Pints With Aquinas - 169: Aquinas on the Passions, W/ Fr. Gregory Pine

Episode Date: September 3, 2019

Today Fr. Pine and I begin a two part series on Aquinas' understanding of the passions. I've posted a document which will help you better understand what we go into today at https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd/posts So be sure to check that out. Thanks! 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

G'day! Welcome! How's it going? You doing alright? Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Look, my name's Matt Fradd and I've just got a question for you. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any question, you know, or any series of questions around a particular topic, what would it be? Over the next two weeks we are going to be joined around the bar table by Father Gregory Pine to talk about the passions, what Aquinas had to say about the emotions. Lots to talk about. This gets really philosophical and intricate and really applicable too, to our walk with the Lord and just our lives in general with our family and loved ones.

So buckle up. This is going to be an amazing two weeks. Here we go. Yes, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. My name is Matt Fratton. As I already said, we're going to be chatting with Father Gregory Pine over the next two weeks about the emotions, the passions. Aquinas uses the word passio. He doesn't use the word emotions, but that's kind of a helpful translation of it. This week, we're going to give a basic overview of what Aquinas has to say. And then next week, we're going to delve into the Summa Theologiae specifically. So just to kind of give you a heads up, we're going to be discussing what Aquinas means by the emotions. We're going to talk about the four powers of the soul.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the difference between the irascible and concupiscible appetite and what that even means. We're going to talk about the four principal emotions and the 11 emotions. Don't worry, I'm going to put a table for you so that you can track along with what we're going to be talking about. So if you go to the show notes and click that link, it'll take you right through. And yeah, it'll be really helpful if you check that out. I wouldn't necessarily, yeah, this is going to be great. It's awesome. I was drinking Jack Daniels. And at the beginning of the episode, I'm like, I love it. Jack Daniels is amazing. It's not that bad. Why does everyone hate it? But I've drunk almost none of it because it turns out it tastes like crap. So there's that.

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We are recording this on the feast of the Dormition of Mary. So I have had a ton of coffee because we're staying up tonight and doing a lot of prayers. Oh, nice. You ever pray the Akathist to Mary? I have. Let's see. I went to Steubenville. And a lot of times when people go to Steubenville, they spend a semester abroad in Austria, which I did. And at Austria, there is a Byzantine community on the same campus as the Steubenville students. And they would have the Akathist hymn once a week. And I joined a couple of times. Yeah. It's really beautiful. It can take about

15 minutes to half hour. We're going to pray with the kids late tonight. Nice. Yes. I remember there being invocations of the Blessed Virgin, which were like wild. Oh, yeah. Like halo space of the spaceless God and halo ladder down which God descended. So those are pretty sweet. Yeah, it's really beautiful. Are you drinking tonight or no?

I am. I'm having a very uninteresting throat coat tea. It's like alcohol, except without any of the alcoholic things and most of the boringness. Well, I feel really trashy tonight because I'm drinking Jack Daniels. Oh, no. Hey, I think that's the number one selling whiskey in the world. You know, I don't mind it. This is my take, right?

When young boys become men and develop a taste for scotch, they become pretentious and talk about the grandeur that is scotch. But eventually you just start enjoying whiskey for the sake of whiskey, and then you're not as pretentious. And to me, that's a sign that you're actually further along the sophistication scale. so contrary to how it may seem i'm actually more sophisticated than the person mocking me listening right now who drinks lagavulin because i'm drinking jack daniels no i don't know well um so i would say like by disposition as an aussie you probably predispose to hate anything that smacks of pretension or elitism so that would give you a kind of pre kind of like a predisposition towards the the everyday man's, which I think Jack Daniels is decidedly the every man's whiskey. Well, thank you.

I hope that's true. I mean, it's a fine drink. Honestly, the reason I got it is I had a bunch of people coming over the other night, and I knew they were going to want to drink. And I'm like, oh, gosh, I don't want to buy something expensive. So I just bought a bottle of Jack, and no one drank it. So now I'm drinking. Well, I think, okay, this was told to me at one point. expensive so i just bought a bottle of jack and no one drank it so now i'm drinking um well i think okay this was told to me at one point i think jack daniels is made well it's made in tennessee

obviously because it's tennessee whiskey but i think it's made by the same company that makes let's see woodford reserve and old forester oh yeah which is like uh i mean it's i can't remember i think the whole handling company is called brown foreman and i think that yeah somebody told me this that for every one bottle of Jim Beam White Label, which is the most, like the highest grossing or most popular bourbon whiskey, there are two bottles of Jack Daniels that are sold. So it's basically twice as popular as the most popular bourbon. So when people are like, this is trash, then you just ask them, like, why do so many people like it? Are you saying that people are trash? Are you saying most people are deplorable? Exactly, yeah is trash. Then you just ask them, like, why do so many people like it? Are you saying that people are trash? Are you saying most people are deplorable?

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not. I mean, it's got this kind of like sweet corn kind of, I don't know, glue taste. Notes of glue. What's your favorite bourbon, again, that we had that night? Henry McKenna 10-year, bottled in Bond. It's delicious.

And you said to me that this was owned by an American company. Exactly, yeah, by Heaven Hill out of Bardstown, Kentucky. Yeah, no offense to the Japanese, but they pretty much own all of the scotches, don't they? Or bourbons? They own a lot of bourbons, yeah. Suntory Whiskey owns quite a few. I don't actually know how it all breaks down. I know Suntory and Diageo own a couple of things.

If I betray any more knowledge, it'll get to satisfying. Yeah, no problem. No problem. know how it all breaks down i know like santori and diageo own a couple of things if i like betray any more knowledge it'll get to satisfying um yeah no problem no problem well good thing we're not here to talk about whiskey all night yeah heaven forfend that we just spend i mean we have different we have different types of people who listen to this show some people like the banter and other people are like if i wanted to have banter i would go get a coffee with a friend shut up and teach me yeah well I'm glad to supply for both needs and to incense both constituencies at different points in the thing. So, yeah, cheers.

Thank you. Cheers to you. Last time we chatted and you were on the show, you were talking about this program that the Dominicans were coming up, you know, these video series teaching people about the Summa. How's that coming along? It is coming along. So, we just had the website go live today.

Ooh, I'm going to check it out right now while we talk. Aquinas101.com. And it's great. It's like beautifully done. The production company is Coronation Media out of Emmitsburg. Oh, well done. This is nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those guys are just really, they're really excellent, super professional, and they have done an excellent job. So yeah, it's going to be, all told, like 85 videos in length. And the first few, I'll just introduce you to St. Thomas, and then the next bunch introduce you to the basics of his philosophy. And then we just kind of like take your hand and walk you through the Summa. So that way you have the background so that you can read St. Thomas on his own terms.

So that's sweet. And there you are on the front page looking studly. Check it out. All smiles. My daughter just went to a, what do you say? A nunification? A nunnery? In Nashville? She became a nun?

Yeah, there you go. A profession. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In July, August? A week ago, last week. Nice. Okay, yeah. In July, August? A week ago, last week. Nice. Okay, cool. Don't ask me the name of the lady who was professed, but I knew it was a Dominican. And it was so cool because my daughter's really pumped about becoming a Dominican.

I'm like, yes. No way. That's wild. How old is your daughter? Twelve. Okay, perfect. Yep. She's ready. Yeah, she's glorious. She's so beautiful. And her name's Avila. Oh, wow. Carmelite or's glorious. She's so beautiful. And her name's Avila. Oh, wow. So Carmelite or Dominican, but it's so beautiful. Because you don't see a lot of nuns.

You don't see a lot of nuns, but they're out there. Yeah, for sure. And the Nashville Dominican sisters are wonderful. They have a house here around the corner from where I live in Washington, D.C., and we say Mass for them. And it's like a joy. It's a delight of the week to be able to say Mass for them because they're super attentive, super engaged, very appreciative, and just delightful. I mean, their religious consecration is a witness for me, like how to

love the Lord in a way that's deep and spousal and generous. So it's great. Well, I am so excited about these next two episodes in which we are going to discuss Thomas Aquinas on the emotions because I've tried reading about Thomas on the emotions and I feel like I have a basic idea. But I also feel like I need a graph in front of me to keep it all together. So I'm really hoping that in this first episode, we can sort of introduce me and our listeners to what Thomas has to say in general, and then in the next episode, maybe dive deeper into what he says in the Summa. I like that plan. Good, good. Well, let's just start with a very generic question. Where does Aquinas discuss the emotions, and what does he mean by the word? finest discuss the emotions and what does he mean by the word? Excellent. So, right. The Summa Theologiae unfolds in three main parts, right? So first part, second part, third part. The first

part generally treats God and creation. Then the second part, the moral life. And then the third part treats Christ and the sacraments. And the second part is then divided up into the first part of the second part and the second part of the second part, called in Latin the prima secundae and the secundus secundae. And the prima secundae is kind of what's sometimes referred to as fundamental moral theology. So these are the general principles. And it begins with a consideration of the end. So in order to know where you're going, you have to know what your destination is. of the end. So in order to know where you're going, you have to know what your destination is. And then it passes to, so those are the first five questions. And then the next like 16 questions are on human action and on like object and circumstance, what are sometimes called the

fonts of morality. And then like, you know, the voluntary and the involuntary, like kind of like fundamental considerations like that. And then the next huge chunk, so questions 22 through 48 are all devoted to what St. Thomas calls the passions or what we would call the emotions more typically. And what he basically, his division is, so we just talked about the principles of human action, and now we're going to talk about the intrinsic principles of human action. He says, like, we've already talked about powers basically in an earlier section in the first part, that is to say like the faculties of human action. He says, like, we've already talked about powers, basically, in an earlier section in the first part, that is to say, like the faculties of the soul. So now then let's talk about like other interior principles. And he says, let's talk first about what is common to man and beasts. So this would be the passions. And then he says, we'll talk

about what's specific to man. And then this would be habits, which would be virtues and vices. And then he goes from there at the end of the Prima Secundae to talk about extrinsic or external principles of the moral life, which would be law and grace. So after having discussed the end and then the basic principles of what human action entails, he then transitions into a discussion of the emotions as a way of getting a sense for what it means to act in an embodied animal creature in a way that's common to both man and beast. But obviously, his descriptions are going to be more specific to man before he gets to habits and virtues and vices. And then you asked about how he describes it or how he names it. Yeah, because he doesn't use the word emotion. My understanding is he uses the Latin word passio,

which is an exact equivalent of Aristotle's pathos. And so the way he would use or the translation emotion might be very different to how we would use it today. So I just want to know, what does he mean when he's talking about passions? today. So I just want to know, what does he mean when he's talking about passions? Sure. Yeah. So like you said, passio or the plural is passionas comes from the Latin verb, I think it's pati, P-A-T-I, which is, nevermind, it's not important, no further description, which just means to suffer, right? Which comes from the Greek pathane or pathe would be the noun, I guess, meaning the same thing. So, right, like the passion of the Christ, it has the same implication that it's something that has suffered.

And before suffering entails, you know, like a psychological anguish or deep pain of a spiritual nature, suffering just means that something in you changes. So St. Thomas has like an initial consideration of what passion means. And he says, it just basically means some change. And ordinarily, we mean it to be like a change for the worse. But that does not necessarily have to be the case. And in the case of the passions, what he's thinking about is like, it's a corporeal change, which is to say it's a change that happens in our body. So whereas formerly, you know, we were kind of strolling about through the park, then all of a sudden we see like a loose bobcat, you know, that got out of the city zoo. And there's something that changes in our body, right? Like a rush of

adrenaline, you know, all of these different physiological changes that accompany fear or accompany panic or whatever like that. So when we're talking about the passions, we build up our vision from a foundation of what it means to have an embodied life and what these basic sense responses are to sense input. Do the angels have passions? The angels do not have passions because they don't have bodies. So for which reason, it would be improper to speak of them as having emotions. But as we kind of like go, I suppose we'll talk about how the passions have both bodily and spiritual dimensions, right? So St. Thomas is willing to talk about passions and affections, and usually affection entails some kind of like spiritual dimension of a passion. And oftentimes he uses two words to describe a particular passion,

depending upon whether he's describing it in a more embodied way or in a more spiritual way. So like, for instance, when he talks about like happiness, for instance, or like delight, he'll talk about it as delexio or delectatio, sorry, initially. But then when he talks about it in its more spiritual dimensions, he speaks of it as gaudium, meaning joy. So because we're not like a combination of an animal thing and a spiritual thing, like Descartes may have seemed to indicate, it's not substance dualism that we're working with here. We're one thing.

We're a composite of body and soul. So we are embodied souls or ensouled bodies. And as a result of which, all of these passions that we undergo or suffer will have in us both bodily and spiritual dimensions. And we can speak about them under both aspects or under both lights. But it's helpful to start with the recognition that it is a bodily phenomenon. And when we think of the emotions, I could see two extremes. On one end, you have stoicism that looks at the emotions as bad. Maybe on the other end of the spectrum, you have people today who just say, go with your emotions, you know, shun pain, pursue pleasure.

And then you've got Aquinas somewhere in the middle, right? Yeah. So Aquinas is often in the treatise on the passion. So again, in the Prima Secunda, questions 22 through 48. So again, in the Prima Secundae, questions 22 through 48, and if you're looking just to start, you know, kind of reading somewhere, the first four questions, 23 to 25, are the ones that are on the passions in general before he starts going into the particulars. He'll often engage with the Stoics. And I think it's either Seneca, I think it's Seneca or Cicero, refers to the passions as perturbationes anime, just meaning like perturbations of the soul. No one would ever say perturbations, but like disturbances of the soul. So recall that like the, the stoic ideal is to kind of transcend, um, the, you know, throes of time and fate, you know, it's to be, to rise above in a pretty thorough going way. Um, you know,

you've heard of this kind of singular virtue of apatheia. Um, soia. So to be tossed about by emotion was seen as a defect, right? And you can't have like a virtue that considers something evil, for instance, or something sorrowful. So these are to be shunned. So St. Thomas is often comparing the tradition proper to the Stoics and the tradition proper to what he calls the peripatetics or like the Aristotelian philosophers. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I'm seeing a lot more people reference and reading people like Marcus Aurelius and advocating Stoicism. It kind of goes along with that kind of minimalist mentality and being happy with just the minimal amount, the bare minimum. I guess this is a big topic maybe, but how is Stoicism helpful,

but then why is it not Christian ultimately? So, yeah, I can see a number of reasons why Stoicism would initially be attractive. Specifically, I think, you know, in an age that is kind of, how would I put this, like seduced by Nietzschean themes, even if we lack the real fortitude to be true Nietzscheans. You know, we see that there are some absurd, you know, dimensions of life. And we, you know, like many people want to deny that there is a God because they're too attached to certain things which they know God forbids. So as a result of which, they want to look at this absurd cosmos, but

they've already ruled out the best explanatory or like ultimate justification. And so like, what do you do before the absurd if you want to continue to live a, you know, like a coherent human life? Well, you have to be resolute, right? You kind of have to stand athwart the absurdity and stare back into the void in a way that's somehow meaningful in a way that you yourself have created. And with like the stoic ideal, effectively what you're doing is you're rising above. And it's a kind of humanist philosophy in as much as it exalts man. But it has still this kind of attractive theme of, you know, melioration. You can still improve yourself. And it's not like a base or crass self-help model. It's something that people recognize as noble. So I think that, yeah, for a

lot of people, this sounds attractive, right, at least. But then you have to contend with the fact that your desires are all inflamed. And you really want like food and you really want drink and you really want sexual intercourse. And like it turns out that disciplining these desires is exceedingly hard. Right. So, you know, the other option on the other end of the spectrum, which you mentioned more like a kind of hedonism, ends up claiming more for its own. And, you know, it's not just that we want sex and food and these sorts of things. It's also that we should want them. Like, in other words, emotions aren't an obstacle.

Emotions per se are not an obstacle to holiness. No, right. That's okay. Yeah. That's an absolutely essential thing to emphasize at the outset. So for like St. Thomas, St. Thomas doesn't have a theory of emotion, which entails repression or suppression, right? It's not about just appealing to the will and white knuckling your way through life. Like, well, you really want food that just you need to batten down the hatches, you know, and just fast until such time as you're holier. What St. Thomas recognizes is that the passions are just movements of our sense appetite. So basically there are things out there in the world that we recognize as fitting for us, whether it be food or drink, you know, which build up our individual life and preserve

us in existence, or sexual intercourse, which build up the life of the species and hand on our existence, or, you know, like whatever other things that we find pleasant, be it music or play or liturgy or, you know, go on down the line of things that people find attractive. And these things just kind of appeal to us in a sensory way. And they beget in us an inclination or an appetite. So the way that St. Thomas would talk about it is the things out there take up a kind of existence in our minds and hearts, right? And they beget in us a form. And that form has a dynamism to it. It wants to seek its term. It wants to bring about a further perfection in the heart

of the human. And so we move towards these things. But the question is whether we move towards them in a way that is orderly or in a way that's like that represents a real integral humanism that builds us up according as we are. So we're not just, you know, like reproduction, growth and nutrition. We aren't just sense, cognition, appetite, and movement. We're also blessed with an intellect and a will, which are most constitutive of what it means to be a human being. And so for St. Thomas, it's essential that the passions be incorporated into a truly human life, which entails the judgment and the dictate of reason and the ordering of will, and ultimately that

our minds and hearts are illumined by the law of God. And so the passions are to be incorporated into a truly human life that will represent our flourishing. But that means that they're ordered, they're still ordered to their ends, but they're ordered in a way now that represents, well, basically they're put in their proper place. And so we're able to enjoy the objects of those desires more than previously because we want what is good, and we want it in the right way, and we want it according to the right measure. And so we're no longer threatened by the vehemence of our passions, but rather they've come to be trained, ordered, healed, purified, actually empowered and emboldened in a truly virtuous life.

Yeah, I just got the thought of a fire. A fire is good when it is in its place, namely the fireplace. It is not good when it's on the carpet and burning down the living room. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. There was was once a time it was in our third house where like we lit a fire okay trigger warning this might be slightly traumatic um we lit a fire in the fireplace and then we heard these like terrible scratching sounds and i was like wow that's that's awful and then it was like wow that's coming from our fireplace and then i was like wow that's bad and then we saw like the little hand and footprints of a squirrel and we're like, oh no. Where did you see the footprints and hands? And like the smoked glass in the front of the fireplace. So we just swung the door open and

that guy just like ran around our house for a little bit. But there was a distinct possibility of him having like a burning bushy tail. Right. And then we would have like burning balances. But at that point he was just sooty. So it all worked out. But yeah, a burning carpet is a distinct possibility, and we don't want that. Right. So the passions are good when they are, what do you say, in accord with reason and not good when they're not. Yes. Yeah. The passions are good when they're not squirrels with burning tails. All right. So what are the four powers of the soul? And I want you to help us understand what irascible and concupiscible mean. Perfect. So St. Thomas takes his cue when describing the human person from Aristotle's famous book called the De Anima, which just means on the soul.

And the way that Aristotle basically builds out his vision is he observes reality and he makes note of the fact that some things are, well, some things are alive and some things are not, for instance. And he doesn't make that as a kind of prejudgment, but he says, okay, you got rocks, which don't really have any principle of interiority or any principle of dynamism. They just are done unto. They themselves are not agents. They're not doing anything except what happens to them. And then he says, but there's these other things on offer that are somehow set apart from the rocks, right? So like plants, they have certain basic things that they do. There's a kind of interiority and there's life, which is to say

there's a principle of growth or dynamism. And he when he talks about plants, he talks about three basic powers. So they grow, they self-nourish and they reproduce, which is kind of uninteresting because none of those things admit of habituation. You can't like self-nourish better or grow better or reproduce better. You know, like don't think of the accompanying things right now that are coming to mind because we're going to get to them when it comes to the higher things. But those things just kind of happen by virtue of your corporeal disposition. So then he observes like, okay, beyond plants, maybe you got some limit cases with like strange lichen or like Venus fly traps. Okay. But then eventually you get to a higher order of beings, namely animals, and these have further powers. So they have sense cognition, right? So they have the five external senses and then they have internal senses. So they coordinate their sense experience by their common sense. They have memories to retain sense images.

They have an imagination to generate sense images and a memory to retain them. And they have this like estimative power, which is kind of like reason, whatever. And then they have appetites that follow on those cognitions. And they also have the power of motion, locomotion. And here now we're talking about things in the case of our human lives that can be habituated. They can be trained. That is to say that they can become better or worse at doing what it is that they're made to do. And then when you get to man, obviously you have the further powers of intellect and will. So the four powers that are under consideration when St. Thomas is talking about the virtuous life are the passions, which he breaks out into the concupiscible power and the irascible power, and then the will and the intellect. So when it comes to the passions, what we're talking about is sense appetite, right?

So it's appetite is just a desire for something that you've apprehended. In the case of sense appetite, it's you've apprehended it by sense. So you've seen something red and shiny and like kind of oblate sphero ish with two dimples at top and bottom and a little stem and like a little leaf and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, Ooh, that's an apple. That might be delicious. And then you get closer and you see it's a red, delicious apple. And you're like, yuck, million gross. Get that away from me. Or you see that it's like a gala apple or honey crisp or like a pink lady. And you're like, dude, pass me the rock and watch what I do with it. Right? So once you've, once you've apprehended what it is, you've collated

your sense experience, you generated an image, right? You've appealed to your memory of past experiences of similarly shaped things. Then that begets in you a desire to assimilate that thing because you know that it tastes delicious. It's like one of those delicious snacks where when you eat it, you don't feel regret afterwards or sluggishness. It's just the perfect pick me up at 3.15 in the afternoon. We've got a couple more hours of work to do, yada, yada. Okay. a perfect pick me up at 315 in the afternoon. We've got a couple more hours of work to do, yada, yada. Okay. So the passions are just those, those movements born of our apprehension. Um, and when we talk about, uh, certain passions, uh, they're just the kind of passions that happen or the kind of movements or the kind of appetites that arise when we perceive something as simply

good or simply evil. So there's no real complexity to it. We just see like, ooh, apple, you know, it's ready at hand, it's free, it's in a common room or it's in room in the bucket that says free to take whatever. So it's just like, ooh, delicious. So that begets in us a desire, you know, begets in us a kind of love, right? We apprehend it as something fitting for us. It begets in us a desire to eat it. Once we eat it, it begets in us a kind of joy. On the flip side, then you have certain like evil things, right? So like, you're in the same break room with like one other person who's a chronic and unrepentant farter, you know, and then things start to smell stinky. And you're like, disgusting, it's in my mouth, gross, right? And then you just like that begets in you a kind of hatred.

My eyes are watering. Yes, exactly. A hatred of the smell and then an aversion to it, you know, so like a kind of movement away from it. But then, you know, like, God forbid you're locked in that room or he's your boss and he's got you in thrall, you know, and you have to like listen to his disquisition on something crazy. Then that begets a new sorrow. You're like, oh, no, I must resign myself to this terrible fate. so those are just the concupiscible power is the seed of those passions, which are just kind of simple recognitions and movements considering what is good or what is evil. And then the irascible power, um, this last thing, and then

I'll stop talking. Um, the irascible power is when we encounter something that entails a certain difficulty. Okay. So no longer are we dealing with a simple good or a simple evil, but it's, but it's a good with some kind of arduousness or some kind of difficulty attached to it. So for instance, the apple is now, um, like far away from us, or we're in a particular area in New York city where everything is three times as expensive as it ought to be. And there's the thought of paying that much for an apple just makes us want to die. Or, yeah, it's like the apple is on the top of a really dusty fridge. And just the thought of getting the edge of your sleeve across the top of this disgusting fridge that someone was supposed to dust, but they didn't.

It's just like, oh, it's horrible. So now there's some kind of difficulty. And that can inspire in us different movements. We might be like, I still want the apple. I'm going to go for it. Or like, I've got to confront this difficulty and deal with it. Or like, maybe this isn't worth it and I should shy away from it. Or maybe this thing is just going to happen. And this stinks, you know, bummer.

And so this is these are the passions that would issue from the irascible power. Erascible just comes from the word era for anger. So it's like anger is one of the irascible passions. So yeah, it's just the response to some good or evil, but now we've got a difficulty admixed. So is that relative to different people? Someone might not find something arduous and some other person might, and so therefore one talks of it as an irascible power needed and the other doesn't? So I think, what do I want to say?

So in the objective order, some things are easy and some things are difficult. Now, how that appears to you is a matter of your habituation. So you can train, like temperamentally, some people are better inclined to encounter difficulty, right? Like, um, yeah, if you're born in North Dakota and then you move to Washington DC and all of these weakling East coasters are just like freezing when it's 25 degrees outside, you, you just like go outside in your short sleeves to make a point, you know, because you are born of tougher stock. Um, so like for you temperamentally nature nurture, it's just, it's not as difficult. And so

it might not actually, like you said, engage the same kind of passionate response. But by and large, a lot of how something appears to us is a matter of habituation. So whether we've grown in virtue or whether we've devolved in vice. So I think in answer to your question, yes, on the one hand, but on the other hand too, it also is a matter of the virtues, like that something can still be a matter of an irascible response or an irascible passion. But because we have been trained in righteousness or in unrighteousness, we find it either easier or harder to undertake. I want to share this little excerpt from Francis Selman from his book, Aquinas 101. I believe there's a website by that name. Just to kind of maybe kind of go around this one more time and get your take on it, because I think he sums it up excellently.

So he says the soul has four powers. Two of these are rational and two are irrational. The rational powers of the soul are reason and will. The irrational powers are the two sensitive appetites, the concupiscible, in other words, we can use all the desiring and the irascible appetites. We have emotions because we have a sensitive nature. Every animal is equipped with a desiring and irascible appetites so that it first seeks the good things that it needs to preserve its life and can then overcome any obstacles it meets in seeking the good it needs. I like that. can then overcome any obstacles it meets in seeking

the good it needs. I like that. I like that. So it seeks the good that it needs to preserve its life. What would this be? This would be like the concupiscible. And then it seeks to overcome obstacles that would prevent it from seeking or maintaining its good.

And that's the irascible. Do you like that as a summary of it? I do. Yeah, good and that's the irascible do you like that as a summary of it i do yeah i think that's that's excellent and it's good too to emphasize which he which he brings out is that um basically it's a response to something in reality yeah right um so like there are things out there in the world and the question is whether we are outfitted with what we need to respond in turn so like um, um, yeah, like we, we encounter things that are simply delightful or, you know, simply not undelightful. Uh, and, and it's, we are equipped with the passionate responses so we can engage well or ill. Um, so too,

there are things on offer that are difficult or the require kind of fortitude from us or require a kind of, you know, dot, dot, dot, you get it. And, and so too, we have this, this irascible power whereby to engage and mind you, we can habituate it well or ill. But effectively we are outfitted with everything in our humanity that we need to, to gain access to reality or to avail ourselves of the things in reality that build us up in our human life. So yeah, I like the way that he emphasizes that, that emphasizes that the human heart corresponds to what is real, you know? Yeah. So two kind of quick summaries of the emotions. He says, the emotions then are movements

of our sensitive appetites when we apprehend things as good or evil. And then he says, an emotion is a movement of the appetite felt as a result of the impression of something good or evil. And then he says an emotion is a movement of the appetite felt as a result of the impression of something good or evil. Can you repeat that? Yeah. Because I've got a question about that. Emotion is a movement of the appetite felt as a result of the impression of something good or evil.

Yeah. So if we encounter something that we perceive to be neither good nor evil, we don't have an emotion, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So like there are certain things on offer that just strike us as neutral. Right. St. Thomas will say, you know, that there are no neutral moral acts because you always choose for a good or an evil end. But that there are things in reality that don't just really, yeah, they don't move us. But then there are acts which he wouldn't consider strictly as human acts. So if I scratch my nose out of just because I have an itch and I do it unthinkingly, this wouldn't be considered a moral or a human act. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So there's a sense in which, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a sense in which, yeah, there are acts that are

non-voluntary. So it's not that they're voluntary or involuntary, right? It's not that we've chosen to do so in a profoundly human way, or we've kind of had it like forced upon us, whether by coercion or fear or, you know, deep concupiscence, whatever it is. You know, it's just like, it's the kind of thing that our will doesn't even really enter into the matter, right? The pumping of our heart. Um, like you said, the scratching of your nose, uh, these are, these are kind of things that just happen instinctually. Uh, and so the emotional life pertains properly to that kind of, uh, at least initially it pertains properly to a kind of neutral oftentimes encounter with reality. Um, which is just a, like a long and overly complicated way

of saying that the emotions on their own terms are neither good nor bad. What matters is how they are incorporated into a human life. Here, helpful image. I have one. So think about a river. There are parts of this analogy that are going to be like unhelpful and dumb, but I think it's like, helpful in going, but I think it's like, yeah, it's in general, it's okay. All right. Um, so think about a river. Let's say that this river is a big, that it, a lot of water passed through this river. Um, and let's say that it meanders pretty wildly. You know, it's like breaking off Oxbow lakes every here and there. I just wanted to say Oxbow lakes because that's like the first opportunity I've had to say it since eighth grade. What earth science. What is it? Oh, you better believe it. Time for this. So like when a river meanders, right, it gets more and more sinuous.

But then sometimes the water just breaks through and cuts off one of the meanders. That, my friend, is called an oxbow lake. That's amazing. Awesome. I'm going to forget that in three minutes, but for right now, I'm delighting in it. Exactly. Revel in the oxbow lake. So let's say that this river, yeah, it's just, it's,

it is torrential. It is something that's super strong, but it's also really unruly. So it floods the countryside in a way that's, you know, it makes the land fertile, but it's also super destructive. So like everyone has their house on stilts and they're constantly moving them back away from the river, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So lots of bad things, but also lots of good things. So the emotions are like this, right? They're helpful for industry. They're helpful for transport. They're helpful for agriculture, right? But they also can be really destructive. That siren that's going by your window right now. Yeah, baby. Washington, D.C. Hustle and flow. That's actually an ambulance. So hopefully that

guy's doing okay. MedStar, right around the corner um thank you for pointing that out uh so full thought um i'm coming back to it here it is it's all coming back it's either good or bad something about an ospo oxpo lock block blocker river something lockbox so um so yeah like they're they're helpful for industry they're helpful for transportation they're helpful for um agriculture but they're for transportation. They're helpful for agriculture. But they're also they can be super destructive. Right. So the virtues basically are what incorporate those emotions into a deeper human culture.

They're they're they're what make the passions more civilized. So in this image, the virtues will be like a large dam. OK, you're going to think like, wow, that's a very repressive image that you just made there. Well, like deal with it. Okay. So it's like a huge dam because then you can control the river. You can control its flooding. You can still use it for industry. You can still use it for transportation. You can still use it for agriculture, but you can actually use it better. And you get hydroelectric power and you, you're able to like power the entire countryside. in the case of like the hoover dam you're able to make sweet lake mead national recreation area and people can bring their wind surfing implements there and enjoy themselves to the nth degree for a

whole day's worth of recreation so you also get further benefits from it but effectively it means disciplining those desires or disciplining those passionate responses so that you can incorporate it into a human culture and in human life, but actually kind of raise it up into what is properly spiritual in man. Yeah, this is really good for a number of reasons. I don't know where to go at this point. I'm like a river that's forking off in two different directions. I'm trying to figure which one to go down. Let's go with this one. I mean, this is really important just for the spiritual life, because we talk about this a lot, right? That it's not about the emotion, it's whether we kind of consent to it

and these sorts of things. So like, how does Thomas's understanding of the emotions being good and I guess neutral to a degree, how does that help us in our spiritual life? So I think in a number of ways. A first thought is like don't freak out, right? So part of human life is educating desire. So like, I mean, just to back up a second, if you were to ask most Christians, does man desire too much or too little? I think a lot of people based on the formation would say that we desire too much, right? Yeah. They would think about our appetite and that's what they would focus on.

Yeah. Like we have to, you know, like we think too much about like food and drink and sex, et cetera. But truth be told, the real drama of Christian life is to desire more or to desire better. And our passions are just like the raw energy which supply us with the initial get up and go to do just that. So if you're like, wow, I'm like super irascible and angry, that like causes me great concern and deep consternation. It's like it's like not a big deal. Right. This is part of how God is saving you, because if you are vehement, if you are passionate, it's because God has a plan that will mean or God has a plan such that this is going to grow in you. It's going to be healed.

It's going to be purified. But it's also going to be elevated. It's going to be inspired in a pretty profound way. And I think that you're going to glorify God in a way that is vehement and intense and passionate. Right. But in such a way that it's now virtuous because it's been incorporated into truly like human culture and a true human life. So if at least initially like, wow, there are like a lot of super destructive tendencies in my life. I have an addictive personality. OK, sure, that might be the case. And getting rid of habitual

sin will be tough at the outset. But then think of how well and how tenaciously you can cling to good habits. Think of how well you're going to be at like streaks, you know, reading whatever spiritual work that you want to read every day for a hundred days in a row, or sticking to your commitment to, you know, pray the rosary. Whatever has a kind of dark underbelly can also have a beautiful promise of, you know, like real sanctification or real growth in the life of the Spirit. So the first point would just be to say, like, don't worry. This is an indication of how God is saving you, right? The only thing that Jesus destroys, the only thing that he takes away is sin. Everything else he elevates and perfects.

So your passionate life is part of the story of how you are made to glorify God. And that's good news, right? So to be a saint doesn't mean to run roughshod over the things about yourself, which might cause you a bit of consternation or fear or whatever. It means discerning the ways in which or just simply being faithful to the ways in which God is saving you precisely in and through those things. And I'm sure as a confessor, you must have penitents who come to you and they explain that they are having certain thoughts and feelings and emotions. And they're wondering whether or not they're sinful, right? Whether that be to lusting after another man's wife. It might not even be lusting.

It might just be an accidental daydream or somebody who has same-sex attraction. How do you gauge when this emotion is willed and therefore becomes sinful? So, yeah, excellent. St. Thomas has a distinction between antecedent and consequent passion, right? There's basically, it's bad when a passion dictates the trajectory of our action, uh, in a way that's unreflective when we fly off the handle, as it were in the case of, um, you know, anger. Uh, and then it's good when it, when it represents, um, like real human prudence, not that it has to be something that's like deliberated.

Like I will now respond in passionate form, right? As if you were like a robot who went through a number of steps and only after having deliberated for two and a half minutes, then posited an act. This can be something that's spontaneous, right? But, but it has to be something that issues from a virtue. Um, it has to be something that's truly a virtue. It has to be something that's truly human, that has engaged you as a human person with that whole kind of manifold that we described earlier. So when it comes to a temptation, temptations arise. Right. There's there's very little next to nothing that one can do about that. You can manage the way in which you you can manage your inputs. Basically, you can avoid the near occasion of sin or the near occasion of temptation.

So people notice that they have greater problems with chastity when they drink too much. Or watch Game of Thrones. Or watch Game of Thrones, for instance. Yeah, the media that you consume is significant, even music, even if the lyrics themselves aren't sensual. But music that kind of recurs in your thoughts or wakes you up at night, causes you kind of fitful or restful sleep, can often be a source of, you know, yeah, disquietude, and as a result of which, of temptation. So you can become more and more vigilant, and you can monitor,

you know, the sources of input for sure. But temptations will arise, and the Lord permits temptations to arise so that your character can be tried and proven. And in the case that you do fall, that he can bring about in you a growth in the virtue of humility and a deepened recognition of your own dependence upon the Lord. So – Oh, go ahead. You keep going. I was just going to say, so when the temptation does arise, it's not something to be afraid of on those terms because it's going to happen. We have this embodied nature. We are, we have this embodied nature. We are embodied souls or in soul bodies. And so sense appetibles, you know, things that we,

that we cognize or things that we recognize out there on offer are going to appeal to us. They're going to stir up our appetites and they're going to move us. But the question is how that, um, what, what, what kind of like what happens next happens next um is that something to which we consent is that something that we entertain is it something upon which we dwell or do we develop a prudence whereby we can dismiss those things or perhaps flee from those things or perhaps sideline those things you know people have all different kinds of ways of dealing with temptation but that our appetites are moved should not in any way surprise or scandalize us. It's just it will come, you know, gird your loins and, you know, take up your staff. So, yes, that's a full thought.

Yeah. I mean, I had someone come up to me the other day and he was talking to me about these sexual daydreams that would come upon him. And I've experienced that. And I think most people have, too. And sometimes something like that will pop into your mind and you wonder, oh gosh, was I just sinning there? And this person was asking me, how do I know when I've crossed that threshold and that this is now something I need to repent of, as opposed to say a fleeting thought? What do you say to people who come to confession and might have a question like that? Yeah, I would say, so to start with the act

and then back it up to what immediately precedes the act and then back it up to the more remote culture that kind of lays the groundwork for the act. So with respect to the act, did you consent to it? And what does that mean? I mean that's a difficult thing to figure out sometimes. Yeah, and I don't think that we can be overly precise about it because I think that is ultimately unhelpful for our own praxis. I think that it's someone. So. So for one. OK. I don't think that it's an especially fruitful spiritual exercise to try to determine with each discrete act whether or not you consented. OK. Because I think that that that kind of builds in to your examination of conscience and to your discernment of your own interior states, a kind of scrupulous spirit. I think the downstream of like casuistry and the manualist tradition, which is proper to a lot of sacramental praxis for like the last 250

years, that you get a lot of tortured consciences precisely because there is this big insistence on determining whether or not something is sinful. Now, I'm not saying that we're dismissive and all like, you know, wild and woolly about the matter. But I think that what we're ultimately trying to cultivate are virtues, right? And virtues are more, they're just more involved than kind of like taxonomy, right? Or the identification of specific discrete acts. You know, I've, whatever. I think people suspect when it's happened and i think at that moment yes there you go there you go yeah i think that's that's good yeah as i mean what i it's easy to draw obvious distinctions at least you know there's one thing if you discover yourself

thinking about something it's another thing if you, I'm going to spend the next little few minutes just thinking this through, and that would be more the will. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I think people suspect that they have, and then you just make an act of contrition, but then you try to dismiss the thought, right? Because as with any sin, the next temptation is the devil's blackmail is to think yourself unworthy, to kind of get down on yourself for having failed, which ultimately is a logic of self-reliance. It's like, I ought to have done better. I ought to be better, dot, dot, dot, et cetera. But that's a road from which, you know, you just don't come back from that. You know, it's a matter of just heaping burning coals on your own head. And I don't think that's fruitful. Like St. Catherine of Siena said, never think of your sins

apart from God's mercy. And that's not to say that we presume upon it, but it is to say that we acknowledge the fact that we repent of it, right? So you just make an act of, a small act of contrition, Lord, I am sorry, right? But then you flee from it. You free from the thought of the thing because that itself can now represent a kind of temptation. Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks a lot. All right. So there are two sensitive appetites, the desiring and the irascible, the concupiscible and irascible. And they've got two objects, good and evil. And then there are four principal emotions. Can we talk about that?

Joy, sorrow, hope, fear. Sure, yeah. So St. Thomas identifies four as principal because they're the most basic responses. They're the most basic pairs of responses in each appetite. Okay. So like we said, you've got your sense appetite and within the sense appetite, there is the concupiscible power and the irascible power. I did a little like, um, etymology for irascible from era for anger and concupiscible comes from concupiscere, which in Latin just means to desire, which is like why many people equate it with the desiring appetite.

Another thing that you might hear is the simple appetite and the complex appetite or the complex power. Yeah, we also think of concupiscence. Yeah. Yep. Which I guess traditionally could mean just desiring in general. But today when you hear concupiscence, you think of a sexual desire, disordered sexual desire, or at least people talk about it that way. And yeah, people often talk about it too, is basically the same thing as original sin. But yeah, it all goes back to the same source, that it's just the most basic of our desires and, or the most basic of our sense desires.

And so we name it accordingly. So in the concupiscible appetite, the most basic responses are just the recognition of something as fitting for me or the recognition of something as unfitting for me. Right. So basically because we are what we are, because we have this nature, we have a sense of what it means to be human and also a sense of what it means to grow as a human, to unfold as a human, or to become perfect as a human. as a human, to unfold as a human, or to become perfect as a human. And so when we see things out there in the world, which represent to us a kind of perfection or a way to grow, then they beget in us a movement or a kind of recognition of something out there as fitting. So like the word that St. Thomas uses often is complacency, right? They cause in us a kind of complacency or they impart to us a kind of form.

And the most basic of responses to a good thing is just, he just calls love. Um, and the word that he uses is Amor, A-M-O-R. And if, you know, like it's, it's very similar to the word for love in a lot of romance languages. Um, but then on the flip side, we can recognize something out there is unfitting for us, which is to say that it represents, uh, if, if we were to assimilate it, it would kind of like make us deficient or it would, um, undermine our humanity somehow. And so before those things, uh, we have the experience of hatred, right? So it's just simple. It doesn't entail any movement, right? It's just the recognition of something as fitting or unfitting, whether it's lovable or hateful. And those are just the most simple and basic responses before we ever get into a description of our movement towards or rest in the thing loved or

hated. And then when he talks about the irascible appetite, if we recognize something as good and difficult, you know, but like worthy of pursuit, he says that begets in us hope. So here we're not thinking of hope in the sense of the theological virtue, though there is a deep connection between the passion of hope and the virtue of hope. But basically all hope says is that there is something out there that I have not yet obtained or I have not yet achieved that is a good for me, but to achieve it will be arduous, but I'm also willing to supply the moral energy that it entails to attain that thing. So yeah, it's a movement towards a good thing, but the recognition that you will have to undergo

some trial or difficulty. So that's the most basic of the irascible passions or the most basic passion in the irascible power. And then the flip side of that is fear. Okay. So fear considers what is evil and it represents a difficult evil that I don't think that I can avoid. Basically, it's something that's going to visit itself upon me and I consign myself to my fate.

I just cower in the corner and let it come. Right. Um, I might have a passing fancy or a small hope that it can be evaded, but I, but I basically think that this is how this is going to go down. Um, I'm thinking of the movie, a quiet place when Emily Blunt is, you know, like bloodied and about to give birth to her, you know, child and she's in a bathtub and these like terrible creatures are stalking her. It's like, what do you, what do you do? You know, if you make the smallest movement, they're going to like do whatever they do. Um, so she's, she's riddled with fear because it seems the evil that is threatening her seems practically speaking unavoidable. So yeah, so those would be the most basic responses. Again, in the concupiscible power, you have love, which

regards a good scene as fitting, uh, and then hatred, which regards an evil seen as unfitting. And then in the irascible power, you have hope, which regards a good, attainable, but difficult. And you have fear, which regards an evil, unavoidable, and as a result of which, you know, difficult. This is really great. It makes a lot of sense, too, that these four principal emotions concern good or evil as either present or still in the future. So if it's present, I love it if it's good or perceived as good, hate it if it's evil or is perceived as evil, or I hope for it if it's a good to be attained but is not yet present, or I fear it if it's an evil that could come upon me again whether actual or perceived yeah yeah yeah it's so commonsensical it is indeed um yeah i mean maybe some people think it's a little overly facile but i think it's yeah it's just a helpful way of conceiving of it in very clear terms. Fear flees from future evil and hope strains towards future good.

Exactly. Yeah. Now, maybe this is a good point to speak about how we only choose what we perceive to be good. Right. Yeah. So St. Thomas will talk about how we can only ever choose what is apprehended as good. And the reason for which is this, namely that that's the only thing that motivates us. So for instance, the way that St.

Thomas describes the good, he says, we call those things good, which all men desire, which men desire. So basically, what is it to be good? It's to be something that is desirable. And now St. Thomas has this whole metaphysics working under the hood, right, of the transcendentals. So there are beings, there are things that are, right, but that there are certain notions that are convertible with being. So everything that is, is also true, which is to say it's addressed to an intellect. But everything that is, is also good, which is to say it's addressed to an appetite. Because ultimately, like, you know, we are made towards our perfection. And to arrive there means building up our bodily and spiritual lives in such a way that they come to their full term or their full flourishing. So you can think of like an

acorn, right? I guess acorns become oak trees. But in order to get there, it needs a lot of things. It needs whatever light and water and nutriment and good soil. And it can't have too many competitors for all of those resources. Otherwise, it will wither and die. So when it encounters those things, it assimil we need food and drink and sexual intercourse. We need experiences of love and nurturing and of encouragement. We need to know the truth about God. We need to live in society. We need to shun ignorance, avoid offending those with whom we live. And so we're inclined to, whening these things to assimilate them. And that doesn't mean we're just like egotists that are trying to like, you know, take everything on offer and make it ours. But like that we are supposed to engage with them in a way that's a building of our of our human lives. And so when we see them, we recognize them as good.

And then as a result of which they be getting us an appetite for them. So we can only desire those things that we see as good because otherwise it would be a kind of strange contradiction at the heart of our nature that we are this type of thing and we are made towards this type of end. So like in what way, shape or form could we possibly choose something unto our destruction? Yeah. Even suicide, right? And maybe that's where you're going. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So St. Thomas will say that even when a person takes his or her own life, he does so with an eye towards the ending of pain, right? Or the potential remuneration of

his dependence or whatever it is. He does it under the aspect of some good, even if it's a simple acknowledgement that it would be better that I weren't here. So yeah, even that ultimate act of violence against oneself, he would say, is chosen under the aspect of good. Okay. So this is where I meant earlier that I need a whiteboard to figure all this out. We've got the four powers of the soul, the rational and the irrational. We've got the four principal emotions that we just talked about. What about the 11 emotions and why anger doesn't have a contrary? Is that too vague? No, that's great. Do you have that in front of you?

Let's just party on. So helpful distinctions again. So if you're listening along, you probably don't have a blackboard. You're probably in your car. But I tell you, here's what I'll do though. I'm definitely going to come up with some kind of graph or table for folks. So I'll link to it in the show notes. Dig. Okay. So as you drive, you know, between Hale and Breckenridge, you know, you can look on your phone while like navigating I-70. So again, let's talk about it in terms of the concupiscible power and of the irascible power. So there, St. Thomas will identify six basic passions in the concupiscible power and then five basic passions in the irascible power. So we've basically already

talked about them. So it's going to be helpful review, but, um, you know, maybe a creative restatement of what has gone before. So in the concupiscible power, we identified two basic responses. So there's love, which is the recognition of something seen as fitting or, um, like that, that begets in me a kind of complacency, right? Um, but at no point here are we talking about movement towards or rest in. We're just talking about recognition. Right. It's it's a kind of a spontaneous recognition of what is out there as somehow for me. And then on the flip side, there is hatred, which is the the the the inverse. Right. The spontaneous recognition of something out there as against me or something unfitting for me or or that like would otherwise threaten myself um and then from these two basic responses their flow uh further responses so in the case of love once you have made the recognition

of this thing out there as fitting if it's not present to you it begets in you a movement towards the thing itself and this we just call desire but if it is present to you, it begets in you a movement towards the thing itself, and this we just call desire. But if it is present to you or once it becomes present to you, then it begets in you the kind of experience of rest in the thing loved. And this St. Thomas will call, like I said earlier, delectatio, like delectation or pleasure, or in the more spiritual sense, joy, gaudium. Then again, to revisit the flip side, you have hatred, right? So the recognition of something out there is unfitting. And if that thing is threatening or coming towards you, or if that thing is not yet present, it begets in you aversion, right? So you want to shirk it, you want to draw away from it, you want to otherwise avoid it.

But if it visits itself upon you, right, if it's something that you find unavoidable, then it begets new sorrow or pain. So in the most basic sense, St. Thomas will just talk about it as dolor, which we recognize, you know, from the word dolorous. And then when it's more spiritual resonance, he talks about it as tristizia or, you know, the kind of flip side of gaudium, sadness. you know, the kind of flip side of Gaudium, sadness. So those would be the basic movements in the concupiscible power. Now, let's think about that, you know, think about our graph. We've got on the top left, you got love. On the bottom left, you got hatred, right? And then you're moving to the right, and each has a corresponding movement towards the thing not yet present. So in the case of the love, you have desire. In the case of hatred, you have aversion.

at present, so in the case of the love, you have desire. In the case of hatred, you have aversion. Before you get to those terminal states, before you get to delectation or joy, and before you get to pain or sadness, that's really where the movements of the irascible power would be situated. That's where we want to kind of nest them. So once you've begun to desire something, or once like kind of in that desiring or in that aversion, there is a recognition sometimes of a kind of complexity or a kind of arduousness. And here now we have the movements of fear, excuse me, of hope and fear, of daring and despair, and finally of anger. So in the case of hope, we described it as the, uh, the passionate movement towards a difficult good that is not yet present, but it is attainable. Okay. So, you know, the wind fills your sails and, you know, let's go back to our example of the apple. Let's say that, um, you can only get

the apple if you, okay. So it's an office party. And for some strange reason, they've invited a clown. And the clown is an expert juggler, right? And he's gone through like chainsaws and like burning torches and apples. And he says, if anyone can juggle longer than me with these apples, you know, he'll get to eat one. And you're like, I can actually do it because I spent 15 straight summers at a carny camp. These are fantastic analogies. I don't know. Have you thought of these before? They just come to you? No, carny camp just comes to me.

And I won best juggler the last 11 years that I was there. And I actually defeated the house clowns. And I think this sucker is going to underestimate me, but I think I can pull it off. So it's difficult, right? Because obviously this guy's been juggling chainsaws, right? But you are confident in your own powers and the thing is good and it's desirous and you just really want that apple, especially when you don't have to pay, you know, whatever, $1.10 per pound. So this would be hope.

Okay. Then on the flip side, you have fear where it's – it regards an evil, right, a difficult evil that is unable to be avoided or it seems unable to be avoided. a difficult evil that is unable to be avoided or it seems unable to be avoided. So this would be the kind of experience of like, well, this may as well happen, right? You just consign yourself to the fate because you can't imagine another way in which it could unfold. So yeah, like it's like that experience right before you get in a car wreck, when you see it happen, like one of my brothers, he was on the highway and there was, you know, he, but like traffic slowed down in a big way, right in front of him. And then he looked in his rear view mirror and he saw this car just still barreling down on him at like 65 miles an hour. And he had the presence of mind to put his car

in neutral. Um, and then he just got blown up. Right. So it's, that's, that's, it's just, this is going to happen and I can't avoid it. So it's a new response of fear. Now, the next two responses are like a little less intuitive. So daring regards an evil, but it's an evil that you confront. It's an evil that you attempt to overcome. Could we call that audacity as well, or is that something different? That's the very same thing, yeah. So audacity, that's the word in Latin is A-U a U D a C I a audacia. So, um, yeah. So in this case, you're not so much, it's not so much

a consideration of the good to be achieved. So like in the case of hope with the juggling instance, you're thinking about the apple, right? That's your principal consideration is it's all for love of the apple. And the case of daring, it's, it really is more so a consideration of the evil. OK. Yeah. So you're considering the evil as something to be overcome. So let's say you're on I-70 now. You've gotten out of the mountains.

You know, you're like into Kansas and there's nothing interesting in Kansas except for that law that says that like when you pass a security vehicle on the right, you have to move to the left lane. I didn't know this. I didn't know to see that. Yeah. Well, I got pulled over like six miles later and the officer asked me, like, were you trying to kill me? And I was like, uh, no, I'm confused. Um, is that a trick question? Yeah, exactly. And I was like, no, sir, I apologize for anything I may have done. He's like, there's a law and you just broke it. And $267 later, I learned it.

Um, heartbreak. So, okay, let's say that you're driving on I-70 in Kansas, right? And let's say that there is a truck in front of you that's just filled with hay bales. I don't know if there's hay in, whatever, who cares? Hay bales. And at a certain point, the hay bales start falling off the bed of the truck. Now you can do any number of things, right? You can just pull over and like maybe put your flashers on and try to wave people down and say like, heads up, you know, stuff on the highway. But like, for whatever reason, you just like, you're feeling, you're feeling lucky. So you're like, I'm going to make of this an extended video game. Okay. It just so happens that you too are driving a flatbed truck that is empty. And you also have exceedingly

long arms and you have a polo stick. Okay. I've never actually thought about this example. This is brilliant. Yeah. Born on the wings of the wind. You should write fiction to explain the emotions. Keep going. You're like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pick up after him.

So you've got polos. You got your polo stick and you're doing basically like giant slalom on the highway and you're picking up the hay bales as you go and slinging them onto the bed of the truck. So what you're doing principally is considering the evil, right? But you think that it's something that you can overcome. You don't even really care about like how it ends. You're just like, let's kick this. So it's distinct from hope, although it's often like taken up in a similar consideration.

Or you can see how they would be oftentimes collapsed or conflated. Okay, next one is despair. So basically despair regards a good, but it's a good that you have effectively given up on. Okay. So like every man who has loved a woman prettier than he has had the experience of despair. Like it still regards the good. You're like, because it's a consideration of her beauty. But you realize the disproportion between her beauty and your ugly mug. And that causes you a kind of sadness, a kind of,

you know, it's not like fear where it's like an evil attacking you. It's not like, you know, she's, she's haranguing you for being so homely. It's just that you're like, bummer, you know, this good thing, which so tortures and tantalizes my young 12 year old aspiring heart, you know, know, is inaccessible. And as a result of which, I should go home and play video games, which is heartbreaking, right? But truth be told, this doesn't need to have a moral color to it at the outset because there are certain things that are worth – they ought to be despaired of. There's like a cool shirt, a t-shirt, which has a picture of an astronaut that one of my brothers at the Bonaventure loves. And next to it are the words, not all dreams come true, right?

Yeah. So I'm not saying like, you know. That's a really good point. Yeah. Because we live in this culture where you see these shirts, follow your dreams, anything's possible. No, it's not. And some of your dreams might be stupid. Yeah. Or unrealizable. Yeah. And like super destructive and ultimately lead to heartache and pain. So, yeah, like I'll never be a good basketball player. And so I can despair of that. And that's fine. Because if I were to try at this point in my life and given my vocation, it would be like wildly disproportionate. If I were to spend like three and a half hours in the backyard, you know, like taking jump shots. Your brothers would be like, Father, Gregory, you need to stop this.

Yeah, exactly. And you're out there with your sweatband on. You used to understand. 1984 gym shorts, you know, and like those sweet white socks that come up mid-calf with two red stripes. Yeah, exactly. So despair in this sense doesn't need to entail a sort of emotion because when you say you're you you despair of not becoming an nba player you don't mean that

you feel sorrowful about it necessarily it's just kind of yeah it's just like an appetitive movement away from a good that you realize just isn't going to happen yeah right so yeah i mean it it can it can have a spiritual dimension where it's just it's a rational judgment that no dice, right? But in its most basic sense, it's just a good you see. And, you know, this won't happen. And that's I guess that's OK. Or maybe it's not OK. I haven't yet reconciled myself to the fact, but I have to recognize it at the very least.

So which brings us to our final of 11 emotions. Yes. Which is the most strange and complex, which is anger. And anger actually regards a twofold object. So first, it regards an injustice. Basically, something has happened that ought not to have happened. And then it makes the further movement of seeking vindication, right? So it wants a kind of vengeance or revenge visited upon the source

of the injustice. Again, this is not a fully like rational thing that we're yet considering. It doesn't yet have a moral tone or color, but there is basically built into us the recognition that justice should, excuse me, justice should be rectified or injustices should be redressed. Um, so like, uh, yeah, you're sitting at a traffic light and it's one of those traffic lights where, um, you know, on the, there's, there's, there's only one lane and on the right side, everyone is like parked on the, you know, like they're street parking, but the dude like wiggles around and whips around you and gets out ahead of you. On the one hand, you're like, dude, nice driving move. But on the other hand, you're like, I just feel a basic emotional response that you ought to be waiting behind me like the rest of the Madden crowd. And yet you did it and your wife isn't

pregnant and you aren't late for brain surgery. So like, what's the deal? Is like your, is your time just more important than mine? I don't get it. You know, what's the deal? So like already I've, I've imported some rational judgment into this thing. But what we're talking about basically is the recognition that something has happened that ought not to have happened. And I want to do something about it. You know, like I want to chase him down and give him a stern talking to, you know, or I want to like ask him to like give me a $5 gift card to Amazon because he cost me that in anxiety. I don't know what I want to do. I need some lavender doTERRA oil to ease in anxiety. I don't know what I want to do.

I need some lavender doTERRA oil to ease the anxiety you have caused, mister. Exactly. I'm going to have to apply peppermint at the base of my chin for at least two minutes in order to get over this, with respect to those who use essential oils, my apologies. I'm married to a woman, slightly post-millennial age, so yes lots of lots of oil anyway dig um so yeah and then the last consideration is you said why isn't there yes an opposite of anger okay in order to appreciate that we have to see that everything that has gone before has a flip side okay yes let's talk about so with with the concupiscible power the flip side of love is hatred right because love considers the good hatred considers the evil and both are are an inverse or similar response, right? So, too, the flip side of desire is aversion, and the flip side of delectation or joy is pain or sadness, okay?

So that's the concupiscible power. Basically, the opposition is according to good and evil. Opposition is according to good and evil. In the case of the irascible power, the opposition is according to both good and evil and whether you are attacking or fleeing. OK, so, you know, hope considers the good and you are approaching. Right. Or I should say approach or withdraw. Attack sounds kind of like aggressive.

So in the case of hope, you're considering the good and you're approaching it. In the case of despair, you're considering the good and you're approaching it. In the case of despair, you're considering the good and you're fleeing from it. And then in the case of evil, with fear, you are withdrawing. And with daring, you are approaching. Now, in the case of anger, what you're doing is you're attacking, you know, you're approaching, but you're considering, so it's an know you're you're approaching but um you're considering so it's an evil it's an arduous evil it's a difficult evil that you've chosen to redress but the problem is that there is no corresponding difficult good um because once you have achieved the good there's there's no longer a difficulty attendant upon it as what

like basically how saint. Thomas describes it. And if this sounds a little bit muddled, it's because, truth be told, I'm not entirely clear on the logic of it, but basically there's no way in which to hold together the good and an injustice that needs to be redressed. Because once you're in the good, then you rest in it, right? So it doesn't support a rebellion against the state of affairs. Things are good. It doesn't support a rebellion against the state of affairs. Things are good. It just kind of resolves itself into delight or delectation or joy.

So, yeah, as a result of which, there is no, strictly speaking, opposite or contrary to anger. Here's what Francis Selman says, and I'll get you a take. He says, let's see here. Our reaction to evil that lies on top of us is anger, which has no contrary because if it rested in evil, it would be sorrow. Anger, however, does not rest in evil or flee from it, but attacks it. There is also no contrary to anger because there is no emotion of the irascible appetite for present good, only of present evil, attacking it, not resisting it. Thus, we get the following pairs of contrary emotions under the desiring appetite. And then he goes on. But again, I'm going to throw up a map so that people can understand this, or a table so that people can follow along. All right. Thank you very much for listening to Pints

with Aquinas this week. Next week, we are going to continue this discussion with Father Gregory Piner. We're going to be delving into the Summa Theologiae, but I hope that was a tremendous help for you. Remember that link in the show notes that will direct you to a couple of tables that will help you understand and kind of visualize all the things that we've been talking about. Hey, got a question for you. If you like Pints with Aquinas, and I'm suspecting that you do because you're still listening, and if you didn't, you would have probably stopped a while ago. Would you consider reviewing us on iTunes? It would just take a couple of clicks for you, but it would mean a lot to us.

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