Pints With Aquinas - 225: What is the Armor of God?

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

In this episode of Pints with Aquinas, we'll take a look at Aquinas' commentary on St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. Specifically, we will delve into what he has to say about putting on the armor of God.   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, g'day, g'day! Welcome to Points with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd and today I want to take a look at Thomas Aquinas' commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. In particular, we're going to take a look at chapter 6 where St. Paul talks about putting on the armor of God. You and I live in a spiritual battle. There are forces that want our destruction and want us separated from God for all eternity. In chapter 6, St. Paul talks about how we can defend ourselves against these wicked spirits. And in this commentary, Aquinas is going to help us understand it. And I just love these commentaries. Maybe you've been following some of the Bible studies I've been doing on here on my YouTube channel. But here, I just want to take a look

at the entirety of this section. And yeah, one of the reasons I love these commentaries is it's obviously getting an insight into the mind of Aquinas as to what he thinks about this particular passage. I mean, if I was to sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas and be like, all right, why does Paul say this? What do you think he means by this? Why these things? You know, he would say probably the same thing as he's already said to me in this commentary. So we get to learn about what St. Paul has to say, you know, through this brilliant intellect. So I'm really excited to do this with you. I'm excited to learn.

And I hope you are too. Before we go any further, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Halo. Now, you've heard me talk about Halo. It is a very sophisticated app, very Catholic. It'll help you to pray. It has something in it for everybody, right? Like you could pray the rosary

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St. Paul says, be able to resist the evil day and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In all things, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. All right. So this is what St. Paul has to say.

Two things I want to kind of point out right away. I've been seeing different people online saying that we shouldn't be using kind of military language when talking about the Christian faith, because Christ came to bring peace. He came to reconcile us with our enemies. This is true, of course, right? He did come to bring peace. He did come to reconcile us with our enemies in a sense. But also, have these people ever read the Bible? Because I'm looking at talk, you know. This is very military language right here. So we exist in a world at war. Whether we want to or not, we are at war. We can pretend that we're not. We can downplay it. But every single day we are engaged in spiritual warfare. And there do

exist these wicked spirits who want our damnation, who want to separate us from God for all eternity. I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating. Trying to understand the Christian life without reference to the demonic is somewhat analogous to trying to understand the Lord of the Rings without reference to Sauron. Maybe you could kind of explain the Lord of the Rings, you know, without reference to Sauron. You could talk about how there was this ring and it wasn't conducive to the flourishing of Hobbiton and so they destroyed it and everything was better. But that is a, you know, really a woeful retelling or, you know, recounting of this epic story, right? Likewise, you could say that God loves us and he sends his son to die for us so that we can have eternal life. But we're missing a big portion of this story.

Like, well, why did he have to die? What debt was he paying? What was he saving us from? And I think that we naturally fall into the trap of thinking that it's God's job to create for me a comfortable little life in which I'm basically happy. And when I'm not happy, when my child gets sick or my spouse is addicted to pornography or my young child dies or I have cancer or I lost my job or something like that, we really can begin to question God's existence because, look, God exists to make me happy.

I'm not happy. Therefore, we have to conclude that either God isn't doing his job or he doesn't exist, something like that. But we really do live in a world at war and it's so important that we understand this. And I think even when we pray our daily prayers, we really have to incorporate this, Lord, defend me against the enemy. Defend me against temptation. I want to love you and I want to refuse to ever disobey your promptings. So let's take a look at what Aquinas says. Well, referring to St. Paul, he says the apostle explained the devil's snares previously, and here he advises us to take up arms. Again, this military language. In reference to this, he does two things. First, he concludes from the foregoing that arms are necessary.

Second, he described the variety of weapons where he says, stand therefore. Thus, he says, you have evil enemies who are powerful and most wicked, and the struggle is for an exacting object since it is for heaven. There you are. Aquinas just said that far more succinctly and powerfully than I tried to. Right? You, listener, viewer, have evil enemies. And these evil enemies are powerful. And they're most wicked.

Right? And they are struggling against you, fighting against you, so that you will not obtain the fulfillment of your desires. Heaven. And so St. Paul says, therefore, take unto you the armor of God. What does he mean by that? Well, he means that we have to be armed with spiritual weapons. Why? Well, Aquinas says, For the weapons of our warfare aren't carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying councils.

He gets this from 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4. And this, that you may be able to resist. Resist him, strong in the faith, 1 Peter 5, 9. We read James 4, 7, resist the devil and he will fly from you. For the more is conceded to him, the more will he press in upon you. That's a very interesting line. That's powerful. So he's quoting here James 4, 7,

resist the devil and he will flee from you. But the more we concede to Satan, the more he'll press in upon us. And I think that this is true in we can think of any kind of sin. I was recently in a small gathering of people in which the temptation to speak negatively about other people was definitely on the table. It was definitely a temptation. I felt like I could say

something negative and kind of cloak it in a sort of nice way so it doesn't really look like I'm speaking negatively about them, you know. And by God's grace, at least this time, I was able to resist that. I noticed it kind of percolating, if you want, within me. And I went, no, that's not what I'm going to do. And I actually said something positive about this person instead of rather negative because the person we were talking about, we were already talking about them. And so I decided to say something, yeah, this person, I said something positive positive and it was awesome because as soon as i did that i i had absolutely no desire to participate in gossip whereas if i had have

said something then things would have got much worse i think after that and i think that's true when we consider sexual sin or pride or any other sins. Okay. For the more is conceded to him, the more will he press in upon you. In the evil day, what does he mean by that? Well, this indicates that a day is evil from what occurs in it. And St. Paul says,

redeeming the time because the days are evil. Beware beforehand of the evil day, right? So we exist, I mean, just to kind of put it, I don't know, simply we live in a world at war. Take up these weapons, not only for defense, but also to make progress. And so that's what he's going to talk about here. Yeah, we have to have some weapons

in order to defend ourselves. And then we're going to also have some weapons to be on the offensive and to stand in all things perfect. That is, stand firm in both adversity and prosperity, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing, James 1.4. Trust perfectly in the grace which is offered you in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, you might be wondering, what does Paul mean when he says to stand in all things perfect?

Because we look at ourselves and we're like, I'm not perfect at all. So what does he mean by this? Well, here's what Aquinas says. He says, I reply that there are three types of perfection. There is one of sufficiency when a man has what is necessary for his salvation. For instance, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, as if to say, let there be nothing in your heart which is contrary to God.

This much is necessary for salvation. And James talks about this in chapter 1, verse 4, that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing. And so, I don't know, forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but I think this type of perfection is this desire to love the Lord, to not offend Him, to not resist or reject the promptings He offers us, right? To make a firm decision never to offend Him, to never go against his will, right? And then we might mess up. We're going to experience venial sin, at least in this life, of course. But there can be this firm disposition to love our Lord. That's the first kind of definition of perfect. Another, Aquinas says, is the total and overflowing perfection proper to the fatherland, that is heaven,

there glory is consummated in this, that the perfect totally in hearing God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven, Matthew 22, 30. The apostle speaks of this elsewhere. Not as though I had already attained or were already perfect. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. That's really important, I think. Because I think sometimes when we talk about we need to be perfect,

I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm like, oh man, well, I'm not. I'm not, and honestly, I don't see how I could be. Because maybe as I was just coming into the Christian life, I would see these gigantic kind of sins in my life, you know, whether that be in regards to purity or stealing, things like this that I used to do when I was a younger man, stealing in particular. You know, I would actually go into stores and put things in my bag and leave. Right. And I'm like, OK, get rid of that. Done. Cool. I'm perfect, right? But the further we walk along this Christian journey, the more we become aware of our own weaknesses and our own arrogance and our own pride and things

like this. This happened to me recently. I want to share it with you. I was praying a decade with some families as they were about to leave our house. We were all eating together and having fun. The kids were running around. And we prayed a decade of the rosary, and then I just started singing the Salve Regina, which is beautiful. And I sang it kind of hoping that some other people would know it

so we could sing it together. But you know what it's like when you're singing a song like that or you're praying say a long prayer and someone else no one else is praying it with you you kind of get lost so i was you know salve regina and at some point i like totally lost track and i think in the past i would have become like really embarrassed and then kind of frustrated with myself. But I wasn't. I was like, okay, yeah, I messed it up. That's fine.

So I stopped awkwardly and went, okay, Hail Holy Queen. And it was just like everybody knew that I didn't know how to sing it. And I wasn't embarrassed about that, actually. So I think, oh, that's awesome. And I remember thinking to myself, that's really awesome. I must be becoming more humble. And I'm like, oh no, I just messed it up. You know, I just fell into pride by congratulating myself about how awesome I am.

So my point only is that there are these sins that lie beneath the surface. And as we begin to journey with our Lord, he wants to heal us, not only of these big infirmities, but these smaller ones as well. But the point is, it would seem that Aquinas is saying here, this kind of perfection that we want, like complete and utter moral purity, is not going to be found on this side of heaven. And Paul even speaks of this, right? He's like, not though that I've already attained it. You know, I don't can self, I do not count myself to have apprehended it, you know. All right, here's the third type of perfection. It's between the above two, which is that of the counsels by which a man strives to withdraw himself from things of this life and to make progress towards those of the next.

Here he might be talking about poverty, chastity, and obedience. And then we read, stand therefore. And Aquinas says he goes on to describe the variety of weapons. There are three kinds of spiritual armor. This is cool. I don't know what they're going to be. I'm pretty pumped. I didn't know that there were three types of spiritual armor.

I'm excited to learn about it. He says paralleling bodily arms. Some are like clothes and are meant to cover one. Others are to protect him. and still others are for fighting. So these are the three different categories of weapons. Some are to clothe, some are to protect and some are for fighting. Three things are necessary for clothing. First, it must be bound with a belt. Regarding this, he says, stand therefore

having your loins girt about. However, a man clothes himself before he puts his belt on. Here, the apostle follows the order of spiritual armor. In spiritual warfare, it is first necessary to check carnal desires, just as the nearest enemy must be conquered first. This is done by bridling the loins in which sensuality thrives. Such girding is done through temperance, which is opposed to gluttony and sensuality. Let your loins be girt, Luke 12, 33. And in Job 38, 3, we read, gird up your loins like a man. All right, so the loins is not kind of like something we often talk about.

But I think when people talk about the loins, they're talking about kind of like, well, our genitals, but below our rib and kind of down towards our... Is it weird that I'm saying genitals? I'm sorry. But he's talking about our sexual organs here. And I love this line here. You know, we got to take care of this first.

And you think, well, okay, why do we need to take care of that first? Well, he says that just as the nearest enemy must be conquered first. Like if you're in a battle and you're considering the enemy that you can see approaching from, you know, 50 meters away. Yeah, that's great. But there's someone right here that you need to contend with first. And because the sexual passions are so strong, we need to have this checked first. Here's another way I think of realizing this. Because I know that sometimes people say, well, why are you so obsessed with sex?

And I don't think the church is obsessed with sex. I don't think Aquinas is obsessed with sex. I think honestly, our culture, our society is obsessed with sex. And so the church has to respond to the society in which we live so that they can begin to be free and not enslaved. the society in which we live so that they can begin to be free and not enslaved, right? But here's an interesting point, I think. If you know somebody who is on board with the church's teachings on human sexuality, they're probably on board with everything else. Whereas if you know somebody who rejects the church's teachings on human sexuality, they're most likely not a practicing Catholic. And it seems to me that even in America, which is where I live, you know, these political divides and this fighting among Americans, a lot of it does come down to this recognition or this understanding of what is man, what is woman what is the sexual act how ought it to be engaged in right you think about these big hot topics right transgenderism marriage um sodomy um abortion right these huge topics

it's almost like i think if i adopted the world's position on sexuality then i would be a friend of the world right the world would accept me as a friend though i might have different opinions on insider training trading marijuana use uh when a child can drive or go to the military you know um even kind of war and my opinions on war, I would be led into the camp so long as I would agree with the culture's understanding of human sexuality, which is to say it's lack of understanding of human sexuality. That's really interesting to me, I think. So this is something we got to be really serious about, you know, not just publicly as we talk about it, like I'm doing now, but like interiorly, like we need to get, we need to submit to what God has to say for our human sexuality.

Again, not so that we can be enslaved, but so that we can be free. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, you know, either man governs his passions and finds peace or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. And this is under its section on chastity. So those are your options. Like you can go the way of the world. You can give in to your passions and become unhappy. Or, you know, you can rule over your passions as opposed to your passions ruling over you. And you can actually find peace.

So that's really cool. This is the first thing he says. But this must be done with truth that is with the right intention and not with pretense a variant reading gives with charity let all that you do be done with charity second saint paul warns them to overcome greed for created things how do we overcome greed for created things? Two weapons can be found against it. Justice and renunciation of temporalities. This is good.

So if you and I want to overcome greed for created things, what we need is to submit to justice and we need to renounce temporalities. This is very good. Listen. First, Paul commands us not to usurp these unjustly. Justice will look after this. Thus, he says, and having on the breastplate of justice, on account of which a man keeps out of other people's property. So when we talk about justice, we're talking about that virtue, which recognizes that someone is due something, right? And so to take what belongs to another is to take what does not belong to us.

And this is, I mean, look, read Plato's Republic if you want a further fleshed out understanding of justice. This is a very sophisticated virtue. And obviously we could say a lot about it, but that's kind of the gist of it. So on account of which a man keeps out of other people's property, justice is referred to as a breastplate because it covers all the virtues, just as a breastplate does,

the members of the body. He will put on justice as a breastplate and will take true judgment instead of a helmet. This comes from Wisdom 519. Second, he commands us to rid of an excessive care about temporal realities. That's awesome, right? So first thing, I don't need to be involved in your stuff. I don't need to take what belongs to you or take what belongs to others, right? And then secondly, I need to renounce temporalities. I have to get rid, as Aquinas says, of an excessive care about temporal realities. When we are too caught up in these, our feet are not ready to carry out divine pursuits and proclaim its mysteries.

For this reason, he says, and your feet shod, understand by this that one's inclination should be determined with the preparation of the gospel of peace. This is really good. I think we can understand this at a superficial level, right? Like you shouldn't be like super concerned with the clothes you wear and the car you drive and where you vacation and what your house looks like and the kind of street you live on. And goodness gracious, don't we know that this is tough enough? But I think there's something even deeper here. All right, something even deeper here that we could look at. Again, if you reject the demonic, if you forget that your good and my good exists in heaven, then we can begin to treat our earthly life as if it were the goal of human life, as opposed to a pilgrimage. We can begin to believe that there

exists an abiding city here on this earth in which we can be happy. But this is not true. But when we think that way, we might begin to think of like, how can my family be well off? And again, I'm not just talking about the superficial level of like boats and money. I'm saying like, I want a beautiful deck on the back of my house so families can gather. I want my kids to play with other kids. You know, we even have to kind of hold these temporal goods loosely so that we can pursue what our Lord wants us to pursue. Like maybe I want to exist in a lovely suburb north of Atlanta where I am safe and all of my needs are taken care of and my children can do X, Y, and Z and they can go to different kind of classes like jujitsu or horse riding or ballet. I don't know, whatever your kids do.

And I want to live a good life. By the way, these aren't necessarily the things that my family does, but I want a piano teacher to come over and teach my daughter piano. And these are all good things, piano. These are all good things. Good, good, good things. But I think St. Paul is like, yeah, even this you might need to totally relinquish. What if our blessed Lord is calling you to abandon everything and go live in a lower class neighborhood in Steubenville, Ohio? What if he's calling me to go and bring my family to Uganda, right, where we have to live in a way that would be considered beneath the poverty line here,

you know, where we could get sick more, you know, and we might have to, it might be more difficult to get to a doctor. Like, what if he's calling you and me to do something like that, to forego earthly goods that are legitimate in order to do His holy will? Maybe right now you have this desire to move out of your house and to do something exciting. And maybe what the Lord's calling you to do is to not do that, but to stay here even though, humanly speaking, you could be happier moving. I'm just thinking this out loud, and I'm applying this to myself right now,

and I kind of feel convicted by it. Just the other night, I had a few mates around, and we were having a drink and sitting around chatting, and it was just a lovely conversation, and I thought about how good it is to have brotherhood and community all right this is a legitimate good and it's good for men to have community and it's good for kids to have friends and yet do I have an excessive care about these temporal realities do you know what I'm saying so again not to belabor the point here but superficially we we talk about those things that we always talk about that don't actually maybe impact us. Like, you know, like I want a yacht and I want an island off the coast of wherever, you know, we talk about these things that we shouldn't be attached to because in reality, we're never going to have them anyway. So we're never going to have a chance to be

attached to them, you know, but what about the things that we have now that the Lord might be calling us to relinquish or at the very least not to have an excessive care about though they seem good to us. What if they're preventing us from doing the Lord's work? From proclaiming the gospel? What if this podcast is preventing me from doing that? Like what if like, hey, I've been working on Pines with Aquinas

for four years now. This is going well for me. What if the Lord's like, end it now and serve me in a totally different way. And in a way that you will have, you'll be able to reach fewer people, but it's my will

and so it'll be more effective. Am I even open to that? Are you even open to something like that? Man, I'm just going to go. Man, I can't wait to read this to my wife tonight. This is really hitting me in the guts right now. Okay, the gospel of peace. As a symbol of this, the Lord sent the apostles, Mark 6, 9, shod with sandals. These have souls underneath, by which the raising of the mind from earthly matters is signified. There you go. I never looked at sandals and thought of that, but that's cool.

And they are open above, that is sandals, in which an eagerness for divine wisdom is signified. He adds of peace, since through the gospel, peace is proclaimed to us. When you come into the house, salute it, saying, peace be to this house. Okay, I need to pause here because I feel like there's so much more to get into. And I don't want to, I don't want to talk your ear off and I don't want this to go on too long. But I hope that that was a blessing to you. We're going to pick up next week and we're going to look at the rest of this verse. Now, we've been talking about things like temptations of the flesh.

I want to point out that I have a free course called strive21.com. You can be as anonymous as you want. And we currently have over 21,100 men going through it. Strive21.com. Please go check this out. 100% free and be as anonymous as you want. If you're a man who struggles with porn or lust in any way, go check that out. And then also speaking about desires for temporal goods, if you'd like the work that we're doing here at Pints with Aquinas and wanna support us, you can go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd.

We have a bunch of free stuff we give you in return. We're currently doing a seven-part video series on Augustine's Confessions. Dr. Chad Englund is teaching it. We've only done the first course right now or the second, so you can jump in right away and start reading the book with us. You get beer steins and books sent to your house and things like that. Patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Just get a lot more content by doing it that way if you want, but if you don't, that's okay too.

Obviously, I don't even know why I would have to clarify that. Okay. So God bless you. Thank you so much. This was a different episode. I'm not interviewing somebody. I am interviewing Aquinas in a sense. So I hope that this was a help. And next week, as I say, we will pick back up where we've left off today. Do me a favor, click subscribe. And if you're listening to this on iTunes, leave us a review because it really does help us. God bless. Thanks.