Pints With Aquinas - 17.5: Philosophy in evangelization

Episode Date: August 1, 2016

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas episode, get ready for it, 17.5! That's right, this is one of the very few weird episodes in which I try to squeeze an episode into the two regular episodes that happen once a week. And I'm doing that because I recently was on a program, which you should know about, It's called Catholic Answers Live. And I discussed philosophy in evangelization. And so, we discussed everything philosophy and people called in with different questions having to do with philosophy. And it was a fun kind of discussion. So, I thought you'd enjoy it and I'd share it here. It's about an hour long. Seven or eight different people call in. I thought you'd enjoy it. But listen, I'm still going to be releasing a podcast this Tuesday, and I am pumped to do so. If you're one of these people that has been, up until recently, intimidated to read Aquinas, I'd say maybe the number one reason

you are, or that people are, is that they're turned off by his metaphysical lingo, right? What does Aquinas mean by an essentially ordered series of causes versus an accidentally ordered one? What does he mean by being? What does he mean by substance? What does he mean by potentiality and actuality? I'm going to be breaking every one of those terms down in this coming episode. That'll be episode 18. So, look out for that. But in the meantime, this is Catholic Answers Live. God bless you guys. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Catholic Answers Live, the program where you participate with your questions about

apologetics and evangelization, including the most important theological, spiritual, moral, and social issues facing the world today. Call now with your question for today's guest. Toll free 1-888-31-TRUTH. That's 888-318-7884. Now from San Diego, Catholic Answers Live. And welcome hour number two. Jerry Usher in for Patrick Coffin today on the heels of a great first hour

with Dr. Edward Shree of the Augustan Institute. And I just wanted to mention real quickly, I neglected to do this at the end of the first hour. We talked about his new study, Follow Me, Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John. For those of you who might be curious to know where you'll find that, it is put out by Ascension Press. So if you go to Ascension, just like our Lord's Ascension into Heaven, ascensionpress.com, and you can, I'm sure, do a search right there on the website for Follow Me, Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John. And it's all right there. Really great resources being put out by the folks at Ascension Press. This hour on the program, we're going to shift gears. We're still going to talk about evangelization, but we're going to talk about how philosophy fits into that. And that may be a

little bit of a surprise to you. And I can tell you that as someone who spent six years in formation for the priesthood, including getting my undergraduate degree in philosophy and theology, I fully understand why the church requires a philosophical foundation for men who are going to be priests, even before they go on to study theology. And we're going to hopefully unpack a little bit more about that for you today with Matt Fradd. He's a Catholic apologist and speaker, as well as the executive director of The Porn Effect. It's a website dedicated to helping men and women break free from pornography. Fact. It's a website dedicated to helping men and women break free from pornography.

He is the author or editor of several books, including 20 Answers, Atheism, and Delivered, True Stories of Men and Women Who Turn from Porn to Purity. Matt speaks to thousands and thousands of people every year. He lives in Georgia with his wife, Cameron, and their four children. Matt, good to be working with you. G'day, mate. Good to have you. This is the first time I've done a Catholic Answers live radio show where Patrick hasn't been the host. Well, my deep apologies for that. No, it's a good thing. I'm tired of Patrick.

I'm just joking. I love Patrick. But I love you too, Jerry. Well, thank you, Matt. Yeah, it's good to be. You know what? I follow you on Twitter with the porn effect, and I see the good message that you have,

and I really wish we could talk about that because that just seems to be so many people are in the grip of that right now, so I applaud you for that. But this hour, we're actually going to be talking about philosophy in evangelization, and let's just start real basic. I mean, give us a quick primer on what philosophy is and why it's important for us to engage in this discipline. Yeah, well, philosophy etymologically just means the love of wisdom, philia sophia, right? So the love of wisdom. I like the way Alvin Plantinga, who's a Reformed theologian, put it, though.

He said, philosophy is just thinking hard about things. That's pretty good. We could just say that's the the science of sciences so um the word science uh in latin is skentsia which just means knowledge yeah and so the way aristotle um and even up to thomas aquinas would use the word science they would just use that to mean philosophy interchangeably. But it's just the way we kind of, we think about things, their significance, what they mean, you know, what's, you know, these questions that all of us asked when we laid awake in bed at night when we were, I don't know, five or six or seven, you know,

what's the meaning of it all? Or I remember when I was a kid asking, you know, like, what happens if you go all the way up? You know, do you hit something or do you know what's the meaning of it all or i remember when i was a kid asking you know like what happens if you go all the way up you know do you hit something or do you keep going and what does that mean you know there wasn't much to do in my hometown of port purie south australia well it's interesting that you you mentioned uh you know it's this kind of the study i here's how i've liked to put it if if i could sum it up in a real simple phrase it's it's the study of what is is that is that is that fair to say is that near near anywhere near on the mark yeah that's good i mean there's there's many branches under philosophy right and so you've got things like metaphysics and that's sort of what you're talking about metaphysics is the study of being

as being and then you've got epistemology. How do we know things? Logic, aesthetics. What is the beautiful? These sorts of things. So there's many branches underneath it. So it's funny. In one way, it's a very simple question to answer.

It's the love of wisdom. It's the pursuit of wisdom, etc. But in another way, it's a little more difficult because it gets rather complex the further down you go. But in another way, it's a little more difficult because it gets rather complex the further down you go. But in my work as an apologist, of course, using logic and reason to help give arguments for the truth of Catholicism is really important. And I know this is something everyone does at Catholic Answers Live. But if you're dialoguing with somebody who doesn't for example accept the existence of god then you're not going to be arguing from revelation necessarily rather you're going to be doing some more kind of foundational work trying to give reasons to think that god

exists reasons that he may have revealed himself to mankind reasons to think that jesus christ was who he claimed to be that the new testament Testament documents are reliable, and so forth. So, yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's good stuff. And I want to invite you who are listening right now, if you've got questions, we're going to talk with Matt Fradd about the relationship between faith and reason. Recent popes have written about that.

And, of course, we as Catholic Christians believe there is a very, very close relationship. Other strains of Christianity, if I can put it that way, might just say, well, you know, all we need to do is just believe. This philosophy stuff is from the devil. It just confuses everything. It messes up the whole conversation about Jesus and about faith. But if you have questions about the role of reason and philosophy, we're going to talk about arguments from philosophy. Not arguing, but how do you formulate a defense of the faith, an argument, using philosophy? Maybe you've got friends like

Matt just described who they'll have no part of the catechism, for example, or when you want to talk to them about the existence of God or the teachings of the church, wondering how to do that from maybe more of a philosophical approach. 1-888-318-7884 is the number, 888-318-7884. So let's get into faith and reason, Matt. As I mentioned, I already gave away the answer to this question, but do they conflict? No, no, they don't. Thomas Aquinas was big on this, that truth flows from the same source, whether it's something that we come to know by the faculty of reason or if it's something we come to know via revelation, so long as it is actual revelation. actual revelation. In fact, a lot of people find this interesting. The first Vatican Council defined authoritatively that one can come to know that God exists wholly apart from faith

by reason alone. So, they don't. John Paul II wrote a fantastic book, Fetus et Ratio. I think it was one of the first lines, he says, faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth. So, they cannot ever, you know, in theory, be in conflict. If they are in conflict, then we have a problem. And so, that might be, you know, when we evangelize, say, our Mormon friends or our Muslim friends or non-Christian friends, that might be part of what we're trying to do is to see, well, is there a conflict here between what we can know about the world by reason and what you say has been revealed to us? Because if there is, that doesn't make your religion look very good. Phone number again, 888-318-7884. revealed to us because if there is that doesn't make your religion look very good phone number again 888-318-7884 interestingly enough when we created this program i was the original host we

were looking for a phone number and we went with 888-31-TRUTH and we are definitely getting at truth here this hour on catholic answers live, coming at it even from the perspective of philosophy. So if you have studied some, maybe you've dabbled a little bit in philosophy and found it intriguing, I'm sure Matt Fradd would be happy to give you some insights or advice on maybe where to learn more, perhaps from a layman's perspective. It can get really, really complicated. I wouldn't recommend, oh my goodness, My Aging Brain,

What's a Love and Responsibility by Carol Wojtyla, for example. I wouldn't recommend people start there, but I'm sure there are some more popular reads for laypeople in the area of philosophy. But again, our number is 888-318-7884. And I have to ask you about your Pints with Aquinas. If there was ever a reasonably decent mind in the history of the church, Matt, I guess it would be St. Thomas Aquinas. And you have a podcast that bears his name and talks about Pints with Aquinas. So tell our listeners about that. Thanks, Jerry. Yeah, about several months ago now, I started a podcast called Pints with Aquinas,

and here's the premise. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? And so every question of the podcast revolves around a question Aquinas answers in his most famous work, the Summa Theologiae, and then I share what he writes and then I expound upon it. And he answers a lot of things people wouldn't expect him to be talking about. My favorite example is, you know, are wet dreams sinful? Believe it or not, Aquinas addresses that in the Summa. Now, of course, he says no because the will needs to be engaged. But, you know, he discusses a lot of important stuff. So yeah, every week we discuss that. So people go to

pintswithaquinas.com, or they could just download it from their iTunes store to listen to it. Yeah, it's been real fun. Do you actually enjoy a pint while you're doing it? You know, I'm going to have to ruin the whole facade here. Jerry, thanks a lot. I don't actually drink beer. I like the idea of drinking beer, but whenever I drink beer, I feel gross. So I just drink it and drink my boring water and do the podcast that way. But I'm told on good authority many people are drinking a beer while they listen to it. So maybe that makes me more intelligible. I'm not sure. Matt Fradd with us this hour on Catholic Answers Live. It's pretty much time for the break, but I wanted to get in before we get to phone calls and take the break.

Matt, the idea, I mentioned this, alluded to it briefly, argumentation or logic. This is so vital to our ability to, first of all, know and digest the faith in our own minds, but then to present it to other people who may not share our belief system. So if we can just take a couple minutes before we break here, what are we talking about when we say an argument here? Yeah, it's a great question. If you go ahead and type argue or argument into Google Images, what you're going to find is two people yelling at each other, grabbing each other by the shirts, red-faced, fuming at the ears. But this isn't what an argument is. In philosophy, when we talk about an argument,

all we mean is reasons to believe something or reasons not to believe something. It's as simple as that. So, in an argument, you usually set out some what we call premises, which are steps towards a conclusion. So yeah, that's important. I think a lot of people, unfortunately, even Christians will say things like, you know, we shouldn't argue with people when we evangelize them. We should just share our story. But the problem with that is when you share the gospel with a person, if they've understood you, they're probably going to ask you, you know, why should I believe that? Or why do you think that that's true? Now, if you're to answer them intelligibly, well, what you have to do then is to give them reasons to believe a certain thing. And what do you know? You're arguing. So we can argue without being argumentative.

Very good. Hang on, Matt. We've got a lot of calls to get to. Rob, you'll be first. We've got Eddie and Anna, and it looks like we have one phone line that is open right now as we talk with Matt Fradd about philosophy in evangelization on Catholic Answers Live. 888-318-7884 is our number. I'm Jerry Usher, in for Patrick Coffin today. We're coming right back. Have a question? We've got answers. Catholic Answers Live.

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Call now with your question, 888-318-7884. This is Catholic Answers Live. Welcome back. And we're going to go right to your calls in just a moment. I am feeling generous. And Matt, I think you are too. And we're also going to do this because we were told to do it. So it's a combination of generosity and obedience.

But you've written a booklet for Catholic Answers called 20 Answers Atheism, and we want to give a free copy, Matt, to anybody who wants this book. So what's in the book? What are they going to get? Yeah, well, in the book, I just thought I would cobble together what are the 20 most common objections I tend to be seeing online or hearing from people when it comes to the existence of God. And so I put those 20 together and yeah, just respond to them. So you could probably read the book in about an hour or so. It's not very big.

It's a small book. But yeah, we're giving it away for free. But it's free. Whenever you hear this sort of thing, you often think to yourself, what's the string? Where's the string? How is it attached? That's right. Yeah.

I don't think there is. Is there? They're just giving my book away for free. So you know what I mean. What are they doing? Yeah, no strings whatsoever. If you've got a smartphone where you can text. Just text the word CA live. And it's not case sensitive.

So CA, of course, for Catholic Answers. C-A live. And text that to 44222. 44222. Jump on your phone right now. Text CA live to 44222. You will be sent all the instructions that you need to get a free Kindle copy of 20 Answers Atheism sent right to your inbox. Well, there is a catch, actually.

Catholic Answers is generous, but they're 48 hours generous on this one. Okay, so, folks, you've got 48 hours. You need to take action right now. Text CA Live to 44222, and you'll get the free copy of the e-book by our guest, Matt Fradd, 20 Answers Atheism. Okay, to your phone calls. Rob, thanks for hanging on there in Evansville, Indiana. You get to go first with Matt Fradd on Catholic Answers Live.

Hello, Rob. Hi. Hi, how are you doing? Good. How are you doing, Rob? Pretty good. I have a friend. I haven't seen him in a few years, but I was just thinking maybe it's time to get in touch with him.

About five years ago, we were talking, and he brought up the subject of Catholicism because he knows I'm a Catholic. And he said, you know, the reason I'm not Catholic is because I'm going to hell. And I said, okay, so wouldn't you want to be Catholic so that you don't go to hell? And he said, well, no, I don't want to worship a God who sends people to hell. And then later he had sneezed, and I said, bless you. And he said, don't say that.

It makes me burn. And I'm thinking, suck it up. But yeah, I was like, okay okay so what do you say to the person who seems to believe in god and says it's a good thing but the reason he doesn't believe in worshiping this god is because god sends people to hell. So it sounds like he rejects belief in God because he doesn't know how to reconcile the understanding of a God who is all-loving and who at the same time would send people to hell, correct? I think he actually does believe in God. He just doesn't believe in worshipping this God. does believe in God, he just doesn't believe in worshipping this God. Yeah, and it sounds like the reason he doesn't want to worship him is because he doesn't like the idea of there being a loving God who would send someone to hell.

And I think, first of all, you know, just at a very pastoral level, we might relate to him. I remember it was C.S. Lewis somewhere talked about, you know, this is the most, if I could change one Christian doctrine, it would be this is the most, if I could change one Christian doctrine, it would be this, right? Nevertheless, it has the full support of scripture, tradition, reason, therefore, I must accept it. So, maybe instead of saying, you know, he doesn't understand why he should worship a God who would send him to hell, you know, you might say to him, I think that you would rather that than a God who would force you to worship him forever. Okay, so it seems to me that if we deny the existence of hell, then we have to deny God's being all-loving or our free will, one of the other, right?

Because if I don't want to be with God forever, there's people who have said this, right? The late Christopher Hitchens said if there is a God, I wouldn't be very happy about it and so on. Then if I don't want to be with him forever, then what's he going to do? Is he going to make me be with him forever or is he going to say, okay then? C.S. Lewis, again, I remember him forever, then what's he going to do? Is he going to make me be with him forever, or is he going to say, okay, then? C.S. Lewis, again, I remember him saying, in the end, there's only two kinds of people, those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says, okay, thy will be done. So I think that might be a way to approach

it. What do you think? I think I'm confused you got me on that one put it this way your friend doesn't want to worship a god who would send people to hell but would he rather a god who at the end of his life if he didn't want to spend eternity in heaven would would he rather God force him to be with him? And I think you'd say, well, no, I guess I don't want him to force me.

So if people don't want to be with God, this is a very simple way of putting it, of course. But if I don't want to be in heaven, then God isn't going to force me. And so he allows me to remain in my sin and be in hell. And so he allows me to remain in my sin and be in hell. So in one sense, it is a matter of God's justice. But in another sense, in a very real sense, it's us tearing ourselves away from the merciful gaze and hands of our blessed Lord, Rob. So you could look at it that way. It's not so much God who sends us to hell as it is we who send ourselves to hell. So if your friend's problem is he doesn't like the idea of believing in a loving God who would do that,

you can say the very fact that he is loving is why he will not force you to be with him for all eternity. I hope that's the beginning of a hell. Never really thought of it that way. Yeah. Stunned silence. way yeah well all right Rob stunned silence you're that good Matt Rob that that all that confusing I'm not yeah any any other fine-tuning you need on that Rob or are you gonna go take and well I think I'll sit there I'm gonna go send them a Facebook message or something hey and and Rob before you before you do

that you probably just heard we're giving away my book for free. So all you need to do is text that number in. You'll get the e-book literally sent to you. And I have a little chapter on this very issue. So you might want to read over that before you reach out to him. All right. Okay, Rob. You also might – sorry to keep going on here, but you also might want to remind your friend that God asks us to worship him, not for his good.

You know, God is the sumum bonum, right? The perfect good. He has no need of our worship and praise to make him feel better. But it's for our good, right? We have been created to worship, to be in union with God. And the Christian believes that only a life in union with God will you and I be fully alive, experience life as fully as we can in this veil of tears. All right, Rob. Thanks for joining us on Catholic Answers Live.

Appreciate it very much. And the others of you on hold, you will get your moment with Matt Fradd on the air. We're just coming up on a hard break here. Matt, just real quick before the break, you were talking about God would not force anyone to be in heaven. You talked about, I think you quoted, if it was Lewis, if I heard you correctly,

said there's either the two kinds of people, either those who say to God, your will be done, or those to whom God says, your will be done. I'm reminded of the saying, the gates of hell are locked, or the doors of hell are locked from the inside, meaning those who go there have chosen that. They would not want it any other way. In the midst of pain and misery and torment, their will has been affirmed. Is that another way of looking at what you're saying? I think that's helpful. I love the 13th century poet Dante, but I think in many ways his work,

The Inferno, has maybe put into our minds some unbiblical and maybe, you know, and just unrealistic ideas about hell. And I think we carry that into our conversations. All right. Stand by. More with Matt Fradd talking about philosophy and evangelization here on Catholic Answers Live. I'm Jerry Escher in for Patrick Coffin.

More in just a minute. Stay with us. Catholic Answers Live. Hi, this is Trent Horn. with us. cross the Tiber River to Rome can be long and perilous, filled with many obstacles and detours. For Catholics who want to help them make the crossing, often it isn't enough to give the right arguments, proof texts, or book recommendations. You have to journey with them. In Navigating the Tiber, How to Help Your Friends and Family Journey Towards the Catholic Faith, Devin Rose draws from his own experience as a convert and Catholic apologist to help you guide your Protestant Thank you. The River to Rome is unruly, but crossable. Order your copy of Navigating the Tiber and help your friends and family have smoother sailing on their way to Christ's Church. Get your copy of Navigating the Tiber today by calling 1-888-291-8000, by visiting the shop at Catholic.com, or by asking for it at a good Catholic bookstore near you.

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I'm Jerry Usher in for Patrick Coffin. Right back to your phone calls in just a minute from Matt Fradd talking about philosophy and the role of philosophy in evangelization. We have mentioned free and in the first hour we mentioned greatly reduced. I want to just remind you of those two things right now, because those are words we love to hear, especially when we're looking for faith resources. And during this hour and for the next 48 hours, with Matt Fradd on the air with us this hour,

he's the author of 20 Answers Atheism. Subtitle is Atheism. Because Catholic Answers has a series, the 20 Answers series. And you're going to get a free Kindle copy of that book. If you just text CA LIVE to 44222, you'll get instructions on how to download that sent right to your inbox. And also the spectacular store-wide summer sale. That's four S's right in a row, if I'm not mistaken.

Only five days remain. So please, stock up on the books and the DVDs and the CDs that you need. Some things are discounted up to 80%. Most everything, right around 10% to 25%. But it's really, it's Catholic Answers' way of telling you that they want to make sure that you have access to great resources, and they're within your budget as well. This is for online purchases only. And again, the store-wide summer sale has another five days remaining on it. So check that out before you let it slip away at Catholic.com. Back to your phone calls.

We've got Anna in Los Angeles listening on Immaculate Heart Radio, AM 930 KHJ. Hello, Anna. You're on with Matt Fradd. Thanks for calling. Oh, hello, Anna. Hello, Matt. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question about Seneca the Younger.

Yes. Seneca the Younger? Yes, the Stoic philosopher. What do you think about his... I didn't study him, but I came across a small article in the L.A. Times that revealed what his idea of religion is, a three-step idea. And the first is,

this is what he believed, and it probably based it on the first is, this is what he believed, and it probably based it on the Jewish religion, because I don't think the Catholic religion was instituted then, when Christ was on Earth, and that Seneca lived during Christ's lifetime. You probably know that. But anyway, he believed that the common people believe that religion is true, and the wise people believe that religion is false, and the hierarchy use religion for their own utility, such as power and wealth.

And you want to know what I think about that? I do. Yeah. Okay, well, I was writing those down as you said them. And what's interesting, and here's where we're going to get into some sort of fallacious arguments and be able to expound upon them. He makes three statements, right? He basically says the common people believe in religion basically because they're common. The wise people don't, and the

hierarchy use it as a sort of carrot and stick. Well, if you look at each of these lines, they're fallacious, okay? So, saying you believe in God because you're common or unsophisticated, because you're common or unsophisticated, what that does is it commits what's called in logic the genetic fallacy. Now, what's that? The genetic fallacy attempts to invalidate a belief because of how it originates or why it originates. So, I remember my son walking into the kitchen one day and he said to me out of the blue, he said, Dad, do you know you can fit, I think he said, a million earths into the sun? And I said, I don't know if that's true. Where did you hear that from? And he said, the cartoon I'm watching.

Now, if I had have said, because you heard it from a cartoon, it's not true, that would be to commit the genetic fallacy. I'd be saying it's wrong based on how it originates. So saying, you know, God doesn't exist or Christianity isn't true because, you know, you're unsophisticated, that just commits the genetic fallacy. At best, it might prove that you don't have good reasons to believe what it is you say you believe, but it isn't an argument against your faith. Now, the second line, basically, the wise don't believe in religion. This commits the fallacy of circular reasoning. Circular reasoning is when you attempt to, basically, is when your conclusion is smuggled into the premise. All right, so let me give you an example of how Christians do this sometimes. They might say something like, the Bible is the word of God.

The word of God says God exists, therefore God exists. That's a terrible argument because you've smuggled into that first premise the conclusion. You say the Bible is the word of God. You're assuming God's existence. So by saying the wise don't believe, we don't believe because we watch. Well, that has to, maybe you're not wise. You haven't given me an argument to think that God doesn't exist yet. So that's sort of circular. And this idea that the hierarchy uses religion as a carrot and stick, we could certainly spend a lot of time debating whether or not that is true, whether or not it has been true.

I'm sure it has been true. And I'm sure that there are people in places of authority in different Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church, who do abuse their power. But in a way, this is irrelevant to the argument of the truthfulness of the existence of God and the truth claims of Christianity. Even if the hierarchy are wicked, mean people, from no way does it follow that therefore God doesn't exist. All that would follow is that these people aren't following their teachings. We see a little bit of this sort of scandal in the early 12, don't we? I mean, you've got a lot of scandal among the first bishops of the church, and I like how Tim Staples puts it, you don't leave Peter because of Judas. In fact, you don't even leave

Peter because of Peter. So I'd say, you know, sometimes these little statements, they seem rather cute, but it's important that we don't just sort of wonder how they feel to us. Like, this feels like a sophisticated sort of thing to say, but rather we examine it and say, well, what's the most this proves anyway? And I don't think it proves much. Seneca was thinking that way. Seneca. He was a much respected writer. Yeah, okay.

But again, it's not enough just to point to a respected philosopher, right? Because we could just, you and a friend could do that all day. I could point to a respected Christian, you could point to a respected atheist, but you'd want to say, okay, sure, they're respected, but let's just examine what they said. And what I'm saying to you is that quote that you shared with me in no way is an argument against the existence of God or Christianity, even if it were true, right? Like even if the common people believed in religion and maybe the existence of God or Christianity. Even if it were true, right? Like even if the common people believed in religion and maybe the people who were more sophisticated didn't, and even if the hierarchy used religion, you know, to abuse power,

even if all that's true, it still can't follow from that that God exists. It's what we call in logic a non sequitur, which is Latin for just it doesn't follow. So I'd say we would need, yeah, so I'll leave it at that. But I'd say you just need to look at more of his writings and see if he has any good reasons to think that these things are true, and if he has any good reasons to think that Christianity or the existence of God is false. Thank you, Anna, for your call. From Los Angeles, California to Catholic Answers Live at 888-318-7884. Philosophy in Evangelization. That is our topic.

If you have any questions about, maybe you're just wondering, why does the church place so much emphasis on philosophy? We talked a little bit about that, but you can get more insights from Matt Fradd, our guest here today. Maybe you have an interest in philosophy and you're wondering, where do I start as someone who's somewhat uninitiated? But I want to kind of learn more about the thought of some of these great philosophers. There were pagan philosophers who arrived, for example, at the existence of God without the benefit of faith, without the benefit of revelation, without the benefit of theology. So how does this all fit in together with what we believe and how we present that to the world? 888-318-7884 gets you on the program.

Next, we're going to Ken, who is in Kalispell, Montana. Ken, thanks for waiting, and you're on Catholic Answers Live next with Matt Fradd. Hello, Ken. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure. Matt Fradd. Hello, Ken. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure. Yeah, so I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around with philosophy and theology. I can see how they relate to one another, but, you know, just coming from a Calvinistic background where, you know, they emphasize a monergistic position, and when you look at the quote of St. Augustine, who said,

I believe in order that I may understand, it seems to me that faith must be first, and then the reasoning and the philosophy, if you will, comes later. Is that kind of like the Catholic approach, or I'd just like to get more understanding about that. I'd just like to get more understanding about that. Yeah, so Augustine, I think, first said that, then it was Anselm who said something like, it was credo autintelligem, or something like that, I believe, in order to understand. And often, you know, this has been criticized, you know, that Christians have a sort of uncritical acceptance of, you know, concepts that they don't really understand understand or maybe even might be contradictory. But I don't think that's what it means. At least my understanding, and maybe you have a different one,

is that when Augustine says that I seek not to understand in order that I might believe, but rather I believe in order to understand, I think it's more like God isn't a sort of scientific experiment that I can wrap my brain around, and then once I've fully comprehended him, then I'll begin to understand. But rather, he needs to submit himself to belief in God, and then that it's this gift of faith, the light of revelation that actually illuminates reason from that point on. So, faith doesn't hinder reason. It illuminates it. It doesn't hamper it. Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical, Interni Partis, and that's a great little

encyclical you can look up for free online, if you just typed in Pope Leo XIII philosophy, he wrote an encyclical on the kind of revivification of philosophy. But no, as I mentioned earlier in the show, that you can look around you and according to the Catholic Church, which I understand you aren't Catholic, but according to the Catholic Church, one can come to a knowledge that there is a God. In fact, we even see that, don't we, in the Book of Wisdom, I think it's chapter 13, but also Romans 1, talking about people not being without excuse because they look around and they can tell that there's some kind of designer. So there's certain things that we can come to know via reason,

but then there are other things that we cannot know, like the truth of the hypostatic union or the incarnation of the hypostatic union or the incarnation or the Trinity. Many of these things we can only know via revelation. Okay. That definitely makes sense. What is your approach as far as

when Protestants go to I think it's Ephesians 2 where it says that you were dead and you're sending the trespasses and that you're basically a corpse before god and that you don't have faith until god regenerates you basically yeah so yeah so here we're talking uh soteriology and something a little bit different to the topic at hand. But I just, at least my opinion is I can be dead in my sins, right? And I understand that it's the working of God who calls me to himself, right? So he might guide my intellect, but he doesn't hamper it so much

or he doesn't coerce the will, right? The will is, the person is still free as he maybe seeks evidences for the existence of God or weighs the credibility of Scripture and decides whether or not it's reliable or not. All right, Ken. All right, thank you. I appreciate it. You are welcome. And we're going to continue.

Sam is in Kansas City up next, and then we've got some other callers after that. Matt Fradd is with us talking about philosophy in evangelization on Catholic Answers Live. Again, don't forget the store-wide summer spectacular sale. Only five days left. It's been going on for a while, but all good things must come to an end. And Catholic Answers is so, I think, generous in extending these discounts to you.

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didn't understand at this point. That we are able to hear and see the significance of his passion as we celebrate it in the Eucharist rests on their eventual embrace of it and the authority he was to give to Peter for later generations. It is through them and their successors that he speaks to us now in word and sacrament. I'm Fr. Vincent Serpa for Catholic Answers, Catholic.com. Call now with your question, 888-318-7884. This is Catholic Answers Live. All right. It's a caller-driven program.

We're going right back to you, the callers, to Catholic Answers Live. Bernie is in Washington State. Bernie, you're on with Matt Fratt. How are you, Bernie? Oh, good. Thank you. I was talking with someone yesterday. They were mentioning some philosophy out there about people thinking that this world isn't a reality, that somehow the brain could be connected to a computer and all this is just generated by some imagination, and I've had never heard of that before. And I was just kind of wanting to know what, if you've heard of that, or, you know, what do you say to someone like that too?

Or, I don't know, it just caught me off guard. Yeah, I can answer that because I actually dealt with something in my high school years similar to that. This thought stems back to 17th century French philosopher René Descartes. And he realized that, you know, we can think we're right about something, This thought stems back to 17th century French philosopher René Descartes. And he realized that we can think we're right about something but still be wrong. And so he undertook this sort of experiment, self-imposed experiment in which he doubted everything that he could possibly doubt until he got down to that famous saying, cognito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. He said, this is the one thing that I cannot doubt because if I doubt that I'm thinking, who's doing the doubting? But yeah, this has been a popular kind of theme in different sort of sci-fi movies like The Matrix

and this sort of thing. When I was in high school, I actually remember fearing that I was the only one who existed. That actually would be terrible. This is a view called solipsism, right? The belief that only you exist. And I remember saying to a dear friend of mine in the school library during a class, I said, I'm afraid you don't exist. And he said to me, he was quite worried. He said, I promise I do. And I said, but that's what you would say, right?

So I think what this shows is that you cannot prove scientifically that the external world exists, all right? You have to assume it. This is what philosophers call a properly basic belief. And what that means is it's not a belief based upon other beliefs, but rather it just sort of makes up the base of my beliefs. As I encounter the external world, as I talk with people, bump into things, smell things, see things, hear things, I come to believe that the external world is real. All right. This is what we call a properly basic belief. Now, I might not be able to prove that, but does that mean that I'm not within my epistemic rights to believe that it's true?

Not at all. I think we would say to someone who wants us to believe that the external world doesn't exist, we first might say, well, if that's true, then you don't exist, and why should I care about your opinion? But the other thing we might say is, unless I'm given a good reason to think that the external world is real, I'm within my rights to believe that it is real. I mean, most things that we accept as true in this life, we don't have mathematical certainty for, right? For example, if you said to me, are you sure your wife's not a Russian spy? I would say, yes, I'm sure. And if you pressed me and continued to press me, I might eventually get so tired

that I said, well, look, maybe you're right, but I'm still going to base my actions on the belief that she is who she claims to be because that seems to be much more probable now interestingly enough we could imagine if someone were to do this imagine if they would become so obsessed that the external world didn't exist okay so that they you know bought a pizza and open up their laptop and spend an entire night watching debates on youtube about whether or not the external world exists. I don't know if these debates exist. I'm sure they do.

Well, this would really get in the way of someone's living life, wouldn't it? I mean, if they started to get really obsessive about this question, that would really kind of begin to get into the way, interfere with the way they treat other people, plan for the future, etc. Now, similarly, we could say that the existence of God has been said to be a properly basic belief. That is, when I read my scripture, when I'm out in nature, when I'm before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, it just seems to me like God exists. In the same way, it seems to me that the external world is real. So we could say, unless you can give me a good reason to think God doesn't exist, I'm within my rights, I think, to believe he does. But now, here's the analogy I want to make. Some of us can become so obsessive with debates about the existence of God

that it can actually interfere with our relationship with him. So that's just a tangential point. I know that wasn't exactly what you were going for, but is that the beginning of a help, or did that just raise a lot more questions than I answered? Gotcha. No, that's helpful. Thanks. I just really hadn't heard of that before, and I thought that was pretty odd and scary. So I'm like, okay.

I don't know. I've never heard about it with you know by anybody else yeah it's just something i thought i would ask you know it's fun to think about it's you know there's other things like other properly basic beliefs we could talk about so for example bernie you don't know i exist you assume that i do it seems probable to you that i do but even if we were to meet you know maybe I'm just a sophisticated robot that's come back from the future. And there might be absolutely no way that you could prove that I'm wrong, at least not without sort of splitting me apart or something.

And yet, as I say, most things we believe in life, we don't believe because we have mathematical certainty of those things, but just because they seem to us to be more probably true than not. And I think that's okay. All right, Bernie, thanks for the call to Catholic Answers Live. Some things never change. I hosted this show for 10 years some time back, and I used to take late phone calls with very little time because I just didn't want anyone to not get on the show. So Sam in Kansas City, Sam, I'm going to have to tell you,

we've got about two minutes here, but I hated to see you hold on as long as you did and not get on. So if you could be brief, Matt Fradd can help you out. Oh, will do. Go right ahead. Excellent. Well, okay, my question is this. I'm a new Catholic.

Fifteen months ago I converted, but I grew up in a Protestant household, so I've gotten really used to being able to answer the basic questions, you know, about Mary and those kind of things. Sure. But my question is this. How would I argue that there can only be one church, which is the Catholic Church, and denominations are essentially divisions that wouldn't necessarily coexist or co-align with one church body.

I mean, does that make sense? Yeah, and I don't imagine anything I say here will be news to you, so forgive me if you've already thought of these things. But of course we know in Matthew 16, 18, Christ established a church in the singular, not plural. Now, by about the year A.D. 108, that's the first usage we have of the word Catholic, and that's from St. Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrnans. And he was using that word to refer to the church Christ established, as opposed to the many splinter groups that had grown up, the kind of heretical groups. So that would be one way just to sort of point

to the scriptures. Christ says, he who hears you hears me, etc. Now, if you've got multiple groups saying contrary things, all of a sudden it starts to get very confusing. And now God is not a God of confusion, but of clarity and peace. Also, can you imagine them saying that with the with the 12 apostles being around you know getting together meeting praying and all of a sudden there's this other group who had heard about jesus knew some things about jesus but taught for example let's say that uh gentiles had to be circumcised or something well okay now we have a conflict so what do we do well at that point in time the scriptures hadn't even been put together, so we have to go back to the authority of the church, which Christ gave us. Anyway,

I'm sure there's a whole lot more on catholic.com, and I have a podcast called Pints with Aquinas, which you can download, and in several episodes, I begin to address some of these issues there also. Yeah, is that at mattfrad.com or does that have its own URL? Yeah, you can go to mattfradd.com or pintswithaquinas.com and you'll be able to find it there. All right, Matt with two T's, Fradd with two D's. Rockin'. Thanks a lot, Jerry. Thanks, Matt. I enjoyed working with you. Thanks so much. Appreciate that. And folks, don't forget, one last little mention here. Now, before you put that food on the stove and light up the fire and get dinner ready, go to Catholic.com, buy up some of those products,

because the store-wide summer sale is good for another five days. Deep discounts, fantastic resources. You will not be sorry that you did that. And again, if you text CA LIVE to 44222, you'll get the free Kindle of Matt Fradd's e-book.