Pints With Aquinas - 116: Aquinas' 5 Ways, with Robert Delfino

Episode Date: July 24, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I don't know why I've begun shouting that at you. Maybe it's to kind of get energy from the get-go. Welcome! Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name's Matt Fradd. So look, today we're joined around the bar table with Dr. Robert Delfino, good mate of mine.

He wrote the book with me, Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Fave... Fave? No. The Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. And today we talk about the five ways. We talk about the book, how it came about, some of the secrets that not many people would know about it. It's a fascinating discussion. You're going to really love it. So here we go. So many of you don't know this, if you've got the book, if you've read the book.

It's getting a lot of great reviews on Amazon. Thank you so much to all of you who have reviewed it. But halfway through the book, me and Dr. Delfino met together in Manhattan just to kind of discuss the book. And we were thinking to ourselves, you know what we should do? We should find the very coffee shop where Lucy and AJ, the two main characters from the story, met every morning to discuss Thomas Aquinas. And we found this place.

Where was it? Was it Bleecker? No, I don't think it was. It was just off Bleecker Street. And it's called Think Coffee. And we didn't even realize at the time that the name was very appropriate since they were drinking coffee and thinking very hard about philosophical concepts. But we decided this was the place.

We even took a photo of the place where Lucy and AJ were meeting. So if you want to see the place where Lucy and AJ were meeting, click the link in the show notes, and I'm going to show you. It'll take you to pintswithaquinas.com, and you'll see a bunch of photos of me and Robert sitting, having a coffee in this place, the outside of it, just what it looks like. Now, I know some of you have not read the book, and that might make no sense to you, but listen, after you've heard this interview, you're going to go right out and buy it. But why would you buy it? What,

$15 or something? When? You could just become a Pints with Aquinas patron, finally, after so many days of wrestling. Should I? Shouldn't I? Today is the day. You're going to go to pintswithaquinas.com, click donate, give 10 bucks a month. You're going to get a ton of free stuff in return. You'll become part of the private Pints with Aquinas community. You'll get weekly exclusive videos. You'll have access to an ever-growing audio library, access to private audio books, live stream stuff. And also, I will sign a copy of Does God Exist, a Socratic dialogue of the five ways of Thomas Aquinas and post it to your door. That's pretty cool. So, check that out. So, yeah, enjoy the show. I hope you're doing well, by the way. Do you have a beer? Get a out. So yeah, enjoy the show. I hope you're doing well, by the way.

Do you have a beer? Get a beer. Go on, I'll wait. You got it? I'll wait. This is really killing the podcast. All right, here's the show. If I was you and I went through that much work to get my PhD,

I would make everybody call me doctor. Do you want to know the absolute truth of what happened? First of all, I'm not big on titles but after seven long hard years i had a big party and i got drunk that's the truth of it and then were you walking around being like i'm a doctor no it was more like it's over thank god oh. Oh, yeah, dude. That's awesome. Listen, congratulations. You got your master's recently. That's great. I appreciate it. It is great to have it. Right now, I'm looking into the University of South Africa. They've got one PhD philosopher, Thomist guy there.

There's a PhD program I'm going to apply at the end of this year, I think. Ah, look who's going to become a doctor soon. That's great. Well, I don't know about soon. We'll see, man. It's, uh, it's, yeah, it's, it's just like, you know, studying. There's always more to know. What do you think about this? Like about humility? Because I feel like, you know, like pride creeps in when it comes to me and, um, I'm sure a lot of people, um, and, and it's sometimes, you know, you're embarrassed when you don't know something and someone points something out, or you feel like you should know more about a topic than you do. But I mean, when you sit back and think about it, like being interested in these

deep questions, you should be constantly flabbergasted, you know? Yeah, no, I agree. You know, I don't know, maybe I'll speak for a few people out there who had similar experiences. But you know, I find a lot of people in the high school age and maybe in undergraduate college tend to be a little arrogant and cocky. I, at times I was like, I was like that, but when I hit grad school,

man, it's tough stuff. It's humbling. And in grad school, I just kind of said to myself, wow, man, there's so many professors I've met who are just brilliant that I'm not in

their league. So I just adopted humility as like the default. And also this is my only option. Yeah. So important. What's that saying? The more, you know, the more, you know, you don't know. And so like before you have a BA, you think, oh my gosh, I'm going to have a university degree, but then you get that. You're like, okay. And then you think the same thing about masters. But then as you say, you begin associating with people who know so much more than you. Um, so that you just, it's either humility or you have to have this uptight arrogance all the time where you got to keep defending yourself. I got to tell one of those standard, uh, you know, PhD type jokes. You know, the, the, the, the, the thing is that they say that as you,

uh, go for your PhD, you're supposed to narrow down your field and you're supposed to specialize in a certain topic. And then the joke is that over time, you become to know more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing. That is awesome. I love it. That's interesting. Well, I don't think it's really true. I think we both know something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the reason we're doing this interview is to chat about our book. And this interview will be going out to all of those wonderful people who have read our book and have posted it online in some way and, or reviewed it or something. So big thanks in advance to all of you who have read our book and, and have shared it. How did you feel getting the book in the mail? To me, it's, it's kind of like getting a kid, seeing your baby for

the first time. Well, my wife would kill me if I said that. No, but I really did enjoy it. It came out beautifully. And what really made me happy is last time I checked, there were like nine five-star reviews on Amazon. So I'm very pleased. That's what I was hoping that you and I, and I think we did this pretty well, would be able to connect with people. And I think we did. so, you know, it's, I've had somebody once said to me, a book is never completed. It's only abandoned. And I don't know if you felt that way. I certainly did because you can always, you know, go back, correct things, update, add new parts, remove these, you know, but like when it comes to a book at some point, you just could be like, okay, like, I think, I think this is, this is it. We've got to just kind of give it now and entrust it to our lady and hope that it does a lot of, a lot of good for people. That sounds profound. My view is a little simpler.

You know, when I was in grad school, I constantly was under fire to finish papers. And so I kind of got a pretty good idea after a while of when it was pretty good in that, yeah, I could always make a little more teeny changes, but it had pretty much reached where it needed to be. And so I was pretty happy. I slept well when we submitted the final version of this, I slept

pretty well that night. So. That's cool. Let me give a brief sort of overview of how the book came to fruition and then I'll get your thoughts if that's okay. So about five or six years ago, a friend of mine and I decided we would write a book called Trolling. You don't even know this, Rob. I haven't told you this yet. I know. Trolling for Truth. And the idea was it would be kind of like in a Facebook style back and forth messaging box. And it would be basically like this atheist looking for an argument and that they would get into this argument back and forth. That was the first thought I had. This is back when I worked at Catholic Answers. The idea never left me. And then subsequently, you know, reading more platonic dialogues and other books that were based on

that format, I decided I really wanted to write a book helping Catholics understand the five ways of Thomas Aquinas. Because many people who are interested in these ideas right now, if they go on YouTube, then they're familiar with Dr. William Lane Craig's arguments, which are fantastic, but they're not really the kind of classical Catholic heritage. And so it was idea of trying to help people understand them. So I contacted Sebastian, who's the head of En Route Books and Media. He said, yes, I wrote the book. And he was like, all right, so we're ready to go to print. And I'm like, whoa, I said, I don't have my MA yet. Like, how about we send this to people who really know what they're

talking about? Because I would hate to misrepresent Thomas. And so, he sent the book to a few people. I think you're the one who responded first. And you had like several suggestions. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's good. Oh, that's really good. Oh, yeah, I didn't think about that. And then you had like several more. And then you would write this big chunk. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's, this is really good. And it got to a point where I'm like, you have to write this with me because you're putting in just as much work as I am at this point. And so that's when we agreed to, to write this and it was really a collaborative effort. And, uh, you know, it, yeah, I was so, so appreciative for all, all of your wisdom and all of your knowledge and, um, all the ways that you enrich this book.

Because honestly, it would have been a much, much poorer book. It would have been very simplistic. And I think I would have – Oh, stop, stop, stop. You keep deprecating yourself. No, actually, let me make a few comments. Actually, first, let me thank you very much for inviting me on board to write this with you. Because you and I actually, I think,

have a good synergy in the end in a lot of ways. Because think about it. Our task was difficult, right? I mean, you had the first draft of the book and you have these two characters, right? There's the atheist or the agnostic AJ. You have Lucy. And then by inviting me on board,

now we have to write in such a way that the two characters still seem like they're written by one person, if you will, like they're not multiple personalities. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we pulled it off. I think you and I, I think I actually think God probably brought us together. I'll talk more about that in a moment. But and it actually worked out. People who have read the book to me think that AJ and Lucy sound like, you know, they have their own voice and it doesn't appear as they read the chapters that, you know, oh, this was written by Rob. This was written by Matt. And so I think that's a great tribute, you know, of success for us. I think that really worked out nicely. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, thanks. Yeah.

Let me give you a little background story, if I may, about where I came from all this. So, you know, it's funny because before I met you quite a few years ago, I sometimes used to write short dialogues. And when I say short, I mean like two pages for my students in my classes. I would make it like a writing assignment. I would give them a dialogue with two people who are disagreeing, and I would ask the students to, you know, which person do you agree with more? Like which argument do you like better? And then explain why. And so when I got the draft of your book and you wrote it as a dialogue, I was like, hmm, that's interesting.

And it was also interesting because for years I thought about writing something on the five ways for everybody. But even though I had written in some dialogues, I never thought about doing it that way. So I thought it was brilliant that you had this format. And since I had already written some mini dialogues, I just thought it gelled well together. We did a pretty good job. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, it's a fun way to write. I actually did it for a while on my blog, mattfradd.com. I would just take a particular topic and just, you know,

try and do a banter back and forth. It's kind of more fun to read. You know, you're not staring down a few huge paragraphs of dense language. So, I mean, we definitely got there. There was definitely parts of the book, I think, that are going to be difficult for people to understand. But in that platonic back and forth, I think it makes it a lot more interesting. Well, what was also great, I thought, that we did this together was that, you know, I mean, the book is a dialogue. And even though you and I are not, you know, really AJ and Lou Sammy, we write for them. But you and I, in a way, kind of had a dialogue. Because there are some wonderful things you wrote in here that I never quite would have phrased it that way. I'm like,

that's great. So I was able to build off some of that stuff. So, you know, uh, in the end it was like, you know, a good portion of this book, about half, you know, is all you. And then about half is mine, but it merged in such a way. I think we complimented each other such that the audience gets the biggest bang for the buck, if you will, you know, they get your insights, my insights, and it kind of all gels. So, I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah. Now, a bit on the names, obviously, AJ and Lucy. And from the get-go, the reason, quite honestly, that I wanted Lucy to be the Christian, and now this sounds manipulative, and maybe it is, is that people are usually more sympathetic to a female character, right? So, there's no feminism, huh? None of that, huh?

No, it had nothing to do with that. Well, yeah. Because I mean, here's the thing, like if, let's say it was the other way around, I think people would have, like if Lucy were the atheist and AJ were the theist and AJ was, you know, teaching Lucy and coming down hard on her, I think a lot of people would have like without even realizing that that's what they were doing would have kind of got a little bit of upset at aj but there's something about like let's just be honest when you get a feminine character you're you're a bit more sympathetic to her especially if the other guy's coming at her you know with sort of snide remarks which he did a bit in the beginning

but so lucy means light and you remember i said to you, like, I said, I don't think I really have something for AJ. And you pointed out AJ Ayer. Oh, yes, that's right. In case the audience doesn't know, excuse me, AJ Ayer was a famous British philosopher. He didn't die too long ago. I think he died in the 1990s. And he was a famous atheist. And so that kind of works, actually. And he had a near-death experience that threw into doubt his atheism, even though he remained an atheist. That's my understanding. Yeah, right. No, I think that's correct. I'm not an expert on exactly what happened, but apparently, I think he had to be hospitalized and he lost consciousness. And he saw this glowing being. I think it might have been glowing red or something, and it spoke to him.

And for a few weeks, it really impressed him. It was something he thought about a lot, and I think he was starting to shift a little on the afterlife and the whole question of God. But then, if I remember correctly, I think within a month or two, he kind of was back to his old ways, I guess, which is somewhat lamentable. That's obviously our hope for AJ, right, that he would begin to accept Christianity. But I think what's great about the book is that he never does. Because I think that would have been way too trite. We wanted this conversation to be realistic. But I want you to share with the listeners, Robert, how you thought we should

complete the dialogue. You know, I love how you did this. This was all your idea. Oh, the ending? Yeah. So, here's what I'll do. I This is all your idea. Oh, the ending? Yeah. So here's what I'll do. I'll read the last four lines and then you can explain why you chose to do it this way. So AJ says, wait, where am I? How am I going to meet you? What time? Lucy says, here's my number. Text me. AJ says, I will. And Lucy says, I know. And that's the end. And then you explained to me why you did that. And I thought it was brilliant. Well, I mean, how could I say this? I don't know how you would describe your experience while writing this, but I would sometimes pray.

I would sometimes be stuck. And actually, sometimes I almost felt as when I was writing this, I was almost maybe getting a little guidance or something. So I can't claim complete, uh, you know, um, design for all of this, but there are two things that popped in. Obviously, as you know, there's something of a friendship developing between these two. So I wanted, uh, in that last, uh, ending there, um, the audience to get an idea that AJ is a little upset that she's leaving. So that's kind of, you know, interesting. Um, and then I thought, you know, I actually taught a class in Poland once. I went to the Catholic University of Lublin where Pope John Paul II, which, by the way, is where you got the phrase that you dedicated the book to Mary from. That was his phrase.

He taught at this university. I taught like a very short one week course there. So I said, OK, how can she cut off this dialogue with him in a realistic way where they can't meet like, you know, uh, two days later, excuse me. So I figured, well, if she goes to a philosophy conference in Lublin, she's going to be gone for a while. Uh, and so that'll be a great way to end it. Like, you know, I'm sorry, I can't continue. And then I know what you want me to talk about. You want me to talk about AJ? She says, here's my number. Text me. He says, I will. And she says, I know, right. I had, I had a few things going on in my mind. Number one,

you know, I will is like the power of the intellect, the will, and I know is the power of the intellect, the, uh, well, power of the mind, the intellect. So in a way, uh, you know, in the early parts of this AJ, I don't want to say he had a stubborn will, but you know, the problem of evil bothered him and, and he seemed a little resistant to certain things i think that was his will if you will a strong will and we all go through that and in a way lucy is kind of shedding light like you said and all this stuff so in a way she's kind of being the intellectual light shedder if you will and but she also knows she's not foolish you, she knows that he likes her. So she's like, I know. I love it.

It also reminds me of Princess Leia almost when she tells Han Solo in one of those Star Wars movies that, you know, I know. And she's because basically she's saying, I know you love me. So there's like a double meaning there. So it's almost like it's like AJ wills the truth that Lucy knows, but he hasn't yet attained it almost, you know. Yes. That's how I saw it. I thought that was super cool. AJ wills the truth that Lucy knows, but he hasn't yet attained it almost, you know? Yeah, something like that. That's how I saw it. I thought that was super cool. We're both married and we know relationships between men and women are complicated.

What was it like when you, I know you shared the manuscript with people and got their takes on it. What did they say? And how did their criticism or advice lead us to alter it? Well, let me tell you something that'll make you happy. Now, as some people might know, well, actually, you know, the first five chapters are mostly mad. I added a few things, but it's largely mad. And they're quite enticing. What I really like that you did in the first three chapters, Matt, is that you really suck the audience in. Everybody I've shown this book to who reads the first three chapters is like, I want to read more. So kudos to

you. And when I showed it to some of my undergraduate students, they're like, we love it. They want more. And one thing I did, I'll just share this with you in the audience. I think you know this. Towards the end, when we when we had, you know, basically finished most of it, you know, we decided to put the was it chapter 10 with the, uh, philosophical terms and concepts at the end of the book, I decided to let a high school teacher who doesn't even know philosophy. I mean, she knows a little bit, but she's English teacher. I just gave her the dialogue, nothing else, no preface, no introduction, no supplementary materials, just the nine chapters of the dialogue. I wanted to see if she could just follow along and get, you know, most of it without any

supplemental material. and she did. And at that moment, I felt pretty good. I said, you know what? I think Matt and I have a winner on our hands here. I think this is going to work. And so far, it seems to be working. And one of my greatest days ever was when Peter Kreeft wrote to me. So actually, here you go.

I wrote a dialogue that I planned on turning into a book a while back, and I sent it to Peter Kreeft. I printed it out, sent it to him. Now, Kreeft doesn't mince words. I don't know if you know this or not. He actually wrote back and went, this isn't very good, and I'm not going to endorse it. He essentially said that to me, and I cried. Ouch. Yeah, yeah. He was like- Hey, don't feel bad. I've had papers rejected. I know how you feel. Yeah. He's like, it surprises me because i've seen some of your work and it's

very good but this this isn't this isn't good you've made some obvious mistakes he didn't even say what they were i'm like oh gosh and of course crave doesn't use email or anything so the only way to get back in touch with him is by snail mail so anyway when you and i had written this book i printed it out i had it bound and then i posted it to him because that's the only way he can read a manuscript. And I was thinking, gosh, I hope he doesn't say anything negative about it this time. Well, then my wife calls me. She got an envelope from Boston College where he works. And it was a handwritten like two or three page letter. And that ended up on the back of the book. He had high praise for the book. Not only did he say that the dialogues were very engaging, but he even said like, we did a better job at presenting the five ways than he did

in a book that he wrote called Yes or No, which was a dialogue book. So I was like, I can die now. No, I understand. That's a wonderful thing to get. In fact, you know, in my own life, many, many years ago, when I first met my wife before we were married, we're talking like over 25, well, about 25 years ago, her mother gave me a book by Peter Kreeft. And at the time, I didn't know who he was, but it kind of stuck with me for some reason. And all these years later, Peter Kreeft liked the book that we wrote. And I was like, wow, that's awesome. Yeah. And then Edward Fazer gave us a review. So that was great. Ed Fazer is quite the guy. And I was so happy that he enjoyed the book as well. I feel like

we had two good endorsements. As you say, I mean, you've heard people say like the greatest enemy of a Thomist is another Thomist. And so the fact that somebody dedicated to Thomistic philosophy like Ed Fazer, who has written a lot on the five ways, the fact that he'd even be willing to endorse it, that was super cool. No, it was. I was really thankful. Yeah. So let me ask you, uh, what, um, what excites you most about this book for the audience? Maybe either, what are you hoping that they get out of it most? Or is there a certain concept or theme that you, you really, uh, hope

that they get or? Yeah. So this might sound, um, I sound, I don't know, however it sounds, this is what I hope. I hope that this book is, I hope it sparks an interest in sort of, yeah, Thomas's arguments. Because as I said earlier, I think there's a lot of people today who are interested in the existence of God, and that has been sparked by the new atheism, you know, which isn't that new anymore, but was pretty, pretty new several years ago. Right. And, and what you had is Christians not really being able to respond to it very well. I mean, most of the debates that you watch between Christopher Hitchens and some other Christian, uh, just YouTube videos of Christopher Hitchens slapping people around, you know, because he's brilliant at,

you know, as a speaker. Well, I think rhetorically. Rhetorically. No, definitely rhetorically. Yeah, his arguments, I thought were hopeless. I mean, it was just a big diatribe against religion. He didn't have any good philosophical arguments, I don't think. But and that came through when he debated William Lane Craig. But my point is, if people are interested in these discussions, they usually go online and have a look around. And maybe they familiarize themselves with Craig's arguments, which are great, but I'm so happy and hopefully we can contribute to helping Catholics understand these different arguments that are really quite different to Craig's and ones which I think a lot of people wish they could understand, but don't really, you know? No, absolutely. I definitely think that's probably the primary focus of the book.

That's what I'm excited about. That's what excites me. Okay, well, that's great. In fact, you know, it's so awesome that you got that response from Peter Kreeft. There's a priest I met once, a wonderful man, Father Norris Clark. I talk about him in the afterward a little bit. And even though he was, he's a one, he was a wonderful Thomist. He loved Thomas and he was great. He's written many books, but he did say one time that he thought that the five ways were too condensed and too short. And it takes too much effort and trouble to get a modern audience to understand them. I wish he hadn't passed away, uh, about, um, I think it's five or eight years ago. Um, cause I would love for him to have read this and see what he thought. I would have given a little friendly ribbon and say, so think it's five or eight years ago. Because I would love for him to have read this and see what he thought.

I would have given him a little friendly ribbon and say, so is it still too hard to explain these to a general audience? What do you think the hardest thing is to understand about Aquinas' five ways when modern people pick them up and read them? Other than the fact that they're summaries and aren't meant to be read in isolation.

Wow, the hardest thing. Well, let me make two comments. The first is, I have to be honest, I know this is going to sound crazy, but our civilization, or at least America in particular, doesn't really stress teaching logic. When I went through high school, I never had a course in logic. I mean, they did a little bit of logical stuff in math. That's about it. And even in my university and most universities, they don't require logic. And I really don't even think people can appreciate the structures of the argument if they don't know some logic. So that's already like a barrier, if you will. And then, and then there's the terminology and I'm

trying to understand things in the way he understood them 700 years ago, because we talk about causation nowadays, but we don't mean it like he did with the four causes of Aristotle. So it's, there's a lot of background stuff you need to know. And I think we try to explain it as we went along, which is the way to do it. Yeah. What's your favorite of the five ways? Well, you know, I forget. Is it the third or the fifth? Yeah, no, it's the third. It's probably my favorite. I think mine too. Yeah. Oh, really? Okay. I was going to say, but while I wrote this book, I got a greater appreciation for the fourth way too. It's always been been the one I've struggled with the most.

Me, too. I have to say, even now, that's the one I struggle with. But that chapter in particular, chapter eight, which I mostly worked from scratch, of all the ones I had a big hand in writing, pretty much chapter six on, I had a big hand in writing. I'm pretty most proud of the way the fourth way in chapter eight came out. I just, I kept working at it, working at it, working at it. Cause I wanted this book. One thing I think our book achieves, and we both have a hand in this is we actually go over all the five ways well, like some books don't treat, you know, one of the five ways or two of the five ways that well, or as in depth, but we went through all five of them fairly in depth. And I think we captured their correct understandings, which believe me is a big achievement because some books have like two of them right. And then two of them wrong. I I'd like to believe that we did a pretty good job on that

all five regarding the third way, since we're speaking about what's the most difficult thing to understand. Like when you think about that third way for me, I think like what, including myself, what's most difficult to understand about that is this idea of a hierarchical series of causes as opposed to a linear. So like, like I think when people try and understand the third way, they say, okay, so you look out in the world, there are things that don't have to exist, but they do exist. So they need an explanation for why they exist. And the only explanation they can have is something outside of themselves. So if everything that exists right now, as we speak, is contingent, then nothing should exist. But even then, they're thinking of it in a linear way. Does that make sense? No, absolutely. Right.

And then I'd love you to speak to this, because maybe you'll help me understand something a little deeper. Like right now, I'm holding, let's say, a coffee cup in my hand. This is a contingent being. And it's contingent not just because it was given existence by the potter, but it's contingent in the sense that if there were no necessary being now, the mug would cease to exist. That's what I find difficult to understand and what I find most people find difficult to grasp. Well, actually, your analogy of the chandelier, which was Matt's analogy and a good one, kind of addresses this because you're right. A lot of people tend to think as almost of as like dominoes, you know, so like you hit your stopwatch and then as the 60 seconds unfold, dominoes keep falling into each other but that's not the way to look at it with a hierarchical series it's that at a given moment in time like you know

time one which is a instant uh like a chandelier is held up by let's say 100 links in a chain so at that moment in time the chandelier is dependent on all of those 100 links. Um, so that's the way to look at it. And with the third way, uh, you know, we didn't get into the whole, I could have tried to put something in this, but I didn't want it to get too complicated. But the idea is that we're dependent, like you and I are dependent on God for our existence at every moment of our existence. Right. And, uh, so it's not like, uh, like a, you know, parents, uh's mom gives birth to you and then she can go away on vacation for two weeks and you'll still exist. But if God were ever to remove his causal activity from you, you would just vanish. It's a difficult concept.

It's difficult. And honestly, I don't know about you, but I am kind of partial to Craig's arguments because they don't require a lot of that sort of metaphysical education prior to understanding the argument. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. I think that's why they're so popular. Well, Craig's alive, unlike Thomas, who's been long dead. That helps. Craig also knows how to speak to a 21st century English audience in modern concepts that they mostly grasp. But I do think that, you know, as we talk about in the books, there are some problems with trying to bring time into the third way.

I don't think it should be put in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this analogy came to you while we were writing the book, and that was of the piece of gold. Did that come to you while writing this book, or is that an idea you had earlier? The idea of – yeah,'t know if I always use gold, but if you take like, let's say gold, or you can break it down into, uh, electrons and protons, and then you can, uh, break down, um, the protons and the quarks. And the idea is, can you, can you break it down infinitely? And that, and that wouldn't make sense because, uh, there has to be some bedrock, uh, cause if you will. Otherwise the thing that you're holding in your hand, the gold wouldn't be there. Um, by the way, my mom is just calling calling me but i'm not going to answer that so uh sorry mom so so when i was trying to differentiate the first way and the second way in the book i was trying

to think of um because if you notice in the first way thomas only gives examples of accidental change he talks about something getting hotter because there's fire brought to it. And I think he also gives some other kind of motion. But the second way is more broad. It's about efficient causality in general. And I said, let me use an example of a substance. So gold is efficiently caused by the electrons and the protons and all that and the neutrons. And then, of course, the protons are efficiently caused by the quarks. And this is a necessary hierarchical chain. But it can't go on forever, otherwise you wouldn't have the gold. So as I was desperately trying to come up with an example for the second way to show how it's different or broader,

that popped into my mind. I said, oh, yeah, let's do this with a necklace. And there was a funny moment. I said something like I wrote a line for Lucy where I said, yeah, just look at this gold cross necklace my mom got me for my birthday. And you said, Rob, nobody talks like that, which was good, actually. You said, let's simplify it and say, look at this gold cross necklace. I thought that was great. Have you? That's cool. Yeah. Anyway, I love that analogy. I think that's fantastic. I guess the only problem is if I explain that to somebody, they might accidentally think that what's at the base of

a golden ring is God. And that if God weren't there, almost like God is a substance, right? Like beneath corks or something, but that's not what we mean. Well, it depends on how we understand the efficient causality. In the second way, well, hold on a sec. Actually, in the third way, it's clearest that God is the ultimate cause of the gold's existence. And even in the second way, we need an efficient cause that's uncaused. So in a way, God has a hand in why that gold is there as well. Uh, you know, so they all, they all get to God. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Have you got any feedback since the book has released? I know we've got a couple of really nice reviews on Amazon and some, a couple of video reviews now,

but have you, uh, have you heard from anyone that you've given it to personally? Um, yeah, I have actually, uh, trying to think of, um, well, wow. Uh, there's some massive thunder here. I don't know if you probably in Georgia, you have some nice weather, but we're having a big nor'easter snowstorm. I woke up this morning. It was snowing. It couldn't, I couldn't believe it. Not much, but just a little bit. Okay. Well, if you cut out, I'll know what eight inches, I think, no, I think we'll be okay because we have some really good internet up here. Anyway, well, let's just put it this way. I gave someone who babysits for us, I gave her a copy of the book, and she gave it to her husband, who is one of the heroes of 9-11 here in New York.

Wow. One of those first responders, yeah. And he's not really into philosophy, just not something he got into, but he read it and he loved it. And I'm hoping he's going to post if he wants, you know, posting a review of it on Amazon. So that, that was interesting. I, I'm finding that people who really have no philosophical training are connecting with it. So I, I really think that's a great tribute to you and I, as far as, you know, writing it. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I've actually bought 300 copies of my book no that's good uh because it's also a big chunk of change it is unfortunately but i'm giving them to people who are supporting pints with

iguanas on patreon but i'm also kind of getting some hardback covers to give to family members i have some like atheist family members and stuff what do you think um like what's the what's the best feedback you've gotten so far from anybody um The best feedback I think I've gotten is when I hear people say, the most satisfying feedback is when I hear people say things like, I didn't think that this would work. I didn't think that the back and forth in a fictional dialogue would be interesting. But what they said is they found that they wanted to keep reading not just to understand the arguments but to see how the relationship between aj and lucy developed i thought that was very gratifying well actually yeah and and i want to thank you for uh just to

tell the audience this when i uh jumped on board to help write parts of it uh matt i asked matt for some background info and i think you said something like, well, AJ likes Lucy but Lucy's not really into him or something like that. But actually, I kind of fudged a little. You know, there's that scene where she talks about holding his hand and part of me, in my mind,

said, well, Lucy's messing with him a little. But then I said, you know, maybe, you know, in the beginning the way I saw it, and you can contradict me if you think I got this wrong, the way I saw it and you can you can contradict me if you think I got this wrong the way I saw it when she first met him he had zero chance of ever being with her in any way totally but towards the end he had maybe like a five or ten percent chance I agree so they kind of become a little more friendly I agree completely you know what you know let's look we haven't talked about this before but you know one day who knows the lord might call us to write a sequel where aj uh accepts the existence of god and then lucy needs to argue for the historicity of jesus christ

and his claims oh yes the only problem is uh i don't know uh that's kind of theology though yeah that's true yeah yeah listen it's an interesting idea uh we'll see where but you know what it's like when you finish a book like this all you want to do is like curl up in a corner and sleep the idea of writing anything more by the way i thought it was great you know i have to tell you let me give you a little inside info here so when you first showed me the rough draft i have to be honest with you um at first there was a part of me that wanted aj to say to her yeah you know you're right maybe i misconceived that but i you're absolutely right. It was better that you wrote it more realistically, that he doesn't really, you know, uh, change his, his, his total mind. Um, but what I did like,

and I think this was also part of your design and I kind of went with it too, is what I think is nice about this dialogue is they actually model how a civil conversation should be. I mean, you know, I work in a university and let me tell you, things have not been good over the last, uh, since about 2014. I mean, there are protests, there are people screaming at each other, give each other the middle finger. They don't want to talk. They, they, they just call each other fascists and they, and they throw things and hit each other. It's terrible. And what I really like about this book, uh, and I've told some of my students about it is that I think you and I both tried to show like look uh if you want to have you know a good civilized dialogue this is

sort of how it is you can't you know i think we modeled it well are you allowed to i had somebody tell me that their professors were not allowed to grade papers in red ink has it gotten that bad where you are not where i am uh i i thomas aquinas would be just he would start vomiting out of sheer disgust i think if he showed up at some of our universities at the at the the infantile state things have got where we have to pan the kids and give them whenever i go and speak at a university i always make a joke about their safe spaces and it so pisses people off whenever i say something something slightly controversial, I'm like, don't worry. I'm sure you have a safe space you can go to.

And I always feel this, like, there's like almost like an audible depression in the room that everybody feels. I'm like, I shouldn't have said that, but that was kind of funny. Well, more power to you, but you gotta be careful. Some of these students might charge you one day. I hope you know some martial arts or something. No, I'm not like you. You're the or something. No, I'm not like you. You're the karate guy.

Well, I'm not that good, but at least I've been studying it for enough years where if I had to defend myself, I'd be like, all right, it's not just the intellectual arguments. Here comes the fist. Yeah, well, good for you. I think, I feel like if somebody ever did that to me while I was speaking,

because it's happened to friends of mine, I think I would do one or two things. One, I would invite everybody in the room who isn't protesting to take out their phone and record these people. I would say, take out your phone. I want documented evidence that these people are being idiots and are shutting down free speech because they don't know how to argue. And if there was a blackboard behind me, I would write idiots with an arrow pointing towards them. Those are the two things I would suggest that people do. That's a really good idea on getting the other people to record it. So that way you have video evidence for the trial. That's more helpful than I would be.

It's also a way to keep yourself in check because when things like that happen, adrenaline kicks in and you might say some stupid things, do some stupid things. But if you tell everybody, pull out your camera, like what happens in that room lasts an instant, but in a way it lasts a lot longer than that. If those videos are recorded and posted online, we are totally getting off track. But anyway, I know let's get back to the book. Okay. Um, by the way, I was, after, after we wrote this book, I was trying to think of little slogans, uh, not quite the elevator pitch where you have like 30 seconds to pitch the book, but, uh, the shortest way I could sort of, um, talk about this book to some of my friends would be like, look, look, man,

if you ever wanted to prove God's existence, grab some coffee in this book. It's like a starter kit for the five ways or something. Yeah. I think, I think that's good, yeah. And I think I'd say something similar. I'd say, well, I don't know what I would say. I guess I'd say this is a way to, yeah, because what's great about it is we didn't just show the five ways, as our listeners know if they've read the book. We also, I mean, the beginning arguments had to do with defining terms, what is an atheist, and then we went through the two arguments,

the two objections to God's existence that he thinks are worth addressing, which is really interesting, actually, because as you know, a lot of his articles, they contain, you know, like a dozen, sometimes more objections to the position he wants to prove. But when it comes to the existence of God, he can only think of two. And really, I think these are the only two that are still said today, who? And really, I think these are the only two that are still said today, that, well, science has made God unnecessary, or the problem of evil. Right. Actually, let me comment on those two, if I might. The one about, you know, natural causes are sufficient to explain the universe, which is basically the science objection, is actually not the more powerful of the two. And the reason is, even if God were unnecessary, strictly speaking, that wouldn't mean that he doesn't exist. He could still exist. It just means that we wouldn't have any necessary reasons to posit him.

The only objection that really, if it were true, would mean that God could not exist, at least not a good God, would be the evil objection, because there you have, if the evil objection worked, it would be impossible for God to be good because you have contradictory things which can't both exist. It can't be true that the evil objection is correct and God is also all good and all that. So the really powerful one is the evil one. And actually, I had an interesting discussion about this with a priest recently, and he told me that he thought that he's not so sure if philosophy can fully overcome the evil objection. I mean, we use the free will defense, which I think is pretty good. And I could add a few other things in there, but he seems to think that

Christology, the incarnation and the forgiveness of sins and other things is needed, which actually, that's a very interesting thing to think about. I counted to him. I said, but wait a minute, Father. I go, even if we can't overcome the evil objection, there still would have to be a necessary being or nothing would exist. And it still would have to be intelligent. Otherwise, you know, for the reasons we gave in the chapter on the fifth way. And he goes, oh yes, that's true. But he wasn't certain if we need like a Christology. So I thought that was interesting food for thought for me. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Yeah, I'd have to hear more of his fleshed out thought before I would agree or disagree.

Initially, I think I would disagree because, I mean, in the Summa, Aquinas doesn't say that it's strictly necessary that God would save humanity by the death and resurrection of his son. I mean, he says, he argues for why it should have been that way, but it's not as if God could not have saved us through other means if he decided to from all eternity, right? I mean, that's true. God is under no... Right. Well, from the point of view of salvation, if we're going to go, which is a certain topic, yeah, he doesn't have to save us.

But yeah, it's not like he had to have Christ die on a cross at that year in order for us to be saved. He chose to do it that way. But as the judge, he can decide to forgive us without that. I mean, I know that sounds a little scandalous, but I'm convinced that that's what Thomas says. Now, as with all these things, you have to be incredibly nuanced unless you give people the wrong opinion, but... Yeah, I'm sticking out of this theology. I'm just going to mention what that guy said, but I'm not going to take a stance right now. My problem with what your friend said, though, was if that is true, like if God could have redeemed us in a way other than sending

his son, which I think Thomas says that's possible, then you would have to conclude that, well, if he had have chosen another way, then evil would have been inexplicable, which I don't think it is. I think the philosophical arguments work. Right. I don't even know, though, if salvation exactly is what the argument from evil is getting at. I think it's more about justice just for the existence of evil. But, you know, we could just side- No, that's true. But wasn't your friend saying that apart from Christ, you can't come up with a rejoinder to the problem of evil? No, no.

That's true. Yeah, now that you mention it. This is why, by the way, this is why I don't wade into revealed theology. Theological. Yeah, because as a philosopher, you know. Good for you for knowing your boundaries. This is also what happens with expertise. As you grow in knowledge of what you do know, you know what you don't know very well and clearly. Before the audience thinks that we don't have some good answers,

let me just pop two things I just want to say. So in the book, with the problem of evil, you know, most evil in the world, of the kind that upsets us the most, is actually the misuse, as you know, of free will. So like the Nazis just did terrible things, but that was a misuse of their free will. Um, the, uh, the other evils that some people will talk about, like, why does God allow earthquakes to happen, which kill like, you know, a hundred thousand people or something like that. Those are usually called natural evils. And, and of course, one has to say, why has God allowed that stuff? But I would argue a few things. I mean, uh, you know, in, in, in a physical world, uh, where there's a homeostasis and the earth goes through weather changes and things like that, there are going to be times when, you know, things are going to harm people. But ultimately, our souls, the spiritual part of us, don't get harmed by fire or bullets or earthquakes.

And I think in heaven, there's going to be a kind of a justice and restoration and it all will be fixed. And, you know, one of my favorite lines in the book of Revelation is when it says, God will wipe away all tears. And I think even the memories of the bad things will be gone and it'll all be restored. It won't be any more pain anymore. It'll be a new glorious life where everything's been fixed and restored. That's my hope anyway. That's my hope as a Christian. Yeah. And I think we may have said this or tried to get to this point in the book, but when people are suffering, what they need isn't so much Christian apologetics as Christ, right? They need you to suffer with them. And that's true of me, because that's the point

we made in the book too, right? Like when he says to her, what would have to happen for you to lose your faith? She says, a more interesting question is what should make me lose my faith? Not word. And that was written by Matt. That was, I love that you wrote that. That was really good. Right, because I mean, like my wife could die tonight and I could say, oh, this was BS, you know, and I could just be done with it, but that wouldn't be a good reason. Like, and here's how we could know that because you and I hear about tragedies that happen around us all the time. Like, let's say even someone close to us dies and their husband is distraught or their wife is distraught. We look at that and while we might not understand it, we don't necessarily

question our faith. Whereas if it happens to us, that same thing, we may totally question it. But I think, well, again, the emotional problem and the theoretical problem are two different things. To your point, I like what you just said there, where people are usually more concerned with the moral evil than the physical evil we suffer. I was just thinking, I haven't thought this through, so let's see where it goes. You know, if you were to say to somebody, okay, theoretical scenario, there are two people. One is torturing the other. Okay, now you say to the person, one of these people is someone very dear to you, your father. Which do you hope that they are? Like, which one of these men do you hope that they are in this situation?

I think what people would say is as tragic as it is, the idea of having, say, their father be tortured, we would all, I think, much rather our loved ones suffer evil than perpetuate it. Does that make sense? Like, to actually do the evil? Well, sure, because, you know, I love my father, and the idea of him being a torturer is not something I would want him to be, because then he would be an evil man, and then I couldn't love him as much. I mean, we have to try to love everybody, but it's harder to love somebody. But I think that proves your point though, when you say we're more concerned about the moral evil and the physical evil, like that's the thing that really bothers us. And I think that little scenario demonstrates it because you've got physical evil and moral evil, and the idea of having a loved one be the perpetrator of the moral evil I think we find the most problematic. And that is the section that can be answered with, well, free will, like God has given us free will,

you know, and we can choose to use it or abuse it. And the idea that, well, you know, God's going to give us a frontal lobotomy whenever we think something evil or choose to do something evil seems to be not to respect our free will. And if all things being equal, it's better to have free will than to not. Okay, so I'm preaching now, but... No, you're absolutely right, though. I mean, think about it. If God created a world where only planets with stones and water existed,

so there's no life forms, okay? There's no trees, there's no plants, there's no insects, there's no animals. I mean, you could say this world would be completely devoid of moral evil, and that's true, but it would also be completely devoid of life and beauty. I mean, this priest I mentioned earlier, one of the things he said, and I've known this, but he put it so beautifully. He said, look, for the atheists, they have to think about this. You know, a universe with stones, okay, that doesn't make you think much, but a universe with life, why does it even have to think about this you know a universe with stones okay that doesn't make you think much but a universe with life why does it even have to be life and not only just life but now a universe where there's consciousness and not just consciousness but intelligence and

not just intelligence but there are some people who are beautiful in the things that they make through that intelligence and the moral sacrifice they do through their intellect and will i mean why a world that rich in life intelligence and beauty why it seems to me that the the whatever produces it has to have some kind of intelligence and beauty otherwise you know the cause can't give to the effect what it doesn't have so if i had to summarize all the five ways in a very simple way, it would simply be like, look, we see around us things that are living, things that are intelligent, things that are beautiful. Whatever caused this has to possess those things in some way, otherwise it couldn't produce them in the effect. Yeah, that's really powerful. That's a really interesting point that you brought up because we're accustomed to hearing people say,

why is there so much evil? Why is there so much hypocrisy, you know, and growing cynical? But how many people, because it's not like you have to be a theist to wonder about the beauty and the goodness in the world. Why don't more of us sit back agape and marvel at the beauty and the creativity and the love? Well, personally, I think in some ways, and I'm not trying to say I'm not guilty of this to some extent, but we're spoiled. Living in the 21st century, we have all these material objects. We have HDTVs, and we have all these toys. So we're spoiled, and we've lost our spiritual connections in some way. If I don't pray each day a little, and I just play with my guitar or play whatever online or video games or watch this or go out with friends and drink. It's so easy to get lost in this world now where you don't even nourish your spiritual side. And I think when people are doing that, they get spoiled and they don't appreciate all that they have because they actually have so much. It's like commonplace to them.

That's a great point. One of my favorite verses, set of verses in all the scriptures comes from Wisdom, chapter 13. verses, a set of verses in all the scriptures comes from Wisdom, chapter 13. There's this powerful line, right, where he's talking about the foolishness of men who begin to worship the stars, right? And he says here in verse 3, better than these as their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. And if men were amazed at their power and working, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is he who formed them. And here's the killer line here. I love it. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator. So, I want to suggest- Yeah, that's beautiful.

I want to suggest something here. I want to get your take on it because I am, you know, this sounds pretty, is it Bonaventurian? I'm not sure what the phrase is there, but yeah, it sounds good. But he wrote that book, what was it called? Journey of the Mind to God. And he's a contemporary of Aquinas. And in it, he talks about sin bending man over on himself. So, if you think of somebody with a severe deformity that causes them to look at their feet, right? They're bent over entirely. He says, now, there are three things this person isn't doing properly. They're not seeing themselves properly because they physically can't. They're not seeing the world properly and they're not seeing other people properly. And he says, it's the word of God that has to untwist us so that we can then perceive

from the mutable, the immutable. And so I want to run this by you. I really like this. And this... Hey, Matt, could you just hold on one split second? I have to go check to see something. My children might be coming back from the snowstorm. Just take a sec. Yeah. Yeah. No worries, Robert. I'll just like pour my heart out, man. Got an amazing theological point, but oh, my kids are dying in a snowstorm. Oh, I've got to help them. Just terrible.

How's it going, everybody? You enjoying the interview? I am loving this interview. I could talk for Robert all day long. He's going to jump back on and wonder why I'm talking to myself. You can just edit that out later if you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I love that scripture verse. And so, like, okay, Bonaventure, where was I? Okay. So, I want to run this by you, see what

you think. It sounds very subjective. And that's why I don't think you'd hear Aquinas say something like this. But, okay, you know what it's like when you encounter someone that's very angry about something or very jealous about something or very jealous about something or very insecure about something, let's just go with that last one, someone who's very insecure. This person, maybe a friend of yours, you notice that they're taking things personally in a way that they shouldn't. Somebody says something, they're convinced they meant this by it when they really didn't. Now, you as the objective observer are able to see this unfold and remind your friend, listen, this isn't about you. They weren't meaning that. And this other person finds

it very difficult to believe you, but if they trust you, they'll try. Well, I think similarly, we could say that the worldly man has deafened himself to the voice, if you will, of God. We are gorging ourselves with entertainment, constantly distracting ourselves. We find it impossible to be quiet. And so, we hear arguments in the distance of God and they don't even register. We're not moved by them. Does that make sense? Like, I wonder if how much of it is the disposition, like in order to be able to hear these arguments and have them convert. Now, I know that that can sound like a tricky move I'm trying to do, because it's almost like I'm saying, well, if only you were holier, you would agree with my arguments. And I guess in a sense,

I guess in a sense, I am kind of saying that. Like I am saying like if you are worldly, completely distracted, filling your mind with junk and porn and whatever else, that you're not going to be open to these things. I think that's very Pascalian, isn't it? I mean – Well, it's also very Augustinian, St. Augustine. No, I mean – well, there's different things. I mean it's one thing to be distracted. St. Augustine. Uh, no, I mean, well, there's different things. I mean, it's one thing to be distracted. Uh, a person maybe who, um, you know, uh, constantly watches, uh, videos of great football catches or baseball games on YouTube all day is kind of wasting his time away in the sense

that if he's doing it for 10 hours a day, that's, that's probably too much, but it's not, uh, something like, you know, a person who's, uh, doing cocaine or, or, uh, going with hookers or something like that, morally corrupt. I mean, they both can take you from God. But I was going to say something I want to say. Oh, yeah. I think what I thought initially what you were getting at was the the modern world in a way. I mean, ever since the Enlightenment, there's been this stress on the individual and individual rights. And Kant, Immanuel Kant talks about autonomy. And he even says, uh, that, you know, we, we shouldn't follow a moral law from anybody else.

We should, he talks about inventing the moral law on your own and doing it on your own and everything's on your own. But I think that's where I kind of understood you to be saying that, look, it can't just be what we want all the time. You know, in order to open your heart to God, you have to sometimes, you know, it's thy will be done. Can't always be what we want all the time. In order to open your heart to God, you have to sometimes – it's thy will be done. It can't always be – humans will be done. That's how I would say it. So I think you're right. I think you've hit the pulse of one of the big problems.

Yeah. You know what's funny? We talked about the different types of philosophers, and one of those camps is like the poet mystic. I feel like that's me. Like even against my will, that's me. Like, you know, so I go through these arguments for God's existence through Aquinas, and that very much stimulates the intellect, and it convicts me in my relationship with Christ. But when I read Augustine, when I read Pascal, even when I read Plato, there's something in the language of those men that stirs me in a way that the— Well, this was another great reason why I think you and I together worked on this because, you know, intellect and will are the big two things.

And some of the moving lines I also—that you wrote that moved me also deal with that kind of will stuff and and some of the objections to evil you're like what should make me do it beautiful stuff and i i was trying more on just let's get these difficult abstract arguments you know understandable so i think it really worked beautifully together we played off each other with like intellect and will and also different traditions like augustine and aquinas so yeah well i i thank you i want to say to everybody out there listening if you you haven't reviewed us on Amazon, would you please, please do that for us? And one of the reasons we ask you to do this is even though we're quite convinced that this is a book that's a very good book and which will help a lot of people, we don't have a big publishing house. It's not like we publish with Ignatius,

right? So this book is just not going to reach the amount of people that it would have if we had a bigger publisher. And that's why we need your help. So the more reviews we get on Amazon, like that's going to help us. People are going to see it. They're going to want to buy it. So do us a favor, like, you know, buy a couple of copies, give one to your priest, tell him to tell people about it. Just help us spread the word. Like if you believe in this book, like we do, obviously if you don't, then don't tell anybody. But if you do, then help us out by spreading the word and leaving us a review on Amazon. So, yes. And thanks so much, Matt, for, you know, this interview and for everything. You've been anybody but if you do then help us out by spreading the word and leaving us a review on amazon so yes and thanks so much matt for uh you know um this interview and for everything you've been great to

work with and who knows maybe there will be a sequel or something else between us in the future yep sounds good any last words or hey all we uh wrapped up the interview because ro's mom was calling, and you always have to answer mom's phone calls. But after the interview, Robert had a final word that he wanted to add, just some clarification. I thought that interview went really well, but I was upset at myself that there was one thing I thought I, well, maybe a few things, but there was something I thought I didn't explain too well.

So let me clarify one of those things now. Concerning the second way, in the example of the gold necklace we discussed, I want to make it clear that God is not a piece or a part of the substance gold, as, for example, a quark is or a proton is. The way to understand what is going on in the second way is that a piece of gold is composed of a hierarchical chain of sub-particles, protons, quarks, etc., which are all there at a given moment in time. So the piece of gold is dependent on the protons, which are dependent on the quarks,

because protons are made up of quarks, but all of these sub-particles are internal. They're part of the piece of gold. Now, suppose that quarks are ultimately made up of vibrating superstrings. Then that would be the deepest part of the piece of gold. But unless superstrings are an uncaused cause, which they're not, by the way, because they're a mixture of actuality and potentiality, cause, which they're not, by the way, because they're a mixture of actuality and potentiality, we still need to posit an uncaused cause responsible for the super strings, and also ultimately responsible for why the gold exists, because if you can't account for the super strings, you can't account for the gold. And that uncaused cause would be God. So the second way just takes us, intellectually speaking,

to an uncaused cause on which the substance gold is dependent. However, in the third way, it becomes clear that this uncaused cause must have existence necessarily through itself, per se, in the Latin. And with a few more arguments, we realize that the necessary per se being must be existence itself. And so as the five ways unfold, our understanding of the first cause of things deepens and starts to more closely resemble the God of Christianity.

All right, I feel better I got that off my chest. I hope you're enjoying the book, and God bless. All right, Thanks, Robert. Thanks, everyone, for checking out Pints with Aquinas this week. Please be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. Please become a patron at pintswithaquinas.com by going there and clicking Donate. Tell people about the show, and have a good week. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you.