Pints With Aquinas - 106: How do I begin reading the Summa Theologiae?

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, I'm Matt Fred. Hey, before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that this is going to be a fun week for Pints with Aquinas, number one, because this is just going to be a great episode. But secondly, sometime this week, I'm going to share with you a wonderful talk that was given by my sister, Emma Fred, about how she came to Christ. It's a powerful story. She shared the talk with me. I thought it was amazing. And I thought, can I please share this with my listeners? And she said, yes. You know, as true sons and daughters of St. Thomas, right? Our goal is not just to have more head knowledge about the Christian faith. That head knowledge ought to propel us into a love relationship with Jesus Christ. That's why I want to share this talk.

Okay. So if you haven't subscribed to Pints with Aquinas, if you just come back here every Tuesday and listen to the individual episode, be sure to hit subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get these podcasts so you can listen to this special, amazing talk that will be coming out this week. I know you're going to love it. And that's it. Anyway, today we're going to talk to Aquinas

about the Summa Theologiae. How do you understand this bloody thing? How do you read it? It's huge. Haven't you seen it? Where do I begin? Those sorts of questions. He's in your heart Hey, good to have you... Let's try that again. G'day, good to have you back at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a bar stool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Good to have you.

You might be new to the show. I've started doing these videos on YouTube for Ascension Presents and they're getting a lot of views. I think we released one the other day, had like 10,000 views in one day, and Ascension has like a big platform. And so for that reason, I think a lot of people have found out about Pines with Aquinas. So if you're new, it's good to have you. Today, we're going to do a bit more of an elementary podcast. Okay, so sometimes we do these big topics like Aquinas' third proof for the existence of God, or Aquinas' epistemology, which we'll be doing next week, incidentally. We did one recently on how we should understand morality.

But we also have in the past done episodes for people who are new to Aquinas. And even if you're not new to Aquinas, I think these episodes are going to help you anyway. So we did an episode recently, if you check back in your podcast feed for this, for Pines with Aquinas, we did one called 10 Books by or about Aquinas You Need to Read. Our very first episode was, Who Are You, St. Thomas Aquinas, to help people understand who he is. And so this episode's kind of going to be like that. I want to talk about the Summa Theologiae and how to read it. And then at the end of the episode, I'm going to respond to some of your questions. So stick around for that. The Summa Theologiae.

All right. What is it? Well, many of you might know this is Aquinas' masterpiece. You also probably know that it was left unfinished. The only Summa he completed, Summa in Latin just means summary. And by the way, Aquinas didn't invent this. He wasn't like, I'm going to write a Summa Theologiae. Like many theologians and philosophers around Thomas's time had their own Summas that they wrote. In fact, Aquinas' teachers and Albert the Great had a Summa Theologiae of his own. So anyway, Summa means summary. So he wrote a work called Summa Contra Gentiles, or a summary against the Gentiles, which kind of is... That was his only completed Summa, incidentally,

even though the Summa Theologiae is considered his greatest work. So the reason he didn't complete it, as you may know, is he had this experience of God. And after having this experience of God, which he didn't really speak about much, so we don't really know what it was like, he hung up his writing instruments. And his friar, Brother Reginald, said to him, what are you doing? Let's get back onto writing, St. Thomas. Probably didn't call him St. Thomas. Thomas. And Thomas Aquinas said, Thomas. And Thomas Aquinas said, after what I have seen, I now realize that all I have written is no more than straw or something to that effect. So after his death, Brother Reginald went into Aquinas' previous works and drew from that in order to complete the Summa Theologiae.

So there's a whole supplementary section towards the end of the Summa. And so some people get confused about this. It wasn't that Brother Reginald wrote that, it's that he went back into Thomas's works and reformulated his words. So yeah, pretty cool, I guess. I kind of wish he kept writing personally, but whatever. I'll have to have a beer with him in heaven and ask him what he would have written. But that's what the Summa Theologiae is. So let's talk a little bit about it, shall we? I want to give a bird's eye view of the Summa and then descend

so that we can see more and more of the landscape, because I want you to feel oriented. It's sort of like when you go to a friend's house for the first time and you might be standing in their kitchen having a drink or something and they say to you, let me give you a tour. Now, the reason people say this isn't just because they want to show off their nice house and show you how tidy it is, even though 10 minutes before you arrived, it was probably a mess. The reason they do this is to get you oriented so that you can feel situated and comfortable, like you're aware of your surroundings and where you fit within those surroundings. And I've noticed this in me

recently. Like when I go to a friend's house and they do that, I always feel much more comfortable after the little tour sort of thing. So that's what I hope to do, to give you a little bit of a tour of the Sumer so that as you pick it up for yourself, you can begin to read it and feel oriented and situated as it were. All right. So, here we go. The first thing you need to know is that the Summa is divided into four parts. Okay. Now, I'm going to use the Latin name since that's often what they're referred to by. You have the, well, let's just say the Latin and then we'll say the English. The prima pars, the prima secundae, the secunda secundae, and the tertia pars. That just means the first part, the first part of the second part, the second part of the second part, and the third part.

And then you have the supplementary section as well. All right. third part and then you have the supplementary section as well. All right. So what I'll do is at pintswithaquinas.com, I want to share with you a little diagram that I've put together that will help you understand the basic content of these four parts. So I'll say what they are here, but be sure to go to pintswithaquinas.com and check out this little diagram that I've created because, you know, the medieval scholastics were fascinated with order. They believed that God created an orderly universe and so their works were, you know, weren't put together haphazardly. They were very ordered and this is certainly the

case with the Summa Theologiae. Let me read a quotation to you from Dr. Peter Kreeft, who sort of sums up this format that Aquinas used, okay, the basic structure. He says this, the structural outline of the Summa Theologiae is a mirror of the structural outline of reality. It begins in God, who is in the beginning. It then proceeds to the act of creation and a consideration of creatures centering on man, who alone is created in the image of God. Then it moves to man's return to God through his life of moral and religious choice and culminates in the way or means to that end, Christ and his church. All right. So, there's a lot of topics, right, that are addressed in the Summa. And if you've listened to Pines with Aquinas for a while now, you've probably seen

some pretty crazy questions and you wonder how on earth that fits in the Summa. Like I've done episodes on, are wet dreams sinful? Which Aquinas actually addresses. Is it a sin to get drunk? The answer, of course, is yes to getting drunk. And no, it's not a sin to have a wet dream. But you can go back and listen for more information. We've done episodes on, well, all sorts of things. And so you might be wondering, well, how on earth does this all fit? Well, it is actually very structured. So as Christ says, it starts with God, and then it goes to God's creation of man, then it focuses on man, then it focuses on man's return to God, and then it focuses on what is man's return to God?

Well, it's through Christ, and so that's when it starts focusing on Christ and His church, which is the way back to God. So you can think of it like a circle, hey? So you start with God, and you see that in the Prima Pars. Creation is also in the Prima Pars. He begins to address man in the Prima Pars. And then the Prima Secundae, he begins to talk about man's return to God. And then the rest of the Summa is about Christ, who is man's return to God. Okay? Does that help? Four basic parts to the Summa, and that's the basic content of those four parts and why.

All right. Here's what you need to know next. These four parts are subdivided, all right, into treaties. So here I said a bird's eye view, right? So you've just seen the big landscape, the four parts. Now we're descending a little. Here's how those four parts are subdivided. And so the treaties are, you know, he'll say things like on the creation or on man. So these are kind of the big chapter headings, if you were, before we go deeper, all right? Those treaties are subdivided into questions, for example, the existence of God,

faith, the procession of the divine persons, and those questions are finally subdivided into articles. For example, does God exist without grace? Can man know anything? And so forth. So again, there's four parts. Those parts are subdivided into treaties. Those treaties are subdivided into questions. And then those questions are finally subdivided into articles. Now, let me give you something to think about here. It's a bit of a side note. What we mean today in English by article is essentially an essay, right? If someone says, I wrote an article, you think they mean they wrote an essay of sorts. But when Aquinas says article, he means question, okay? And in English today, when we say a question, what do we mean?

We mean like a sentence that's worded or expressed in a particular way in order to elicit information. That is what Thomas means by article. So, it gets a little confusing that way. So, when he says question, you know, he means what we mean today by article. And when he says article, he means what we mean today by question. So, keep that in mind, okay? So, those are the four parts. Now, here's what I want to do. keep that in mind, okay? So, those are the four parts. Now, here's what I want to do. I want to talk about the article, right? Because the article is the essence of the Summa Theologiae. This is where he gets down to, you know, brass tacks, as it were. So, there are five structural parts to an article, okay? And again, if you've never read the Summa

Theologiae, maybe this just feels like too much too soon, but I know many of you have, and so I think this is going to help you. There are five structural parts to the article. What I want to do is go over each of those parts and then talk about what we can learn from each of those parts practically. So those five parts are the question, The question, the objections, the said contra, the respondio, and then finally responses to the objections. Okay. You've got the question, the objections, the said contra, the respondio, and finally the responses to those questions. So let's just go through these. Thomas, so let's talk about the question first. Now, it's interesting or important to note, that the question is always formulated in a yes-no format, such as whether God exists. Now, this isn't because Thomas Aquinas thinks everything is just black and white,

but Aquinas is really great about getting to the bottom line, which is actually helpful in a crazy busy age that we live in, right? It's like, we just want the bottom line. Well, that's exactly what Aquinas does throughout the entirety of the Summa. So it'll be like whether God exists. Let me just pull up the Summa here. You can get the Summa online. I have the hardback copies, but you can get it online from New Advent. If you just typed in Summa Theologiae, I often put links to it throughout these. Anyway, so be sure to check it out. I'll put a link in the show notes or something. Okay. So yeah,, he starts with a question which gets to a yes or no. Okay.

And then, so you can think of the Summa as like a summarized debate. Right? A summarized debate. Because he puts forth, it's kind of like if you've ever actually been to an academic debate, there is like a question, a proposition as it were. And then there is somebody who is pro that proposition, and then someone who is against that proposition, and the person who is for the proposition begins, and then the other person responds. And what's interesting, and something we have to keep in mind is, you know, in St. Thomas's time, people really believed that we could discover truth

by dialectic. By dialectic, I mean conversation with another, okay? The truth can actually be discovered through conversation with people who are also wanting to know the truth. Now, we live in what we might call an epistemological relativistic society, right? That is to say, many people deny that truth is even knowable, if it is at all, right? Maybe truth is just relative to individual people, but if truth does exist, well, we can't really know it anyway. But that wasn't the case. And so, for that reason, the medieval scholastics thought of debate as a sort of science, a sort of art form. Can you imagine? I mean, like, if you compare what Thomas does in the Summa to the absolute train wreck that was the Donald Trump,

Hillary Clinton debates, you can see that today it's not really about getting to the truth. It seems to be about, like, either showing who's the most clever, who has the mic drop moment, or on the opposite end, it's just like, well, let's agree to disagree and no one's really right. No one's really wrong. It's just our opinion. We should respect all opinions equally, which is ridiculous because not all opinions are equally true. Some are completely rubbish, right? So, okay, so that's the first point. So, let's just focus as we go through these five parts on Article 3 of the first part of the Summa, Question 2. So, whether God exists, because that's the first thing. You've got a question. All right. So, the next thing is, after the question, you have the objections. And here, Thomas outlines the best arguments, usually three, I think as many as 12 in the Summa. I have his work, De Marlo, which is a totally different book from the Summa, and some of those have like 27 objections to the position he wants to prove. But anyway, he usually tries to find around three, at least three objections to the position he wants to defend. And what's really incredible about this is that Thomas does not set up straw men. That is, he doesn't set up a weaker version of his opponent's arguments.

He puts forth the best arguments against his position that he can find. And I dare to say even better than many of his interlocutors. So let me just give you one example to show you what I mean. Like here is, so it's interesting when it comes to the existence of God, Aquinas can only think of two arguments against God's existence that are worth considering. One of them has to do with the problem of evil. Listen to this argument, will you? And I think you'll agree with me that he puts it very forcefully and very convincingly. Here's what he says. It seems that God does not exist because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word God means that he is infinite goodness. If therefore God existed, there would be no evil discoverable. But there is evil in the world,

therefore God does not exist. It's pretty good, hey? Like that's pretty strong. Like if I was to, you know, say to you, okay, answer that. And I said to you, you can't look up anything, you can't go online, just give me a satisfactory answer to that, maybe you wouldn't be able to. But the point here is Aquinas really steal man's as opposed to straw man's, his opponent's objections. He makes them as strong as possible. The third part of the article is the said contra. the article is the said contra. Said contra is Latin for on the contrary. And here, Thomas offers a short argument from authority, as if to say, here is the basic response from the church to this objection. Here's what the fathers of the church have had to say. Here's what the saints have had to say. Here's what the church has taught. Okay. So he sort of sums up the basic response

to the argument. Okay. So, and they're really quick. They're really quick. So let's just stick to that same article on does God exist? Okay? Whether God exists. Here's the one line he offers in the said contra. So, he'll say, said contra, or on the contrary, it is said, in the person of God, I am who am, Exodus 3.14. That's it. Like, that's the said contra. This is something I like to do to my wife. Like, she'll say something like, I prefer, like, she'll say'll say like tea is better than coffee. And I'll be like, said contra. So you might try that if you're, I don't know.

I'm such a geek. Okay. So the fourth part of an article is the respondio. Okay. This always begins with Aquinas saying, I answer that. So this is Thomas's main response, hence respondio. This is the main part of the article in which Thomas gives philosophical reasons, as well as theological reasons, but good arguments as to why we should agree with this position, like the church's position, his position,

and reject the arguments contrary to it. All right? So, in this article, we've been looking at whether God exists. It's this part, the respondio, in which Thomas lays out his famous five ways. All right, the respondio. Keep that in mind, because I want to bring that up in a minute in regards to reading the Summa Theologiae. Here is the fifth and final part of the articles within the Summa Theologiae. It's basically the responses to the objections. Thomas responds briefly to each objection raised, to the objection. And this is really a kind of fun thing to do. Like, let's just do that, shall we? I'm going to go to the Summa Theologiae online right now, and I'm going to randomly click.

Let's see. We'll go to the Secunda Secundae. I'm going to just click knowledge, if it'll let me click knowledge, and we'll choose an article here. And we'll read one of the objections, and then we will read his response, just to show you how well he not only argues against his position, but how well he responds to it in so few words. So why don't we just choose something randomly here? Let's go to the third part of the Summa Theologiae, question 28, and this is, the question is, the virginity of the mother of God. Let's go to number three, the third article, did she remain a virgin after his birth? Okay, so, let's read the objection, notice how strong it is, So let's read the objection. Notice how strong it is. And then we'll look at the response. All right. Now, again, just imagine you're on a stage, there's thousands of people watching you and somebody throws this objection to you. Feel the force of it. And perhaps your inadequacy to

respond well, you know, inability, I should say, to respond adequately. Here's the objection. It would seem that Christ's mother did not remain a virgin after her birth, for it is written in Matthew's gospel, before Joseph and Mary came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Now, the evangelist would not have said this before they came together, unless he was certain of their subsequent coming together. For no one says of one who does not eventually dine before he dines. It seems therefore that the blessed virgin subsequently had intercourse with Joseph and consequently that she did not remain a virgin after Christ's birth. Do you feel that? Do you feel the force of that? I mean,

he's quoting scripture at you. It's quite logical. Now, we're addressing this fifth part of the article. So let's take a look at the response to the objection and the economy of words that Aquinas employs. He says, as Jerome says, although this particle before often indicates a subsequent event, yet we must observe that it not infrequently points merely to something previously in the mind, nor is there need that what was in the mind take place eventually, since something may occur to prevent its happening. and take place eventually, since something may occur to prevent its happening. Thus, if a man say, before I dined in the port, I set sail, we do not understand him to have dined in port after he set sail, but that his mind was set on dining in port. In like manner, the evangelist says, before they came together, Mary was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Not that they came together afterwards, but that when it seemed that they would come together,

this was forestalled through her conceiving by the Holy Ghost, the result being that afterwards, they did not come together. All right, so you see that? I mean, such a quick, powerful response to such a powerful objection. We should also note, one of the great things about Aquinas is he's rarely black and white in the sense that the interlocutor, the imagined interlocutor with which he's debating is not wholly wrong, right? So he's like, okay, I see what you mean here. And in some instances, you're right, okay? Before can indicate a subsequent event, okay? But not always. So I love that about Aquinas as well. And I think we can definitely learn from that. All right. So those are the five parts of the article.

Now let's go through them and see what you and I can learn from this today. Okay. So number one, the question. All right. As I say, it's always formulated in a yes or no format. What can we learn from that? Here's what we can learn from that. We need to clarify the question we want to ask. Very often we walk around with this perhaps doubt in a particular thing, but we haven't actually formulated it. It hasn't crystallized in our mind. We haven't done the hard work of trying to formulate the question. And consequently, we just kind of walk around not really trusting this aspect of the faith or not really being fully sold out for the Catholic faith, as it were. Well, what's your question? Like, I tweeted about this the other day,

and it seems like many Catholics today and many evangelicals are making a virtue out of doubt. Now, don't get me wrong. Doubt can be helpful. There's no use in pretending you believe something. If you don't believe it, then you doubt it, and therefore you ought to ask questions in order to gain certainty. Here's the thing. If God has revealed it, then there's no humility in saying, well, what do I know? I'm giving I'm giving up certainty, you know, and making a virtue out of skepticism in that sense. Rather, if we do doubt the Catholic faith, or if we do doubt elements of it, then what we should do is formulate a question and then pursue the answer. But we're not going to be able to pursue the answer unless we first know the question. I think this is also true when we're debating with other people. They might have a really bad taste in their mouth about the Catholic faith. Somebody just tweeted at me today because of the Catholic Church's position on homosexual acts and said that the Catholic Church is an absolute poison to society.

Okay, well, if it is, you need to show me why it is. In other words, what are you trying to get at? Like, what's the rub here? What's the question you're trying to ask? That's very important. So when we're dealing with somebody who's just overall hostile to the Christian faith, you can say, okay, I see that you're upset about a lot of things, but let's focus on one of those things.

Like, what's the biggest thing that bothers you? Well, it's why the church won't allow women priests. Okay. All right. So that's the biggest thing? Yeah, I think so. Okay. So there you go. You've crystallized the question. If I can now respond to that adequately and even convincingly to the other person, which may not happen, but suppose I can, then he's got to think to himself, well, there you go. If my biggest objection can be answered rationally, then I suppose all the other objections I have in theory can be answered as well. The second thing we should learn from the articles having to do with the objections. We need to understand our opponent's objections. I plan on teaching some classes at a university shortly, and we'll be doing philosophy

of God. I'll be teaching that, and I'm going to have my students write. This is what I'm thinking. I haven't decided for sure yet or not, but I want to have them write an article on why God doesn't exist. That is to say, I want them to be familiar with the literature of atheists and be able to put forth the arguments from atheists in a convincing manner. If they can't do that, or to the degree in which they fail at that, like if the argument is trite, if it's unconvincing, to the degree in which they fail at that, like if the argument is trite, if it's unconvincing, you know, if they don't use, you know, the sources at their disposal or the best of the atheistic arguments, they'll get a lesser grade. All right. So, we have to understand what our interlocutors are saying if we want to continue dialoguing with them. That doesn't mean we have

to understand the objections of everybody out there. How could you possibly do that? You know, for example, you know, maybe you've never read the Book of Mormon. Maybe you don't understand the sorts of arguments Mormons might put forth for why Mormonism is the one true Christian church, okay? And I'm not saying, well, then, therefore, you need to go ahead and study those things vigorously, you know? But if you are going to engage with Mormons in a serious way, then you owe it to them, right, and to yourself to understand what it is they're saying. Otherwise, you'll fall into the trap of setting up straw men, which as we've seen, Aquinas doesn't do. The third thing we can learn from articles, this has to do with the said contra. We need to

understand what the church's position is on these things. And one of the best ways to do that is by reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I'm always surprised when I pick up the Catechism, just how rich it is and how much I learn from it. So, you know, and not just the Catechism, but what the saints have said, what the scholars in the Catholic Church have said in response to those who have said things like Christ didn't rise from the dead, or Christ is just a spinoff of pagan deities. We should know what the church has had to say in response to these things. Now, we also need to know why the church says those things, and that'll have to do with the

fourth part, the respondio, because if we don't know the why behind the what, right? If we don't know the reasons behind the church teaching, we can fall into dogmatism, okay? Which I'm putting that in the negative sense. Obviously, there are dogmas, sort of things that have been divinely revealed that we must believe. But I'm talking about there are things that we'll believe, but we'll leave our intellect at the door and say, well, I don't need to focus on that so much. And that's not good enough, I don't think. But we do need to know what's the church's position on these things. What have the saints and scholars throughout church history had to say on these topics? Okay. Next, the respondio. We have to be able to put

forth arguments for our positions if we're engaged in them. Again, we don't need to have arguments for every single proposition that the Catholic Church makes or that Holy Scripture teaches, but if we're going to be engaged in them, or if these are things that bother us and we're not sure how to answer them, then we need to think through these things and listen to people smarter than us who can teach us these things so that we can understand it more. Sometimes people will say to me, how can I grow in my faith? How can I become more confident in my faith? That's the question I often get asked. I want to be more confident. How do I be more confident? And my response is, well,

more confident. And my response is, well, you need to choose a topic that you're not so confident in, right? Perhaps it's the Immaculate Conception or the Resurrection of Christ or why the church is against contraception or so forth. Then what you must do is research it, you know, research it, because then you have more confidence in it when you find that the answers given by the church are compelling. You know, you can't just have more confidence in something by trying to have more confidence in that thing. Like if I said to you, would you drive my car to Los Angeles? I have a friend there who needs the car and I'll pay you to drive it to them. And you said, okay. And then you looked at the car and it was just a rust bucket. You know, you turn the key and it wasn't idling well, and it looked like it was going to break down, you know?

And I said, well, no, it'll get there. Just have confidence. You can't do that. You can't just will to have more confidence. Like that's shutting your brain off. Instead, what you might do is say, well, look, let me just have this checked out by a mechanic first, see what he has to say. And suppose you take the car to the mechanic and he looks it over and says, yeah, no, this is fine. The reason it doesn't sound like it's running well is this, and that's nothing to be worried about. And even though it looks rusty from outside, the engine's great. It'll definitely get you to California. Sure, no worries. Okay, then you'll have confidence, right? Because someone who knows more than you has assured you. And I think this is what we can learn from the respondio.

We need to learn from others so that we can formulate our arguments and have more confidence in that particular issue. And then finally, responses to the objections. What can we learn from this? If we are unable to respond to the arguments people have against the Christian faith, they will always be nagging little doubts within our mind. And so that's why it's important that when someone puts forth an argument against your position, maybe in public or one-on-one or over social media, you might not know how to respond to it right then and there. That's okay. There puts forth an argument against your position, maybe in public or one-on-one or over social media, you might not know how to respond to it right then and there. That's okay. There are people who do, so go and seek out the responses to those arguments. Very shortly, I'm going to be

interviewing a mate of mine, and we'll do this in a few weeks. He created a website called BeliefMap.org. I'm not going to say more about it except to say, go check it out. It's incredible. You'll see what I mean and how that applies to being able to respond convincingly to the objections of others. So those are the five things I think we can learn from the five parts of the Summers articles., without wanting to be redundant, let me say everything I've said one more time. There are four parts to the Summa Theologiae. Those parts are subdivided into treaties, which is subdivided into questions, which is subdivided into articles, and those articles have five parts. Let me conclude before we go to our questions by saying, okay, how can I, how can you begin to read the Summa in a way that's helpful?

And here's what I would say. When you pick up the Summa or when you open it up online, rather than reading through all five parts of the articles in the Summa Theologiae, read only the question and then the respondio. If you were to do that every day, you would say, okay, here's the objection, here's our Thomas response. Here's the objection, here's our Thomas response. It's certainly helpful to go through the objections and the answers, but if all you did was read the question and the respondio, I think you wouldn't get kind of bogged down in the weeds of it all, and you'd be able to progress rather swiftly. Let me suggest a couple of books that you could get. Obviously, you could get the Summa Theologiae, but for those of you who are like, look, I'm not willing to do that yet, I

don't know, I would say get this book by Peter Kreeft. It's called A Shorter Summa. The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, edited and explained by Peter Kreeft. So different chapters, okay? He goes from things like theology as a science, proofs the existence of God, the nature of God, epistemology and psychology. And then you'll be able to read directly from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. And then he also explains it in the footnotes. So that could be, and it's not that big.

I mean, the book, I'm holding it here. It's not even 200 pages. So you could get that online if you want. I hope that's been a help. All right, now it's time for your questions. All right, all right, all right. Time to respond to some of your questions. I want to say a big thanks to everybody

who's supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. Seriously, I know I bang on about it a lot because it's my main source of income and it's what makes these things happen. So I really don't mean to be annoying about it, but I am super grateful for all of you who are supporting and who are enabling me to do these awesome projects like I've been speaking about for the past few weeks. Thank you so much. If you want to support the show, go to pintswithaquinas.com slash Matt Fradd or go to

pintswithaquinas.com, just click support. That'll take you to our Patreon page and you can see all the cool rewards that I give you in response for your support. Big thanks. So let me respond to some of the questions we've had from some of our patrons. Let's see here. The first question comes from Joseph. Oh dear, Joseph. Picky Rillo. Pickerillo, maybe. Joseph Pickerillo. Thanks, Joseph, for being a supporter, even though I've just offended you and your family by butchering your beautiful last name. Here's what you say. I love Pints with Aquinas. God bless you and your ministry. I was curious about whether you could recommend some atheist podcast that tries to disprove God's existence philosophically or logically. I know

that Aquinas offers the objections in the Summa, but I have not had a lot of experience hearing today's atheists tackle these topics. I am worried. I'm only prepared to debate tired tropes or straw man arguments. Wow. I didn't realize just how much that fits into today's topic. That's such a great question, Joseph. This gets into what I was talking about. We need to understand our opponent's objections. So here's my response to that. I wouldn't recommend that you go out and start reading atheist literature or listening to atheist podcasts. Well, why? Didn't I just say the opposite there, that we need to know our opponent's responses? Yes, but we also, as Christians, recognize that we live in a spiritual battle and that there is an enemy of our souls who detests you and wants to draw you away from God. So, if you haven't been trained

in theology and philosophy, then exposing yourself to atheistic arguments can be disorientating. So, what I would say is, instead of just listening to atheist podcasts and reading atheist books, no, do something like this. There's a great podcast called Unbelievable with Justin Briley. Every week or almost every week, he has atheists and Christians on to debate a certain topic. So you're actually going to hear atheists debating and making the case against God, okay? So, I'm not saying shield yourself from that, but what I am saying is, if you're not trained in philosophy and theology, you want to hear the response from the Christian, right? Otherwise, it might provide a temptation that could

lead you away from the faith, which would be really unfortunate. provide a temptation that could lead you away from the faith, which would be really unfortunate. There is a really great debate I want to recommend everyone listen to. It's between Peter Boghossian and Tim McGrew on atheism. It's amazing. So what I might do is I'll throw a link to that up in the show notes so you can listen to that. But that's what I would recommend, Joseph. I'd also recommend looking at the work of Trent Horn. He's debated a few atheists, and those are available online. So there again, you can hear what the atheist has to say, and you can see the Christian position presented well. Liam Lane Craig has done a really good, his debate with Christopher Hitchens on YouTube is a fantastic debate, which I highly recommend that you watch. And that, I think, would familiarize yourself with atheistic arguments, okay? All right, next question. Tony Yaku says,

Hi, Matt. I'm trying to go back and listen to Pines for the Quietest from the beginning, but in iTunes, episode 28 is the oldest available. Not sure if you did this on purpose, but would be nice if you could adjust episode limits, yada, yada. Thank you very much, Tony. I am so sorry that it does that. I actually don't know why it does that. If any of you know why it does that, you could let me know. However, all of the episodes are available on pintswithaquinas.com, right? From one up until wherever we are right now, 100 and something. And then also, my understanding is this isn't the case on all podcast apps. So Joseph Piccirillo, who we just mentioned a moment ago, responded to this question and he said they also all show up on Castbot, which is the app I listen to Pints with Aquinas on. So, if you're not getting all of the podcasts, you can either listen at pintsofaquinas.com,

or you could perhaps download a different podcast app and find them there. Okay, let's take another question. This comes from David Wallace. He says, Hey Matt, a question for you. God loves all of us, but does he love some people more than others? There seems to be suggestion of this in scripture. John as the apostle that Jesus loved, for example. What about the rest of them? Did he think they were jerks? What does this mean? That God has favorites? Is this a result of something we did or didn't do? And what does this mean for us in our lives? Thank you, sir. God bless your family. Thanks, David. My understanding

is that the answer is God does love different people differently. So let's have a look at what the Sumer says here, what Aquinas says. I know this is, I'm just looking it up here. Okay, here we go. This is from question 20 in the first part of Summa Theologiae on God's love. Does he love one thing more than another? And Aquinas says he does. And so here's his main answer. Let's just give you the said contra, right on the contrary. He says, God loves all things that he has made, and amongst them rational creatures more, and of these especially those who are members of his only begotten Son himself. That's the said contra, here's the respondio. Since to love a thing is to will it good, in a twofold way, anything may be loved more or less. In one way, on the part of the act of the will itself, which is more or less intense.

In this way, God does not love some things more than others, because he loves all things by an act of the will that is one, simple, and always the same. Alright? And then Aquinas continues. always the same. All right. And then Aquinas continues, in another way, on the part of the good itself that a person wills for the beloved. In this way, we are said to love that one more than another, for whom we will a greater good, though our will is not more intense. In this way, we must need say that God loves some things more than others. For since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said,

no one thing would be better than another if God did not will greater good for one than another. So there's the answer. God's love is the cause of goodness in human beings. Okay? But some people are better than others. And since God's love is the cause of goodness, God therefore must love some other than others. And this gets back to perhaps our discussion on predestination that I had with Father Joseph White. So I would say, go listen to that episode if you haven't already. And I think that that would

help clarify the rest. All right, we're gonna leave it there for this week. I'm very excited about next week's episode. I'm going to be interviewing my friend Father Damien Ference about epistemology, Thomas's epistemology. That is, how is it that we know stuff? That might seem like a really simple question, but it might end up being a very complex answer. But I know it's going to be a fun episode because whenever I talk to Father Damien, it's a fun episode. Thanks so much for listening. Do us a favor, review Pints with Aquinas on iTunes if you haven't done that already, and maybe share the show with somebody that you love today. God bless. Chat with you next week. Who's gonna survive?