Pints With Aquinas - 1-Hour Q&A w/ Fr. Thomas Joseph White , O.P.

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

In this episode, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. joins me to answer questions from “Pints with Aquinas” patrons! Some of the topics we talk about include: What does “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” mean? How do you explain the Trinity to a non-believer? How can you deal with unwanted or intrusive thoughts?    FREE E-book "You Can Understand Aquinas": https://pintswithaquinas.com/understanding-thomas   SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd​ STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/​ Catholic Chemistry: https://catholicchemistry.com​   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/​ This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/​ Merch: teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/​   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd​ Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd 

Well, hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. Welcome to the show. If you haven't been here before, please do us a favor and click that subscribe button. And that way Google will be forced to let you know whenever we put out a new video. Today on the show I have Father Thomas Joseph White, and we'll be having a Q&A session with him. We're going to be taking questions from our patrons primarily today. So if there is a super chat, I'll try to get to it, but I can't guarantee it. We're going to start with the patrons and then if we have more time, we'll get to questions here from YouTube. Before I jump into today's episode and welcome up Father Thomas Joseph White, I want to say thank you to Catholic

Chemistry. If you are a single man and woman who is perhaps feeling called to the sacrament of marriage and you're having maybe trouble meeting somebody in this COVID era, go check out my friends at catholicchemistry.com. There is a link in the description below. You can just click that. It'll take you over there. You can set up an account. It is the fastest growing Catholic dating site on the web. And you're going to get people who are really serious about their faith. So go check them out. Catholicchemistry.com Catholicchemistry.com

One of the other cool features they have here is online video chatting. So you don't have to kind of give your number to somebody. You can have a chat right there on the website before deciding whether or not you want to move forward. So check that out. All right. Father Thomas Joseph White, good to have you. Great to be here, Matt. Thanks very much. Yes, it's lovely to have you on. Tell us a bit about what you've been doing. You are the founder of the Thomistic Institute. My understanding is you've been in Rome for a while doing something similar there. Catch us up.

Yeah, well, I used to run the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C. before it was newly approved by being run by Father Dominic Legg, who I think has even become so important as to be on the Matt Fradd show recently. And then I was moved. I was rewarded for my competence by being moved to Rome where I work at the Angelicum. And there I run a different Thomistic Institute and it's a research center. We also teach seminarians and lay people

and religious from around the world. And we also do kind of campus chapter work to have, you know, try to spread knowledge of Aquinas and the Catholic intellectual tradition in Europe. Very good. Well, it's awesome to have, you know, try to spread knowledge of Aquinas and the Catholic intellectual tradition in Europe. Very good. Well, it's awesome to have you on the show. And you are part of a band called the Hillbilly Thomists, which I know many of our listeners are familiar with. But tell

us about that. Yeah, so we, that's true. The Dominicans, some people know about this, of course, the Dominicans on the East Coast. There was a group who started a folk Americana bluegrass band about 10 years ago called the Hillbilly Thomists. And we just came up with our second album on the Feast of St. Thomas in January. It's called Living for the Other Side. And it's got some, I think, really good songs on it. We've got a website now, hillbillytomas.com. And I'll shamelessly tell you, we also have some merchandise. So I happen to have... I'm going to check it out.

It's not a prop. I actually have a trucker's cap here. Bourbon, bluegrass, and a Bible, the Hillbilly Tomas. So you can get all this stuff there. There's good t-shirts. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Now, I'm familiar, but tell us about where this term comes from, hillbilly Thomists.

Well, so Flannery O'Connor famously said about her literature that people think I'm a hillbilly nihilist, but actually I'm a hillbilly Thomist. And so we thought because we were playing Appalachian folk music and bluegrass music in its inspiration and because of our connection to St. Thomas and Flannery O'Connor, it made a lot of sense. And so it's a good title. Austin Lidkey came up with that. Very good. Yeah, no, I love it a lot. Well, what I want to do today is take some questions from our patrons who keep this show running. And you haven't seen these questions ahead of time. Actually, I haven't seen these questions ahead of time. So you feel free to punt at any point or just refuse not to speak. I don't

know. Here we go. Here's a question from Ryan who says, what is the relationship between metaphysics and miracles? Is God able to break metaphysical laws for example take on a second nature replace a substance without replacing accidents etc or are these just metaphysically possible and this is not the way to understand miracles good morning right right yeah that's a that's a pretty elevated, like, 17th story question. Okay, so what Ryan has alluded to in his question are two actually not miracles, technically speaking. Well, yeah, even that's kind of mysteries, and he's referred to the mystery of the incarnation by which God is being divine without ceasing to be divine, to get on human nature. And he's referred to the Eucharist in which God has changed the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ while retaining the accidents of bread and wine.

Okay, sure. Those are metaphysical descriptions of mysteries of the faith. Are they breaking the laws of metaphysics? You know, actually St. Thomas doesn't talk really about laws of metaphysics so much. I think when you talk about laws, you're talking about norms of the human mind. So I have no problem talking about laws of nature or laws of metaphysics so much i think when you talk about laws you're talking about norms of the human mind so i have no problem talking about laws of nature or laws of metaphysics but i think that that that refers more to our understanding like it's a normal law that if you you know leap out of a window you're going to fall because of gravity but i think we want to talk more about forces

and inclinations natural principles in the in the things themselves. And God can act beyond the realm of nature, within nature. He can do things in the world that natural realities themselves cannot accomplish. He can repair them. For example, a person who's blind could be repaired by the miraculous, their sight could be repaired by the miraculous power of God, or he could. He can elevate nature to do things he can't normally do. So he could give a person the capacity to speak languages that they haven't naturally learned and things like that. But I don't think we want to say he does things that are violent to nature.

There's a difference between the miraculous and the mysterious, although they're interrelated. The miraculous is more directly, actually, rationally intelligible. Natural reason can understand a miracle more easily. That may sound strange, but it's true, because it's kind of got to do with the restoration or extension of nature. And so it shows omnipotence at work, making something happen beyond the realm of natural possibility, but in the line of nature, so to speak. So if you speak new languages, it's in the line of human nature, but it's beyond your natural capacities.

If you do it miraculously by understanding language is not naturally learned. Or if this site is restored, it's a restoration of nature. It's in the line of nature by an omnipotent power from beyond nature. But a mystery is something really not in the line of nature, but really ultimately beyond nature, like God becoming human. The mystery of God being human is not something that's just a kind of extension of our human nature, like if God just helps me do a little bit better by miraculous power, I'll become God.

That's not what the incarnation is. It's something properly numinous that we can understand something of it, but it's, and metaphysics helps us think about it, what the mystery is, but it's not a kind of comprehensive explanation like kind of a mathematical comprehension or even a philosophical analysis. There's a way in which the mysteries of the faith kind of elude full comprehension because they're of another order. Very good. Thank you. Okay, so there's a 17th story. Yeah, here's an easy one for you from Alex Parmit. He says, how should we approach intercessory prayer? I always feel a little unsure about how to pray

for someone when they ask for prayer. Do I offer up a Hail Mary, a rosary, mental prayer, a day of fasting, just a quick spontaneous prayer, etc. Could you offer some thoughts on how to intercede for others? Thanks and God bless you. That's another great question. Well, what Alex is denoting there in his question is that it's a prudential decision. So that means there's no right or wrong answer. I mean, all those things he suggested are excellent. But, of course, the difference is some of them are more costly than others. And I guess one of the things you struggle with is if I say a Hail Mary for someone who's dying in the hospital, or I say the rosary, it seems like there's a big difference.

Or if I fast for the day, I remember, I think, a story from Ignatius of Loyola's autobiography where he fasted for three days before he was going to meet someone because he was praying for their conversion. And when he did meet them and talk with them, they did convert. So you wonder, is there some mathematical equivalence between the severity of Ignatius' fast and the outcomes? Well, I think we do want to say on the one hand, it's really sheerly the work of God's grace in other people that move them to the good. And on the other hand, God's grace moves us to do things and to prepare to offer ourselves and our prayers to God as what Aquinas calls kind of by a fittingness of friendship.

It's not that Christ needs us, but he moves us as friends of Christ to intercede for other people. And sometimes if he does needs us, but he moves us as friends of Christ to intercede for other people. And sometimes if he does move us to do something more profound, it's because there's going to be a more fitting, what we call merit of friendship. It's a merit from grace, okay? It's not something like works righteousness as the Lutheran people worry about. But so, I mean, I think if we're feeling generalistically disposed, trying to do more could mean there's a greater outcome if it really comes from God. And at the same time, we have to be careful about the temptations of odd forms of moral heroism that don't really come from God. So,

you know, God can move you to make more severe sacrifices spiritually for other people, but it also can be a temptation to think we're somehow controlling things. And to discern in there where the right balance is, that's like the virtue of prudence. And, you know, here's the last thing. It's better to do something than do nothing. So if you get trapped in this, okay, I've either got to fast for three days or do nothing because a Hail Mary is too minimal. That's ridiculous. It's much better to pray a Hail Mary for someone than to do nothing. Yeah, it's a good question, though. I mean,

sometimes you'll say to someone, please pray for me, and they say they will, and sometimes you wonder if they are, and then sometimes people come to you and ask you to pray for them, and you think, oh, gosh, now I hope I can remember that. I wonder, does a prayer have to be intentional in order to be a prayer? In other words, if somebody meets me in the coffee line and asks me to pray for their son who's sick, and I sort of reflect upon this with a sort of sympathy, in order for it to be a prayer, does it have to be an intentional? I think you can have a virtual intention.

So, I mean, prayer, as you can have a virtual intention. So, I mean, prayer, as you can imagine, priests and religious faces problem all the time. So I think you can have a virtual intention. So that's one reason that when we pray the office of our, the breviary, the office of ours of psalmody, we pray for all those regularly. We pray for all those who've asked for our prayers because we hold all those prayers within a virtual communal intention for the intentions of of all those who've asked for our prayers and so i mean you can do that you can say like you know for all you can ask god to to hear the prayers and respond to all those who confided intentions to you and i think that's better than just kind of having a nice thought when someone asks you to pray for them.

But that, you know, sometimes I think God does really ask you to pray for someone repeatedly, and it's good to be open to that, that idea of praying intentionally for people in more determined and decided ways. But you can't do that in every case. Speaking of intercessory prayer, I wanted to get your opinion on praying to the saints. Suppose you meet a Protestant who says,

okay, I agree that the saints in heaven are more alive than we, perfected in God's presence. I also can see from Revelation that they offer the prayers of the saints to God, but I don't see any sort of scriptural injunction for us praying to the saints. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean, the first thing I would say is it seems that Protestants do ask each other to pray for one another. it seems that Protestants do ask each other to pray for one another.

So they do ask, they do pray to each other to pray for one another. If you mean by, in the old English sense, pray, it means it's a generic word for making a request. So like pray, tell, tell me, please tell me. So you're asking other people to pray for you who you think are not saints or maybe not saints, but you're saying we can't pray to people who we think are probably more tested or proven by the heroic virtues they've exemplified in Christ and we believe are alive in the world to come. So it seems it's true. It's hard to prove text, the practice. So you have three things you say.

First of all, if the idea is I have to prove it just from the sheer evidences of Scripture, we always have to go back to the question of how do Catholics versus Protestants, you know, quote unquote, prove things. We do claim it's scriptural, but we think it's scripture as read in the early church, where we see the practice of praying to the saints and the martyrs and appeal to the relics as occasion, you know, applying the relics to the sick in the fourth century already as occasion for the intercession of saints. That's a way of reading and receiving the Bible that we believe is normative, right? So we don't believe in just proof texting from scripture without tradition. You have to be in the tradition to understand the meaning of scripture. And if you get lost by receiving another tradition, such as a tradition that is suspicious of everything

that comes from the early church, unless I can personally prove it for my own reading, then that's a problematic tradition. So solo scripture is not really just a kind of neutral approach. It's actually another tradition that's suspicious of primal tradition, okay? So, that's the first thing. The second thing is you do see that in the instinctus fide, Christians pray for one another and are told to pray for one another. So, it's strange to think that you could ask people that you know better to pray for one another. So it's strange to think that you could ask people that you know better to pray for you, but you can't ask those who are seemingly closer to God or holier and known to be friends of God to pray for you, like St. Paul or St. Peter.

And third, you have to be very careful about the slippery slope argument that once you stop accepting the saints can pray for you, you've started to accept that there's no afterlife i mean if there's an after there's an afterlife of the soul or there isn't if there's an afterlife of the soul there's no reason to think the souls of the saints don't pray for people in this world and if they do pray for us why would they be less alive than us and if they are as alive or more alive than us and we can ask other people to pray for us and why can't we ask them to pray for us? It just seems to work by the kind of logic of faith in the comprehensive mystery, and I worry that if you reduce the possibility of appealing to all those elements, what you're in danger of is denying core elements of the faith

that are even more central than appeal to the saints, such as the afterlife or the bonds of communion and charity or the importance of prayer or things that we know are true and revealed by God. Yeah, great. For those who are watching, I would highly encourage you to get Father Thomas Joseph White's book, The Light of Christ. That's the correct title, isn't it? The Light of Christ, An Introduction to Catholicism. Yeah, let me plug it for you, so you don't have to. This is one of the more sort of philosophically satisfying defenses of Catholic teaching in regards to sort of apologetic books, I would say. So I was really impressed with it. I thought it was excellent, very reasonable. So people might want to check that out if they're interested in sort of apologetics.

Meredith Woodard says, thank you so much for your show. I have benefited enormously over the last year or so. I have been a strongly rooted Protestant my whole life, but praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm getting confirmed this Easter. I can hardly wait to experience him in the Eucharist. Man, it's beautiful. She says, I am confident in Jesus and the Catholic Church. However, I have been learning a bit about the corruption in the Vatican and beyond. Marxism, the Lavender Mafia, etc. It doesn't necessarily shake my faith in a radical sense, if only because to my Protestant brain, if the real presence is true, then literally everything else is small potatoes. But it does make me wonder, what does the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church really mean? Yeah, that's great. Well, so Meredith, first of all, congratulations. And I do think that you should be full of joy and expectation and that you'll find enormous blessing in Eucharistic communion and in regular confession and in the sacrament of confirmation.

I was an adult convert and I found the reception of the sacraments was wonderfully life altering and a really beautiful experience of intimacy with God. And I've helped a lot of people as a Catholic priest convert or be received in the fullness of the faith. And I've seen it consistently that the reception of the sacraments is life-altering. So let me say a few things. The first is, to answer your question directly, the promise of the protectiveness, you might say, the promise of the protectiveness you might say of the uh of the petrine charism is that the church will not err with regards to faith and morals um uh in in her infallible teaching over time so effectively we trust in the ongoing presence of christ active in the sacraments which you alluded to christ is present the eucharist and if he's present there in the euchar of Christ active in the sacraments, which you alluded to, Christ is present in the Eucharist.

And if he's present there in the Eucharist, he can be present. He can protect the church through everything and that he does do that. But it's also the fact that God sustains the truth of the teaching of the Catholic faith through all tribulation and travail with regards to faith and morals. So that's it. I mean, there are some disputes that arise in the church and it takes time to figure them out or fix them um but uh you know that that isn't um that isn't a reason to be i would say confused or despondent about what's happening in the catholic church um with regards to because

that's it's part of the trial to live in the church is to be in a community of imperfect and sinful and confused people who have to work with the grace of God to find the truth. But they do over time because of the protection of Christ and the Holy Spirit. As regards the clergy, I would say, yeah, they certainly aren't safeguarded from impeccability. They're sinners. But you will find clergy. I mean, really, all you're guaranteed is that you'll be able to receive the sacraments, the truth, and that you'll have friends in Christ who are faithful Christians if you search.

And some of those people will be good priests and bishops. As regards the actual clergy in the church, I mean, I've been in the trenches for 25 years in religious life and now live in Rome for three years. I mean, I feel like I've seen a lot. And I would say there's a lot of good people in the clergy and in the episcopacy.

And there's a lot of good stuff happening in some of the seminaries. I mean, the United States has a very committed core of many excellent bishops and priests. There are obviously also people who have failed miserably, and there are scoundrels. But I'd be careful not to take the minority as indicative of the majority. That said, obviously know, obviously,

priests and bishops need to be accountable. There needs to be sets of procedures to root out people who are in any way abusive. There can't be transparency. There can't be a culture of protection or a lack of fairness and justice with regards to people who perpetrate injustice or impurity, et cetera. At the same time, you know, we're going to have to deal with sin wherever we go in the world. And the clergy are not exempt from the social crisis, the larger social crisis of sins that we face in our own time, or more generally, original sin and so forth its effects but I mean I would say as a convert myself I feel like I can kind of say on the whole best people I've known in my life are been priests people who've helped me the most been priests and I've definitely known bad priests I mean I've

known probably more bad priests of both people but I've known so many great priests holy people learned people people of wisdom and prudence, and I continue to be sustained and helped by those people. So I think it's important to just have a balanced appreciation that there's a lot of good. And Christ kind of sustains us in that complexity. Yeah, I'm reminded of the parable of the wheat and the weeds growing together until harvest time. Yeah, well, I mean, that's a great way to put it. Yeah. Lauren Boroski says, can you, oh, this is good.

Can you elaborate on the concept of the violence of grace as spoken by Flannery O'Connor? And is this a Thomistic viewpoint? I presume you're a fan of Flannery O'Connor to some degree or else. I'm a huge fan of Flannery O'Connor and is this a Thomistic viewpoint? I presume you're a fan of Flannery O'Connor to some degree or else. I'm a huge fan of Flannery O'Connor. You know, it's a great question. It puts a finger right on something that's a point of tension between Flannery O'Connor and Aquinas.

I mean, Aquinas himself, there's another book mean aquinas himself there's a another book about aquinas there's a book about aquinas called a quiet light i love that title for aquinas i mean there's a certain serenity and integration in aquinas's life where nature and grace are very harmonious for the most part and you don't have a kind of a spiritual or psychological drama or violence with him you have a sort of profound spiritual or psychological drama or violence with him. You have a sort of profound serenity and integration. And in his thought more generally, I mean, he has a question in Summa Contra Gentiles, is God ever violent? And he says no, because he never works against the goods of nature or against nature of natural inclination.

natural inclination. That being said, I do think from a Thomistic point of view, you can make the case that grace can appear as violent in the sense that in our warped human nature, our nature turned in on itself, grace can appear as an alien and extrinsic force, you know, turning us out of ourselves toward God, and God can be perceived as an enemy, right? That's clear for fallen human beings. The church can appear as an enemy, Christ can appear as an enemy, God can appear as an enemy, right? That's clear for fallen human beings. The church can appear as an enemy. Christ can appear as an enemy. God can appear as an enemy. Because God wants to take something from me, I don't want. Aquinas calls it the worldly fear, the fear of losing that which I'm attached to, which is in fact somehow sinful or, you know, deforming. And so I think Flannery O'Connor's characters often are kind of caught in that comic space between the delusions of their own desires and the realism of divine love,

where divine love breaks in almost as violent or forceful from the exterior to convert them or move them up toward God by a kind of love, but a love which appears in that context as almost external and therefore as violent. And so she has a kind of, she's a little bit more influenced by people maybe like Augustine and Bernanos, George Bernanos, the French author. But I think there's a way to explain it from a Thomistic point of view. Now, sticking with fiction for a moment, one of my hobbies is to write short horror stories. I've always enjoyed horror. I grant that the vast majority of horror that lines

Netflix catalogs or even books is filled with trash but I wonder if you could talk to that for a moment because I continually have people challenging me on this and certainly I don't want to do anything that would lead anyone astray but I what's your thought on horror I know that Flannery O'Connor isn't isn't horror but if horror is described as an intense feeling of shock, fear, or disgust. Is there any value at all in sort of the horror genre as it pertains to Christians and the imagination? So I think it depends a little bit on your character. I mean, on your, yeah, your dispositions emotionally. So if you're very phobic, you know,

it might not be good to watch horror movies or maybe, maybe horror movies could somehow help you become less phobic. But anyway, you know, I think probably what's going on there partly is horror is a, is a way of shocking us with what's profoundly contrary to nature to draw us back to a love of the security of what's natural and so i think you know partly the catharsis it's the catharsis of experiencing what's grotesque or contrary to nature or terrifying as a way to restore a sense of appreciation of the ordinary and gratitude for it and then some people it's irascibility like they want to kill the monster or whatever in the horror movie or

see it killed or overcome to reinforce the sense that we have the power the operative power to defend ourselves and defend the goods of nature so i think it's got to do with that um it's yeah i don't think that that's necessarily wrong i just think it's probably not most people temperamentally don't like being scared right but some people do some people do i uh i've i've tried to argue for it with a sort of modus tollens formula you know um if evil if horror is intrinsically evil then it would follow that and then you would just fill in the blank dracula uh dante's inferno um hansel and gretel would be would be inappropriate you know but they're clearly not even if i don't know why they're not it would seem that they're not uh maybe some less than others yeah I don't think it goes into the category of intrinsically

evil it's it's kind of like I mean it's just a different it's more minoritary but it's it's kind of like romance I mean romance can lead people astray they can get very unrealistic views of human love but it can also make them appreciate human love and horror can make people appreciate all kinds of uh natural goods that feel threatened in the horror movie or in the horror book, horror genre. Well, I've got to ask you now, what's some of your favorite fiction? Well, you know, I'm not that cultured because I've spent all this time, you might say, drilling, you know, intellectually and down into like a deep like texas oil well with aristotle and aquinas and augustine the cappadocians and kind of some modern theologians so i kind of keep digging down into the same sources of energy but um what do you read? What's the most unimpressive things you read for fun? How about that?

Tintin. Tintin and Snowy. I mean, the sense of the sense of that's a deeply Catholic comic book, because those guys are not afraid of the universe. Tintin and snowy can go uh anywhere and overcome the powers of evil uh with the confidence that the good will triumph and and evil forces there's a universal natural law for sure in tintin i mean and i don't know it's like the the um the deep appreciation of every culture that herve had so i i So I like how he depicts. I mean, sometimes a little stereotypically, admittedly, but he depicts all these different cultures as kind of beautiful and rich and interesting.

And then he's got, anyway, that's definitely a banality I enjoy. I love P.G. Wodehouse. I think P.G. Wodehouse is obviously a genius. His vocabulary is unbelievable. But, I mean, those stories are hilarious. I like Bernie Wooster, but I especially appreciate Jeeves. I think that it was a very interesting decision to make the hero of British culture the butler, because the butler has to have the brilliant ingenuity to maintain all the social conventions to

allow the British to function collectively. So if you don't have a good butler, the whole social system breaks down. All morality falls apart. It's not anti-aristocratic, but it's not exactly pro-aristocratic either. There's an interesting ambiguity in making Jeeves, who positively lives off fish because of his brilliance, the kind of, you know, motor engine of the protagonist. I mean, I think he's also just, how would you say it? P.G. Wodehouse has an extraordinary capacity to blend guilt and shame, which are not the same thing.

So as to kind of humorously depict the shame, superficial shame morality of conventional British culture in ways that make you laugh at our human nature, the way we worry about social conventions and probably should worry about them, but also there's something kind of liberating about it he's just so funny so I have I have you know yeah I like that kind of stuff I mean you know in terms of deep literature I've always thought I do actually kind of think Tolstoy is

extraordinarily realistic and so like War and Peace is that's a very stereotypical novel to cite as a great novel but it seems to me it's almost unsurpassable as a kind of a grinny realist analysis or illustration of our real human situation and the magnitude, scope and ambition of that novel

is amazing just in terms of what he does not only in depicting events in world history and his depiction Napoleon but also his depiction of character transformation human transformation under suffering and agony spiritual blossoming I don't know it's Matt it's a masterpiece so you know I do but here's the thing you know I mean I work with books all the time. They're kind of like tools in a tool shed. And so I don't, I don't have a completely romantic relationship with books. I have more of a, a work, a workman-like relationship with books.

Yeah. Yeah. I've never read War and Peace. I loved, I loved Dostoevsky and I love some of Tolstoy's short stories, but I, I picked up War and Peace and I think I ran into French within the first few sentences and went, nah. But that's good. That's good to get some kind of encouragement maybe to go back. I forget who it was who said if nature was written out, it would read like Tolstoy. And I'm not really sure what that means. And I'm not really sure what that means. Well, I think I like that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a death scene in that book that's very famous where one of the main characters dies. And as an experience, as just a description of mortality, it's just amazing the way he can depict what it's like to be in the room when someone dies. And so I think there are things like that all through the book that are, but it's not just like, you know, technically impressive. It's profound. It's the way he reflects on what it means for the characters to experience it.

So I think there's a lot of stuff like that in Tolstoy. He's got that gritty realism. Faulkner is a masterpiece writer, of course. I mean, Faulkner created a world in his little county in Mississippi. And there's a lot of – he fights a lot with cynicism and despair, but there's a very deep and also sometimes humorous depiction of life in Faulkner. And I guess I don't want to give too much away about my own questionable views on art, which have no profound importance. But I do think Cormac McCarthy is one of the most impressive living authors.

Unbelievable. I fully agree with that. So I don't know. What was the road? Was that what was called? The road? Yeah, the road. The Father and the Son.

I finished that book in a hotel room and just broke down weeping. It was absolutely heart-wrenching. And he is so poetic and profound and grim. Yeah, he does actually remind me of Flannery O'Connor in that sense. Yeah, he's a tough author to read, but there's a great contrast between how beautiful his prose is and how stark the themes are in the book. That's interesting. A real contrast. That's great. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Thank you for that. okay uh this person says uh if god could have not created or created otherwise isn't there potentially in god's creative isn't there potentiality that's a good question in god's creative will isn't there unactualized potential given creation that's a great question could you

reformulate that so people are understanding maybe the question and then steal man it as Aquinas does? Okay, well, so the Catholic tradition. Okay, so the questioner is referring to two different teachings of Aquinas. One is that as all Christians traditionally teach, Aquinas holds that God could have not created the world. The mystery of creation is a mystery of divine initiative or divine freedom. We're not an extension of the world.

We aren't a necessary, you might say, dimension of God that emanates forth from God by necessity. If we want to talk about creation as an emanation from God, we have to talk about it emanating forth from God by his free, something like what we could call freedom. And at the same time, we say that God, at least Aquinas argues, he's not the only one, of course, that God is pure actuality. There's no unactualized imperfection.

You know, like God is, if you think about the world as a piano composition, God is like the pianist who's getting better, a little better all the time. He's not quite there yet. And he's creating us to perfect himself. Or, you know, he's like Mozart writing symphonies and getting a little better at symphony writing every time. And we don't want to say that. We want to say God creates us out of the perfect actuality or out of the pure actuality of his infinite perfection. So even if God had never created the world, he'd still be as perfect as he is without the world. I mean, that's Aquinas' view.

Not everyone has always held that, but that's a more mainstream, classical, traditional, deist view. And so the questioner's asking, well, but if he had the potency to create or not create, that itself suggests he could become more or less perfect, and there's a capacity to actuate something he, to render actual in himself, something he didn't render actual. To which the answer is no. actual in himself something he didn't render actual to which the answer is no the answer is no because what Aquinas says is you have to distinguish between actual potency and active potency and and passive potency so an active potency

well I should say a passive potency is the capacity to become more actual imperfection and so that would be like I have the potency to become more actual imperfection. And so that would be like, I have the potency to become a better mathematician, a better banjo player, I don't know, a better runner, or something like that. And we all have all these professional or moral or technical potentialities in us to improve as creatures.

And we don't want to say that there's passive potency of that kind of God, but active potency is what you're talking about when you're talking about creation. And that's the capacity of God to give being or not give being out of the antecedent infinite perfection he has as one who alone is infinite and therefore able to create being from non-being uh Aquinas has this difficult but interesting argument I mean it's difficult for us to get our minds around but I think it's it's probably essential to somehow think about it and appeal to it which is that only one who is infinite being can give to be what formerly was not. So one thing we cannot do as finite creatures is create what is from what was previously not.

We can act upon previously existing things and change them, but we cannot create ex nihilo, or from nothing, with no preexisting material cause. But God can and does does he gives being to all things in the totality of their being out of his infinite power that's not a passive power that's an active power it stems from God's pure purely actual perfection so you say wait a minute though if he if he could have created this universe or that universe at least that would change something in him well yeah I mean it's possible to hold that I mean there are

people who hold that who are theists but Aquinas doesn't hold that because he thinks that whether he creates this universe of that universe or he changes the universe to exist now so it becomes like X or comes like why he always acts out of the already existing plenitude of his infinite perfection and according to you might say the the divine ideas, the knowledge God has of himself and therefore of what he's capable of doing, so that everything that comes to be from God only always comes to be from one who is utterly perfect.

Now, so it's just not like Mozart in the sense that Mozart, when he writes more and more symphonies, gets a little better or creates something more perfect or differently perfect, perfect in different ways than what he did before. With God, God is like Mozart perfectly in act, always creating the symphony of the world. He could have created other symphonies. But the difference is it always stems from something utterly perfect in him. from something utterly perfect in him and it's always an imperfect reflection of what's transcendently superior and more incomprehensibly perfect in him so even saying things like god created freely you have to be careful we don't really know what it is for god to create it's mysterious we know we came to be from one who is somehow analogically speaking intelligent wise and

good and free but we it isn't an elective freedom that perfects god it's an elective freedom that stems from an already plenary potency of perfection of one who can express himself in an infinite number of finite ways or he could express his infinite plenitude in many finite ways and it would still always only be the expression of his infinite plenitude like that's not and it would still always only be the expression of his infinite plenitude like that's not our freedom that's a different kind of divine freedom and so you know you have to think about divine freedom divine power and divine infinity divine perfection they go together and they qualify one another that's why i actually study of god's really interesting

it's not uh it's not just intuitive like the more you you do disciplined work of thinking about the divine attributes with aquinas the more you actually see like god is deeply mysterious and yeah i understand a little better but i also don't understand i mean god's an incomprehensible mystery uh not because it not because what i understand about god's contradictory but just because like he's just not a creature. So we have a limited comprehension of his perfection. That's a great answer. You must have had your coffee this morning, have you?

Yeah, I've been writing a book about this stuff. I was going to say, because the first question was 17 stories high. This one was like 30. That was excellent. Thank you kindly. Pete Charlie says, I'd like to thank you both for such an excellent show. My question is one both my wife and I have, and it is this.

If one were to explain the Trinity to a non-believer, how would one go about it? We know it to be true as practicing Catholics. However, we have trouble articulating an explanation. Thank you both and God bless. Father, could I could I go first and then you can correct correct explanation unlikely but when I speak to my children about the Trinity I try not to use analogies because these

usually you know fall apart and could give the wrong idea so I said this once to my son I I pointed at a statue and I said, that is a being which is zero persons. It looks like a person, right? But it's not a person. It's a being, but it's no persons, right? You are a being who is one person and God is a being who is three persons. What's right and wrong with that? No, that's absolutely right. I mean, the problem is that some people think God can't be a being who's three persons, and they don't understand. Like, they say, well, that can't be true.

But, of course, it can be true. Or they think that sounds implausible because that came up human beings must have made that up that just doesn't sound like the explanation of the world I mean one way to do it you know there's that famous story

I don't know who it was I think it was Bertrand Russell was giving the talk you know the older woman objected and said sir your explanation of the world can't be right. And he said, madam, what do you think is the explanation of the world? She said, I think the whole world is poised on the back of a, of a turtle. And he said, well, what's underneath the turtle? And she said, sir, it's turtles all the way down. And, um, I think one way to explain

the Trinity is to say what we believe this is something Eleanor Stumpf once said. It's persons all the way down. What we believe is that the basis of reality is a communion of persons. So reality, I mean, one thing you can say with a person who's metaphysically agnostic, who doesn't know what's up, what's the ultimate meaning of life, is we believe the universe comes from a source that is personal and is created for the communion of persons. And that in God, primally, there is a communion of persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That communion of persons that's in God, that communion of love, has revealed itself and manifests itself to us. I think that's one way to do it. communion of love has revealed itself and manifests itself to us. I think that's one way to do it. You know, another thing is to talk about Christ himself being the person of God, the son of God, or the word of God who's come into our world to reveal the Father, and that there is a distinction between Jesus and the Father,

that Jesus is truly God, and the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and we try to understand how they're one, and then we come up with analogies. And that's not incoherent, but it's a mystery that is resolved by the personal encounter with Christ and with the Father. And you have to kind of first initiate the question of whether Jesus is real. Is he raised from the dead? Is he personally present in the world today? And if you figure out if jesus is real then you'll start to understand the trinity that's a kind of practical advice to them to pray i mean obviously i think the most i mean i i use the idea there's two analogies that are corrective of one another this is more technical but you know one is the analogy from the acts of the mind and the will so the the father uh eternally begets his wisdom and word and he eternally

loves in his spirit and so just as we have knowledge and love we know that in god god is not just knowledgeable and loving but god is father wisdom and and spiritual love that there's a triad in god of source or origin and of understanding and of love. So you can kind of use the psychological analogy, so-called psychological analogy. And then the other analogy I think you can just use is the community of three persons of one nature. If there are three of us, we are three persons in one nature. The Trinity is three persons who are in one nature, but they're also one in being. So their unity is not political or moral.

Their unity is not political or moral their unity is substantial and those those two analogies are mutually corrective because you know when you think about the psychological analogy it's obviously one subject the father who in his thought and in his love is trinity um and in the other analogy of three persons who are one in nature so you have one being and then you have three beings who are one in nature so you have one being and then you have three beings who are one in nature or three persons or one nature well the trinity is kind of both those things simultaneously it's it's the father internally getting his word and his breathing forth his spirit of love each is a distinct person they're one in nature and being okay so the two analogies

we find in ourselves between um the self as spiritual through knowledge and love and the communion of persons, three persons who are one in nature, those two analogies have their origin in the Trinity, but they're somehow both like and unlike the Trinity because the Trinity is three persons who are one in being in nature and are processions of knowledge and love. Now, I think it was Hugh of St. Victor, maybe I'm getting that wrong, but certainly...

Richard of St. Victor. Oh, I'm sorry, who offered an argument for why we can know God is triune philosophically. Do you recall that argument? Or if you don't, there's similar ones that say things like, for love to exist, there needs to be three things, God is love, you know. And Aquinas disagrees,

he thinks we can only know God is triune because of revelation. Why is that? Yeah, that's Richard of Saint Victor. So Richard of Saint Victor offered that argument in the De Trinitate in, I think, the 12th century in Paris, and then it's followed later. Well, different versions of it are enunciated by Bonaventure and then by Duns Scotus, so it does become a theme in the Franciscan school, and certain versions of it are compatible with church teaching, so there are people who hold it, and it's a different theological school than the Thomistic school. But what Richard basically argues is that we know from the idea we have of God, a sovereign good, that he is perfectly loving, perfectly good and perfectly loving. But if you have a perfect love, a perfect love can only be a love shared between two persons

because love is always shared between personal subjects. We don't just love ourselves, we love another. But if you only have two personal subjects, there will always be a note of maybe selfishness or of two people closed in on themselves. So you must have a third so that they would be open each to a non-egoistic love, not to just one but to another besides the first. So you need a triad in order to have the perfection of love.

So if we started with the idea that God is perfect love, perfect love must be shared between persons. It's not enough to have two persons, so you must have three. So we can see that there must be three persons if it's just perfect love and God. And Aquinas totally does not accept this argument. I have three, so we can see that there must be three persons if it would just be perfect love and God. And Aquinas totally does not accept this argument, and there's different reasons. I mean, it's an interesting argument because the core intuition I find more plausible is if God is perfect love, then it makes –

if I know that God is Trinity and I believe that love is the ultimate principle of reality, then the idea that there's a communion of persons who love one another in a communion of love and mutual reciprocity and mutual indwelling means that there's some kind of communion of persons at the heart of reality, which is kind of where I started with the turtles all the way down. But the way I just said it is to say, if the Trinity is revealed, then I can

say that that has a certain fittingness or satisfyingness with regard to my natural intuition that God is love, which I do think it's natural to intuit that God is love in some way. As where what Richard will say is you can go the other direction. If I know that God is love, if I intuit that God is love,

I can intuit or prove the Trinity. What Aquinas will say is, look, in human persons, you need to love another to love perfectly. But every human being is a finite good. So I can't complete myself. I have a God-shaped desire for truth and for love in me, and I'm never going to be fulfilled only by the love of myself. I need to love other people, and ultimately,

I'm never going to be fulfilled if I don't love what's sovereignly good, what's perfectly and infinitely good, which is God himself. If the human being is satisfied by merely loving itself or other human beings, we're doomed because we're not really going to be open to loving God. I mean, then we're really separated from God naturally by the limitation of our capacity to love. But we're not. We're not separated because we have a natural desire for the infinite, the infinite good of God. Here's the problem, though.

God himself, by nature, possesses that infinite goodness. So God should and must, in some sense, love himself and be fulfilled in loving himself. And that's a conclusion, I i think of sound philosophical reasoning they say well wait a minute that means that god's a total egoist god loves himself first and last i know it's the exact opposite because god sovereignly loves himself in his own objective infinity his own imperfection i mean god is sovereignly happy and he has an objective beatitude, an objective perfect happiness. He doesn't create us at all because he needs us or out of any kind of –

there's no shred of narcissism possible in God because of his infinite goodness. And when he gives us being, he gives us being sheerly out of the perfection of his gratuitous goodness we he doesn't need us we don't improve them we're just gift all the way down and the creation is a pure gift of god right so so god's infinite sovereign goodness in which he loves himself is actually a note of his perfection as a giver who has no egoism of any negative kind whatsoever. So this whole argument that God needs to love someone else to be like purely loving, so there must be two gods or two who are personally God,

I don't think it works based on the divine nature. I think you have to have a revelation of the Trinity to get to the Trinity. And then you can say, well, if God is a community of persons, if that sovereign goodness in God is a community of persons, that does kind of fittingly reflect, like help us understand something of why we are made for personal communion. Excellent, excellent answer. Thanks a lot. Here's a question a few people have on more of a pastoral note. How can a Catholic deal with unwanted or intrusive thoughts? I have been desiring to grow closer to God, but unwanted, blasphemous and other wrong thoughts have been

leading me astray. Well, yeah. Okay. So the Council of Trent teaches that, first of all, we are going to have – okay, so Luther and Calvin both argue that our human nature is radically depraved. So we're basically inclined or motivated toward wickedness in almost everything we are or do. And the Council of Trent said that was too strong. Our natural inclination to the good remains in us. We have deeply seated tendencies and inclinations to the good in us that are not destroyed by sin. We also have counter-inclinations and first movements of the soul that go in other directions, like the desire to, you know, you can have flares of anger passion anger or even deeper voluntary

hostility to your office co-worker or obviously people dare deal with flare-ups of lust which i think the medievals call the kindling of concupiscence it's like a it's like a hot coal in the fire that is gray and it looks like it's not hot anymore but then you just poke it a little bit and the flame shoots up right so there's the kindlings of concupiscence in the soul where these these you can suddenly get a fire of of of concupiscence that was unforeseen but and then of course you could have all kinds of passions or spiritual first movements usually god where you have a kind of weird thing where you you know, you go to pray to Jesus and you have blasphemous thoughts every time you do it. You're like, that's the devil. Oh, no,

wait, it's partly me. There's something wrong with me. Well, I mean, some of it is psychological fear of God that's just overreactive on a subconscious level. Like, oh, I'm so afraid of God. You know, the worst thing to be is if I blasphemed him. But, I mean, I can't help it. I can't do all this. And then, you know, your subconscious is blaspheming. There's all kinds of stuff that goes on in human beings. Priests hear about all this from everybody.

We, of course, we have our own. We experience our own corner of this. But, you know, the fact of the matter is nobody has exactly the same experience. There's kind of a wide swath of things out there. I would say what the Council of Trent teaches us is though we're fundamentally good, we also have these first movements and counter-inclinations. They're typically not sinful. They're just involuntary. The fact that they're there doesn't mean they're sinful.

And you can't just beat them down because then you get too exhausted. What you have to do is just keep focusing on the good and not worry about them too much, not pay too much attention. Now, you do have venial sins when you consent to them partly. So you have a blasphemous thought, and then you kind of consent to it. Yeah, God's taking away my autonomy. I'll be better when I don't do what God wants. I'll be better when I do what I want, which isn't what God wants. Yeah, that might be true.

Oh, wait, no, that's probably not true. Okay. So you have a kind of partial complacency. That could be a venial sin. But it doesn't become a mortal sin unless you really let it formulate a theoretical thought and a practical intention. And that's pretty rare in these cases. What sort of advice do you give to the scrupulous person who, I hear stories like this, I'm sure you have them in the confessional,

where somebody's walking up to confession and maybe they think that somebody next to them is dressed immodestly and they have a sexual thought and then they torture themselves about it and don't go to communion after all. Yeah, right after all. Right after confession, right? Yeah, well, so the poverty is the soul. Yeah, so partly if you're worried about blasphemy, you may be having some scruples, probably. So scruples, yeah. I mean, biggest problem... Let me interject here. I mean, one thing, it's good to have a tender conscience, correct? But it's not good to be scrupulous.

So it's difficult to decide which I'm leaning towards. That's right. It's good to have a sensitive conscience, but not a hypersensitive conscience. Well, scruples are paralyzing. I mean, look, the answer to scruples and the gauge of measurement of all this is whether you can exercise the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope is what you exercise in part when you realize that you do have stuff in you that you can't completely iron out, and you're going to hope in the mercy of Christ unconditionally, even though you have frailties and brokenness in you. And that's not in your control. See, part of what the scrupulous person wants to do is go to confession,

get zapped by grace, and then control their situation so that if they die on the spot, they will definitely go to heaven and not go to hell, and they haven't done anything wrong, and I'm in control of it all. And the thing is, we're not in control of it. The thing is, we're going to have cracks in the vase of our soul. There's going to be stuff that's not all right.

We should try to avoid mortal sin. But even with mortal sin, should still uh want god to move us to new acts of hope by which we could make uh acts of contrition in emergency circumstances i mean you have to be a warrior of hope and becoming a warrior of hope means basically my my fundamental advice is you have to fall over the cliff into the eternal fire in hope and by that i mean you have to fall over the cliff into the eternal fire in hope. And by that, I mean you have to fall into the eternal flames of the love of the sacred heart of Jesus and accept to be burned. You know, you have to just accept that you're going to be burned eternally in the fire of the sacred heart of Jesus. And you're going to fall into it with hope because, you know, if you think it's all on you,

you're going to think you're always trying not to fall into the other fire. But what you have to do is accept that it isn't all on you, and you have to surrender in hope to the fire of the heart of Christ. And it really is a disposition of turning every incident of weakness or failure, disposition of turning every incident of weakness or failure as well as strength toward Christ and allowing him to consume your failures and weaknesses by confiding them to him in hope. He's not interested in our perfection, really. He's interested more in our, he's certainly not interested in our moral purity and perfection as like, he's not making us pristine in this life. and perfection as like he's not making us pristine in this life he's he's more interested in our in our hearts leaning into him in faith hope and charity than he is um making us as it were purely

sanated and that's we don't like that none of us like that we we dislike it but it's actually wise on his part because it means you're always even even after you go to confession, you're always relative to the Savior. And you have to learn, even with confession, that you're leaning into the Savior. You're always relative to Him in hope. It's hard to learn that. Yeah. I had a terrifying dream the other night, and this will get to the issue of health. It's, you know, those ball pits that kids play in with all the different colored plastic balls, and sometimes it's deep and you can go under the balls? I don't have kids, but I could probably imagine this. I had this idea of sinking into one of those things forever, and your only hope remained at the beginning and you just keep sinking down and

down and down forever in this pit of plastic balls. And just the sheer hopelessness of that struck me. And it makes, I find it difficult to believe that God would send a person to hell for all eternity. This is one of those doctrines that I know everybody has trouble accepting because we don't want to accept it. And we all perhaps come up with a little argument having to do with God's omnipotence and maybe it's not a little argument. But I don't know what my question is, except to say it seems bloody unfair. I don't know what my question is, except to say it seems bloody unfair. And maybe that has to do with our false view of hell or our or maybe we don't have a satisfactory understanding of what mortal sin is that would justify that.

I mean, the idea right now, you know, I'm on a college campus. Let's pick on the college kids. You know, the idea that there's a college kid who is watching Netflix and a sex scene shows up and he tries not to masturbate, but then he does, and then he dies and then goes to hell for all eternity just seems bloody unjust, honestly. And I'm not saying it is, just that's the way it seems to me. And I think a lot of people share that sentiment. So what would your response to people like me be? Well, I mean, you know, that is a mortal sin, objectively, right? Mast know that is a mortal sin objectively right masturbation is a mortal sin so i have to say that just because like a lot of people have been told by priests that that's okay that's not a big deal it's not a it is a big deal you have to try to be chased and they have to struggle against that sin um a lot of people have a limited freedom within the domain of the Sixth Commandment,

especially if there's, I mean, especially the case you gave, where that's objectively morally grave, but probably you've got the unexpected excitation of the passions and a certain then lack of deliberation to choose the situation.. I mean there's moral culpability which diminished doesn't mean it's not serious It just means like that might not be a mortal sin or at least if some more It's objectively grave, but you know there could be diminished credibility The other thing is between when we sin and when we die there's also Often a lot that happens and a lot can happen in a short amount of time.

People do, even people who commit suicide can repent as they're dying. So, and that's, it seems there's pretty clear cases of that sometimes from things they, moments as they leave. You know, so it's a lot more complicated to say what happens after a mortal sin. Sometimes say what is a mortal sin in the circumstances and then what happens after mortal sin. away from the light of faith and the mystery of grace not just through weakness but through a kind of uh ambivalence or hostility or refusal or if they refuse the legitimate moral good they can commit serious sin and they can choose to turn away from the good the true and from the divine and in you know what what the church teaches is that god doesn't god

doesn't primarily it's not primarily correct say god sends us to hell it's that we we send ourselves away from god or we we place obstacles to union with god you know there's even a way of thinking about the life to come in the sense that God does unite, God wills to unite all creatures to himself, but not without their free consent. And so when they freely consent to turn away from God and persevere in that rejection of God, their union with God is itself their torment, because they are not in the condition in which they can enjoy life forever. And so being united to God is for them like being in the condition in which they can enjoy life forever. And so being united to God is for them like being in the pit of despair that you described,

because they aren't disposed inwardly and not despite. And this despite the fact that God has offered them inward graces to consent to the mystery. So, look, we don't understand all of it. We do know that we are capable of perpetrating great evil. We know that God has given us the grace to turn toward him and not just to those within the church, but in accompaniment with the natural law, he does offer supernatural grace to people in their moral consciences outside the church so that they may be moved to accept the good, the true, and the beautiful, or to do what is good or realize culpably when they have done wrong, and to be moved to repent and seek the truth. We don't know how it all works. We don't have x-ray vision to see into it all.

We also know God's infinitely just, and he's also infinitely wise and merciful. So when he judges us culpable for grave wrongdoing and perseverance and sin he does so in his infinite wisdom and infinite justice as one who knows us transparently it's important to realize that god knows the dignity of our souls and what he expects of us or can expect of us much better than we do so he just as he tries us he puts us through trials we say why are you doing this to me he knows what we're capable of giving see it so he also knows what we're capable of refusing and we don't really know really exactly what we've what are what we are our neighbors are doing so a lot of yes it's true a lot of human

beings just basically the clutter of of and weakness, stupidity. A lot of our sin is just stupidity and weakness. And, you know, we should probably believe God will have mercy on it and we'll just be in purgatory and, you know, find a way to save us. We'll be in purgatory and then we'll just be a lot less holy in the world to come. Okay, great. So we've diminished our sanctity. But if you start to go down that road too strongly, you can quick become presumptuous and say, you know, we're just stupid

and weak. I mean, who are we for God to ask us anything? You know, and then they would become the people who will hide our treasure. You know, I'll just stay with my sexual addiction, or I'll just stay with my resentments and hatreds and prejudices and stupidities and just keep my conventional life and not really become a follower and disciple of Christ and allow myself to be transformed. And pretty soon we could be on the road actually to rejecting God. And that's a very different problem than the problem of the scrupulous person. That's a problem of a person who's become in some ways, how would you say invulnerable to the gospel and uh that's very scary so we do need to keep the possibility of separation from god in front of us as an aspect

aquinas says that the most perfect fear is filial fear the fear of a god that is like unto the fear of offending a spouse or a best friend wherein wherein you're so attached to God by love, you primarily fear to offend that love. And that's the greatest and most perfect fear. But sometimes getting there, we have to pass through some servile fear where we're afraid of damnation. Thank you. If you'll permit me, just one final question here, Father. This comes from Richard DeClew. He says, nature-grace debate seems to hinge on God's freedom, which neither side fleshes out. Does a natural desire for the vision of God demand grace? DeLubac says no. Some critics say yes. What are your thoughts? I would just characterize it a little bit differently. I mean, I think everybody thinks

there's a natural desire for God, or a natural desire to see God in Aquinas. The question is more about the character of it. And if the character of it is a natural desire for the formerly supernatural such, or a natural inclination to see the Trinity, then it's strange to have a natural inclination to see the Trinity that God would freely frustrate. And I think the critics of D. Lubach could be onto something if that's what he's saying.

I also think D. Lubach probably could defend himself and say, well, God can give you a natural inclination to the supernatural mystery of the vision of the Trinity and just decide to frustrate it. It's not a very fitting idea, but I don't know that you could say God couldn't do that. Of course, I mean, I think he could. It's not contradictory. So I don't know that that criticism of the doula back is that satisfying to me. But the more fundamental idea is, do we have a natural inclination to see the trinity our natural inclination towards the vision of the trinity by grace and i think that's really where

the issue is um i hold the older tomistic view that our natural inclination our natural desires to god is a natural you might say rational and philosophical inclination, to want to know the first principle perfectly. We want to know the one who is from before all things and after all things, the one who is God. We have a natural philosophical desire to see him, not just to know him through his effects, but to see him in himself. And grace addresses and resuscitates and elevates that natural desire, but it also transforms it into something higher. So I don't think that there's some piece of the puzzle that the debaters have not yet seen.

I think the pieces of the puzzle are many and complex, and we who debate the issue tend to treat them differently with different different weighing of values and and opinions uh and it's important debate but it it will continue i think okay well thank you so much as we wrap up here i wanted to show people the hillbilly thomas website uh so you can see it now uh hillbilly thomas is that right hillbilly thomas.com yeah hill yeah he'll be Thomas calm it looks fantastic and so I was just encouraged people to go check that out and you know what's tough today to kind of try to make any kind of money when most things are streamed that's difficult so people should come here and click on the store let's see here oh man these are really beautiful yeah there's a lot of good stuff there and all the money goes to pay for Dominican formation for the priesthood.

Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, alright. Well, I would just encourage everybody to go check out HibbleyTermist.com. I'll put a link in the description right up the top as soon as this is over. And just encourage people to go check this out. That's wonderful that, yeah, all the proceeds go to help Dominicans in formation.

So, that's great. Alright, Father Thomas Joseph White. What do we's great. All right, Father Thomas Joseph White. What do we call you? Father White? Father Thomas Joseph White? Father TJW? Father Thomas Joseph. Good.

Father Thomas Joseph, anything else you'd like to say before we get going? It's a great honor to be here. Thanks for all your evangelical work on behalf of the church. And I hope that you and everybody else has a great Holy Week, a prayerful and inspired Holy Week. Thank you very much. Bye, Father Thomas Joseph. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. you