Pints With Aquinas - Surrender Your Will! #catholic #christian #jesus #fyp #foryou #inspiration #motivation #trending

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

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Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph. I teach at the Dominican House of Studies and I work for the Thomistic Institute, and this is Pines of the Aquinas. My version of the Summa Theologiae is almost 3,000 pages long, but I'm going to try to summarize it in 15 minutes. Here we go. St. Thomas teaches that theology is a science. That is, a kind of knowledge, certain knowledge, through causes. How is that possible? Well, by the light of faith, we can share in the knowledge of God and of the Blessed.

And so we can come to certain conclusions in reasoning upon revealed doctrines, which is wild. Okay, so in the practice of theology, what are we going to think about? We're going to think about about God because it's theology. And in a certain sense, we can spend all of our time thinking about God. So St. Thomas will first show that God exists, and these are the famous five ways. So he shows on the basis of observations of the created world that there must be a cause whereby to account for it and its intelligibility. This he says, we call God.

Now having shown that God exists, he then shows how God is not. That is to say, he rules out certain limitations or imperfections and goes ahead proving that God is simple and perfect and good, that God is unchanging and eternal, infinite, omnipresent, one, etc. And then he'll spend some time saying, listen, we have to purify our speech so that way we don't bring creaturely limitations into the discourse about God, so be conscious of that. And also we need to orient our discourse so that it reflects the grandeur of God. And then he'll proceed further to describe God's knowledge and the divine ideas, God's will, the divine love and mercy and justice, and even

predestination and things besides. So you might be interested in such like. But St. Thomas will go on to say there are certain things that we can never reason to by our own resources. There are certain things that simply need to be revealed if we're going to have any knowledge about them. So, the Trinity would be one example. So after having described the one God, he goes on to describe the Triune God. To be clear, same God. Okay, just under different aspects. So we know that God reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.

But, they're distinct in that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. St. Thomas has a sweet way whereby to account for this. So he'll say, look at how the scriptures describe the origins of the persons. The Father begets the Son, and the Father and the Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. He says, on the basis of these processions, we can identify relations. The Father relates to the Son after the manner of paternity. The Son relates to the Father after the manner of sonship. And here's the wild step that he next takes. He says the Father just is subsisting paternity. The Son just is subsisting filiation or

sonship. So that's a kind of revolutionary doctrine. And then he'll go on to describe various other ways whereby to think about the Most Blessed Trinity, which is great. And then he'll go on to describe various other ways whereby to think about the Most Blessed Trinity, which is great. And then you might think, we're done, because we've studied God. But on account of the fact that God chooses to create, we can study His creation in light of Him. So St. Thomas will clarify, like, what is creation in the first place? And he'll say, it's a relation of dependence.

It's not so much a beginning point in time as it is a kind of dependence upon God for our being, for creation's being. And so I'll identify God as the cause, not just in the sense of bringing it into being, but constituting the pattern on which it is formulated and the term towards which it is oriented. For those of you who have the sweet vocabulary, God is the efficient, exemplar, and final cause of creation. So, now having described creation in its rough outlines, we can describe the different facets of creation. He'll start by describing angels. Now, angels we know are pure intelligences. They don't have bodies. There's really only two moments to their existence.

The moment of their creation, so they're created in grace, oriented towards God, from God and for God, but then they have a second moment, the moment of their choice, during which they have to choose to be from God and for God in the way that God wills, that is, as a gift. Some angels choose for God, and we call them angels. Some angels choose against God. We call them demons. Now, St. Thomas thinks it's interesting to consider angels just in themselves, but also it's helpful for clarifying where we stand in the order of material creation. Before

getting to us though, St. Thomas talks about creation below us. So angels are above us, and then there's creation below us, like rocks and plants and animals. But he's not especially interested because all these things proceed as a matter of course towards their end. Rocks by gravity, plants by biology, animals by instinct. They're not free. In order to find freedom, we need to look further up. So we, as men and women, are made to the image and likeness of God. That is to say, we have spiritual powers patterned on God and oriented towards God, which find their fulfillment in God. So the drama of our lives is to know our end, who is God, and to proceed towards our end freely." And so, St. Thomas will kind of clarify the different principles that work in our lives, the various

powers through which our souls act, as he gestures towards the various virtues which will perfect those powers. And so, the first part ends with a description of how God governs all things strongly and sweetly. Passing on then to the second part of the Summa Theologiae, which is divided into the prima secundae and the secunda secundae, St. Thomas will describe how we, as creatures, return towards God in the moral life. So in the first part of the Summa, he described God, the exemplar.

In the second part of the Sumi, he describes us, the image patterned on the exemplar and oriented towards the exemplar. He begins the prima secundae by describing beatitude, that term of our striving towards which we proceed in this life, and he'll rule out all created goods as sufficient. He'll say only the uncreated good who is God is sufficient to complete our mind's inquiry and our will's striving. So we will only ever be satisfied by God. And so then he zooms in on our human freedom as that principle whereby we choose for God as God, whereby we choose our beatitude as such. Now, he'll clarify further how human

acts unfold, but that's getting into the weeds. So then he'll pass next to the acts, the human acts, or the acts of a human person, which we share with the animals. We call these passions or emotions. He identifies 11. Love, desire, joy, hatred, aversion, sorrow, hope, and despair, fear, and daring, and anger. He'll say these are things that we share with the beast, but ultimately we want to incorporate them in a human culture. We want to humanize them, and we do so by introducing them into the life of reason. So then he passes on to a consideration of habits. Habits are stable dispositions of our soul that inform our soul's powers so that they

can act stably or reliably towards their good and proceed to do so easily, promptly, and joyfully. Now there are two main kinds of habits. There are virtues which are good habits and vices which are bad habits. St. Thomas is principally concerned with those good habits, that is, virtues, and he identifies the moral virtues which are the virtues of the appetites, the intellectual virtues which are the virtues of the mind, and then the theological virtues which are the virtues of the mind, and then the theological virtues, which are the virtues which orient us towards God, or which actually get us to God. He'll clarify further that virtues in one sense are acquired and in another sense they're infused.

That is to say, we can build up virtues by repeated action, but there are certain virtues which only ever come to us from on high. Nevertheless, in both cases, we can seek to cultivate or cooperate and build up what is at work in our interior life. So then St. Thomas spends some time describing sin and vice. We won't pause too terribly much there. And then at the end of the prima secundae, he describes those exterior principles whereby we as human beings are perfected. And he treats law and grace. Law, he says, it is an ordinance of reason for the common good given by the one responsible and promulgated.

So he identifies four main kinds of law, eternal law, which is the law as it exists in God, natural law, which is the law as it exists in us. And then divine law, which would be like divine positive law. So the Mosaic law, the old covenant, or the evangelical law, which would be like divine positive law, so the Mosaic law, the Old Covenant, or the evangelical law, the New Covenant, which he says is just the grace of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts, and then human law, which are the ways that we elaborate the natural law for our particular time and place and circumstances. And then when he describes grace, he has in mind sanctifying grace for the most part, which is a habit of being that puts us right with God and orders all the parts of our supernatural organism. But then he'll clarify also actual graces, which are kind of

pinpricks of grace, and sacramental graces, those attached to the sacraments for particular things in life, and then charismatic graces, which don't so much make us good as testify to the power at work within the life of the church. We pass then to the secundi secunde, in which he describes the principal virtues getting into the nitty-gritty of how we are saved in the moral life. He describes first faith, which gives us access to God who is first truth and who speaks truly. So we believe on the basis of divine testimony, we adhere to what he reveals with certainty because he is neither deceived nor does he deceive. Now, there are two acts of faith. Interior act is belief,

exterior act is confession. But we would also say that belief is a virtue. It's something that lives in us. It's something that we can cooperate with, something that we can cultivate. So then, passing on to the next virtue, whereas faith lives in the mind, the next virtue lives in the will or in the heart. We call this hope. Hope is a kind of trust that God, who is omnipotent and merciful, will deliver on his promises. What is it that hope looks for? It looks for God as beatitude. We trust that God will give us himself because he has promised to give us himself. And there's a kind of certainty to hope. It's not the certainty of faith, which is a

speculative certainty, but it's like a participated certainty or a certainty of tendency. There's another, though, a theological virtue that lodges in the will which we call charity, which is just the love of God poured into our hearts whereby we love God with His own love and our neighbor with the same. So charity is the substance of Christian perfection because it completes all the virtues and giving them their final shape, their final form, directing them to their final term, who is God. So we can do all manner of virtuous things, but they're only whole and complete at the

point where they are for the love of God. So charity seeks union both with those who are close and far off, but it recognizes that it's for union, and so we're more responsible for those who are close than for those who are far off. So then, we pass from the theological virtues to the cardinal virtues, the first of which is an intellectual virtue, a practical virtue called prudence, and the next three are moral virtues, right? We said virtues of the appetites, that be justice, fortitude, and temperance. Prudence is right reason and things to be done, a right practical reason. It conceives of and directs us

toward what is to be done in human life in responsible fashion. The prudent person works through stages of counsel and judgment and command to carry out the good work, which corresponds to healthy appetites. So prudence is like the general which surveys the field of battle and then sends in the infantry and the cavalry and all manner of detachments besides because it can conceive of the whole, because it's reasonable. So prudence is filled out by a memory of past things, a docility to those who are wiser, a kind of shrewdness, a kind of heightened reasoning ability, an understanding of the

principles, a foresight into the future, a circumspection, and a caution which keep us alert to what might change in a moral situation. We pass then to justice, which renders to another what is his due, and as a virtue it does so with a constant and perpetual will. So justice comes in various forms, but we can identify two main species, what we call general justice or legal justice, you may have heard it called social justice, which is what we owe to the common good or to the polity or to the church. And then there's particular justice, which we divide further into distributive justice, which is what the common good or the polity owes to each, and then commutative justice, which is what we owe to each other in exchange and things like that.

So with this, we have what orders the kind of social and political good in such a way that it's equitable. And you can identify justice in various registers. So like justice towards God we call religion, justice towards our country and our parents we call piety, justice towards our superiors we call observance, but then there are other kinds of justice claims which govern our polity or govern our society in less exact ways. So like gratitude or liberality or even vindication are all bound up with justice. We pass then to fortitude, which is a kind of steadfastness of soul, whereby we moderate our fear and daring and persevere in the good despite that difficulty,

despite the fear that wells up within or the daring that might not be sufficient. Now, we can see in it a kind of confidence and magnificence, a kind of patience and perseverance, but effectively what we're talking about here is ordering our appetites, ordering our passions so they don't deflect us. Something similar is at stake with temperance. Here we're talking about a moderation of simple sense goods, specifically food, drink, and sexual intercourse. It's a matter of remaining reasonably before those things which are most instinctual, and as a result of which the desires of which, or the desires for which, are most tinged by the effects of original sin. St. Thomas ends the secundus secundae with a description of charismatic graces, kinds of lives, and states of perfection, but I'm running out of time. Finally, he treats Christ and the sacraments in the third part.

Having described the exemplar and then the image, he now describes Christ, who is the exemplar image. Christ didn't have to come, but he did come. Why? Well, we don't know, but the sacred scripture seems to suggest that he came to save us from our image. Christ didn't have to come, but he did come. Why? Well, we don't know, but the sacred scripture seems to suggest that he came to save us from our sins. Whether he would have come otherwise, we don't know. Yet, on account of the fact that he did come, we can appreciate how excellent it is that he did come, because it helps to enlighten our faith and to embolden our hope and

to kindle our charity, to give us an example, to divinize us as human beings, and even more to set aside those obstacles and hindrances which keep us from Him, satisfying for the penalties attached to our sin and reconciling us to God and putting the devil in his place. So it's awesome. It's incredible. Now, Christ is the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God, who assumes a human nature in his person, in his apostasis. Now, God doesn't change, but the creature does change, or creation does change. His human nature has become the instrument of his Godhead, that most sublime and intimate of instruments. We identify in Christ three graces, what we call the grace of union, which is just that grace whereby his human nature is united to his Godhead,

habitual grace, which is that grace which fills his humanity, and capital grace, which is just that habitual grace considered as Christ as the head of the church, as it issues into his members or among his members, and that'd be us. We also identify in Christ different knowledges, all right, so his divine knowledge as God, but then we have further knowledges as man. So his beatific knowledge as he gazes upon God in the heights of his soul, infused knowledge as the highest of prophets, and acquired knowledge as he evinces that knowledge proper to his age at every state.

So then, Christ assumes our whole humanity from top to bottom. So that means a human soul, a human intellect, a human will, human passions or emotions, and even the defects associated with human sin in addition to a human body. So Christ assumes all those defects that come from human sin without assuming sin or ignorance because they would get in the way of salvation. And he does that as an expression of solidarity so that we can believe in him who has come to save us and incline towards the salvation which He mediates. So, Christ has a real humanity. So too, Christ lives our whole life, not only from top to bottom, from start to finish.

He is, from the moment of His conception to His reigning in glory, Christ is saving us. All of His deeds and sufferings save. And He invests certain mysteries along the way with an especially potent power because he curates his life after the manner of a story which rises to a culmination or a climax in his Paschal mystery. So we associate salvation especially with his passion, death, and resurrection. From Christ flows the power of the sacraments. Faith puts us in contact with his mysteries in a spiritual way, and sacraments put us in contact with his mysteries in a spiritual way, and sacraments put us in contact with his mysteries in a corporeal way. A sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing which makes us holy, says St. Augustine.

So they cause in us grace. Now we can identify how there's a first effect and a final effect of each sacrament with grace being associated with the final effect. And sacraments are the ordinary means for giving grace. Now, God does not bind himself to giving grace through the sacraments. He can do so through other means. But again, they are the ordinary means for giving of grace, and so they're necessary for salvation. Baptism opens the door to

salvation, penance reconciles us to the salvation which we may have lost by mortal sin, etc. So then, certain sacraments impart a character, that'd be baptism, confirmation, and holy orders, and a character is a participation in Christ's priesthood which capacitates us for worship. Sacraments will work through the minister as he uses the form and matter instituted by Christ or appointed by Christ according to the mind of the church or with the intention of the church. So then, when we look at baptism, as St. Thomas does briefly, he says, you've got the pouring of water and the pronouncing of the sacramental

form. I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. As its first effect, it causes character, which capacitates the person to receive the rest of the sacraments in their proper order, and it causes a grace whereby sin is remitted and its eternal and temporal effects, whereby one is regenerated unto grace, constituted an adopted son or daughter of God, filled with grace, virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, beatitudes, fruits of the Spirit, all manner of good things besides." St. Thomas touches briefly on confirmation, which also causes a character, a more active carer for witness or testimony, and a grace which equips us for spiritual soldiery and mission.

And then he passes on to the Eucharist, focusing on the principal signs of past, present, and future. By the two-fold consecration we signify the sacrifice of Christ which is thereby made present. By the present signification seen in bread and wine. Ordinary kind of nourishment, we see that it supplies us with grace and especially the grace of charity. And then on account of the fact that out of many grains constitute one loaf, and out of many grapes constitute one chalice, we see in those elements themselves a sign of the future effect of eternal life as we are constituted, the one worshipping body of Christ. St. Thomas started in on the treatise on penance, but on December 6, 1273, he set his pens down,

having seen something compared to which all of which he had written was straw. Not in that it was unimportant, but in that his desire for heaven was so great that he had to hasten hence. Alright folks, that is the Summa Theologiae in 15 minutes. I apologize for its excesses and defects, and for the rate of speech as we arrived at the end. But cheers to you!

This is Pons with Aquinas. If you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel, push the bell, and get sweet email updates when other things come out. If you want to hear more things like this, you can also tune into God's Blending, a podcast that I do with some other Dominican friars on a weekly basis where we have short 30-minute conversations so we can speak a little less quickly. So, know of my prayers for you.

Please pray for me, and I'll look forward to chatting with you next time on Pines with Aquinas.