Pints With Aquinas - 179: 3 Arguments Against Polytheism (Apostles Creed #2)

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Today we look at what Aquinas had to say on the line from the creed, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." We also take a look at a section of the Summa in which Thomas gives three arguments against the belief in many gods. 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 and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we are going to ask him what is meant by that line in the Apostles' Creed, I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And here, we're going to look at three reasons Aquinas gives against polytheism, why there must only be one God. We're then going to look at four motives which lead men to believe in a number of gods, and we will refute them. We'll talk about the idols in our life and how we ought to dethrone them. And then finally, we're going to take some questions from our patrons, and we get some really interesting questions. Someone asks whether they

should flee to the Orthodox Church since they have valid sacraments. Someone else asks my opinion on We'll be right back. Here's the show. Okay, 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. Now, I said last week that I wanted to take a look at Thomas's commentary on the creed. It is fabulous. Part of the reason I wanted to look at this, the main reason I wanted to look at this, is because we live in a very confusing day and age. And I think it's important that we get back to basics so that we can continue to build upon a solid foundation.

You can't do theology if you have a shaky foundation. If you don't believe in God, then theology doesn't exist, right? Because God has to reveal himself for theology to be a thing. And if he doesn't exist, he can't reveal himself. Likewise, if Christ isn't God, then everything else upon this foundation will fall apart. So that's why I want to look at Thomas's exposition, his commentary on the creed. his commentary on the creed. Now, he says a lot, so this might have to be a couple of episodes. We'll see how we do. But when he says this line, I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. The first thing that he does is he begins by explaining that God is the ruler and provider of all things. He says, this is what we mean by

God. Here's the quote. We must see that God means the ruler and provider of all things. He therefore, that is the man who believes in God, believes in God who believes that everything in this world is governed and provided by him. So if you believe that God governs nature, but not men, then you are not really believing in God, or you have a faulty understanding of God. So God provides for all men. And you say, well, why? Why think that's true? Because you might be able to look around at the universe and say, I see how it's governed, and that this has to be explained by a creator. But when you around at the universe and say, I see how it's governed and that this has to be explained by a creator. But when you look at the lives of men, it seems very chaotic.

You have some men who are evil, right? And they're gaining in riches and there seems to be no justice. And then you see some people and they are virtuous, but they're poor and despised and misunderstood and these sorts of things. Aquinas has a pretty cool analogy here regarding divine providence. He says that, let's see, divine providence seems to disregard human affairs for the reasons we just mentioned. At least some people would claim that. And he says, hence the words of Job are offered to apply to this view. Quote, he does not consider our things, that is God, and he walks about the poles of heaven. But this is indeed absurd, says Aquinas. Now here's the analogy. I think this is really good. It's just like a person who is ignorant of medicine. And suppose he goes into a hospital

and he sees the doctor give water to one patient and wine to another. Or maybe we could change up the analogy since I'm not sure how many doctors are prescribing water and wine these days. But let's say an injection to this person and pills to another person. And this person who has no idea about medicine would believe that this is by mere chance that this happens. believe that this is by mere chance, you know, that this happens since he does not understand the science of medicine, which for good reasons prescribes for one wine and for another water. So it is with God, for God in his just and wise providence knows what is good and necessary for men. And hence he afflicts some who are good and allows certain wicked men to prosper. Now we could get a little

derailed here and do a whole episode on the problem of evil, but I don't want to do that because we've done that a couple of times in the past. If you were just to go to type in pints with Aquinas, comma, evil, you'll see those episodes we've done there. But it is tempting for us, I think. And I think many of us feel alone in this fear because we don't often communicate it because we're embarrassed about it. So let me try to communicate it. You're married and your spouse can't have children. And you begin to wonder whether or not you married the right person. And there's a lot of bitterness and emptiness perhaps in your relationship. And you feel like you've made a bad choice and that you see other people who don't seem to carry

the same cross that you do and you suspect that God is absent, not listening to you, you know? Or you are in a marriage that's pretty decent, but you know, you get frustrated with your spouse and you begin to daydream about what it would be like to be with somebody else's spouse. And you begin to daydream about what it would be like to be with somebody else's spouse. And you might even do things like, well, if my spouse died and her spouse died or his spouse died, then maybe I could marry him and then I would be seminary, but I had no idea, right? Like, I had no idea about all that was involved in being a parish priest. And now here I am, stationed at this parish that I can't possibly control. There's so much junk that's gone before me. And I know a brother priest who's in this quiet little church where he has time to pray and do the duties of a priest, And this isn't right. So, we can fall into these traps. And it sounds like what Thomas is saying is evil befalls us

because we need it. Now, that can sound really gross. And again, check out my episodes on the problem of evil if your brain is going to gross things. But the Lord knows what we need and He knows how to bring good from whatever we suffer here. And the Lord is calling us to carry our cross so that we can grow to be more free, more loving human beings. And as I mentioned in last week's episode, St. Teresa of Avila said, even the most horrible life will be viewed from the vantage point of heaven as merely an uncomfortable night in a rundown hotel. And that all things work for good for those who love Jesus Christ. Again, very easy to say, very bloody difficult to live and to make sense of sometimes. But the point Aquinas is making is to say, I believe in God,

the Father Almighty, is not merely to say that there is a God who rules the cosmos, but it is to say that I believe in a God who is the ruler of all things, including man and the provider of all things, and that he can see things even when we can't. Hey, I want to take a break and say thank you to Halo, which is an incredible app that will help you deepen your relationship with Christ and grow your prayer life. You know those apps out there like Calm and Headspace that help you meditate? The good thing about those apps is they're really well produced. The negative thing is sometimes they lead into, you know, new age ways of thinking. What's great about Halo is that it is just as professional as those other very professional apps,

and it is 100% Catholic. I'll sometimes take the app into adoration and do a prayer session where I'll let it guide me through a 15-minute prayer session, Lectio Divina session. It has Gregorian chant in the background. You can choose synth music if you want. It has a ton of content on there. Well, Hello wants to give you a month for free so you can try it out. And if you like it, choose to get it. The way you would do that is by going to hello.app

slash Matt Fradd, hello.app slash Matt Fradd. Try out the whole thing. If you like it, like I do, and my wife does, get it. As I say, my wife and I use it. It's really helped us. My wife just turned over to me the other day and she's like, I really like this Hello app. I'm like, yeah, I told you it was awesome. And she's like, yeah, but I thought they were just asking you to promote it. I'm like, yes, but I promote things because I think they're awesome as well. Come on, I'm not a complete shill. So check it out. Halo.app.com. I'll put a link at the top of the show notes. Check it out. You won't be disappointed. Next, he talks about four motives which have led men to believe in a number of gods. Here are the four motives. Number one, the dullness of the human intellect. Number two, the human adulation.

Number three, human affection for sons and relatives. And then finally, the malice of the devil. I want to go through each of these, but before I do, I want to take a look at what Aquinas has to say in the Prima Paz of the Summa Theologiae, question 11, article 3. And the question is, is God one? And it's here that Aquinas gives three reasons to think that God must be one, that polytheism cannot be a thing. And it seems to me that if you deny divine simplicity and say that, no, there is a distinction between God's essence and existence, then it becomes difficult to show through philosophical reasoning why God has to be one. You might be able to show it through divine revelation, but it's difficult to do it through philosophical reasoning. If you've listened to

Dr. William Lane Craig in any of his debates, when somebody brings up the topic of polytheism, that is, someone will say, well, maybe there's a lot of gods. How do you know? You'll remember what he says. All he says is, well, Occam's razor would shave away the need for any other gods. All you need is one. So if I argue for God's existence from the Kalam cosmological argument, just need one God, don't need two, so that does it. And then sometimes he'll use what Aquinas uses here, his third argument, that is to say the unity of the world. There is a unity to it, and it makes more sense to be one God. But it's a lot easier to show that God must be one if you accept what the church says you must accept,

that is divine simplicity. So let's look here. First, his said contra, Aquinas, whenever he said contra, that's when he says on the contrary, he always offers a short response from authority, whether that be a philosopher or scripture or something like that. So here he says, it is written, hero Israel, the Lord our God is one God. That's Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four. So that's how we know that there's one God from divine revelation. But now he gives us three reasons to think that God is one, must be one from philosophy. He says, it can be shown that from these three sources that God is one. So here's the first reason, from his simplicity.

And Aquinas says, for it is manifest that the reason why any singular thing is this particular thing is because it cannot be communicated to many, since that whereby Socrates is a man can be communicated to many, whereas what makes him this particular man is only communicable to one. Therefore, if Socrates were a man by what makes him to be this particular man, as there cannot be many Socrates, so there could not in that way be many men. Now, this belongs to God alone, for God himself is his own nature. So you are not your nature. You share in the nature of man. If you were your own nature, then it couldn't be communicable. And so therefore you couldn't say, could there be more than one man in the same way that you couldn't ask, could there be more than one Matt Fradd? I mean,

suppose you were to ask that, could there be more than one Matt Fradd? Well, suppose there is. Well, how would you know we were different? Well, there would have to be some kind of differentiating factor, be that in our, whatever, level of education, our habits, our place in the universe where we're physically standing in these sorts of things. And these things would differentiate us so that there actually wouldn't be one Matt Fred, there would be two. So in that case, you're not saying, are there two Matt Freds? Well, no, there's not. There can't be. There can't be. It's not communicable. That's what he's saying here. So he's saying that this belongs to God, for God himself is his own nature, as he explained earlier. Therefore, in the very same way, God is God, and he is this God.

So it's impossible that there could be many gods. Okay, here's the second reason, and that's proved from the infinity of his perfection. God, Thomas thinks, comprehends himself, in himself, the whole perfection of being, right? So if there were many gods, these many gods would necessarily differ from each other. Something therefore would belong to one which didn't belong to another. And this is sort of what I was saying earlier. And if this were a privation, one of them would not be absolutely perfect. But if a perfection, one of them would be without it. So it's impossible for many gods to exist. Hence also, the ancient philosophers constrained, as it were, by truth, when they asserted an infinite principle, asserted likewise that

there was only one such principle. So if we mean by God, he who comprehends in himself the whole perfection of being, and then we say there are many gods, how do you distinguish one from the other? You would have to say, well, this God has something that that one doesn't. But if that one doesn't have that thing that God A has, then he doesn't comprehend in himself the whole perfection of being and so wouldn't be God. Or if God B does have a perfection that God A doesn't, then God A wouldn't comprehend in himself the whole perfection of being and so wouldn't be God and maybe God B is God. So either way, there cannot be a multiplicity of gods. Here's the third reason. This, says Aquinas, is shown from the unity of the world. And this is an argument I've seen Dr. William Lane Craig use. For all things that exist are

seen to be ordered to each other since some serve others. But things that are diverse do not harmonize in the same order unless they are ordered thereto by one. For many are reduced into one order by one better than by many, because one is the per se cause of one, and many are the accidental cause of one, inasmuch as they are in some way one. Since therefore, what is first is most perfect, and is so per se, and not accidentally go. I find that really compelling, I have to say. Here is Aquinas' four reasons for why people have believed in more than one God. First, the dullness of the human intellect. Dull, I'm sure that's me, dull men, not capable of going beyond sensible things, did not believe anything existed except physical bodies. Hence, they held

that the world is disposed and ruled by those bodies which to them seem most beautiful and most valuable in this world. And accordingly to things such as the sun, the moon, and the stars, they attributed and gave a divine worship. Such men are like to one who going to a royal court to see the king believes that whoever is sumptuously dressed or of official position is the king. Love it so much. You imagine somebody who's very simple, who has never encountered royalty in any sense before, is suddenly ushered into a kingdom, and then just begins kind of bowing down before whoever is dressed better than him. down before whoever is dressed better than him. Then Thomas Aquinas quotes Wisdom chapter 13.

This is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture. It talks about the foolishness of idolatry. And just like Aquinas says that this foolish person bows down before whoever's dressed sumptuously, he thinks that dull people just began worshiping the things around them, but they shouldn't have. Here's what Wisdom chapter 13 says, all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature, and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying heed to his works. But they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air or the circle of stars or turbulent waters or the luminaries of heaven were the gods that ruled the world. That is great. So that's Aquinas' point. This line's awesome. If through delight in the beauty of these things, men assumed them to be gods, let them know how much better

than these is their Lord, for the author of beauty created them. Check out Wisdom chapter 13 if you want to read more because it goes on and it keeps getting more beautiful. By the way, if you're a Protestant, the reason this isn't in your Bible is because it was removed during the Protestant Reformation. So if you want all the books that the church has consistently taught are inspired, get a copy of a Catholic Bible because unfortunately you're missing out. Okay. Let's see. Here's the second reason people have believed in multiple gods, and that is human adulation. Aquinas says, some men wishing to fawn upon kings and rulers, obey and subject themselves to them and show them honor, which is due to God alone. After the death of these rulers, sometimes men make them gods, and sometimes this is done even whilst they're living.

That every nation may know that Nebuchadnezzar is God of the earth, and besides him there is no other. We read that in Judith 5, verse 29. Here's the third reason Aquinas says men have believed in many gods, and that is human affection for sons and relatives. He says that some, because of the excessive love which they had for their family, caused statues of them to be erected after their death. And gradually, a divine honor was attached to these statues. For men, and we read this in wisdom, for men serving either their affections or their kings gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood. Here's the last reason, and that is because of the malice of the devil. We spoke about the devil last week too. Again,

I've said it before, I'll say it again, Christianity becomes incoherent without acknowledging the demonic. So the reason men have worshipped many gods is because of the malice of the devil. The devil, says Aquinas, wished from the beginning to be equal to God, and thus he said, and this is from Isaiah, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. The devil still entertains this desire. His entire purpose is to bring about that man adore him and offer sacrifices to him. Not that he takes delight in a dog or cat that is offered to him. he does relish the fact that thereby irreverence is shown to God. Thus, he spoke to Christ, all these things will I give you if you fall down and adore me.

For this reason, those demons who entered into idols said that they would be venerated as gods. All the gods of the Gentiles are demons. The things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. So this is interesting. So when we read in the Old Testament about pagans offering sacrifices to gods, they're actually offering them to demons. So they're not offering them to the one true God, and they're not offering them to just myths of their own imaginings. They are essentially, whether they know it or not, offering sacrifices to demons. And I do think, and you know this, that we tend to think that we are much cleverer than those in the Old Testament or people who lived thousands of years ago. But I saw a tweet recently that reminded me that this isn't so. It said,

6,000 BC, let's kill your babies to change the weather. 2019, let's kill your babies to change the weather. Not much has changed in a sense. I mean, obviously our scientific understanding of the climate and things has obviously changed. But this idea that I don't worship idols, I'm just for the slaughtering of children in the womb. I don't worship idols, I just consume pornography. I don't worship idols, I just need to make a lot of money and have that be the focal point of my life through my side hustle or something. We give them these clever names, but really we end up neglecting our family and our responsibilities and do other things begins to negatively impact my family. I am, in a very real sense, sacrificing my family for the good of something other than what God has called me to do, you see. So we have to be careful in this regard. A good spiritual director can help point out those idols in our life. And we need to

put them to death in all sincerity. We need to destroy them and refocus on Christ. And Aquinas sort of makes this point right after these four mistakes that we make in thinking there are many gods. He says, although all this is terrible to contemplate, yet at times there are any who fall into these above mentioned four causes, not by their words and hearts, but by their actions. They show that they believe in many gods. And this is kind of what I mentioned a moment ago. None of us would say that money is divine. None of us would say that sexual license with no restrictions is a God to be worshipped. But when we choose these things over God, we are making idols out of them. And this is just as evil as if we were to create a wooden idol and bow down before it, I think. Aquinas says,

thus, those who believe that the celestial bodies influence the will of man and regulate their affairs by astrology really make the heavenly bodies gods and subject themselves to them. So if you read astrology, stop it and go to confession immediately and repent of it. If you've used astrology or tarot cards or have gone to a psychic in the past, repent immediately of this evil that you have done and been involved in, regardless of how culpable you think you were for that act. Get to the sacrament of confession and confess these things. He quotes Jeremiah, be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear, for the laws of the people are vain. In the same category, says Aquinas, are all those who obey

temporal rulers more than God in that which they ought not. Such actually set these up as gods. In Acts 5, we read, we ought to obey God rather than men. So also those who love their sons and kinsfolk more than God, shown by their actions that they believe in many gods. As likewise, do those who love food more than God, whose God is their belly, we read in Philippians chapter 3 verse 19. Moreover, all those who take part in magic and incantation believe that the demons are gods because they seek from the devil that which God alone can give, such as revealing the future and discovering hidden things. We must therefore believe that there is but one God. So there you are. What I just said has now been validated by

Thomas Aquinas. We may not attribute divinity to certain things, but if we put these things above God, then we've essentially kind of made a God out of them. We've chosen to fear man rather than God. I remember this, like, honestly, just being as honest as possible, you know, when I went to Google a couple of months ago and I was banned from speaking because I was said to have been a homophobe or an Islamophobe. You can go to my YouTube channel and scroll down a bit and you'll see the video I posted in which I show their official response and why they banned me.

But there was this sense of fear, right? It's like, oh my gosh, like everyone is sort of, it felt like this wasn't the case, but it feels like this when people are attacking you. It feels like the world has turned their gaze upon you disapprovingly and you just want to be approved again. You feel like, oh gosh, like, oh, I'm really sorry. And there's this sense of like, what can I do so that we can be okay again? But I knew that if I was to do that, I would be disobeying God. And so this is why I stuck to my

guns. I'm like, yes, like I believe certain things as a Christian. And if you're intolerant of me, Christian. And if you're intolerant of me, then that's on you. But I'm not going to change what I know to be true because you're taking away a platform that you, you know, in the beginning promised to give me, namely speaking at Google, you know? Now, and I know that that's nothing compared to what other people have to sacrifice. I'm not holding myself out as a martyr. That really, I mean, if anything, it kind of boosted my YouTube video and subscribers up by about 3000 in a week. So I'm not complaining. I know that some people have to sacrifice a great deal in order to be faithful to God. But Aquinas, the point is, makes this clear that even if we are to say, obey our children, you know, or our parents, another example, I remember my wife and I went away on

a vacation and we were with family members who weren't, uh, Catholic and we were having a big dinner. And the only time we had to go to Holy mass was that night for different reasons. And so we had to leave a dinner party that everyone was kind of upset that we were leaving in order to do this. And it would have been a lot easier, right? To be like, you know what? Like just to keep the peace, honor the family, like they've done this for us. It's like, no, like this was our legit only option and we obey God rather than men, even if that puts people, including ourselves in an uncomfortable situation. All right. He goes on to say that it has been shown that we must first of all believe that there is one God. Now, the second is that

this God is the creator and maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Let us leave more subtle reasons for the present and show by a simple example that all things are created and made by God. If a person, this is a very good analogy here. I really like it. And this sort of gets to his fourth way. Yeah. Yeah. His fourth way here. He says, if a person upon entering a certain house should feel a warmth at the door of the house and going within should feel a greater warmth, and so on, the more he went into its interior, he would believe that somewhere within was a fire, even if he did not see the fire itself, which caused this heat which he felt. So also it is when we consider the things

of this world. For one finds all things arranged in different degrees of beauty and worth, and the closer things approach to God, the more beautiful and better they are found to be. Thus the heavenly bodies are more beautiful and nobler than those which are below them, and likewise the invisible things in relation to the visible. Therefore it must be seen that all these things proceed from one God who gives his being and beauty to each and everything. Wisdom reads, all men are vain in whom there is not the knowledge of God and who by these good things that are seen could not understand him that is neither by attention to the works have acknowledged who was the workman. This gets back to that scripture I mentioned a moment ago.

For by the greatness of the beauty and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby. And Aquinas concludes, thus, therefore, it is certain for us that all things in the world are from God. Now, I'm going to pause there. And the next time we come back and do an episode on the creed, I want to look at three errors that Thomas Aquinas talks about that have arisen in church history regarding the idea of God, the Father Almighty, and then three benefits that come from knowing this. Okay, now let's take some of your fantastic questions. a bunch of free things in return, like Pints with Aquinas stickers. I've been sending out these stickers lately that have Thomas Aquinas throwing a fireball at Richard Dawkins, and it's really well done. So you can check that out. Signed copies of my book, Beer Steins. You get access to these book studies we're doing on Flannery O'Connor and Dante, and they're always

available as soon as you sign up. So there's just a ton of benefits we try to give you in return for being an awesome human being. So if you'd like the show, if you think it's worth five bucks a month, one buck a month, 10 bucks a month, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradner. You can very easily give to it. You also get the episodes a day early. So that's always good. And sometimes we run ads. And so if you're a patron, you get the episodes a day early and ad free. So there's that too. All right, let's look at some of your questions. First one comes from Lucas, who asks, will you let your children play gridiron football? Gridiron, for those who aren't familiar, is what Australians call NFL football. Would I let them? Well, I suppose it

depends. My immediate reaction is hesitancy because it's a very violent game. And especially as children are growing, I can see a lot of dangers there. So it would have to be a bridge that I cross when I came to it. I don't think they're going to ask that. So I'm kind of glad that they're not going to ask that. I don't know much about NFL football. Not a big fan, to be honest. So there you are. Went to an Atlanta United game recently, though, with some of my brothers from a men's group. And yeah, I actually like soccer. Okay. Sophia asks, what's a little point of joy in your life right now? Oh, that's a lovely question. My sister and I are currently writing short horror stories together. And this is, believe it or not,

ironically enough, a source of tremendous joy. We are writing stories, sending them back and forth to each other, giving each other corrections, editing them, writing them together. And I'm really enjoying it, I have to say. Now, if you want to say that horror is wrong, of course, you'll have to say that Frankenstein, Dracula, and these sorts of books are wrong. This is a whole other discussion, which I don't plan on getting into right now, but maybe I brought it up because maybe I'm a little defensive because I suspect that some people aren't okay with me writing horror, but I am, and we can talk about that at a later date. But anyway, here's what I think we're going to do. We're going to probably release a podcast called Sibling Horror. And in that, we're going to release a short story, one a month for now. And once we have 10, we'll compile it into a little book

of short stories of suspense and horror. So that is a source of great joy for me right now, believe it or not. Russell Tisdale says, if the Orthodox have valid sacraments, would fleeing to the East be a sin and why? The Orthodox do have valid sacraments, but it would be a sin to quote, unquote, flee to the East because the East, at least the Eastern Orthodox are in a state of schism. They're not in union with the Pope of Rome and they ought to be. So rather than flee to the Orthodox East, you should flee to those Orthodox Christians who are in union with the Catholic Church. That is to say the Melkite, the Byzantines, the Eastern Catholic churches. You could look up one in your area and go there perhaps. Phil and Mindy ask,

what do you think is one thing we all should be doing to deepen our relationship with God? Maybe something you find to work well for you that maybe we aren't doing already. I think reading good books on the faith and having a consistent prayer life is helpful. I mentioned this in my episode about prayer a few weeks back. Go back and listen to that if you haven't already, because I suggest a prayer rule for life. In fact, you don't even have to listen to the whole thing. Just look at the show notes. I suggest certain things that you can do daily that are sort of like anchors throughout your day to sort of, as it were, to orientate your day around certain prayers. So that could be helpful. Spiritual director could be helpful as well. And taking a retreat for several days just to spend time before our Lord and the Blessed

Sacrament to pray, to read sacred scripture can certainly be a great way to kickstart your spiritual life, if you want to put it that way. Riley Rodia says, how do you keep work and family and other responsibilities balanced? Yeah, this is a very good question and one that I'm continually trying to do well. I now have an office outside the home, which oddly enough gives me more intentional time with my family. So I'm not in the same building as them while my wife is homeschooling the kids. I've now gone to an office outside the home, but that allows me to be more intentional about when I work and when I'm home. So very often I'll leave my phone and laptop in the office and drive home and just be with my family. So that helps. Also, as my kids are

getting older, I'm beginning to take them on trips with me. So I'm going to Houston, Texas soon. I'm going to take my daughter, Avila, Kiara. I'm thinking, yeah, Kiara. I didn't mix them up. I'm taking Avila somewhere else. I did mix them up. The point is I'm taking Kiara with me on a trip. Yeah. I took my two girls to a talk I gave in Atlanta. So it's things like that. I get to go on special trips with dad, and that's been real fun. David Black asks, what's your favorite food? I would say I love sushi. I love really good barbecue. So those two things. Eric Imkin says, what are your top three sources for Catholic news and articles? That's a good question. I check out Church Militant when I think something has that I need to keep abreast on. I am not a

fan of those who crap on Michael Voris or Church Militant. I've said this before. If you think Michael Voris has said something false, then you ought to correct him and correct him publicly, since he's put out something publicly. But simply to dismiss an entire news outlet because you find them too negative, I think, is something of an ad hominem, really. You're rejecting what's being said because of the people behind that thing. So I like Church Militant. I really like Raymond Arroyo. What does he call it? I forget that name of his show now.

Weldover or something like that on YouTube. So I guess those two sources. I don't actually look at church news a great deal, to be honest. But I suppose I would do it in that order, like Raymond, I really trust, and Church Militant if something's breaking. Carrie Bradley says, what do you think we can do to better combat the epidemic of loneliness in our communities and the church? Well, one thing we do is have open porch night once a month. We have friends who do it every week, Annie and Kena Hickman down in Houston, amazing people. I've had him on the Matt Fradd Show.

But one of the things we do is we'll have open porch night and everyone's invited. We literally had over 100 people come to our last open porch night. The deal is everyone has to bring food, everyone has to bring drink, and then we all just sit together and do community. So just kind of being intentional about community can be really helpful. So something like that, as far as in your church, if you don't already, you know, choosing to spend a couple of hours after church with the community by having a potluck of sorts and maybe playing soccer with the kids and things like that. You know, Things like that can be really helpful. Finally, Holly says, why did you choose the Byzantine rite? Well, I'll do this quickly because I've explained this before and I don't want to bore those of you who've heard it. About

four years ago, my wife and I started going to a Ruthenian Byzantine church and we fell in love with it and also the priest and the community such that we're now there for, I think, several reasons. One, we love the liturgy. It's very mysterious and beautiful and sacred, reverent. But two, it's a small church. I mean, there's only about 70 families. So you go to a church on a given Sunday and there might be 30 people in the church, which is great. I don't want a big church. I kind of don't think we should have massive churches. I think those are really unhelpful. I'm liking the small church thing. So I like that. Love our priest. Love the community there. All right. That does it for this week. Thank you so much for your questions. Thanks for listening. Please, if you have not already,

consider giving Pints with Aquinas a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. This helps get the word out about Pints with Aquinas so people get to hear it and that'll be really cool. If you haven't yet as well, subscribe to the Matt Fradd Show podcast because these long form sit down chats I'm doing with really interesting people aren't always released on Pints with Aquinas. So you're missing out if you're not subscribed to the Matt Fradd Show. And obviously, if you're not subscribed here, you should subscribe to Pints with Aquinas as well. God bless you. Have a lovely week. And I will chat with you next week. To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life