Pints With Aquinas - 147: Aquinas & Augustine (Best tag team ever), W/ Fr. Damian Ference

Episode Date: February 26, 2019

Today I'm joined by Fr. Damian Ference to discuss Aquinas & Augustine. How they complement each other, how Aquinas builds upon Augustine, and why you still should be reading Augustine even if you're an Aquinas geek. ... Like me. Get Fr. Ference's new book, The Strangeness of Truth here. Check out Exodus 90 here. --- Become a patron (THANKS!) here. --- Here's what we read from Aquinas in today's episode: On the contrary, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. vi, 12): "Man's excellence consists in the fact that God made him to His own image by giving him an intellectual soul, which raises him above the beasts of the field." Therefore things without intellect are not made to God's image. I answer that, Not every likeness, not even what is copied from something else, is sufficient to make an image; for if the likeness be only generic, or existing by virtue of some common accident, this does not suffice for one thing to be the image of another. For instance, a worm, though from man it may originate, cannot be called man's image, merely because of the generic likeness. Nor, if anything is made white like something else, can we say that it is the image of that thing; for whiteness is an accident belonging to many species. But the nature of an image requires likeness in species; thus the image of the king exists in his son: or, at least, in some specific accident, and chiefly in the shape; thus, we speak of a man's image in copper. Whence Hilary says pointedly that "an image is of the same species." ST I, Q. 93 A. 2. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Hello, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. 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 are joined around the bar table by Father Damien Ference, who is the author of a new book called The Strangeness of Truth, Vibrant Faith in a Dark World, to discuss the sort of, what do you say, the intellectual heritage of the Catholic Church, as is demonstrated through the two awesome individuals, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine. So, if you ever wanted to know a bit more about those two figures, how they complement each other, how Aquinas builds off Augustine, why maybe you're super into Aquinas but still need some Augustine in your diet, this is the show for you.

Yep, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. I love Father Damien Ferencz. In fact, I just wrote an endorsement for his new book. It's on the first page. It says this, Father Damien Ferencz is one of my favorite people, like ever. That's right. I said like, comma, ever in an official endorsement.

So there you go. That's why I don't write as many books as Father Damien certainly will. But yeah, we talk about that book. Before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that obviously The Great Fast Lent is coming up. And Thomas Aquinas wrote daily meditations for Lent. And what I did is I recorded these daily meditations. And if you support me on Patreon, patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, you can have access to them. And you can actually listen to a meditation every day. So I record them individually. So you can wake up on Ash Wednesday and actually click play and listen to a three-minute meditation from Thomas Aquinas. So, it's not my take on what Thomas Aquinas said. I'm just reading you what Aquinas said. I'm not even giving you commentary on it. That might be a really cool way to do Lent this year, or at least,

you know, I think that could be a cool supplement to Lent. It really sounds like something that Matthew Kelly would do or some Catholic author, you know, 40 meditations for 40 days or something like that. But actually, Aquinas wrote this specifically for Lent. Isn't that really neat? Anyway, if you want access to that and a bunch of other stuff, feel free to become a patron. Do you like how soft sell that was, by the way? Feel free, you know, if you want, if you're into that thing. Yeah, go to, what is it? Patreon.com slash Matt Fradd and that would be awesome. Also, before we get into today's show, I need to say thanks to our sponsors at Exodus 90. You've probably been hearing more about Exodus 90 lately. Am I right? It's an ascetical program for men. It's pretty cool and you should consider

doing it, especially if you want to be holier, if you want to grow in relationship with our Lord. I think it's a really manful way to respond to the current crisis in the church as well, because it's really easy to kind of bitch and moan and gossip about all that's going on in the church. And certainly there's a lot to groan about. And I think some fingers ought to be pointing at certain individuals. I'm not saying that that's not the case, but to fast, to offer up suffering for the church and for men in the church, that's a really cool thing to do. So, if you want to, check out exodus90.com slash Matt Fradd. If you go to the slash Matt Fradd, put in your email, you'll get some emails back from the guys

at Exodus 90 and they will include three exclusive videos that I recorded that'll kind of help you understand Exodus 90 a little bit more and why you might want to do it. So even if you're not that interested in doing it yet, but you're kind of open to it, still go to exodus90.com slash Matt Fradd, put in your email and you'll get those exclusive videos. But basically, you give up stuff you'd rather not give up. You take on things, you know, like a daily rosary, going to adoration, having a cold shower. You know, you probably don't want to have a cold shower, but you do it anyway. When I was doing Exodus 90, I would jump into a freezing cold shower. It was the worst. I would actually like soap up. I don't want to give you a visual here and lead you to sin because I know I'm a very attractive man, but I would like soap up my armpits and then I would jump

into the shower and I would offer it up for Pope Francis. So, imagine how much therapy my kids are going to need one day. They're going to be sitting on a couch and be like, it all started when my dad would scream, Pope Francis, Pope Francis, Pope Francis, while he would have freezing cold showers, because that's what I would do. Anyway, check them out. Exodus90.com slash Matt Fradd. Exodus90.com slash Matt Fradd. All right, let's get into today's discussion. Before we get started, we need to talk about coffee because the reason I just said I got a couple of minutes, I had to run downstairs and make myself an espresso. Oh, nice. And I have different thoughts on espresso, right? Because I know you live in Rome now, you probably get espresso all the time. I love espresso, but you can't like take your time to enjoy it. That's my thought. You're right. I am an American. I like to drink my coffee. Well, I even drink a full cup of

American coffee rather quickly. So the espresso is like doing the shot. Yeah. Yeah. So I just went down, pulled a couple of shots. Now I'm here and this is, I'm like looking at this little baby cup and I'm like, this is delicious, but it's going to take me 20 seconds, you know, but I don't know. little baby cup, and I'm like, this is delicious, but it's going to take me 20 seconds. But I don't know. I go through stages where I love just drinking American coffee, a big cup of black coffee, and then espresso. Yeah. I'm digging the cafe macchiato here, which is a little bit of milk.

It's not as much as you'd have in a cappuccino, but I like that. What's it like being in Rome right now? Well, it's beautiful because i was in cleveland a couple weeks ago and when i landed it was negative seven degrees and today i want to say it's 59 or 60 degrees blue sky sun uh it's pretty awesome so yeah i mean it's got its hang ups too like any place but in terms terms of the weather, it's gorgeous. Congratulations on your new book, too. I'm holding it in my hands. Thank you. Doesn't it feel good, that matted cover?

Everything about this book is wonderful. Our listeners have got to check out the front cover of this book. I am not joking when I say I think this is the best front cover to a Catholic book I remember seeing, especially because of the content and who it's aimed at, which you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I presume it's either people who know very little about the Catholic Church and who are interested, or people who just kind of want to remind themselves why they're Catholic. That's it. Both of those are my audience. And we wanted a cover that would, excuse me, get somebody to pick up a book about Catholicism or a book written by a priest that normally

wouldn't pick up a book about Catholicism or a book written by a priest. So the designer's name is Ryan McQuaid, and he works for Lifeteen. He's their graphic designer, at least one of them. And so the publisher at Pauline Books and Media, or the marketing guy, I don't remember who contacted him or knew him, sent him the manuscript, said, would you read through this and then see what you can do? And he came up with a couple iterations, but the first one was great. We just had a little more orange, a little less pink, it was almost spot on and i'm i'm so pleased with it i hope the content of the book matches the quality of the cover because i think if they give awards for book covers which i don't know if they do or not but this should win an award

because i should start uh i should start one i should start a company that just dedicates giving giving awards to people and i'll just give it to him and then you can say it won an award yeah that would be perfect or at least give him a little sticker like he used to get in grade school, like good job, you know, with a puppy on it or something. I was reading this book to my kids the other day, father. I read the bit about in the morning at the Ferentz household when you were put in charge of picking up the dog poop. Oh yeah, chapter one. Yeah, your brother would make fun of you.

So you would always leave a big turd in the middle of the grass so he would step on it. I don't know, I was thinking about that. What would be worse, like stepping on poop or actually going over it with a lawnmower, especially if it was a big, gross, sloppy one? It depends if you have a bag on your mower or not because if you have a bag, at least it's going to get caught.

If you don't, it might get thrown on you in chunks. Anyway, so that's what I read to my kids. They found that pretty incredible. Yeah. I mean, it's a very Flannery O'Connor way to open a book. But again, I'm trying to attract the non-active or the less than active Catholic reader or non-Catholic reader. And so I wanted to give an image. I mean, the whole reason I give that story is to talk about God's non-competitive nature.

It's an obvious connection at first sight. Well, our friend, you know, Father Ryan Mann, you've had him on this podcast before. He called me up. He goes, D, only you can go from a story about dog crap to the inner life of the Trinity in a page and a half. I said, thank you. Thank you. That's awesome. Now, we've spoken about this before, but I mean, this is, as you say, very Flannery O'Connor-esque. The title comes from a quote of hers, The Strangeness of Truth. You're a big fan of Flannery O'Connor. Maybe remind our audience why you're a big fan of Flannery O'Connor, maybe remind our audience why you're a big fan of

Flannery O'Connor and why you think, or why you took kind of her approach in a sense to reach people. Okay. Yeah. The first reason is because she is an excellent writer and has been said to, has been said to be the only great Catholic, um, uh, writer that America has known. There have been some good ones, but she's the only great one. And it's not just Catholic people who like her. Agnostics and atheists and all sorts of people read her work and acknowledge it to be outstanding and beautiful and wonderful. She was, though, a devout Catholic, pretty much a daily mass goer, and a highly disciplined woman. For the last 14 years of her life, she was dying of lupus and knew it. And so wanted to leave her mark through her

fiction. And she felt that writing was her vocation and that was her way of glorifying God. Her stories can be violent and rather grotesque. They're also hilarious. But she says that each one of her stories has a moment where grace is offered to the character and that grace is oftentimes rejected. Sometimes it's accepted, but she, at the beginning of my book, in fact, right at the preface, I use this quote from O'Connor. She says, when you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it. When you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock. To the heart of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind, you draw large, startling figures. And so she knew

that she was writing to an audience that was mostly comprised of people who didn't take faith seriously or God seriously or sacraments seriously. And so when she writes, she does so in a way where she's trying to shock them into reconsidering things that maybe they've blown off before. Yeah, she reminds me, like, I think I love Dostoevsky like you love Flannery O'Connor, and she seems, she reminds me of him a little bit. I'm thinking of Crime and Punishment, where Raskolnikov is a pretty, talks himself into being a pretty despicable human being. Have you read that book lately? No. Go on. I was just going to say, towards the end, it's his relationship with a prostitute. He doesn't have a sexual relationship with her.

Her name's Sonia, but she's a beautiful woman who prostitutes herself out for love of her family so that she can help support her mom and stepdad. But it's her um relationship with him like she really is the christ figure in this story that leads him to just repent and so there is that even though it's a very dark novel you know he kills an old woman and her sister with an axe um and he's pretty despicable there is that element of redemption which you don't see a lot in today's movies. You're right. Although I'm thinking of Breaking Bad, there was an element of redemption at the end there, where he looked at her and said, Skylar, I'm doing this. And he used to say,

I'm doing this for our family. And he finally said, I'm doing this for me. And he admitted his selfishness. Yeah, I think of Coen brothers are very similar to O'Connor in that they use some twisted, grotesque, violent means to bring about redemption. Not in every film, but in many of their films they do anyway. seems to be a great lesson to learn from someone like Flannery O'Connor. Aristotle said that that which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. So I used to tell my seminarians, if you want to be an evangelist, you want to be a good evangelizer, a good preacher, you need to know the faith, and you need to have a great background in philosophy, theology. You need to know the Lord. You need to know the scriptures, you need to know the church. But if you don't know culture, you're not going to know how to get in to the minds and the hearts of the people that you're trying to evangelize. So you also need to

know people and you need to know culture and have a way of getting people to actually want to listen to you and talk to you and converse with you. Because if you just have the truth but don't know how to convey it, you're going to be pretty lonely. Could you explain that for us? Was that from Aristotle? I know Aquinas talks about this too. What is received is something, it's received according to the mode of the receiver. Explain to us, what does that mean? Okay. Yeah. That which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. So a good example of that would be human beings. How do we come to knowledge?

And I think you and I have spoken about this before. Knowledge for human beings begins with the senses. And that is because we human beings are comprised both of body and soul. Body, soul, composite, that hylomorphic unity, which is the human person. Unlike an angel, which is pure spirit, so an angel's way to the world or the way to knowledge doesn't begin with the senses, because an angel is pure spirit without a body, but for human beings, the way that we receive knowledge begins with the senses, beings, the way that we receive knowledge begins with the senses. And then, of course, we're able to abstract essences out, you know, from the phantasm and go through that whole thing.

But you've got to understand how it is that things receive things. And that's even true of culture. So when I'm writing a homily or presenting a talk or even writing a book, I have to have my audience in mind and think, how are they going to hear this? So it's even true that if I'm giving a talk at a nursing home, say, or a retirement community, the way that I'm going to go about composing that talk would be different than if I was talking to Gen Xers or different than I was talking to maybe millennials or iGen. Even if the content was the same, I may use a different way to get in. So to know how people understand things, and you probably know that as a father too with your children, they probably hear things differently.

Maybe some need a hard word, some need a little softer. So to understand how people receive things is pretty important when it comes to evangelizing. Yeah, indeed. Well, I'm just thinking about, you know, you could have a fantastic speaker who I would appreciate right now to be such, but back when I was 16, he probably would have bored me, you know? Oh, right. Yeah. Because you're, yeah, you're different now. And I'm the same way. You know, when you're 16, you're filled with hormones and you want the same way. When you're 16, you're filled with hormones, and you want excitement and flash.

And now someone could read you a philosophical paper for 40 minutes. You could say, oh, more, more, please. And you could have other people who are younger than you, perhaps, or older, or the same age, who are bored out of their minds. So it all depends. Do you think that's why perhaps you hear some people we all love to criticize? That's why perhaps you hear some people we all love to criticize. You hear people criticizing Steubenville conferences or these big passionate speakers, and they'll want to say, like, you shouldn't be like that. It should be just about the truth.

And maybe they don't say it that specifically, but you can imagine somebody kind of criticizing an emotional kind of conference like that. But would you say maybe they've forgotten that point made by Aquinas? Exactly. And they've also forgotten the principle of gradualism, that you may need to figure out how a 16-year-old is going to hear the truth, which would be different than a 26 or 36 or 46-year-old. So to tell some, like a lot of life teen speakers I know start off with humor or a goofy story, and you may say, or someone may say, oh, that's silly. Just get to the truth and quote the catechism. Well, first you've got to win over, you want to win over your audience. And of course, this would be a great distinction too, and Aristotle makes it, between rhetoric and, what is it? What is his distinction?

what is it? What is his distinction between rhetoric and logic? So yeah, that you're simply, if you're just making an argument, then you're just using reason. But if you're, if you're actually trying to win someone over and persuade an audience, you also need good stories. You also need credibility of the speaker. So yeah, that's, that's an important part of it too. And I think that's true with preaching as well. The truth alone should be able to convince, and Aristotle thinks that, but he says because we're human beings, because we have bodies, the other things are important too, the ethos and the pathos. Yeah, yeah. And two examples I can think of that demonstrate that Aquinas understood this would be when you compare his academic sermons, which aren't much talked about these days, or maybe ever, I don't know, with his popular sermons. There's a very different tone.

And then also, he's got this great work, I forget the Latin title, De rationibus fide, it's reasons for the faith against Muslim objections and against the Greeks and things. When he deals with the Greeks, that's the Orthodox, he piles it with Scripture. When he's addressing the Muslims, he doesn't use one Scripture verse. Yeah, that's it. So, he understood this principle, yeah. Right, sure. I think Bishop Barron understands that pretty well, too. Oh my gosh, yeah, of course. And that's what makes him so good, that he can go give an academic paper, which would

bore probably some of his normal followers on Word on Fire, but then he could do a video commentary on The Departed or Fargo or whatever other film, and people say, I get that, I understand that. And that's also a sign of brilliance. If you can take heady concepts, things that are difficult to understand and break them down and make them simple. And our Lord did that too. That's how we spoke in parables. The sower went out to sow some seed. Right. Yeah. A father, a man had two sons, you know, but to present things in ways that people can understand them, right? And that doesn't change the truth. It's accommodations of how the truth is being

taught. So, you know, even when it comes to theology of the body, I know some Catholic schools who are starting to teach that in kindergarten or first grade. What do you do in kindergarten or first grade? Are you talking about genitalia? No, you're basically talking about our bodies are gifts, that we're body and soul and making basic distinctions there. And then when you get going on and you can talk about the person as gift and then get into issues of sexuality and you can talk greater about the sacraments and the whole creed. But yeah, you figure out what people can understand and how they understand, and you can present it in that way. Yeah, definitely. One of your chapters, this is in chapter seven, and this is going to lead us into our main topic for today's discussion,

has to do with the, it's called Take Up and Read the Beautiful and Intelligent Life. And here you say one of the most satisfying thing about Catholicism is how intelligent it is. Two of the greatest figures in our tradition who embody that intelligence are St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Thought we could talk a bit about them today. And then I think we're going to take a look at, let's see, the first part of the Summa Theologiae, question 93, Is the image of God in rational creatures? Because you pointed out that Aquinas references Augustine there, as he does many times. Right, right, right. Okay, so, yeah, the name of this chapter is Take Up and Read, and the Latin formulation of that is Tole Lege or Tole Lelege, depending on how you pronounce your Gs in Latin.

And that actually comes from the end of Book 8 of the Confessions, when St. Augustine, who has struggled up until this point in the Confessions, well, he struggled with pride, and he's pretty much taken care of that one, or the Lord has taken care of it for him with his cooperation. And now he's still struggling with lust. He wants to be continent. He just can't. And so he's basically just crying, literally crying out in this garden, north of Milan, trying to figure out what he can do. And he realizes that it's not what he can do, but what the Lord wants to do for him. So he hears what sounds like children playing a game, and they're saying, like a ring around the roses, kids singing a song. So he's trying to figure out what the heck does that mean? Take up and read, take up and read. And then he remembered St. Anthony of the desert

taking up scripture and basically playing scripture Bible roulette and coming across a passage that transformed him. And so he comes across, he says, I'll try this. He comes across the passage from Romans and upon reading it, he just feels a weight lifted and his life changed. And he has a moral conversion at that point where he finds continence and doesn't struggle as he had in the past with lust. And soon after that, he becomes baptized. So yeah, Take Up and Read is the title of the chapter. It comes from Augustine. And the reason I talk about Augustine and Aquinas so much in this book is because, well, first of all, they both are perennial. They're always coming up in Catholic tradition and they're both classic

thinkers, meaning that they always matter and they always have something to offer. And they're never, they're never out of style. Um, I, I, I loved,

I taught at the seminary for nine years. I'm now a doctoral student again. I'll go back eventually, but I loved teaching the confessions to the guys because they could connect their lives to his and say, geez, this guy's, he's something. And he understands me and I understand him. And I could see how God's working through him and how smart he was too, you know, making great arguments and using his intellect to find God and to find a mystery that he could

never exhaust. What is it that makes a timeless author? That they're tied to the truth and that they present it in some way that it doesn't get boring or old. Or if you think it does, it's probably because you're old or boring or young and boring. Maybe you don't know what you're getting at. Yeah, it reminds me of what C.S. Lewis said, something to the effect of, if we try to be original, we won't succeed. We'll just end up being bland and blah.

But if we just try and speak the truth as we see it, without trying to be overly clever, you know. Well, we got in this discussion yesterday. I'm auditing one course this semester. It's Thomistic Aesthetics. So Thomas Aquinas on beauty. And we were talking about ruptures in tradition where folks like Michelangelo or Bernini were constantly at work trying to present particular forms, right? So the form of Christ or the form of David or the form of

whatever. And much of what took place in modernity, but especially contemporary art, is a rejection of the form and to enter into deconstruction with the hope of somehow being original by destroying the form or trying to ignore the form or refuse to represent the form so it's a reason and a form by its nature is is true so you're somehow rejecting what is true and this is why art today can be referenced as art but not necessarily beautiful because it's it's apart from the form you know which is why a a lot of modern and contemporary art may never be classic. Right. Including, including modern churches. Correct. Correct.

So disgusting. And yes. Yeah. We shouldn't say that every modern church or every contemporary church is disgusting because there are some that, that, that. Just like we shouldn't say all modern art is gross. Yeah. Right. Or all medieval art is perfect and beautiful because it's not.

But the trajectory that those movements were heading do allow us to make some general statements for sure. Yeah, it is a fascinating topic. Like how anyone ever thought that was a good idea. You know, I drive past some churches and think I would rather worship in a pizza hut. I don't know how anybody ever thought this could possibly be beautiful, but clearly someone thought it was, as you say, original, novel. It's something new, and it's different from what was given to us before. But the problem is, that's not classic, right? Because it doesn't last throughout the ages. You don't go back and say, man, that church built in 1972 is gorgeous today.

Maybe you do, but most of the churches that I've seen built during that time weren't made to be classic. Where did that come from? Like, I just printed this rosary book with Ascension Presents, and I went back and found gorgeous artwork, you know, like pre-Vatican to kind of a Rad Trad's dream kind of images, which everyone recognizes as beautiful. I know this is a big, maybe too much of a side topic, but it is weird that at some point we decided to print crap instead of drawing upon the beauty and resources of the artistic tradition of the church. I think a lot of it came after the Second World War and a response to almost the annihilation of the world, possibly, and people feeling displaced and alienated.

That comes out in fiction, whether it's you're reading Camus or you're reading Sartre or here, like the Beatniks, or you're reading J.D. Salinger, just a a a loss of place a loss of how to understand the world and so the art or the philosophy or the fiction at that time that was coming out was responding to a particular time but we're not we're not there right now but i don't know if we're i mean i think unless we tap back into tradition, and it doesn't mean you have to do the exact same thing that was done, you know, 400 years ago. But it does mean that you're tapping into the truth of what artists or writers or philosophers were doing at a certain time. And you're conveying what actually is true and not just a rejection of what is true because that gets boring and it's ugly.

It doesn't have form right so and even in my book like i i tell people i'm it's a it's a book on orthodox christianity orthodox catholicism i'm presenting it perhaps in a non-orthodox way because i'm trying to write to a reader in 2019 who may not um who may not be drawn to traditional ways of presenting the faith. So I may be presenting the truths of the faith in a different way, but they're the same truths. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, if I was 16 and I saw this book,

The Strangeness of Truth, Vibrant Faith in a Dark World, I would have probably picked it up and read it because it was different, you know? Yeah. Well, we know, probably picked it up and read it because it was different, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, we know, speaking of Augustine and Aquinas, we know that Aquinas quotes Augustine even more than Aristotle, which surprises a lot of people since he says the philosopher quite a great deal. Let's look at this article, whether the image of God is to be found in irrational creatures. Irrational creatures, right. And it's a great question because we can think, okay, well, look, God created the whole world.

We go back to the first story of creation in Genesis 1 and see that he created the birds and the fish and the land animals. And then he created human beings. Well, wouldn't it make sense that somehow we're all created in God's image and likeness? And so that's the question are are animals creatures without reason um created in god's image and likeness and so what we're going to do is take a look at and see what thomas says about this so do you want to take us through the article the important parts for us are the said contra and the race bondeo but if you want to set it up any more than that, be my guest. Pete Yeah, no, that's okay. Maybe we could, yeah, you've set it up enough. So, the said contra is, Augustine says, man's excellence consists in the fact that God made him to his own image by giving him an

intellectual soul, which raises him above the beasts of the field. Therefore, things without intellect are not made to God's image. I want to just pause here a moment because I suspect there are people who are listening who have been told since they were children that we've been made in God's image. And even though we sort of just touched upon it there, still don't really know what that means or what Augustine or Aquinas meant by that. So, when we say we've been made in the image and likeness of God, I mean, I know there's different ways you can understand that, but what did Aquinas mean, basically? Okay, I'm going to use that first story of creation just because it's fresh in mind, and Augustine here is riffing on Genesis. This is his commentary on Genesis. So,

if you remember in the first day of creation when God creates light. And you'll have some people say, how could God create light on day one if he doesn't create the sun, moon, and stars until day four? Well, this light is also understood as a reason or our ability to understand creation and the world, to understand creation and the world, that it's not a random mess, but that there is an intelligibility to creation. And if we think of the Trinity, what is it that gives this intelligibility is God himself. And he speaks, when he speaks, that's the logos that's allowing the universe to take on this intelligibility that we can know it and that we can converse with each other today. And we can know that a tree is a tree and a sea is we can make distinctions between a noun and a verb and an adjective and a preposition and all this. That the universe itself is intelligible, speaks to the fact that we have an intelligible soul and can reflect on these things in a way that your dog or a dolphin or a lion or whatever other animal you want to think of can't so that's one

i mean there's many ways of speaking about this but that's one way that we could talk about um yeah our soul and also that it's immortal that that it um that it it doesn't die when we die but is meant to live forever in heaven or hell right so? Okay. And then let me just read the respondio and I'll get your take. He says, Aquinas says, not every likeness, not even what is copied from something else is sufficient to make an image. For if the likeness be only generic or existing by virtue of some common accident, this does not suffice for one thing to be the image of another. For instance, a worm, though from man it may originate, cannot be called man's image merely because of the generic likeness. Nor, if anything is made white like something else, can we say that it's the image

of that thing. For whiteness is an accident belonging to many species. But the nature of an image requires likeness in species. Thus, the image of the king exists in his son, or at least in some specific accident, and chiefly in the shape. Thus, we speak of a man's image in copper when Hillary says pointedly that an image is of the same species. Now, it is manifest that specific likeness follows the ultimate difference, but some things are like to God first and most commonly because they exist, secondly, because they live, and thirdly, because they know or understand. And these last, as Augustine says, quote, approach so near to God in likeness that among all creatures,

nothing comes nearer to him, end quote. It is clear, therefore, that intellectual creatures alone, properly speaking, are made to God's image. Okay, so those last three sentences are the most important for the argument, at least for what we're talking about here. And this is what he says. So, but some things are like to God first and foremost commonly because they exist. So what might those things be? Again, water, rocks, grass, animals, and we human beings. So all three have in common that they exist, right? Okay, good. So then he wants to make a second distinction. Secondly, they may be like God because they live. So we would get rid of the rocks at that point, but we would still talk about

the plants, and we would still talk about the animals animals and we'd still talk about us as human beings. But then, not only because they are alive, but because they know and understand. And at this point, the human being becomes different than the plant or the animal or anything else that may be alive because only human beings know and understand. And as Augustine says, we are near to God in likeness, and that's why we can be called made in God's image at that point, because we are able to know and understand in a way that an animal or a plant cannot, or any other thing. So, you know, is he essentially saying that all of creation is in a sense like God to varying degrees. So, for example, we could understand more of God through my dog than a stone and then whatever, but that only man is made in his image, and these are different things.

Correct. So, anything that exists is like God because God exists, but we're getting more like him as we go up this hierarchy. So anything that exists is like God in a way because God exists and these things exist. And then there are things that are actually alive, like plants and animals and human beings, but of those three, plants, animals, and human beings, only human beings are able to know and understand. And so on this hierarchy, we are at the top in being closest to a God and made in his image and likeness. It's interesting, though, we should mention this, too, that John Paul II built on Aquinas in saying that our image and likeness is not just in our ability to know and understand and will, actually, but he also thought there was something about the human body that imaged God in a way that nothing else did. And that was a lot of his phenomenological influence that comes out in his theology of the body. But I find that fascinating, too.

Yeah. This is the sort of, what I'm about to bring up is the sort of thing that would sound interesting if you and I had three pints us. Okay. But here it is. Uh, just thinking of it from a strictly naturalistic point of view, if you rewound the film of evolution and let it play again, would it be possible that man or whatever resembled man could have less than five senses? I'm actually asking you like you we could imagine that right oh sure you can because people are born with i mean you you mean um even having the the organs that allow those senses to work or just they they didn't work straight up or maybe that we maybe that we evolve without i mean there are certain animals that lack senses that we have i believe bats can see somewhat but then

there are other animals that you know but you could imagine us evolving without the sense of sight or smell or something so maybe that's not true but i but it just seems like that's at least possible. And if that's possible, could it not have been possible that there could be a sixth sense? And I'm not talking about it in the kind of colloquial whatever way. I'm talking about like an actual different weird thing that accesses some form of reality that we couldn't possibly know exists right now. form of reality that we couldn't possibly know exists right now, just like the creature we spoke about if the film of evolution was rewound and played again, couldn't understand what sight or hearing or taste meant. Does that make sense? I'm tripping out here right now. It makes sense. I took a class last semester on St. Augustine's divine illumination theory, I took a class last semester on St. Augustine's divine illumination theory, which is fascinating.

Aquinas riffs on it, so does Aquaman, so does John Duns Scotus. But it would be something, I suppose, like that. But even Augustine believed in the five senses and this common sense that organized those things. And then he thought there was some sort of interjection of what you may call a sixth sense, but he would call a divine light. How do we square that with nothing is in the intellect, which doesn't come first through the senses? How do we square that with divine illumination? We could do a whole other talk talk on that but thomas answers it

so i want to say in question 84 he he yeah he some people think that he paid lip service to augustine but really didn't um really didn't follow but then it's in question 110 i could get my my court doesn't go this long, and I've got to get my book. Actually, I could put it up on my computer. One of the ways that he gets around it is by saying that because everything ultimately depends on God and his divine light, and again, think back to Genesis, the first day of creation and his Logos, maybe that's the light that Augustine was ultimately talking about. And it works that way,

um, which is kind of a creative way because he does. Yeah. Obviously, um, Aquinas thinks that we do, do we do abstract things, right?

We do abstract the natures of things and that's what it is that, how it is that we're able to know. And it's not necessarily, um, this divine light, although he, yeah, he's got the,

I didn't write a five. Well, when, when it's complicated, we can, we can talk about this divine light. Although, yeah, he's got the, I don't know, it's complicated. We can talk about that another time. Yeah. When I came back from Rome in the year 2000, did you go to work, did you say? I did. That's right.

I keep thinking, that's so funny. I was 17 years old back then and trying to make pretty American girls like my accent. I remember that. That was really funny. Did it work? Sometimes, yeah. I remember that. That was really fun. Did it work? Sometimes. Yeah. I remember it was something I did that was, I really liked Canadians for some reason. And so, I knew that there was this rivalry between Canadians and Americans. So, and I think it's also just kind of true that Americans consider themselves the center of the of the world and uh so i would

i would meet americans and pretend i'd pretend i didn't know what america was so they'd be like oh we're from because in a studio if you're from australia you'd be like oh i'm from australia oh and then someone would say well whereabouts and you'd say like south australia north of adelaide but americans it's just like's just like, I'm not trying to crap on Americans here, but it's like, they would be like, I'm from Wisconsin. You're like, why would you expect someone from Australia to know what Wisconsin is, you know? But I would often be like, oh, Wisconsin, where's that? And then I would play them a little, you know? They'd be like, what's in America or United States? I'm like, where, what's that? And then I'm just being a jerk,

you know? And they're like, you don't know what the United States is? I'm like, where, what's that? And then I'm just being a jerk, you know? And they're like, you don't know what the United States is? I'm like, hmm, where, like, oh, beneath, is that that country, that smaller country beneath Canada? And it was so funny to watch their faces. And then I'd go and tell the pretty Canadian girls. Anyway. Hold on, hold on. I have a comment. Yeah.

So, in 2005, I went to World Youth Day as a priest because I went as a seminarian in 97, 2000, 2002. But as a priest, I took my own youth group from my first parish, St. Mary's in Hudson, which is a great parish and pretty affluent parish. And in many ways, very American in thinking, hey, the world, and believe me, I love my first parish. I love America, all that. But we do tend to think as Americans often that the world revolves around us, just how we are raised. Anyway, so we run into some folks, and they're asking where we're from. And, you know, we'll say we're from the United States, and they're from France and however. At one point, we ran into a group, and someone asked one of our girls, where are you from?

And she said, I'm from Hudson. I said, you can't start there. You first start with the United States or North America, then the United States and then Ohio and then maybe Cleveland or Akron before you get to Hudson. But it was funny. It was a teachable moment. Yeah, there you go. But the reason I brought up World Youth Day is that when I came back from Rome, that was the first time I thought of this idea of having this different sense that no one else knew about. Because I remember trying to explain to my friends, you know, who I drink with and all that about this faith that I had

found. And it really felt like trying to explain to a blind person who had been blind since birth, what the color red was like. So, it's to your point of divine illumination. Yeah. I don't know about your evolution question, and it's hard for me to imagine a human person without particular senses. I mean, I would go without smell, but to go without sight, especially, really prevents some serious access to the lived world. And this is my point. This is kind of like after the third beer question.

It's like how do we know that there aren't realms of reality that we can't access because we haven't evolved that sixth sense? Yeah, you sound like Immanuel Kant, right? That we only have a certain um a certain gap of information that we're able to know like we can only see certain kinds of light we can't see x-rays and we can't see radio waves and those sorts of things so we are limited in that way like we're not able to see the fact that we even know what x-rays are shows that we can at least kind of deduce certain things but i'm talking about realms of reality that you just couldn't know because of how limited you are and again i just don't know

why this isn't a question that atheists don't raise more often like you know like imagine if everyone was ever in the world right now was born blind um and it's like there's this whole realm of reality that you just have no idea about and you have no idea how to speak about it because you have no access to it. Well, why not think there are other realms like things that we can see, things that we can smell and taste and hear that we just have no access to? It's just not really a theological question. It's more just I find that super interesting. Well, it is interesting too because a question that would be related to

that is what what does heaven look like and we i mean the response i is not seen here is not good with god is prepared for those who love him so and without a body and this would get to a quite good question about the beatific vision too so uh on the last day we'll get our bodies back, but if we're simply soul up until the time of the resurrection when we get our bodies back, how is that beatific vision enhanced if our normal way of coming to know things is knowledge that begins with the senses, right? So that's a fascinating question to me. And does the beatific vision become fuller somehow once we have our bodies back? I don't know. I'm sure Thomas answers this, but I haven't spoken to him. Actually, it's something about quality, I think, more than quantity. But anyways, sorry, I'm getting off. No, this is fun. That's the whole point of Pints of Aquinas. We're drinking beer, talking about our feelings and what we find interesting.

One of the things you said about Aquinas in this book, which I hadn't really thought of, is that when you read Aquinas, you're in a sense reading the history of philosophy. What did you mean by that? Yeah, at least up until the 13th century, because he's a synthesizer. And he wasn't about, we go back to the conversation that we started, you know, 20 minutes ago, Thomas wasn't so much about or out to be original. He became original by trying to and, and successfully finding what is true. So he didn't quote Aristotle because he thought Aristotle was, because Aristotle said something,

he quoted Aristotle because he thought Aristotle said something that was true. And so when you read Aquinas, you're constantly seeing references to Cicero, and to Augustine, and to Aristotle, and to Plato, and Maimonides, and Avicenna, and Averroes, Muslim philosophers, Jewish philosophers, Christian philosophers, pagan philosophers. So you are getting a great understanding of the history of philosophy up until the 13th century. And he's a wonderful synthesizer. My director, Monsignor Sokolowski at Catholic U, he would say what Shakespeare is to literature, Aquinas is to philosophy, and you're not going to be able to top him. Obviously, he died in the 13th century, so we've got to do some work.

But in his spirit today, but it's, I mean, the guy was a genius. I listened to a podcast by Peter Kreef the other day. He said after Jesus Christ, he's the smartest person ever to be alive. That was pretty good. He tends to make hyperbolic statements like that, Kreef. I think he might mean it, but yeah. What do you think? If somebody said, I read Aquinas, I've kind of read all of his works,

why bother reading Augustine? So the point I'm trying to get to is, is Aquinas just a more fuller Augustine? How do they complement each other? Do we not need to read Augustine now that we have Aquinas? What would you say? I think it depends on what you're reading. If you want a very clear, systematic breakdown of an argument, then you look to St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly in the Summa, because it's hard to outthink him, and he doesn't waste words at all. But if you, and some people will say, Aquinas really speaks to my head, and then Augustine really speaks to my heart. And there's something to that as well. I mean, they're both saints, they're both doctors of the church. I find it normally more enjoyable to read St. Augustine, especially his confessions,

because I like the biography, I like his story, and I like to see how faith played out in there. But if I'm trying to figure out some sort of metaphysical problem or make a good distinction, I mean, what we just did there in the question on irrational animals, do they image God? We saw how clearly he makes arguments. So when you're looking for more precision, I think it's better to read St. Thomas Aquinas. But they both offer the truth, they just present it in different ways.

Yeah, I agree. I love reading the Confessions. You say in your book that Augustine had three conversions, and often we minimalize it to one. Correct. And I learned that. I took a great course when I was at Catholic U on Augustine's Confessions, and my professor pointed out that he had three conversions. The first was his conversion to philosophy, so his intellectual conversion, when he read Cicero's Hortensius and really fell in love with lady wisdom and and um started to make good distinctions and see the role of reason in his life and so that that's his first conversion the intellectual one the second one is that totally leg a moment which we already discussed and that's his moral conversion um when he when he read the scriptures and and felt uh freed of

the pangs of lust and was able to live from that point on a continent life. Although he does say that sometimes, you know, he struggled with temptation from time to time, but it was nothing like he had before. And the reason we don't call that his Christian conversion is because he wasn't baptized yet. So it's only like a year after that, when he was 32 years old, that he was baptized. And then we can call that his third conversion or his Christian conversion. So intellectual conversion, moral conversion, and then his Christian conversion. We need to somehow convince people to read the confessions if they haven't already. That, what is his name, Peckinold, he's on Twitter, he teaches at CUA.

A couple years ago ago he did a a study on augustine speaks of god through twitter like he taught a class and then tweeted about it maybe he can do that with the confessions too because they're awesome i mean the first the first nine books are basically his conversion story and then he'll cover time and he'll cover uh well he covers crazy numbers and and he covers creation too so and memory memory his section on memory is awesome so memory and time are the two most philosophical but i really enjoy his biography as well yeah you pointed out to me that the catechism of the catholic church quotes augustine more than any other source and then i realized that aquinas

also quoted augustine after the bible and i'm sure perhaps the Catechism quotes the Bible more than Augustine too, but as far as individual people, that's pretty cool. Like, we should probably be in touch with who Augustine was and his writings. I was surprised that I didn't realize that the Orthodox never really got exposed to Augustine, that there was this separation between East and West and that they weren't exposed to his writings. Interesting. You know, as we're recording this, can I say what day this is? Yeah. So it's February 21st, which is Peter Damian Day. And this is also the day that they're starting here in Rome over at the Vatican, the gathering to discuss, you know, sexual abuse in the church and all that business.

And one of the things that I find so interesting about St. Augustine, and I think it's really important for our day, is to know that this was a guy who struggled with sin. Big two sins in his life were pride and lust. But he allowed the Lord to enter into the messiness of his life and became a saint and the reason i say that is because he was a bishop and he wrote the confessions and published them while he was a bishop and i just find that incredibly amazing and spectacular and i don't i don't think it could happen today. But the reason that he wrote the confessions was not in any way to boast about his past sin or to say, look what I did. And it wasn't that at all. It was to say, here's where I was. I let the Lord into my life, and he transformed it,

and he healed it, and he purified me, and he made me his. And I want to share that with you. When I took this course on Augustine's Confessions, Tom O'Toombe was my professor from Estonia. He said, the best way to understand the Confessions is as a protreptic. And I had never heard that term before. But what a protreptic is, it's a narrative told in order to bring the listener or the reader to conversion. So you tell your story of conversion, not to boast about yourself, but to boast about the good work that God has done in your life. So the reason that Augustine shared his own faults and his own failings was in order to let people see he was a sinner, yet the Lord looked upon him like he did with Matthew,

and then transformed his life and made him a saint. And I think that's such a bold witness. And I think that's where we need to be in the church today. And I'm not saying that a bishop has to write a protreptic like Augustine did. But I do think that if people need to speak a word of truth, know that truth is always rewarded, and the truth heals, and it sets people free, and it sets the church free. And I think that's just a very important thing to keep in mind during these days, that the truth does set us free, and that the Lord wants to purify His church of sinners.

And even if someone has sinned terribly, it doesn't mean that everything's lost, because the Lord is constantly reaching out to the lost and turning them into saints. And I think so much of what we're dealing with today is a crisis of faith, that God somehow can't work that anymore, can't do those sorts of things. And that's the scariest thing that's going on, I think, that we're unwilling to expose the hurts and the pains of the church, especially within our own clergy and hierarchy, to the Lord's mercy so that He can transform us and heal us and make His church new, you know?

Yeah, I'm thinking two things, that we live in this cool-out culture today, and this mob culture today, especially online, where if some dirty thing from someone's past is discovered, we all kind of destroy them. Hopefully that isn't the case in the church, but it certainly seems to be that way in secular culture, where we're extraordinarily moralistic, and yet we will not forgive anybody their past transgressions. and yet we will not forgive anybody their past transgressions. Like forgiveness isn't an option when it comes to secular religion and secular dogma, you know? So the fact that Augustine wrote a book where he talked about having a kid like out of wedlock, imagine a bishop doing that today. Right. And not being able to like stop, even after he broke up with that woman, he was able to,

he never names her, by the way, which is great. He does that on purpose. And it's not to humiliate her, it's to save her because she was still alive when the book was published. But yeah, the whole point was Augustine trying to show that the Lord's mercy is greater than his own sinfulness. I mean, this is why Paul says what he says all throughout the Acts of the Apostles that he's trying to, and in his letters, he's trying to allow people to have the experience of the Lord that he did. And you wonder if because our culture is becoming more and more atheistic, if that's why we're having a hard time with forgiveness, because maybe we haven't experienced it ourselves or we we hate ourselves so much that we don't think it's possible that god could love us enough to forgive us and maybe this is the

crisis of faith manifesting itself in our culture you know but people they freaking love uh conversion stories they really do um and it's funny that we that that uh you know that we have a we have a hard time with that and we're really hard on people because normally the funny that we have a hard time with that, and we're really hard on people, because normally the way that we treat others is the way that we treat ourselves. And so I'm playing psychologist here, but also theologian, and maybe that's the problem of our culture. Because we don't believe in God, because we don't believe God loves us, because we don't believe God forgives us, then we treat others as we think they need to be treated, which is without mercy, without love, without tenderness, without kindness, because perhaps we haven't received it ourselves.

And so, this is a callback to the gospel, you know? Yeah. There's also a lesson here with regards to our own testimony. So when I served with Net Ministries, we formulated a three-minute testimony where we talked about kind of how we were raised, whether we were raised Catholic or not, but what that was like, how we then kind of encountered the gospel and what that did for us, and now what it's like now. And the temptation was always to make your testimony more dramatic, you know? So, maybe you smoked weed once, but your testimony ends up being, I was on the streets smoking crack, you know.

But in doing that, you can not only be lying, but also glorifying the sin. But as you say, Augustine didn't do that. The point of the confessions wasn't to be like, I was sinning, and it was frigging awesome. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, well, first of all, the way that I wrote my book was inspired by Augustine, because each chapter begins and ends with personal narrative. People like narrative. I mean, Jesus told parables, he told stories, and people like that sort of thing, and it's a good way to get in. I mean, even think of holidays, when you get together with your family for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter or whatever holidays. Usually you sit around and drink some beer if you're old enough and you tell stories.

And a lot of times you hear the stories over and over again. But we are storytelling people. That's part of what we are. And so I think the testimony is, again, important because that which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver and people like to hear stories they don't just want to hear oh i'm catholic now and i used to not be tell me tell me what that looks like like incarnate that for me show me that um because that's it's a lived faith we're an incarnate faith it's not simply abstract but it's always embodied because we're human beings and And so our bodies, our lives need

to tell this story of the faith. That's why at the end of Mass, we're told, go and announce the gospel of the Lord. How? Go and glorify the Lord with your life. So your life is supposed to embody this Catholic faith. And when people look at you, they're supposed to be learning about Christ and his church, right? Totally. This reminds me of my good mate, I don't know if you've ever met him, Eni Heckman. He lives in Houston, him and his wife, Kena. That's a great name, Kena. Oh, Kena. Yes, beautiful. Well, Eni's one of the greatest guys I've ever met. I'd follow him to the ends of the earth. And one of his big things is community. So he says this thing, he says like, what if when Jesus said, love your neighbors, he meant love your neighbors, like the people who

live next door to you. Because we always are very quick to explain that bit away. Well, it doesn't necessarily mean your next door neighbors, it means everybody. But of course, that's just like saying pray all the time, but you're not really being specific about it. So you never end up doing it. And so they have community dinner nights once a week where they open up their backyard and everyone just drinks beer on the back porch, eats food, kids play, and it's great. But one of his points, this gets back to what you were saying, is at some point, it's like we thought proclaim the gospel meant speak truth at people instead of entering into their lives in an incarnational way and just like meeting them where they're at and helping them in the human things of life. We really almost think that all that's required is a really great website that articulates the truth as best it can be articulated that's irrefutable.

And if only we could do that somehow, then people would just convert. And of course, that's not true. We're seeing here in the United States, some pretty crazy stuff that's taking place with the Covington Catholic Boys and this Jussie Smollett or whatever the bloke's name is from Empire where, you know, there were complete media biases around these things. They were then found out to be false. And then people still have dug their heels in and refused to change their mind. And I think we as humans, like, we're not computers. We don't just respond to a syllogism. And that's why it's so important that we actually journey with people and not just speak truth at them. Right. You know, another iteration of that same phenomenon or same reality is,

You know, another iteration of that same phenomenon or same reality is I have a, and I actually read about them in this book, a couple. They're really good friends of mine. Had five kids while contracepting, by the way. That's a whole other story. It's pretty funny. But they decided that they wanted to follow the church's teaching but were struggling with how to. And I was newly ordained. And I had taken my moral theology classes. And I had started to read John Paul's Theology of the Body, and I knew Humanae Vitae, but here I had a couple before me who wanted to walk and wanted to study and

wanted to pray. Long story short, they embraced the churches teaching, they embraced Humanae Vitae and churches teaching on human sexuality. They have another child who's now 12 years old. But when it comes to presenting the church's teaching to people, now I'm a teacher, so I do teach Humanae Vitae and I can teach very tattic splendor and I can teach natural law. But if I'm working with a couple who wants to know what this teaching, why this teaching, I'll say, hey, John and Frank, can I bring a couple over? Would you meet them? And so they'll meet this family and see how they live. It's like when the disciples ask Jesus, where are you staying? Come and see. He doesn't actually tell them. He says, come and see, like live with me. Let me show you the rhythm of my life. And

that will pull you in to the life of God. That's how it's supposed to look, as you said. I mean, the truth is important. As human beings, the truth is important because it's embodied. I mean, the Word takes on flesh. The second person of the Trinity becomes a human being to show us what it means to be God and to be a human being. and to be a human being. And what he wants to do in us is to use, he wants us to use our lives to show others what it means to be God and what it means to be a human being. So that's what it means to be an evangelist. It's not simply having the facts, but it's living them and embodying them. And this is what a saint does. This is why saints are attractive, because there's something about them. You're like, holy crap, I want to be around you. I feel loved. I feel accepted. I also feel challenged, but in a way that I'm also loved and accepted at the same time, you know? And this is where I think we, gosh, we become Cartesian rather than good Thomists, and we

disembody the truth somehow, and we just want to, you know, rattle off syllogisms to each other. And syllogisms are beautiful. They're good. They're reasonable. I understand them. But the embodied truth seems to me to be where it's at. Yeah, and I know we can oversimplify this. Obviously, both Augustine and Aquinas were saints, were mystics to some degree. And so we're not pitting one against the other and saying that Aquinas was a logician and Augustine was a pastoral kind of guy. guy. That said, when you do read Augustine, the kind of pastoral side, the heart side, if you want, does come out more. And when you read Aquinas, very often the head side comes out. And again, that's very much to oversimplify things, but we need both, as both men were examples of. We need truth and we need love. Yeah. Right. Well, you know, Aquinas, read biographies about him. I mean, he was a brilliant man, but just a very humble man. For being one of the brightest lights that the world has ever known,

he really didn't bring any attention to his own intellect or to himself. He was constantly bringing attention to God and the beauty of his creation. Or, you know, the Eucharistic hymns that we sing at Holy Hour, composed by St. Augustine and his Corpus Christi Mass. I know, the Eucharistic hymns that we sing at Holy Hour composed by St. Augustine and his Corpus Christi Mass. I mean, the guy's a beautiful poet, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I imagine you could probably fit on one page the times he references himself in an anecdotal style. Right, right. Which may be why some people are turned off by him and are turned on more by Augustine because he's more existential

in his approach to things. But I mean, this is the beauty of being Catholic. We have a lot of different saints and we could connect to them in many different ways and they play on the same team, right? So... Yeah, that reminds me of what Jason Everett said. He said, when you look at the dictators of the world, you know, put them up in a line, you know, they're all predictably and boringly the same. But you line the saints up next to each other, like Louis de Montfort and Teresa of Avila and Mother Teresa, and they're all very different. It's like, to kind of steal Matthew Kelly's line, becoming the best version of ourselves with the grace of God, you know. And this, it can be tempting, though, to think, to not realize that each person has his own path to God. Don't take that in a relativistic sense, obviously.

But just like what's true for you in your prayer life and what's good for you right now might not be good for me in my prayer life. And it can be tempting sometimes to look at a holy person and say, okay, that's what they're into. Those are the devotions that they have picked up. So, I need to kind of like model my life around that. And sometimes it's like, no, you shouldn't. There's a philosopher who used to teach at Catholic University of America's name was Quay, C-U-A, which is funny because his email would have been C-U-A at C-U-A. And he made this, he wrote an article on paradigmatic individuals, so basically exemplars or role models. And he made a distinction between aspiration and inspiration. And he said, when you aspire to be like someone, like, I want to be just like John Paul II. I want to pray the way that he did, I want to ski the way that he did, I want to eat the kind of Polish foods that he did, I want to do everything, all the things that he did.

So you basically are aspiring to be John Paul II. And he said, that's not a bad thing. But he said, what's more important is to be inspired by John Paul II to be, as Matthew Kelly would say, the best version of yourself, right? And this is what makes the saints beautiful, because they're all very different. But the best version of themselves is the best version of Christ living in them. And that's where you find your individuality and your uniqueness. But it's because you've participated in the form. You've participated in God himself and you allow him to live in you. You participated in God himself and you allow him to live in you.

That's what makes someone interesting and beautiful, not simply trying to create yourself out of nothing and become original apart from the one who created you, but entering into the fullness of who you are by entering into the one who is, right? I guess this is why spiritual direction is so important because, as you say, a very positive thing we need role models we need lights we need people to emulate um but but at some point we have to learn how to kind of follow the promptings of the spirit and to use a common phrase be true to who we are you know and that might not that might not mean becoming you know a priest like carol vt would did it might mean becoming a priest like Carol Vitewa did. It might mean becoming a husband or whatever. Yeah, a simple example. So I'm now entering in the second phase of this doctoral cycle here at the Angelicum.

And my first semester was taking classes because my license is from Catholic U. The second phase now is almost every day, with the exception of Wednesday afternoons, I'm here in my room and I'm writing. And the only way that you really get done, it seems to me, is if you have an orarium and you break out your day and you're going to write at this time and that time. There are certain guys in this house that write in the afternoons because mornings aren't good for them. I'm not one of them.

If I don't write in the morning, I'm not going to write. So it's the same thing. We're all finding our discipline, but you've got to figure out the way that works best for you. And the same is true with prayer, and the same could be true with diet or exercise. So you're tapping into the same truths, but you're figuring out how to appropriate them so that they work best in your life. And there's where you have relativism in the good sense of the word, because it's united to truth. You're just figuring out how that plays out best in your life. And there's where you have relativism in the good sense of the word, because it's united to truth. You're just figuring out how that plays out best in your life, you know? Yeah, that's really good points. Well, I should probably let you get back to your beautiful

Italian life. I have very idyllic perceptions of what your life must look like right now, but the grass is brown everywhere, apparently. It's the grass is brown on both sides but it's green too you know it's yeah it's it's both so thank you for having me this was fun it's good to talk to you yeah absolutely now i'm gonna be i want to i want to i wonder if um i wonder if pauline books and media who are the publisher of your book the transience of strangeness of truth would allow me to do a giveaway on instagram because that would allow a lot of eyeballs to see it i bet you they would i. You know what? Let's say... Talk to them and let me

know maybe. Okay. Because I just did this on my Instagram account for my new rosary book. Okay. And what we said is you have to tag two other people in a comment section and then those people get to see the image. And so, we had over 1,600 comments and all of those are referencing other people who then get to see it as well so I want people to see how beautiful this book cover is and I want them to buy this book so speak to them and let them know if I can give away like 10 copies or something I'll ask them the last time I think they gave me three or five when I was and so whatever whatever it is we'll figure it out yeah and then we'll do it.

Yeah. But I'll put a link in the show notes here and I want everyone to go check out The Strangeness of Truth, Vibrant Faith in a Dark World. I think this would be the perfect book to give to maybe, well, yourself, but also a teenager or a young adult who's kind of wrestling with the faith in any degree. I think it would be a great book for them. Yeah. Another audience is couples who just had their first child and haven't been to church. Because when you have your first child, you're thinking, geez, what kind of wisdom am I going to pass on? I need some help. It might be a good book for them too. Yeah. And then you've got a whole Q&A section in the back. them too yeah and then you've got a whole um q a section in the back like uh what do you right you can do book club you get your personal yeah reflection or or discussion sure yeah it's fun

yeah all right so god bless you thank you so much man all right there you go i hope you enjoyed that uh you know chat i did i love father damien get his book the strangeness of truth if you want not telling you what to, The Strangeness of Truth, if you want. Not telling you what to do, but if you want to do something, if you want to be told what to do, accept that as my challenge. Also, speaking of telling you what to do, go and subscribe to The Matt Fradd Show. Hurry up. Why haven't you done it yet? Come on. The Matt Fradd Show. Type it into iTunes and subscribe because we have these big, long sit-down interviews that release on my YouTube channel, which you should also subscribe to. But you can listen to them at The Matt Fradd Show,

and they're not always going to be coming out here on Pints with Aquinas as bonus episodes. So that would be great. Also, if you want to review us on iTunes, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you want to support us directly, we're really ramping up some cool things that we're going to be talking about soon, which are really exciting. You can support me at pints with aquinas.com slash donate there you can support me directly um or through patreon some

people hate patreon um i'm beginning to not because i don't like the platform i think the platform is amazing but uh you know they're doing some crappy things and so a lot of people kind of reached out to me and went let's just support you directly screw patreon so i said okay so now you can support me directly that's all i'm saying so if you wanted to do that and you still get a bunch of cool free stuff in return like signed books and beer steins and t-shirts and video small groups you get to be a part of with me and all sorts of other things at least go check it out would you uh it would mean a lot and it really does help me do all this work which which legit can't do without you. So check it out, pineswithaquinas.com,

slash donate, and I will champ with you next week, you big, beautiful buggers. Have a good one. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? 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. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you There were birds in your tears

Falling from the sky Into a dry riverbed That began to flow down to A cross tower and high up above the water and maple trees surrounded it leaves caught flame with golden embers