Pints With Aquinas - 108: How should we argue with heretics and atheists?

Episode Date: May 29, 2018

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Hello, how are you? Sorry, that was creepy. If you've never heard the show before, that was not a good introduction. I usually say something like this. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name's Matt Fred. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be?

In today's episode, we're going to be asking Thomas Aquinas how we should argue with heretics and atheists. Buckle up. Here we go. Boom. Ah, it's good to be back. Point to the Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. I love doing like episodes in which I interview people like last week's episode with Father Damien Ference about Thomas's epistemology was super fun. Okay. And just heads up next week's episode is so incredible. It'll probably blow your mind and

who knows what will happen. it might be like an experience that thomas aquinas had towards the end of his life where you're like i cannot listen to any more podcasts compared to what i have heard everything else every other podcast is like straw being scraped in my ears or something um no it's gonna be a really great episode i actually asked the question whether or not aquinas would listen to Metallica. We talk about music and what makes music beautiful. So, hope you're loving the show. So, but as much as I love doing interviews with people,

sometimes I just love sitting down at night with a bottle of whiskey. Don't worry, I'm not going to drink all of it, but let's see. What am I drinking today? Bullet bourbon frontier whiskey, distilled and aged in the bullet family tradition. So there you go. It's, you know, kind of middle shelf bourbon, but it's really great. Does the trick. Love it.

But I just love it, man. I just love sitting down, having a bourbon, cracking open the Surma. Here, you want to listen to it? Here's the Surma. Yes, baby. That's the Surma. Here, you want to listen to it? Here's the Summa. Yes, baby, that's the Summa. And just doing some reading, you know. And I want to delve into one of the articles today. And that particular article is the eighth article from question one of the Summa Theologiae. I've begun to read the Summa from beginning, hopefully to the end. And I've just

been making my way through it. And some of the things that I'm finding are just absolutely superb. So in this episode, I want to focus on this whole article. That is to say, I'm going to read the entire article throughout this podcast, and yeah, hopefully you'll learn a lot, and I will too. You know, in my recent episode I did on the Summa Theologiae, I made the point that Aquinas never sets up straw men. That whenever he argues against the position he wants to prove, his arguments are usually better put than his opponents would be able to put them. Keep that in mind, okay? So, here is the first objection, all right? Again, what's the question? Where the sacred doctrine is a matter of argument, right? In other words, like, should we be debating points of Christian doctrine,

like the incarnation, the Trinity, the virgin birth, stuff like that. All right, so here's what we see. Objection one, it seems this doctrine is not a matter of argument. For Ambrose says, put arguments aside where faith is sought. But in this doctrine, faith especially is sought. But these things are written that you may believe. Therefore, sacred doctrine is not a matter of argument. All right, stop arguing about sacred doctrine. Here's the second objection. Further, if it is a matter of argument, the argument... Oh my goodness, this is so great. All right, this is the example. Listen to this argument and just feel how brilliantly it is put. And again, this is the opposite of what Aquinas wants to say. Here we go, ready?

Further, if it is a matter of argument, the argument is either from authority or from reason. If it is from authority, it seems unbefitting its dignity, for the proof from authority is the weakest form of proof. from reason, this is unbefitting its end, because according to Gregory, faith has no merit in those things of which human reason brings its own experience. Therefore, sacred doctrine is not a matter of argument. So, the interlocutor, the imagined interlocutor, put up a false, well, we'll see, a dichotomy, you know, either faith, right, or it's right, either authority or reason, and neither seem good. Isn't that great? He put it so well there. All right, so here's the on the contrary, the said contra. The scripture says that a bishop should embrace that faithful word, which is according to doctrine, that he may be All right, there's the said contra.

Here is the I answer that, and I'll read through the entirety of it, and then we'll pause and we'll break it open. Now, keep in mind, Aquinas says more in a paragraph than modern theologians say in a book. So, even though this is only about a paragraph, it's very dense. So, you might want to listen to it and then re-listen to it. Okay? Here we go. I answer that, as other sciences do not argue in proof of their principles, but argue from their principles to demonstrate other truths in these sciences. So this doctrine does not argue in proof of its principles, which are the articles of faith, but from them it goes on to prove something else, as the apostle from the resurrection of Christ argues in proof of the general resurrection.

However, it is to be borne in mind in regard to the philosophical sciences that the inferior sciences neither prove their principles nor dispute with those who deny them, but leave this to a higher science, whereas the highest of them, that is metaphysics, can dispute with one who denies its principles if only the opponent will make some concession. But if he can see nothing, he can have no dispute with him, though it can answer his objections. All right, I want to pause there and just explain what that bit meant there. So let's say you deny the existence of other minds or something like that. And in trying to convince you that there are other minds, maybe I make some sort of argument, some sort of metaphysical argument, right? And suppose you don't give me anything. You say, nope, I don't believe in any

of it. I'm not even sure the universe is real. Nothing's real. I don't even know if I'm real or something like that. If you won't give me anything, if you won't concede anything, then I can't argue with you. It's sort of like, you know, maybe someone will say, I don't think anything exists. And you say, well, do you exist? And if you're Descartes or Cartesian in some way, you might agree and say, well, yeah, okay, I exist. Okay. And that's kind of what Descartes did, right? In his discourse on method, he began with doubt and he arrived at the knowledge that he existed and then began from there. So Aquinas is saying, you can't argue with someone if they won't concede any kind of metaphysical truth.

If they're just saying, nothing exists, I don't exist, you don't exist, I'm not even using words right now, there is nothing, you can't argue with such a person. Now, sacred scripture, since it has no science above itself, right, so you can't appeal to something outside of scripture in the way that you might be able to argue for an epistemological truth from metaphysics, which would be a higher form of philosophy than epistemology. Okay. So, since there's nothing above it, it has no signs above it, it can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation. Thus we can argue with heretics from text in holy writ and against those who deny one article Okay. of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections, if he has any, against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated,

it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered. This is fantastic. So just like if somebody, you know, won't accept that the mind can know particular truths, say in the external world, you can then bring forth an argument from a higher science, namely metaphysics, to try and argue with this person. But if they won't agree on any sort of metaphysical truths, you can't argue with them. Okay, now similarly, he's saying, when it comes to sacred scripture, all right, there is nothing above sacred scripture. In a way, like there's nothing above metaphysics and philosophy, I suppose.

So, if you deny everything to do with sacred scripture, like you don't believe it's divinely revealed, then you can't actually point to something higher than sacred scripture to make you believe sacred scripture. And so Aquinas is saying, you can argue with somebody if they accept one or two or three or maybe more doctrines of the Christian faith. And this is why he says we can argue with heretics about the sacred scriptures, but we can't argue with atheists about the sacred scriptures. So we can argue with Protestants, sorry my Protestant listeners, while you're probably not officially thought of as heretics today since you were raised Protestants. But certainly the first Protestant reformers were like Luther and Zwingli and Calvin.

Or we can think of other Catholic heretics, maybe even holding the priesthood, who knows. But we can argue with a heretic, right? Because the heretic will agree with us. He'll be like, yes, I understand God exists. And hopefully he'll say, I believe that this is divinely revealed. And I believe that Christ said this, but I don't believe he meant what you think he meant. Aha. Now you can argue from other doctrines that we know and show why this is what he meant, if that makes sense. But you can't do that with an atheist. Like, you can't argue for the truth of, let's say, the incarnation of Christ, right, by appealing to some other

doctrine of faith, because he doesn't accept it, all right? So, this is really powerful, and I want to kind of talk about this a little bit, and then I want to get to the two objections. Then we'll take some of your questions and then we'll wrap up the podcast. So I like to think of Catholic apologetics as a sort of three-story mansion. Okay. On the first floor, this represents theistic apologetics the second floor represents christian apologetics and the third floor represents catholic apologetics now i understand that when somebody encounters the person of christ they might there thereby believe both in God and Christ, and maybe since it was in a Catholic context, they might accept tentatively at the Catholic Church in a moment. But I think as evangelists

and as apologists, when we think about it rationally, what our goal is, is to try and lead somebody through this mansion to the summit of the mansion, the Catholic Church, right? The fullness of truth. Now, I really like this analogy because I think sometimes we argue with people who aren't even on the first floor. I usually use this analogy, right? Imagine, and this gets to Aquinas' point, if you were poking your head out of the third story window, that's Catholic apologetics, right? And you were shouting down at somebody on the grass, this would be an atheist, I suppose, and you were shouting at him back and forth about transubstantiation, or the immaculate conception of Mary,

about transubstantiation, or the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or the inerrancy of Scripture. Do you see why that's futile? This person doesn't believe in God, and you're trying to argue that God inspired Scripture. That's a little bit like explaining advanced algebra to somebody who denies basic arithmetic. And sometimes I'm confronted with this sort of approach and this way of thinking when I encounter college students on campuses where I speak. I remember recently giving a talk, and after the talk, somebody came up to me, and they said, it was a really good talk, of course, right? I'm just joking. It's a really good talk, but I just don't believe it. I just can't believe that God exists. As I sip my whiskey. And I said, okay, why don't you believe God exists? And he said what I've heard many atheists say, namely that the scriptures are filled with all sorts of horrible violent contradictory content

all right this idea that god is a bloodthirsty monster in the old testament and a peace-loving hippie in the new testament which you know i don't think is very good exegesis but this is how people sometimes argue now it might be tempting at this point to launch into an argument about sacred Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, and why Scripture doesn't contradict itself or something. But you remember, this guy doesn't believe in God. So, two things. So, two things. First, you can't get to God doesn't exist from this account of God is contradictory. Do you know what I mean? Like, the argument would be something like this. This account of God is contradictory. Accounts about God that are contradictory are false. therefore, this account of God is false. Right? Like, that doesn't work. That's like, because you could say, like, argue, you know,

for the sake of argument, you could say, okay, maybe you're right, maybe this is wrong, but that doesn't follow that God doesn't exist. All that would follow is that Christianity isn't true. Do you know what I mean? Like back to that mansion analogy, you could still come into the first floor and see no reason to move up to the second floor. Maybe Islam is true. Maybe, I don't know,

some other Eastern theistic religions are true. And that's a possibility. But it doesn't at all follow from the Bible's false to God doesn't exist. That would be like this. And I mentioned this in, I think, the first chapter of our book. Yeah, does God exist? A Socratic dialogue on the five ways of Thomas Aquinas that I wrote with Robert Delfino. It would be like this. Imagine if I said, okay, I have read what people have had to say about alien abduction. There were five people. They all said they were abducted by aliens. I read their reports. They contradict each other and they're clearly not true. You wouldn't conclude from that that aliens didn't exist. You would just conclude that they're wrong. And even if you read all of the accounts from the living claimants of alien

abductees, such that you could interview them, and again, you concluded that they are all lying, it wouldn't prove that aliens don't exist, would it? And similarly, even if the Bible's false, it doesn't prove that God doesn't exist. So, you want to say to this person, rather than launching in to, say, an argument from the second story to him who's out on the grass, again, to use that analogy, you want to kind of like walk down and say, okay, let's shelve Scripture for a second, because that really is a secondary issue. First, we need to know if God exists, because if God exists, then maybe He has revealed Himself to humanity. And if He's revealed Himself to humanity, then maybe we should look at how He

has done that. And maybe we can consider the Bible then, but we don't need to consider it right now. you know, and maybe we can consider the Bible then, but we don't need to consider it right now. Does that make sense? So, I think, again, as a faithful, like, Catholic who wants to evangelize others, we need to, like, lead them into the first story. Okay, yeah, I get it. God exists. Yeah, good. Okay, now let's consider Christ. Because if you're an atheist and you don't believe in God, you most certainly aren't going to accept the story of Jesus Christ. But if you're an atheist who begins to think that God's existence is probable, then all of a sudden the jump from God's existence to Christianity is a lot more doable. Like it's actually a really small leap from God's existence to Christianity if you've made the leap from God's existence to Christianity, if you've made the leap from God does not exist to

God does exist. And then once we've led them to this second mansion, maybe we could consider the claims of Catholicism, right? This Christ that you now believe in established a church and said certain things about that church, and that church said certain things about itself. Let's look at that. So I think this is really helpful. So, whenever you're encountering somebody and you're beginning to engage with them, if they're a Protestant, say, I know we have lots of awesome Protestants listening, you wouldn't, as a Catholic, want to bring them back down to the first level, right? Unless their idea of God is super faulty, you'd want to stay on that second level and say, okay, so you agree with this. Okay, then from this, we can argue to this. It's sort of like what Aquinas says here when he says that

the apostles argued from, where are we here? Yeah, from the resurrection of Christ to the general resurrection. Like they argued from one particular doctrine to a second particular doctrine. So here would just be one example. Like I was having a chat with some people recently when I was speaking in Miami, shout out to all those awesome folks that I saw at that pub in Miami. And they came up to me and they asked me how I believed that I was forgiven of my sin. And I said a number of things, but one of the things I point out to them was in the chapter 20, I think it is in John's gospel, where Christ says, whoever sins you forgive, you're forgiven. Okay. So we both agree, not to get back to Aquinas' point, we both agree that scripture

is inerrant. We both agree that Christ said this. So, from this, you should believe in the sacrament of confession, right? Like Christ says, he breathes on the apostles, which is really significant because the only other time Christ breathed, or God, I should say, breathed on anyone, was when he breathed life into Adam. Yeah. So, something significant is happening. And he says to the apostles, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. Well, what does that mean? Well, why did God send the Son? To reconcile the world to himself. Okay. So, now, as the Father sent me, so I send you. Christ is sending them to reconcile the world to himself. And then he says, whoever sins you forgive are forgiven. Whoever sins you retain are retained. That's really powerful. And so if that's true, and Mr.

Protestant, Mrs. Protestant, you should agree with this, since you take scripture at face value, or not just face value, but you believe it to be the word of God, then okay, if they have the power to forgive or retain, how does that happen? Because if I have the ability to forgive or retain, how does that happen? Because if I have the ability to forgive or retain your sin, presumably I need to know what it is before I can do that. And that's why in the Catholic Church today, if you were to go to the sacrament of confession, right, to a priest and not be contrite, you know, you're like, yeah, I slept with my girlfriend. I'm definitely going to do it again, but I know I have to confess it or whatever. He will not resolve you of your sin, right? So, this power that Christ has given to forgive or not to forgive is something that we see in the

Catholic Church today. So, that might be one way of thinking about it. So, all right, that's what I really like that analogy. So just really quickly, one more time, that Catholic apologetic mansion, you've got the first level, theistic apologetics, does God exist? The second level, Christian apologetics, who is Christ? Who did he claim to be? Do we have good reason to think that? He was right. Did he rise from the dead? And then the third level is Catholic apologetics. Did he establish a church? And is that church the Catholic church? And so, for you Protestant listeners, and I know we have many because it's funny, like the only, I've been sent two bottles of whiskey as I've done this podcast, and those two bottles of whiskey have come from two Protestants, which is awesome. But like you as a Protestant would presumably say,

okay, yes, Christ did establish a church, but it's not the Catholic church as you understand it. Like as a Protestant, you might say, okay, Catholic, sure, in the broad sense, universal, but I believe I'm part of that. And I don't need to belong to this Roman Catholic church or whatever in order to be part of it, right? So that would be how I imagine you would begin to respond to that. And then there would be counter responses, which, you know, isn't my intent to get into that here. All right. So I think that's awesome. Let's look at these responses to the objections, hey? And so just to kind of bring you back to speed, let's see, what was the first argument here? So he quotes Ambrose in saying that, you know, put arguments aside where faith

is sought. But in this doctrine, faith especially is sought. Therefore, sacred doctrine isn't a matter of argument. Here is how Aquinas responds. Although arguments from human reason cannot avail to prove what must be received on faith. Nevertheless, this doctrine argues from articles of faith to other truths. Now, the second objection, which I found really impressive, again, because he's setting up a dilemma here. Let me read it to you one more time, and then I'll read the response. The objection, second objection, is further, if it's a matter of argument, the argument is either from authority or from reason. Okay, so those are your two options, right? Authority or reason. That's it. If it is from

authority, it seems unbefitting. Its dignity for the proof from authority is the weakest form of proof. But if from reason, this is unbefitting, it's end, because according to Gregory, faith has no merit in those things of which human reason brings its own experience. And so that second one, I think, is pretty easy to respond to, right? It's like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, this can't be an argument from reason, because then it's not an article of faith, because an article of faith is something that is revealed. Okay. So, let's say a word about dilemmas, dichotomies in logic. So, dilemma, dilemma just means like a double premise or a double proposition. And it's sort of like one of the classic examples is if I were to say to you, if you're a man, and I'm like, have you stopped beating your wife?

That's a dilemma. Because if you say yes, then you used to beat her. And if you say no, then I guess you still beat her then. So that's a kind of complex question. So the problem is really with the question. But it's one of those kind of dilemma is one of those sort of questions or arguments where you're kind of damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. In a work by Plato, Euthyphro, Socrates is engaging with Euthyphro and Socrates says to him, and I'm paraphrasing what he said,

so it's more sort of applicable to us today. You know, is something good because God commands it, or does God command something because it's good? Right? You see, like, that's a dilemma for a Christian today too, because you don't want to say, like, you don't want to take either of those options. Is something good because God commands it? If you say yes, then that sort of seems to make the good arbitrary. God can decide anything is good, and by that, it just makes it so. But if you say, okay, well,

does God command it because it's good? Well, if that's true, then it would seem that the good is independent of God, and God has to sort of wake up every day, as it were, and check his God 10 commandments, and then issue them. We don't want to say that either. And so this is a really powerful sort of rhetorical way of speaking because it sort of pushes you into a corner and forces you as it were to choose one option or the other. It's sort of like what I do to my kids at night. I'm like, okay, let's say I want to get them to bed. And I say, okay, you can go to bed now or in five minutes. And I know if I say that, they'll choose five minutes, but that's when I wanted them to go to bed anyway.

So they say five minutes. They feel like there's no other option. Whereas if I were to say to them, like, do you want to go to bed? They would say no. If I said, do you want to go to bed in five minutes? They'd say no. But if I put it to them in that way, I know super manipulative, but hey, this is what parents do to survive. You're going to say five minutes, right? And so

something similar is happening here. And so one of the ways to avoid a dilemma is to split the horns, as it were. That is to show that this is a false dilemma and that there's actually a third option that one can take. So my child could say, no, I'd like to go to bed in 10 minutes. And by doing that, he would show there's actually a third alternative and that would make it a false dilemma, which it is. Similarly with Euthyphro, Euthyphro could have responded and said, no, God doesn't command something because it's good. At least that's not the primary reason,

nor is something good because God commands it. that's not the primary reason, nor is something good because God commands it. It's not the primary reason. You could say there's a third option, and that is God is goodness, and His commands are expressions towards us of that goodness, okay? And then, of course, another way to get around a dilemma is just to show that one of the horns of the dilemma isn't actually as bad as the person thinks. And that's kind of what Aquinas does here. So let me read this reply to the second objection. The doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority in as much as its principles are obtained by revelation. Thus, we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made.

Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine. Okay, because you remember, so that was what he said, right? Like proof from authority is the weakest form of proof. So a false dilemma is a logical fallacy. So is the appeal to authority, because you're not actually arguing. You're just sort of punting. But here's what Aquinas says. This is brilliant. He says, this doesn't take away from the dignity of this doctrine because it's based on authority. Why? Here's what he says. For although the argument from authority based on human reason

is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest. That's pretty good, hey? So if you argue from authority, human authority, yeah, it's pretty weak. But if God says it, okay, that's the strongest possible authority imaginable, and we ought to submit to it, since God is perfect. Aquinas says, but sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not indeed to prove faith, for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end, but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine. Since therefore, grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, natural reason should

minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. That's a beautiful quote there. There we have that classic Thomistic thought. Grace builds upon nature. When God comes in and saves us, he doesn't destroy us and make something totally new. Rather, He builds upon our nature. And that reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. Okay, so like faith is in charge. Faith is, you know, revelation from God which we ought to submit to, reason should minister to that, just like charity is how we ought to act, and our will, regardless of where it wants to go, it ought to bend towards charity. And so he says, hence the apostle says, bringing into captivity every understanding unto

the obedience of Christ. Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason. As Paul quotes the saying of Aratus, As some also of your own poets said, for we are also his offspring. I'm going to read more in a second. So the basic point is like those things which ought to be accepted on faith are not things that we can reason to. So this is probably going to surprise you. Aquinas doesn't think that the existence of God is an article of faith. Did you hear what I just said? It's probably shocking to some of you, maybe most of you. He doesn't think that the existence of God is an article of faith

because nothing can be an article of faith if it can be proved by reason. Aquinas thinks God's existence can be proved by reason. Therefore, the existence of God isn't an article of faith. Now, in the Summa, he's going to say, look, there's nothing to stop somebody from putting their faith in something they cannot reason to, but strictly speaking, it isn't an article of faith because it can be proved. So, Aquinas believes that God's existence can be proved in theory. In fact, the first Vatican Council defined as dogma that that was the case, all right? And Scripture says as much too. That said, Aquinas doesn't think everyone can prove that God exists. He thinks some people, you know, don't have the time to kind of go through these

philosophical arguments. They're quite rigorous. Some of them may not have the intellect, okay? rigorous. Some of them may not have the intellect, okay? But it's not strictly an article of faith since it can be proven by reason in theory, okay? All right, let's see what else. So, this is kind of what he's saying, like when he's using that example of what Paul, Paul is using natural arguments to sort of point people to the faith, to the revelation which they ought to accept. So let's keep reading from Aquinas here. Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments, but properly uses the authority of the canonical scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books,

and not on the revelations, if any such there are, made to other doctors. Now, this is a really good point too, hey? One of the things I try to stress over and over again on Points of Aquinas is that faithful Catholics ought to submit to what the Church teaches authoritatively. Yes, okay, but also faithful Catholics should not demand uniformity where the Church allows diversity of opinion or custom. Now, one of the things the church teaches is that public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. So, everything that we as Christians are bound to believe was handed down to us from the apostles, either in written or oral form. Those are the things that

we're bound to believe. So if, say, the assumption of Mary was something taught after the death of the last apostle, that wouldn't be something we would be bound to believe. This wouldn't be part of the divine, the deposit of faith. So this is important. And of course, we ought to believe in the assumption of Mary. We ought to believe in transubstantiation, not that they had that language for it, but that language signifies something which was a truth, which the apostles taught. And that's why we're bound to believe it, the incarnation of Christ and the inerrancy of the scriptures and so forth. So, there are private revelations within the church, okay? Certain people who say that they receive, you know, words from our Lord or Mary or the saints, there are Marian apparitions, say, in Fatima and Lourdes and elsewhere. Padre Pio is said to have been given the stigmata and,

you know, corresponded with angels, and some of those conversations may have been shared. As Catholics, you are not bound to believe private revelation, right? Now, the church has said regarding certain uh private revelations that they are worthy of belief okay we can agree with the church there and should agree with the church there but we don't have to believe these things in order to be saved like we have to leave public revelation and so that's i just bring that up because it's really interesting that aquinas says that he says our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books and not on the revelation, if any such there are. In other words, maybe there aren't.

I mean, Aquinas did in the 13th century. There's a whole lot of Christians and Christian mystics who claim to dialogue with God, right? And the saints, and very well may have, I don't know. But we're not bound to believe that, but we are bound to believe the apostles and prophets. Aquinas continues, and he closes here by quoting Augustine. Only those books of scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them, but other authors I so read as not to deem anything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written whatever may have been their holiness and learning.

Did you catch that? All right, so, this is Aquinas quoting Augustine. Okay. And this should teach us how to read Thomas Aquinas. Okay. So, obviously, Aquinas believed what Augustine says here because it's part of the bulk of his answer. And we should apply this to Augustine and to Aquinas and to any other holy person that we know or have read. Let me read it again. Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them, but other authors. Okay? Aquinas.

Okay, by extension. Augustine. Anselm. Whoever. Bishop Robert Barron, Matt Fradd, whoever, right? But other authors I so read as not to deem anything in their works to be true merely on account of their having so thought and written whatever may have been their holiness and learning. So in other words, no matter how holy somebody is, no matter how smart somebody is, I'm not going to go ahead and accept everything that they say at face value as being true because of that. But I will hold that sort of faith

in the canonical scriptures, right? In what the church has passed down. All right. sound good? Good. All right, now it's time for some of your questions. First, Brian Damerick. G'day, Brian. You've said some very lovely things in one of your messages here that I see.

Thank you so much. You said you had, I guess, a... Well, why don't I just read this? This seems to be more of a lovely thing to say, more than a question, but I'll read this and I'll read the question. You said, Matt, about five months ago, I read Ed Fazer's Aquinas at the suggestion of my philosophy of religion professor and found it so enlightening to my life. A little while after I finished, coincidentally, my intro to philosophy course began discussions of proof of the existence of God. The professor began to lay out the five ways and said that the arguments were written

because students of Aquinas made him and he didn't really believe the arguments and my hand shot up. I argued with him basically one-on-one for about two class periods which ended in him declaring that he needed to reread Aquinas because the normal rebuttals he used didn't work. At this point, I became obsessed with Aquinas and started looking everywhere for any commentary I could find on him. That's when I found your interview with Ed and have been a subscriber ever since. You have helped me so much in my relationship with God through your podcast, and it's even really helping me engage with my fiance, who is Lutheran. When she asked me about the Catholic faith, I just wanted to write out a post and tell you how thankful I am for you and your podcast, and I'm proud to be a Patreon supporter.

I'll play this with Aquinas. Brian, it means so much. Thank you so very much. And I have to say, God bless your professor for having the humility. As you say, the class ended with him saying he had to do some more reading. That's really great. Good for him. All right, so here's the question.

You say, hey, Matt, I'm a practicing Catholic engaged to a Lutheran and her grandmother is very anti-Catholic. Often when we visit her house, I loathe the moments when I'm around her and she picks on me, insults my faith, or asks about when I'm converting. Do you have any advice for me for the next time we visit? Should I try to engage with her or should I just bite my tongue? Oh, I don't envy you, Brian. That sounds like a very difficult situation. We shouldn't allow anybody to insult us, you know, unjustly, I don't think, at least generally speaking. And so if your, you know, your fiancé's grandmother insults you, say, please don't speak to me like

that. Like that's actually not appropriate. If she says to you, when are you going to convert? Say, I don't plan on converting because I believe Catholicism is the one true church. And I think you should convert. You might not want to be that harsh. But my point is you can say something small, strong, something brief. You don't have to get into it. Like my suspicion is trying to get into different arguments why the Catholic church is true when she's being so hostile is just going to fall on deaf ears. So I don't think you need to bite your tongue, but I also don't think you need to go off on a big monologue about why the Catholic church is right. Instead, I would just be very calm. I would show a tremendous

amount of charity. Be sure to smile as you speak and say, you know, I really don't appreciate you insulting my faith like that. I get that you have differences with the Catholic Church and you're allowed to, and we can discuss those if you want, but I'd prefer it if you didn't insult my faith. Now, you're going to have to use whatever words you think would be most appropriate since you obviously know her way more than I do because I don't know her. So I might start with that. But yeah, if she asks you to convert, say, no, I think the Catholic Church is the one true church. Now, if she totally dismisses you, well, she's welcome to.

But who knows? Maybe as you grow in relationship with her, she might have some questions. Or she might have some serious objections and not just make fun of you. Now, if you ever get to that point, I always recommend sticking to one topic at a time. I don't think it's very helpful to allow a Protestant who disagrees with, say, 28 things to rattle off those 28 things in one sitting. If they begin to, I would say to them, okay, just sorry, one second. I get that you have a lot of objections and that's totally cool, but why don't we start with your biggest and just stick to that? Because it's going to be difficult for me and maybe even impossible to try and answer all of them. So I hope that's a help,

Brian, and I hope that our listeners will pray for you and your potential marriage. Thanks for writing. Next question comes from Joseph Daly. Thanks for being a Patreon, Joseph, or patron, I should say. You said, hey, Matt, God bless you and the work you are doing. I wanted to ask you a question that has really been bothering me lately. What does the church say about the Exodus account? Did it actually happen? How do we respond to the idea that Exodus is merely a legend? Thanks and God bless. Yes, the Catholic Church does believe that the Exodus actually happened, as do the Jews. The scriptures do use figurative language at points, but that isn't to say that whenever the miraculous occurs, that's an example of figurative language. For example, in chapter 390

of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it talks about the account of the fall in Genesis. Three, uses figurative language but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. Okay. But it doesn't talk that way at all when it comes to the Exodus. So if somebody says it's a myth, I would want to know why they think it's a myth. And if why they think it's a myth is because it just seems so outlandish, Well, what they're saying is miracles don't happen. And why think that's true? You know, if God can create the universe from nothing, then he can probably part the Red Sea. And he could probably raise the second person of the Blessed Trinity from the dead. So I guess I would need

to know more as to why this person thinks it's a myth in order to respond appropriately and sufficiently. But I imagine it has something to do with the plagues, maybe the parting of the sea. But again, that's just an argument for why miracles don't happen. And that's a whole other discussion. But you might want to ask him why he thinks that's not true. And if he thinks that's not true, because he thinks God doesn't exist, then he's kind of being closed-minded about the whole thing. You might say to him, if God does exist, would it be possible for him to perform miracles when

he wants? And presumably the answer is, yeah. Next question comes from Rachel Parker, who is, she says, a fan of Pines with Aquinas and also likes watching my videos on YouTube. So thank you very much. Yes, I do videos pretty cool. Anyway, you say, Rachel, you said, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to argue against relativism. I find it challenging to argue for the one truth in a world where a relativistic worldview, you be you, live your own truth, is increasingly seen as the kindest and most merciful approach. Thanks. Thanks, Rachel. So when we talk about relativism, we could be talking about epistemological relativism or moral relativism. Epistemological relativism is the idea that we can't know truth, and that's easily refuted, because if we can't know truth, then how do you know that? How do you know that that's true?

Well, and as soon as they try to explain why they know that that's true, they've contradicted themselves. If we can't know truth and that's true, then we can know truth. But you, it seems, might be talking more about moral relativism. Moral relativism is the idea that morals are relative to particular communities or times or places. And yeah, I think it's rubbish. I think we, look, here's what I think we can do. I like to always set the bar as low as possible for people, right? All you have to show is that there is one objective moral truth. Like if that's true, then it's not true that all truth is relative, all moral truth is relative. So, you know, think of an example that most people would agree with and ask them whether they think that this is relative. ended up brainwashing or exterminating anyone who disagreed with them, such that right now, everybody living believes that, you know, the Holocaust was good. Would it follow that the

Holocaust was good? Now, unless this person knows exactly where the argument's going, and they might want to resist, but I think most people would say, well, no, it's still wrong. where the argument's going and they might want to resist, but I think most people would say, well, no, it's still wrong. Okay. So not all moral truths are relative. Now you gave a couple of examples, you be you, live your own truth. Okay. Well, here's a way to show that somebody's not a moral relativist. If somebody says to you, live your own truth, and you say, I disagree with that. I don't think people should live their own truth. They would think that you were wrong and maybe even immoral for pushing that. Therefore, they're not a moral relativist. Of course, live your own truth is sort of silly. There's your opinion and there's the facts. There is no such thing as your personal truth. There might be your

perspective on something, which might be in alignment with the truth or not, but that's something different. So there you go. I think while many people want to say that moral truths are relative, and they may have a stake in that, and they may argue vigorously for it, most people, perhaps all people cannot actually live that way. So, the person who says to you, old moral truths are relative, still gets really angry and thinks it unjust when someone cuts him off in traffic, or when somebody betrays him, or when somebody steals something which wasn't theirs. They don't say, oh, well, you know, old truths are relative, so it doesn't matter. So, that might be how to do it. Okay. So, anyway, I hope that's a help, Rachel. okay so anyway i hope that's a help rachel all right i think that's all the time we have here for here all the time we have here okay sorry bourbon um thanks for listening to pints with aquinas i hope this was a really good episode for you and i hope you enjoyed

it i'm very excited about next week as i say um we're going to be interviewing another dominican i'll let you wait to find out who it is. And we're going to discuss what makes music beautiful. We talk about what Aquinas has to say on beauty. It's really great. A few things before we end. Number one, if you are not yet following Pints with Aquinas on Twitter

or Instagram or a Facebook page, what are you doing? Oh my gosh, like everybody is doing it. Secondly, leave us a review on iTunes if you haven't already, we really appreciate that. I do not appreciate my phone going off while I'm reading this. Kiernan Doyle, what's he saying?

Kiernan Doyle does the Instagram. He's such a champion. Kiernan Doyle, you're a champion. If you're listening, you're a bloody champion. You're probably not listening, but your friends are and they're gonna text you and they're gonna say, hey, Matt Fradd just gave you a shout out on Instagram,

on Instagram, on Pints of the quietest keaton doyle does our instagram account and it's amazing so if you go to instagram um matt frad just see them all the beautiful pictures that we put together with quotes from thomas aquinas so follow that get your daily inspiration finally if you want to support pints of the quietest on patreon and be a really incredible human being, go to PintsWithAquinas.com, click support, give as little or as much as you want, and I'll give you a bunch of stuff in return. Thanks very much.

Chat with you next week. To carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you.