. So, suppose somebody's walking through the forest, okay? Maybe you're going on a hike with somebody, even before the fact. So, suppose somebody's walking through the forest, okay? Maybe you're going on a hike with somebody and there's a pit, okay? And your friend falls into this pit, all right? Now, your friend doesn't have a ladder, doesn't have a rope. There is no way at all that your friend will be able to get out of that pit unless you help them, all right? And suppose you do help them. Maybe you cut down a branch and you lower it down to them and you pull them out. You have saved your friend. We might say in a medicinal sense, like after the

fact, right? Obviously not in a medicine sort of way, but I think you know what I mean. Now, so that's one way you can save your friend. You legitimately saved your friend. That's how you and I are saved. We have fallen into sin, all right? We have been deprived of sanctifying grace at our conception, and Christ saves us in that sense. Now, here's another way you might save your friend. Suppose you've been through this, or let's suppose you're walking through the forest with your friend, and your friend is about to step into this pit. And let's say their foot is just about to go in, all right? And at that point, you put out your hand on his chest and you push him back. You have saved your friend, but in a different sense, not after the fact, but prior to the

fact, right? In both instances, your friend can legitimately say, you saved me. Thank you. And so, the Catholic understanding is that when Mary says, my soul rejoices in God, my Savior, she was indeed saved. But Christ's death, right, his redeeming of humanity doesn't just extend forward from his death and resurrection, but it also extends backwards, okay? So, we have a God who is outside of time, and the merits of Christ's death and resurrection were applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the moment of her conception. So, that's the basic gist of what Catholics mean or how they would reconcile Mary having a Savior and yet not knowing sin. and yet not knowing sin. To learn more about this, go to pintswithaquinas.com and look up the sixth episode or just find the sixth episode on your podcast. It's called, Why Didn't You Accept the

Immaculate Conception, St. Thomas? All right. So, there's so much more that could be said. I don't want to repeat everything that I've already said in the sixth episode. So, if you still have questions, go check that out. Why Didn't You Accept the Immaculate Conception, St. Thomas? That's episode six. All right. Thanks, Brian. All right. We'll do one more question this week.

Again, if you want to ask a question to me, become a Patreon supporter. And right there on patreon.com slash PWA, you can ask your question. So many of you have written questions to me and I'm already like, oh my gosh, I could take like five episodes to answer all of these. But let me answer this question by Alejandro Gomez. Thank you, Alejandro, for being a supporter of Pints of Aquinas. You say, good morning, Matt. What motivated you to grow in your faith in the first place and what kept you going after that? Any tips for other Catholics as they walk through the same journey? Thanks. Thanks, Alejandro.

I came to Christ at the age of 17. Prior to that, I think I would have said I was agnostic. At 17 years of age, I went on a trip to World Youth Day in Rome, Italy, and my life was completely changed. I encountered the person of Jesus Christ and came back like one of those happy Christians that you meet after a retreat, you know, the sorts that are so happy it makes you sick almost, you know. I mean, I just fell in love with our Lord and I just had this insatiable hunger to read Holy Scripture, to learn everything I could about Jesus Christ and His Church.

So that's what motivated me to grow in my faith. What kept me going after that? That's a really good question. I think for me, it was such an emotional experience that when those emotions declined, because of course we can't live on the Mount of Transfiguration, we have to come down it, I would often fall back into old patterns. So I would like, even though I had now come to Christ, you know, I'd go and pray and sometimes I'd feel nothing. And so, I'd go smoke pot, you know, and something stupid like that. So, it's like, well, how did I kind of overcome that? Well, I think one of the things I had to learn and what I think all Christians have to learn is that our faith shouldn't be led by our emotions because our

emotions are really fickle and often they can't be trusted, you know, to be quite honest. I mean, before I woke up this morning and had my coffee, I felt really groggy, really down. Maybe I was totally unmotivated to pray or even love my children, you know, like after coffee, maybe I felt a whole lot better. And so, there can be just physical things that affect our moods, and we can't let our emotions dictate our prayer life. I once heard a great analogy, maybe many of you have as well. It's about three men that are walking along a wall, okay? And at the front, you have fact. In the middle, you have faith. And at the end, you have feeling, right? And basically, faith has to keep his eyes on fact, and feeling has to keep his eyes on faith. So, in other words, what should concern us is the truthhood or the falsity of certain claims.

When we know that Christianity is true, we have faith in Christianity. So, faith should follow facts, right? Now, emotions sometimes, you know, follow faith, but sometimes they don't, and that's okay. So long as we keep our eyes on fact, emotions can follow us or not follow us. They can come and go, and that doesn't matter so much. And for me, one of the ways that I learned to become solid in my Catholic faith, or solider, is by joining NET Ministries. It's a program. I did it up in Canada, a NET stands for National Evangelization Team. And while I was on NET, I was really taught to have a personal prayer life, regardless of how I felt. And so, I think that's one way that helped me grow in my relationship

with the Lord and for it to become more consistent. Because when you think about it, it's sort of like a relationship with a spouse or a girlfriend, right? Like in the beginning, you might have a tremendous amount of sort of emotions, you know what I mean? Like I remember when I started dating my wife, Cameron, you know, there were nights I couldn't sleep, you know, I just couldn't stop thinking about her, you know what I mean? I would stay up to all hours of the night chatting with her. You know, she was in America, you know, I was in Australia. So, it'd be like three in the morning and I'm still talking to her even though I've got to get up the next day. That's great. That's awesome. It's sort of infatuation almost. But you can't continue

to live like that. I mean, imagine how massively impractical that would be. You know what I mean? Feelings come and go. So like, let's say two in the morning, my son wakes up because he's had an accident in his pants and I got to go clean him up. It's not like I wake up feeling on cloud nine. You know what I mean? And so that might be a good sort of analogy for our relationship with the Lord. You know, sometimes we're going to feel madly in love with Him and

other times we're not going to feel anything at all. And sometimes we might feel like almost the opposite, you know, of something good, you know. But we have to say like, well, what does love require of me? You know, love requires that I be consistent in my devotion to the Lord and that I be faithful to His commands regardless of how I feel. All right. So anyway, I hope that's the beginning of an answer. God bless you. Thank you so much for your question and for all those who support Pines with Kindness on Patreon. We will chat with you next week. And until then, God bless you and keep you. I battle with my selfish. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive?