Pints With Aquinas - 87: What do you mean by 'law,' Thomas Aquinas? With Scott Hahn

Episode Date: January 2, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 87. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with St. Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Well, today, for this very first episode in 2018, we're joined around the bar table, the metaphorical bar table, with the one and only Scott Hahn. Theologian, author, awesome individual, Scott Hahn, to talk about what St. Thomas Aquinas means when he talks about law. Hey, good to have you back here at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Many of you have begun supporting me on Patreon because you love Pints with Aquinas and you love good Catholic media.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. You are what is going to make 2018 a great year for Pints with Aquinas. If you still haven't begun supporting the show and you want to do it, go to pintswithaquinas.com and click support. And you give different levels of money. I give you things in return. For example, we've got a brand spanking new book coming out on Thomas Aquinas' Five Proofs for the Existence of God.

You give me $10 a month. And apart from all the other free awesome stuff that you'll get, go check it out on Patreon. I'll also send you a signed copy of that book you give me 20 bucks a month and i'll send you a pints with aquinas beer stein these cannot be found anywhere else on the web and they are absolutely top notch top quality believe me when i tell you that these are all literally handmade in the united states by one individual person making them one at a time. It is the greatest beer stein in the history of drinking vessels and the history of beer steins. And you're going to

love it. So again, go to pineswithaquinas.com, click Patreon, sorry, click support, and then you can support me on Patreon, I should say. And my family and I would be very, very, very, very grateful. I told you several episodes back that I have quit my day job and doing this full time. And so as of now, January, I don't have a job or else this is my job. So if you believe in what I'm doing and you want to see this continue and flourish in 2018, I'd be super honored if you would go and support the show. So today we're going to be talking about a number of things about, well, mainly about law, what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say on law. Something I wanted to mention before we get

into this interview, because I find it really fascinating, is maybe you've seen me make fun of William of Ockham on social media. You've probably heard of Ockham's razor, which is usually thought to be explained by saying you should choose the simplest explanation if the simplest explanation will do. But I want to create some bumper stickers that say blame Occam because I think in many ways, Occam influenced Martin Luther and so the Protestant Reformation and a lot of modern philosophers, including Immanuel Kant. One of the things that Occam did is, you know, whereas Aristotle said we are naturally drawn towards the good, right? It's this good that we seek because it's the good that will

make us happy. And so you can't be, you know, if you want to be happy, you got to be virtuous. The two go hand in hand. Occam wanted to kind of like focus on freedom to such an extent that he said, actually, there's no sort of draw towards the good. You know, the only thing that makes something good or bad is law. And so Occam would go so far as to say or insinuate strongly that God could have commanded us to hate our parents, right? The Ten Commandments didn't have to be the Ten Commandments. And just by his commanding them, they would be good. And that's not at all the understanding of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. We could sum it up this way. Aquinas and Aristotle would say the law requires something of me because that thing is good, okay? The law requires this thing of me, or to refrain

from this thing because it's bad, right? Or to do something because it is good and that will make me happy, okay? Whereas for Ockham, he would say it is the thing that's required of me is good, He would say, the thing that's required of me is good solely because the law requires it of me. So Aquinas says, the law requires it of me because it's good. Occam would say, it's good because the law requires it of me. So Aquinas' correct, I would argue, understanding shows that the law-abiding man, right, the virtuous man is the happy man, whereas Occam's incorrect understanding leads to legalism, leads to scrupulosity. And you see this today, right? When you talk about morality, what do people think of? They think, well, it's those things that I'm not allowed to do, but really want to do. Like it's people who are uptight and prudish and whatever, right? But that's not at all the understanding we Catholics and Protestants

who want to be influenced by Aquinas and natural law and just the way things are, right? You should recognize that if you want to be happy, then you must be virtuous, right? It's the virtuous man that's happy. And so morality sets us free because it helps us become who we are. All right. So that's just a little intro into today's discussion with Scott Hahn. I don't want to keep going because he has a lot of beautiful things to say, and I don't want to repeat what he has to say here. You're going to very much enjoy today's show and please stick around to the end of the show for some Q&A. enjoy today's show, and please stick around to the end of the show for some Q&A. Aquinas described law as a certain rule and measure of acts whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting. Before we might talk a little bit about the four types of law Thomas speaks of, do you

want to speak to that definition of law in general? No, I think what you're pointing to is something that is clear and central to his thought, but even more, I think, that his understanding of our rational participation in God's eternal law. This is the bridge that is built, you know, because Thomas's understanding of morality is not reducible to, you know, Immanuel Kant and his deontological notion of duty. It's also not just simply a command theory that is voluntaristic. You do this because God said so, he's God, you're not, and so you better do it or else. I think we also recognize that Aristotle taught something that is known as eudaimonism, that it really is, you know, we do those things that lead us to happiness and fulfillment. And I think this is a path into Aquinas, only he takes it to an even greater level than Aristotle did, because

what he discovers is that we don't just do the good because it fulfills us and makes us happy. We do the good because God is goodness itself. And the only person who wants me to be happy much more than I do is God. And the reason why he hates my sin is because he understands not that sin is simply breaking the law, but it's breaking my life, breaking my heart, breaking my marriage and family. And so he hates it out of love for me. my marriage and family. And so he hates it out of love for me. And so this notion of law as a rational participation in God's eternal law, that is God and how he governs all of creation, this to me was another breakthrough, a kind of eureka moment. But it's really there at the beginning of the treatise on law. When you go to the prima secundae, the first part of the second

part, you often find published editions of the so-called treatise on law, but typically they stop at question, well, they start with question 90 and then go through about 96, sometimes 98. But actually, that's not the whole treatise on law. The whole treatise on law is about two-thirds more than that. You only get about one-third when you take that part that preaches eternal law, which then moves on to the natural law as our participation in that eternal law. Then we come to human law, which is how it is we establish friendship among humans,

the common good, as it were. And then he finally reaches the summit, the divine law. But because everybody realizes that divine law is impossible to implement, it's impracticable to even talk about, almost every single English translation of the three different laws stops right there. Without ever unpacking what for Aquinas was clearly more important than the eternal law, the natural law, human law, the divine law, he then divides up into the old law, the natural law, human law. The divine law, he then divides up into the old law and the new law, and then his treatment of the old law, that is the law of the old covenant, is a masterpiece because he treats the ceremonial precepts more extensively than he treats any other subject or question. I mean, he always is addressing objections. He addresses more

objections in the treatment of the ceremonial precepts in 101 and 102 than anywhere else in the entire Summa. And yet, you can find commentaries that have been written by Dominicans and others on the Summa. As Katitin once pointed out, this section is better contemplated than commentated. Kantaton once pointed out, this section is better contemplated than commentated. There's never been a commentary written on that part of the Summa which is the most profoundly biblical, which is the most extensively exegetical, which to me is like a laser beam that penetrates into how the ceremonial precepts of ancient Israel were not only a fitting expression of ritual worship before the incarnation, they were the most profound figural sign pointing to the fulfillment that the incarnation of the Son of God alone would bring about. And then his treatment of the judicial statutes is equally masterful, and by the time he gets to the moral commandments, you realize this threefold distinction into the ceremonial, the judicial,

and the moral is not artificial, it's not extrinsic or alien to the Bible. The great medieval rabbi Maimonides himself identified this by citing a passage in Deuteronomy, and Aquinas knows not only the text in Deuteronomy, he also quotes Rabbi Maimonides in the Guide to the Reflects to show that he understands not only the Old Testament, but the rabbinic interpretive tradition as well, expressed by the greatest rabbi of the Middle Ages. You know, and to me, this is one of those things that's just sort of like, when you realize how much time, energy, brilliance he applied to this, and then you stop and you ask, okay, where are the commentaries on this material? Where are the doctoral dissertations?

You know, why is it that everybody treats St. Thomas Aquinas and natural law, which gets about 900 words at most, whereas they systematically neglect for centuries his treatment of the old law and its fulfillment in the new, which all sets the stage for the treatise on grace, which is at the heart of it all. You know, you stop and what do you hear?

Crickets chirping. And to me, this is going to be the third stage. It's one thing to study the Corpus Thomisticum, which has been going on since Pope Leo XIII in the 1870s and 80s. It kind of stalled out after Vatican II, but now there's a second revival that has been advanced, and that is especially an appreciation of his biblical, theological integration. But I would say the third level is going to be reached when people realize

there's not just gold in them, though, Hills. There are diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. His treatment of Scripture is unsurpassed. Why do you think Thomas... Tell us why Thomas thinks we need divine law, even though we have natural law as a sort of guide? What's the need for divine law? Well, I mean, the reason he gives is at least twofold. First of all, you know, as Paul says to the Corinthians in chapter 2, 19, quoting Isaiah, I have not seen, ears not heard, has never entered the mind of man what God has for his people, for those he loves. It's one thing for us to pursue our natural reason, our natural desires to attain natural happiness, natural fulfillment, natural beatitude,

but the happiest natural life we would have falls infinitely short of the first half minute of the supernatural blessedness of the souls who are united in the Trinity. It's not just that we go to heaven to see the Trinity. The Trinity is heaven for St. Thomas Aquinas. And so through the incarnation of the Son of God, through the sacred humanity, which serves as the instrumental form of mediation, we share his, well, he shares our human nature in order to enable us to share his divine nature. But in the process, we discover that God, this is not plan B. God did not, you know, send Jesus to kind of salvage, you know, what was left of a fallen creation and maybe redeem the elect and get them as high as he can. This is plan A. This is the only reason for which he made the world.

The incarnation alone affects and achieves his goal. We are not just redeemed from sin, from Christ, by Christ. We are redeemed for his sonship, to share his sonship. And so natural reason, natural theology, natural law, natural fulfillment, as satisfied as we would be with all of that, God isn't. He isn't satisfied until we attain something that we didn't even know existed, that is the Trinity.

We didn't even know we were called to it. We didn't even know that we could be raised to it. And then the second reason, besides the fact that it goes beyond our natural capacities, is sin. You know, it's one thing before the fall that Adam, even the seraphim and the cherubim, would not have known the inner life of the Trinity as the only end for which all rational creatures were made. So even they need a divine law to surpass natural law. But once you fall into sin, once you contract original sin, once you have acquired concupiscence and given in to the downward pull, the darkened intellect, the weakened will, the disordered affections and passions that concupiscence afflicts us with, you know,

to think that we could even attain natural fulfillment by our natural power is nonsense. But to think that we could attain the life of the Trinity without divine law, I mean, that is presumption to the point of the demonic. And so what Thomas says is, you know, and this is why he doesn't argue from natural law, primarily, any more than he argues from Mosaic law. What he shows is that salvation history reveals a progression of law. The first one is natural law, but after the fall, of course, we have the Mosaic law, but after the Mosaic law has failed to redeem us, we have the new law, the law of Christ, the law of the indwelling Spirit of God. And, you know, he points out that the new law is not the New Testament, it's not the Sermon on the Mount, you know, it's not the teaching that we find in the writings of Paul. The new law is to be identified with nothing less than the

indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who makes us temple of the whole eternity. Apart from that, we wouldn't even know our end. Apart from that, we couldn't obtain the only thing for which we were made. And so I'm convinced that St. Thomas looked down on us from heaven in more ways than one. It isn't just a spatial descent he looks down on us. I think he's looking down on our blindness, thinking that we could actually achieve some kind of Christian order in our society without ever appealing to Christ, kind of Christian order in our society without ever appealing to Christ, without ever thinking that the law of Christ and the Spirit of Christ alone will bring natural rectitude back to our society, as well as supernatural blessing. It's sort of like, we insist upon seeking first all these things that will be added, and then we also want the kingdom, whereas you'd end up with neither.

But if you seek first the kingdom, then all these things will be added. But this kingdom is Christ, it's the new law. It's not just the natural law, it's certainly not the Mosaic law. But just as it would be regressive to go back to the Mosaic law, for Aquinas it would be regressive to go back to the natural law, devoid of Christ in the Spirit and the truth of God's Word. I don't feel strongly about any of that, you know. Well, I tell you, it's really resonating with me because, as you know, some of the work I do has to do with combating pornography and trying to explain to a secular culture why pornography, you know, always leaves us unhappy, that we've been made for love, actually, and pornography is a counterfeit of this and so forth. But I think I've fallen into that temptation sometimes to only point to natural law

in order to argue for the immorality of pornography. Maybe speak about that danger. We don't want to be laughed at. We don't want to be laughed at. We don't want our cause to be thrown out of court. And we just assume because, you know, if we proclaim the gospel, if we cite the teachings of Jesus, we will be disrespected. You know, we will be laughed at. And, you know, there's a sense in which that's true, but that's what Paul calls the folly of preaching, the folly of the cross. And yet what we forget is what Paul reminds us of, that God, for whatever reason, prefers to do more with less. You know, we would like to think that, you know, apart from me, Jesus says, we can't do everything. That's not what he says.

Apart from me, we can do some things, but not the really important. No, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing supernatural can be achieved by natural means alone. And apart from the supernatural, God doesn't want to bless our efforts because the supernatural order was established at the price of his own son. Nobody is saved by the gospel of Aristotle. Nobody is converted by the natural law. Once I was converted by the gospel of Jesus Christ, once I got the Holy Spirit, I discovered that the natural law is treasure, the natural theology, that even the virtue of natural religion, that for a man to be religious is not just supernatural, but natural for a human person or a human society to be non-religious for Aquinas is contra naturum. It is against nature. It's not just against the supernatural. And so once you have the grace of Christ, once we're filled with the Holy Spirit, once we realize that God wants to forgive us more than we want him to, and he's capable of divinizing us with his own spirit, you know, we're not just saved from sin, but for sonship.

You know, as a Muslim scholar pointed out to me, you know, why does it take three divine persons to save one human person? And I said, because, you know, Allah can simply forgive a creature who's sorry, as God can for us. But we're not talking about just being forgiven or acquitted. We're not just talking about education or being instructed. We're not just talking about being healed by a physician. We're talking about being adopted by God the Father to be made partakers of the divine nature of the Son. We're talking about being filled with the Holy Spirit so that the Trinity is our only family for all eternity. This is what Aquinas wants to show us. This is what God wants to do.

And once we submit to this much higher and holier, you know, foolishness, which, you know, it's always going to appear to be weakness to those who seek signs of power. It's going to appear to be foolishness to those who seek human wisdom alone, as Paul reminds the Corinthians. But what we discover in Christ is that God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, his weakness is stronger than human power. And this is what God is waiting for. When will you allow my word to convert you and your society? And stop going back to Moses or, excuse me, the natural law. I'm so passionate, I don't even know what to say. Well, thank you. One of the things Henry de Lubac criticized Cajetan of Kajetan. But my point is this,

you know, don't you think, I guess we're getting dangerously close to the argument from happiness, that it's in those moments in my life where everything seems to be going right, where all of my immediate needs are taken care of. It's then, isn't it, that there's something within the human heart that longs for eternity? True, but at the same time, I think at that moment when I have that kind of natural bliss, I can also have that natural sense that I can achieve this on my own, that I just need more and more of what I now have. And so, this is why I think God has consigned all to sin, that he might have mercy upon all. And so what happens is we get a taste of heaven.

We get a taste of blessing when we get that natural bliss. And suddenly when God took it away from Israel, that's when Israel discovered that this was never plan A. God has something so much greater for us. something so much greater for us. They obeyed the righteousness of the Mosaic law in order to have natural power, national security, economic wealth. And then Jesus comes along and says, well, now that all of that has been stripped away from you in exile, blessed are the poor in heart. Blessed are those who mourn. In other words, only when we let go of the merely natural are our hands empty enough for God to fill us with the supernatural. You know, it's like kids who cling to pennies when their parents want to put, you know, high denominational currency in their hands. I would say this, that the Lubach was wrong,

but he was wrong for the right reasons, whereas I think McInerney was right, but for the wrong reasons. You know, when I listen to Mac and Ernie, I learn so much from him. God rest his soul. I devour his writings even still. And I love to interact with his former doctoral students because they're always just luminous in their brilliance. But what I find is that

we distinguish the natural and the supernatural precisely to unite them, as Maritain would say. We know, we distinguish faith and reason not to have a two-story mind or a two-story universe, but in order to bring about what Chabon calls this nuptial union. It's only when nature and grace are distinguished that they can be united, like Scott and Kimberly were distinguished and then united. Faith and reason enter into a nuptial union, but not if

they're confused with each other. Only when we distinguish the divine and the human do we really fructify the union that the Incarnation has brought about. Yeah, this is an oversimplification, of course, but I suppose you could say that, you know, when we don't direct our hunger towards God. We can become addicts, right? We take an infinite desire to immutable, finite good and, you know, keep thinking that this will make us happy, but that it doesn't, and that God wants to kind of redirect that desire for Himself. That's right. Am I getting too poetic? No, not at all. But I think that distinction might be helpful here, because even if there only was a order of pure nature, we would not be naturally fulfilled apart from coming to know God as he called the virtue of virtues, and Aquinas quotes him on this point,

because only our giving thanks and praise to God as the source of our life and goodness and everything else, only that virtue is able to unite all of the other lower virtues and kind of create a symphony of a virtuous life. But at the same time, we've got to recognize that as awesome as that would be, it pales in comparison to one minute of being united to the eternal trinity,

which is something that is not in any way purely natural. It is utterly supernatural. And so what Aquinas does is he instills this series of habits where you continually distinguish to unite. You distinguish the body and soul, not to create dualism, but to show the psychosomatic unity of each human person. You distinguish the divinity from the humanity of Christ, again, to show what the hypostatic union has brought about in our world, an entirely new creation. You distinguish between the body of Christ, which is buried in the You distinguish between the body of Christ, which

is buried in the tomb, from the soul of Christ, which descends into Hades, to show why Mary, holding the corpse, is not just mourning her dead son, but is worshiping his humanity, because even though the body and soul are separate from each other, the divinity is everlastingly united both the body and soul, even in their temporary separation. You could go on and on, but I'm especially fond of how he shows that the Old and the New Covenants are not opposed, nor are they identical. They're clearly distinct, but clearly distinct for the purpose of showing how Christ unites them. He fulfills the Old, not by restoring it, but by taking it to a place where the ancient Hebrews never imagined. This went beyond their highest hopes.

It exceeded their wildest dreams, because not even their eyes and ears could imagine what God had in store for those He loved. Yeah, beautiful. As we begin to wrap up, I just want to ask a few personal questions, and I think that they'll apply to people who are listening. You clearly love Holy Scripture, and I wish I loved Holy Scripture more, Dr. Hahn. Oh, I wish I did, too. Yeah. Well, but I think a lot of people who start reading Thomas Aquinas get so enamored by philosophical writers because it scratches their kind of intellect in a

way that the Holy Scriptures don't. And maybe you'd say, well, it would if they would understand the Scriptures, but for many of us, this is a... Maybe. This is a great point, Matt. Okay, because it's a reality that I'm living with right now. I want to read the Bible, but I really have no desire to read the Bible. Help me. I mean, if the Bible is true, then what we're kind of dancing around is our besetting sin. It is especially the occupational hazard for Catholic intellectuals. And what is it?

Intellectual pride. If that can take out the highest seraphs named Lucifer, then buddy, we're prone to it as well, you know? And so when we look for the eternal Logos, where do we find him? In a manger, on a cross, on a patent, in Hebrew, Yiddish lore. I mean, it's too human to be divine. It's too Hebrew to match the Greek. It's too lowly, you know? And so when I read Aquinas, I still feel a greater draw to that. But at the same time, I just always get a sense, because I've been recycling a novena to St. Thomas Aquinas for going on three years now,

but I always get a sense that he's nudging me back to the scriptures and saying, I can help you understand them better. That's why I always like to tell my students that I'm a Thomist, but I prefer to call myself a Thomistic, and I spell it with a Y. A Thomistic, because Thomas was a mystic, not in some kind of reckless or irresponsible way, but he was fixated on the mystery of Christ, and he harnessed all of human logic for the purpose of going beyond reason to faith, the created to the uncreated, you know, from the human to the divine, and from the visible to the invisible, from the temporal to the eternal. And it's precisely that capacity to be a mystic, to be a contemplative, that gave to him a superior intellect. You know, it's sort of like Our Lady.

My soul magnifies the Lord. He matches her in a certain sense, because I'm not sure I know any other Catholic intellectual who has the intellectual strength and yet the profound humility that he has. So much of what he learned, he said, you know, he learned from the crucifix or from countless hours at night prostrate before, you know, the tabernacle, worshiping and adoring the Blessed Sacrament,

of which I do hardly a fraction, you know? And so I do believe that as I get older, I realize how much I don't love the Bible, how much more I wish I did, and how much I love Aquinas, but I don't know him well enough that the more I get to know him, the more he leads me back again and again to the Word incarnate in Jesus and the Word inspired in Scripture. How can we love the Scriptures then? I mean, it's one thing to try and talk ourselves into loving it. I think what a lot of people do is they feel guilty they haven't read their Bible, so they go out and buy a new one, and then they get that sort of dopamine rush, here's a fresh Bible, I'll peel the plastic off, and here we go, you know? But for many of us, it doesn't take long until we think, yeah, this just doesn't... And it's not like it's not

fulfilling us, that wouldn't be right. But it doesn't scratch where we is, it doesn't answer the questions we prefer to ask. And so I think the scriptures are showing us that we're asking the wrong questions, you know, and I do think that we need the mind of Christ, and we are more often than not content with my own mind. And so I would say, you know, if we, to be honest, scripture's difficult. You know, what Peter has to say about Paul in 2 Peter, he speaks of our beloved brother Paul, but he also talks about how there are many things that are difficult in his writings, which the ignorant and the unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You know, it seems to me that we want the truth, but we want it easy. We want it served up in a clear, profound, and intellectually

respectable way so I can go away with my degrees and really feel good about myself and hope that others do too. Whereas the cross is really where we are divinized. And who wants that? And who would even understand why we should want that, you know, apart from the Hebrew Scriptures, apart from, you know, the King of the Jews who is reigning from the wood of the cross. I do think that God is wanting to bless us more than we want Him to, but He's waiting to do so until we humble ourselves and spend more time before the incarnate Word and the Euchar, and just pouring over the inspired Word and Scripture. Okay. So, praying to our Lord, give me a love for your Word, Lord.

Give me a love for your Word. What would be some really tedious, practical advice you might give to somebody who wants to pick up the Scriptures again and try to read it afresh? I can't think of anything better than repeating the line you just said, where you're begging the Lord to increase my faith, hope, and love. You know, Lord, please give me a love for your word. And I want it, but I don't want it nearly as much as you want me to want it. And I remember back in high school, back in 10th grade, trying to read the Bible, falling asleep, trying again the next night, feeling guilty because I fell asleep again.

You know, and I went to my youth pastor, and I asked him for, feeling guilty because I fell asleep again. You know, and I went to my youth pastor and I asked him for help and he gave me some tips and he gave me a book and I read it and made it a little bit better. You know, then he gave me a tape series, which back in the seventies weren't that common. But I remember reading, you know, listening to Addison Leach, a professor at Gordon-Conwell, go through first Corinthians and it was good. Wow. You know, but then I actually asked this man, would you lay your hands upon me and pray for me to receive the Holy Spirit? You know, and all these guys were promising me I'd speak in tongues and all that stuff. And, you know, alas, that didn't happen that particular night. But within the next two weeks,

things did happen. And I didn't even notice it until about two or three years later, because I didn't fall asleep anymore. In fact, I didn't even notice them until about two or three years later, because I didn't fall asleep anymore. In fact, I couldn't stop reading it, and it started coming together. And I just realized that this was a gift that he gave me, not only because I wanted it, but because I knew I could take no credit for it. You know, it's a pure gift. It isn't something, well, we'll dig a tunnel from both ends. We'll meet up halfway and God, I'll give you my brain and you give me yours, you know. Yeah.

I really was so ashamed of, but I, you know, the more we humble ourselves, the more He exalts us. Yeah, that's beautiful. I think for me, you pick up the scriptures, it's such a mammoth undertaking that it can just be, put you off right away. One of the things I've been doing lately is trying to commit to praying, say, five to ten psalms every night to sort of do my night prayer, and then just to chant them, just very simply. And I think sometimes, too, our expectation of how we should feel when we go to Scripture sometimes discourages us from going back to Scripture. In other words, we have this idea that, well, I should feel really holy and spiritual, I should feel inspired,

and because I don't, well, maybe I feel guilty a little bit. Anyway, I'll just turn to this, say, the Diary of St. Faustina or something else. No doubt a beautiful work, but not the Word of God. I love it, yeah. You know, I'm reminded of the Ethiopian eunuch who is studying through the Isianic oracle, the suffering servant in Acts 8, on his chariot, completely befuddled, until Philip, the evangelist, is sort of supernaturally brought to him. Like, how can I understand? And so he tells him all about Jesus, the suffering servant, you know, and I think what we learn is that the word of God is meant to humble us.

And it's also meant to lead us to teachers who make it come alive. You know, I hope and pray that my work can do that for more people. But I also hope and pray for more people to do that for others too, besides me. One guy in particular I'd recommend to every priest I talk to

is my dear friend, Brant Petrie, P-I-T-R-E. I was just on the phone with him a couple of hours ago, setting up a conference for priests again next year. We were together in July with over 200 priests for four days, and he opened up the scriptures in a way that they found just simply electrifying. Not just sensationalistic, but profound, personal, practical, and accessible. Like, I can do this. And so go to brantpetrie.com. He and my dear friend and colleague John Bergsberg are coming out with a mammoth introduction

of the Old Testament from Ignatius later this year. When that comes out, that's going to be the be-all and end-all. It's a book written at the seminary level, but it's written so clearly that any highly motivated college freshman could grasp, and probably even a senior in high school. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the work of Dr. William Lane Craig, but he actually recently quoted Dr. Brant Petrie in one of his Facebook videos saying, I'm currently reading a book, and he said, Brant Petrie, or something like that. But I thought, oh my goodness, you've got William Lane Craig reading this book. Oh, that's just the drip from a faucet. Wait till

it opens up. William Lane Craig and his former students will be quoting him and more Catholics to come. You know, I really believe that Grant's book, The Case for Jesus, which I'm going to be using for my required freshman college course this fall, where my 18-year-old David will be sitting also, that book does it better than anything I've seen. His book, Jesus and the Last Supper, over 500 pages, published by Erdmann's, it gets accolades from all these Protestants, and he is becoming a kind of footbridge. I hope he never listens to us talking, but he already has a gift of humility as well, and a beautiful wife and family too. But John Burns, Michael Barber, there's a whole cadre.

Tim Gray, Ted Sri, you know, a lot of these guys are dear friends and former students, but I love it when my students surpass their teacher, and I'm seeing it all the time, more and more, and it's just like, now let thy servant depart in peace. Nothing is more fulfilling than to see that. Glory to God. I can't thank you enough, Dr. Hine. You're a gift to the Church.

You've been a gift to me and many people, so thank you for your yes. Well, you're a gift to me and to countless others, Matt, Dr. Hahn. You're a gift to the Church, you've been a gift to me, and many people, so thank you for your yes. Oh, you're a gift to me and to countless others, Matt, too. I thank God for you and for your ministry and for the podcast, but also especially for our friendship. Oh, well, thank you so much. Ah, I can die now. He said I was a gift. No, I hope you all enjoyed that episode. Scott Hahn is a delight. If you're not familiar with Scott Hahn, I want to recommend that you go to Amazon right now and type in his name and get anything he has written. If you're an evangelical listener and you are open to the claims of the Catholic Church, I'd strongly recommend that you get his book, Rome Sweet

Home. We had a previous episode with Scott Hahn where he talked about how he was a Protestant and how Thomas Aquinas helped lead him into the Catholic Church. And I think what you'll do is you'll find his book, Rome Sweet Home, very charitable. He never speaks disparagingly or down to Protestants. He's very thankful for his Protestant upbringing, but that might be a book you'd like to check out. All right, as I said, it's time to look at some of your questions. All right, I want to thank everybody who supports Pines with Aquinas on Patreon and who has sent me your questions. If you want me to answer your question, just become a supporter of Pines with Aquinas on Patreon. Shoot me a question and I would be happy to get to it.

So let's begin looking through these. Chris Richards, thanks Chris, you write, hey Matt, I've tried reading the Summa once before finding your show and ended up making it through just a couple dozen pages of his earliest writings. Do you have any suggestions on how best to approach reading Thomas Aquinas? Does it make sense to read it through, or should it be more of a reference document? Thanks for the podcast. Great question, Chris. So what I would recommend is if you want to pick up the Summa Theologiae, you'll notice the way that it's laid out, right? You have an article question. For example, let's just go here. So in the first part of the Summa Theologiae, question two, you know, what's funny is what Aquinas usually means by question, we would

call an article, and what he means by an article, we would call a question. So he has these questions, and then within the question, he has articles, but those articles are really what we would call the questions, right? So for example, what I would say, if you want to read Aquinas straight through, questions, right? So for example, what I would say, if you want to read Aquinas straight through, don't bother with the objections, just read his, I answer that, okay? So the first thing you would do, so for example, you open up here, what's it, question two, article one. So you would read whether the existence of God is self-evident, okay? Now, instead of reading objection one, objection two, objection three, on the contrary, I answer that, reply to objection one, reply to objection two, read his main answer. You might read on the contrary, and then I answer that.

Okay. So the on the contrary is his way of responding to this question with the wisdom of the church. So he'll give a quick standard answer. He'll say, here's how this is genuinely responded to. And then he'll give his own answer. All right. But I would recommend you go to article one, whether the existence of God is self-evident, jump straight down to, I answer that. And then he says, a thing can be self-evident in either one of two ways. Do it that way. And then go down to article two, whether it can be demonstrated that God exists. Go straight to his, I answer that. Demonstration can be made in two ways. I think by doing that, it's going to be a lot easier for you. And actually, I have a book on Amazon, 50 Deep Thoughts from St. Thomas Aquinas. If you just type in pints

with Aquinas on Amazon, you'll see it. That's kind of how I did it. I took his particular question, and then I went straight to his, I answer that. And I think if you read Aquinas that way, you're going to find it a lot more manageable. So thanks very much. Phil and Mindy say, how can we take the Thomistic theology to the masses in that we are able to get others as excited as we are? I love the podcast, but I'm struggling to get others to give it a try as they think it will be too heavy. I was thinking maybe you could give some tips on how to organize an event or something, or have a pre-video series launch that we could tease those that are interested into listening, watching. Other topics could be how to take the five ways and make it more palatable for youth groups. I have brought components to our youth groups before,

but thought that you might have some ideas on that. Thanks so much, Phil and Mindy. I totally, obviously, resonate with your excitement for Thomas Aquinas. What I recommend that you might have some ideas on that. Thanks so much, Phil and Mindy. I totally obviously resonate with your excitement for Thomas Aquinas. What I recommend that you do is go to pintswithaquinas.com and scroll down because I don't just tackle big, heavy topics. I do other ones. I'm not sure if you know this or not, but we had an article called, Are Wet Dreams are wet dreams sinful? That's totally random, right? Like who would have thought Aquinas would address that? We have others where we talk about, is sex good? You know, we have ones on the Hail Mary, just Aquinas explaining the Hail Mary. I did one recently, very recently, just last week or the week before on the Our Father and five

tips you can learn about prayer from Thomas Aquinas. But if I could recommend one particular podcast for you, Phil and Mindy, to talk to your friends about, to send them a link to, it would be my interview that I did with Father Damien Ference. And it was called Aquinas' let me make sure I get this right, Aquinas' Remedies for Sorrow. Aquinas' Five Remedies for Sorrow. Let me just quickly look that up in the search bar on pintswithaquinas.com. Yeah, here it is. It's episode 39, Aquinas' Five Remedies for Sorrow with Father Damien Ferentz. So if you go to pintswithaquinas.com and in search, just type in remedies, you'll find it. And then you can send that link to your friends, because I think that's a much easier way to delve into the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas

than, say, sending him one of the five ways. As I mentioned, I'm about to release a brand new book with my co-author, Robert Delfino, on the five ways of Thomas Aquinas. So if you want a signed copy of that, I know you're already a supporter, but others you can just join for $10 a month, and I'll send you that for free. I'll sign it as well, but it'll also be available on Amazon that you can maybe get and read it yourself and then break it down for your youth group. So I hope that's the beginning of an answer. Christopher Ramsey said, what would Santo Thomas do in his first week in today's United States? He would join Matt Fradd for whiskey on my front porch.

in today's United States. He would join Matt Fradd for whiskey on my front porch. Peter asks, oh, Bejill, I think, what would be your favorite type of beer, dark blonde or something completely different? I would say a stout. I'm not a big drinker, as many of you know by now, but if I'm going to drink a beer, I really like a good stout. One of my favorite beers would be Old Rasputin. beers would be Old Rasputin. So it's actually from England, although it has a Russian look and feel. I think it's based on a Russian recipe perhaps, but it's called Old Rasputin. If you're listening today and you're a big stout fan, that's the best I've found. Okay, next question from Alexander Price. He says, how does St. Thomas Aquinas deal with knowledge of immaterial realities in a real way? I'm not really sure what that means. You say, I love philosophical realism, but I have some serious reservations about his theory of knowledge. I think of

experiential interpersonal knowledge, like how you deeply know your wife over and above, knowing that she is a human person when you see her. Knowledge of beauty and objects, which seem to be a distinct reality from the essence of the beautiful objects themselves and knowledge of moral values in action. Okay, I didn't realize how big this question would be when I started reading it, not going to lie. So Aquinas, along with Aristotle, thinks that there is nothing in the intellect that's not first present in the senses. So the only way we can come to know something is because we experience it through the senses. Now, obviously, we don't come to know God in that way. And so the way we come to know God is by negation, right? So we know that God is, you know, we have experience of mutable, changing things. So we know that God is not changing. We know He is, you know,

we're weak and ignorant. We know He is not weak and not ignorant, right? But rather, He's all powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and so forth. One of the ways, of course, though, that we come to know truths about immaterial realities, such as angels, is through divine revelation. And so there would be a series of arguments one would put forth for why one should take the New Testament and Old Testament to be divinely revealed. And if they're divinely revealed, then what's revealed in them is true. And so what claims about angels and other immaterial realities are made in the Holy Scripture, we can also know to be true. Now, when it comes to things like the knowledge of beauty in objects, Aquinas would simply say

that the beautiful is that which when seen pleases. That which when seen pleases. Now, you're right when you talk about moral values in actions, right? You can't weigh the goodness or badness of a particular action, you know, say, you know, on a scale or see it within a test tube. So how do we intuit these particular things? Well, I think here what we need to do is distinguish between what we might call moral ontology and moral epistemology. That is to say, we can agree that certain things are immoral and moral, right? Actually, when I say ontology, that comes from the Greek word being, so that they're actually true. How do we come to know them? Well, there might be all sorts of ways that we come to know them. Some people might argue for a sort of intuition. I think Aquinas,

and I've done a whole episode on what Aquinas had to say about morality, is that you would begin with what the human person is, different moral actions, and he would say that immoral acts are acts which are deprived of a particular fullness that they ought to have. So, for example, if a man abuses his child, there is a lack of love that ought to be there in a relationship between two human beings and also between father and child. I don't know if that'll satisfy you because I can tell you've thought about these things quite a great deal. And my apologies to you, Alexander, if I didn't get right to the heart of what you were asking. But I hope that's the beginning of a help.

Okay, let's look at one more here. Glenn Dickinson says, inspired by the recent commentary about lying. You'll remember I did an episode a couple of weeks ago on whether it's okay to lie to your kids about Santa Claus. And not entirely satisfied by the resolution, I think I can imagine a situation where a lie would be morally justified. Okay. Two brothers live with their alcoholic father, you say, who is violent when drunk. Younger brothers take cookie without permission. Father comes home drunk and angry and demands of the older brother whether the younger brother has taken a cookie. Older brother knows that younger brother will get a terrible beating if older brother tells the truth. Older brother knows that tomorrow morning dad will

be sober and less likely to beat up younger brother, so older brother says no, intending to tell dad the truth in the morning. It seems that in this situation the lie is morally justified. One could imagine other situations in which otherwise immoral act would be justified. My question, is there a difference between a moral act and an immoral act that is justified under the circumstances? If so, what guidance does the saint give us in determining when an immoral act is justified? So let me just quickly Google this because I want you guys to go listen to a very old episode I did on what he had to say about morality. This is episode nine. If you want to know what Aquinas says as to what makes an action good or evil, go and listen to

episode nine because I spent a great deal of time talking about that. I think Aquinas would disagree with you, Glenn. I think that he would say that lying is never justified because he thinks it's intrinsically evil, which means that the circumstances surrounding a particular moral act can't sway that act into being good if it's actually bad. So I think a similar argument could be made, though, if you think of the Nazis at the door example I gave in the episode. One could argue that just like this if it's actually bad. So I think a similar argument could be made, though, if you think of the Nazis at the door example I gave in the episode, one could argue that just like this drunken dad, these Nazi soldiers are out of their mind, right? They can't see reality the way that they ought to see it. If they could, they wouldn't want to be exterminating Jews. And similarly,

you could say this dad isn't seeing reality the way he ought to. If he would, he would know that beating his son over a stolen cookie would be a stupid thing to do. So I think what Aquinas would say in this situation is it would be right to withhold the truth in a sort of creative way. So just like we said, you know, with the Nazis at the door, I think Aquinas would be okay with withholding the truth in a creative way by saying something like, I don't have any bloody cockroaches in my basement, you know, something like that. I think similarly, you could avoid the question. You could say a number of things, number of things, but Aquinas would say you shouldn't directly lie, even if the sun ends up getting a beating. Now, I know that sounds horrible, but you know what else sounds horrible is the idea of Jews being massacred because you didn't lie. So, look, this is something I

personally struggle with, okay? So, I'm giving you what Aquinas would say, I hope, and not what Matt Frabb would say, since that's the point of this podcast. You don't tune in week after week to hear what I would do. You know, I could see in a situation like that myself lying, right? I could see in a situation like that saying, no, he didn't eat it, you know, or I ate it, you know, give me the beating, right? That lie would be wrong, but under those circumstances, I'm not sure if one would be culpable for that wrong, given the stress you were under. So that would be my initial response to that. But again, there's so much more that could be said that I'm not going to say now. Go listen to episode nine, What Makes an Act Good or Evil? And there we talk about the three components that make an act moral or immoral.

Okay. Golly, that was so much. And I think we're running out of time. So even though we have more questions, I'll have to get to them next week. Guys, thank you so much for listening to Pints with Aquinas. I hope this episode has been a stupid blessing to you. A couple of things I want to ask you to do. One, share this link on your social media. I want more and more people to hear about Pints with Aquinas. If you love it, other people will love it too. Please share it on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram or wherever. That would really help us out. Also, if you want to review Pints with Aquinas on iTunes, we'd really appreciate that. Talk to you next week. In the meantime, God bless you and your family.