Pints With Aquinas - 235: Thomas Aquinas on the 8 Daughters of LUST

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

We take a look at what Thomas Aquinas has to say about the 8 daughters (or effects) of lust: Blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, self-love, hatred of God, love of this world and abhorrence or despair of a future world (ST II-II Q. 153, A. 5). 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 there, how are you going? Matt Fradd here. Good morning. Today, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a look at what Thomas Aquinas has to say about the eight daughters of lust. He gets this from St. Gregory the Great's work on morals. Eight daughters being the eight effects of lust. We'll go through those. Then I want to take some questions from our patrons, including one about how to respond to somebody who says the only way of arriving at truth is by science. And I guess in this

question, this person was saying that this person who was talking to her, this was their justification for why they were an atheist. We're going to look at a canto from Dante's Purgatorio, number 19. This has to do with lust. It's really cool. And then just for fun, at the end, I want to share with you something that James Hetfield said, the lead singer of Metallica. Now, you probably know that I like Metallica. You don't have to like Metallica. But in this episode, towards the end, I'm going to try to convince you that they're at least very talented.

I'm going to share a little clip of a song of theirs for you. And then share an interview that was done with James Hetfield. He's the lead singer. I think I've mentioned that. And share with you something that he said. Because, man, it was really profound. It actually has to do with what we're talking about today. So there you go.

Last week, we did an episode with Gabe Deem. Hopefully, you saw that. Gabe has been on shows on Netflix, on MTV. His story was featured in a Time magazine article. He talks about how porn led to sexual dysfunction. So just last week, we spent a good deal of time talking about pornography. And in that episode, I mentioned the eight effects of lust. So go and listen to that episode if you haven't, because it was really fascinating.

Speaking of lust, before we jump into today's episode, go check out my Strive course, into today's episode. Go check out my Strive course, strive21.com. We have over 24,600 men going through it. It is a 21-day course that will help you be free of pornography. If you are a man who struggles with porn or lust in any way, go to strive21.com. It is 100% free, and you can be as anonymous as you want. If you go and click the reviews up here, you can see what the men who have gone through the course have had to say about it. I would highly recommend you checking this out. I'm really proud of it. We've put a ton of work into it.

And as I say, you can be as anonymous as you want and it's free. So, I mean, what are you waiting for? Strive21.com. Strive21.com strive21.com all right the eight daughters of lust uh aquinas is going to back up saint gregory and saying that there are eight effects of lust and the first four will concern the intellect and the last four will concern the will. And the reason for this is because will follows upon intellect. And so these daughters of lust are going to distort the will because they've distorted the intellect. So like I'm going to act based on what I think about

something. This is why Thomas Aquinas says that whenever we sin we choose what appears to be a good for us nobody ever chooses something he knows is bad for him or that he believes is bad for him even the suicide thinks that choosing to end his life will end his suffering and so he perceives suicide as a good whenever we do something we perceive it to be a good, and that is why we choose it. And so that's what he wants to say. Let me just say what the four are, and then we might take a look at his text. Blindness of mind, rashness, thoughtlessness, inconstancy. Those are the first four, again, which pertain to the intellect. And then the final four are self-love, hatred of God, love of this world, and despair of a future world. So in other words, if you or I are immersed in lust, this is what's going to happen to us to differing degrees. This is the outcome. This is

where lust leads us. So let's take a look. I've showed you in the description where I'm pulling this from out of the Summa Theologiae. Let's have a look at what he has to say. Maybe I can show you the text so you can read along with me. I answer that when the lower powers are strongly moved towards their object, the result is that the higher powers are hindered and disordered in their acts. Okay. We have lower powers. We have higher powers. Lower powers we share with the animals. We need to eat. We sleep. We have sex. Then we have higher powers like reason and We have sex. Then we have higher powers like reason and free will.

And he says when these lower powers, these animal powers, if you want to strongly move towards their object, the result is that the higher powers, those powers that make us human, qua human, are hindered and disordered in their acts. Now, the effect of the vice of lust is that the lower appetite, namely the concupiscible, is the most vehemently intent on its object, to wit, the object of pleasure, on account of the vehemence of the pleasure. Consequently, the higher powers, namely the reason and the will, are most grievously disordered by lust. I just want to pause there for a moment because we often read that the saints say that the sins of the flesh lead people to hell. And of course they do, but they're not the worst sins we can commit. I was on an eight-day silent retreat with some monks up in Wisconsin. And one of the things they said, which I really liked is, if you want to see how boys sin, go to Vegas, you know, see them with their drunkenness

and their fornicating. But if you want to see how men sin, come to this monastery, backbiting and arrogance and pride. And he was being a little funny, of course. But the point is those intellectual sins, the sins that were committed by the angels who fell are definitely worse than the sins of the flesh. But because the sins of the flesh are so engrossing, so mesmerizing because they pull us in, I think that kind of gives us good reason to agree or to see why Our Lady of Fatima said that more souls go to hell because of the sins of the flesh than any other sins. All right, Aquinas is going to go on here and mention these eight daughters. Now, the reason has four acts in matter of action. First, there is simple understanding, which apprehends some end as a good, and this act is hindered by lust. According to Daniel 13, 56, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thy heart. On this respect, we have blindness of mind.

The second act is counsel. So once you've perceived something as a good, then you kind of decide what to do about this thing. So the second act is counsel about what is to be done for the sake of the end, and this is also hindered by the concupiscence of lust. Hence Terence says, speaking of lecherous love, the thing admits of neither counsel nor moderation. Thou canst not control it by counseling. On this respect there is rashness, which denotes absence of counsel. The third act is judgment about the thing to be done, and this again is hindered by lust. For it is said of the lustful old men, Isn't that interesting? On this respect, there is thoughtlessness.

There almost seems to be an intentionality here, that we pervert our mind so that we do not need to remember. We hide ourselves from the judgments of God. so that we do not need to remember. We hide ourselves from the judgments of God. The fourth act is the reason's command about the thing to be done. And this also is impeded by lust insofar as through being carried away by concupiscence, a man is hindered from doing what his reason ordered to be done. To this, inconstancy must be referred. Hence, Terence says,

of a man who declared that he would leave his mistress, one little false tear will undo those words. On the part of the will, all right, so those four have to do with the intellect. These next four have to do the will. He says there is a twofold inordinate act. One is the desire for the end, to which we refer self-love, which regards the pleasure which a man desires inordinately. While on the other hand, there is hatred of God by reason of his forbidding the desired pleasure. The other act is the desire for the things directed to the end. With regard to this, there is love of this world whose pleasures a man desires to enjoy. While on the other hand, so these kind of two are kind of hand and glove here. Well, on the other hand, there is a despair of a future world because through being held back by carnal pleasures, he cares not to obtain

spiritual pleasures since they are distasteful to him. All right, so let's kind of go through these. The first, of course, being blindness of mind. And we kind of experience this even just anecdotally, don't we? You see somebody who's blinded by lust, right, or blinded by infatuation, become blinded by many things. Some people are blinded by their ideology, for example. Perhaps they hold to a particular ideology and they refuse to let it go in the face of facts that would contradict how it is they want to interpret the data. predict how it is they want to interpret the data. Maybe you've seen somebody who's been blinded by a desire for something that doesn't have to do with sex, maybe fame. Maybe they're a musician and they're really not very good, but they're convinced that they are. And they're convinced that they're going to be a star or something. And you tell them in love, look, maybe you want to consider taking a different career path and they can't listen to you. They can't hear you. And what's tough, of course, is when you're blind to something,

you don't know that you're blind to it. That always terrifies me. You know, whenever you hear people having conversations about other people, like, why is she like this? Or why can't he see that about himself? I immediately am cognizant of the fact that must be true of me, that there are things that I am completely oblivious to. There are vices that I do not yet see that other people, such as my wife, I'm sure, sees, but I'm unable to see. And so I make her the problem or my kids the problem or the surrounding circumstances the problem or whatever else, just so long as it's not me the problem, because I can't see, of course, that I'm blind. Now this blindness of mind,

we become infatuated. Now the other three daughters of lust that concern the intellect follow straightforwardly from this blindness of mind, rashness, thoughtlessness, and inconstancy. I also want to point out that I've benefited from a little article that was written by Ed Fazer on this topic of the eight daughters of lust, which after the live stream, I'll put in the show notes for you. Let's see here, rashness. So blindness of mind, you might think having to do with the end of the sexual act. And by the way, I've said this before, but I think it's important to say again, Aquinas recognizes that there are two ends to the sexual act.

This is not a John Paul II invention, as some people have said. In his commentary on the Ten Commandments, he says that, you know, procreation. But he also says comforting one's spouse. He says this is a matter of justice. He has a lot more to say about that in the Summa Theologiae, right? There are ends to the sexual act, and we become blinded to them. Rashness could have to do with the means to the end. Just as pleasure in what is disordered can blind us to the true ends of our sexual faculties, so too can it blind us to the means of achieving those ends.

And so we end up acting with a sort of rashness. The third daughter of lust is thoughtlessness. And this is what Fraser says, which I really appreciate. So blindness of mind has to do with the end of the act that we're no longer concerned about. Rashness has to do with the means of attaining the end that we're no longer concerned about. This third daughter of lust, he says, or Aquinas says is thoughtlessness and thoughtlessness involves the intellects not even bothering with the question of what ends and means are

proper. with the question of what ends and means are proper. Fraser says the thoughtless man simply pursues the disordered pleasures to which he has become addicted in something like a sub-rational way, mindlessly as it were. Fourth, Aquinas says, is inconstancyancy where someone isn't being constant the pleasure of disordered sexual behavior constantly diverts the intellect's attention so that what is truly good is not consistently perceived or pursued so again these three daughters, rationless, thoughtlessness, and inconstancy, follow from the first daughter, blindness of mind. Now, as we've said, for Aquinas, the will follows upon the intellect, and thus the daughters of lust include four disorders of the will in addition to the four disorders of the

intellect. Before we get to those four disorders of the will, I want to share with you what I thought to be a very powerful verse from Dante's Purgatorio. I read the entire thing a couple of years ago and found it incredibly insightful and powerful. In the Purgatorio, Canto 19, Dante encounters this woman, and she's absolutely hideous. But as he stares upon her, she becomes mesmerizing. And he's totally engrossed. And I think that this is something that happens with blindness of mind. And if you've looked at pornography, you may know what I'm talking about. You feel this tremendous attraction. You look at pornography. And once you've concluded, You look at pornography, and once you've concluded, you look upon it with absolute disgust and wonder how it is you even began looking at that or why it is you found that desirable.

And I think he sums it up really well here. I've edited it slightly for the purposes of this. Dante says, in the hour when the day's heat can no more warm the chill of the moon, there came into my dream a babbling woman, her eyes crossed and her feet contorted with mutilated hands and sickly white in color. All right, so just put that image in your mind. This woman is absolutely hideous, okay? She's a babbling old woman. Her eyes are crossed, her feet contorted, her hands are mutilated, her skin is a sickly white color. Dante says, I stared at her, and as the sun comforts chilled limbs that the night has numbed, so my stare escorted her tongue, and in a moment straightened her altogether, and likewise lent color to her smeared visage as love would wish.

All right, so she's becoming beautiful as he's staring upon her. And once her speech was thus loosed, she began to sing so that I had to tear my mind from her with pain. Isn't that true? As we get engrossed, you know, perhaps in sexual lust and we fall into the trap of, you know, it's one thing to have a sexual arousal, which of course is not sinful. It's another thing to, it's one thing to have images that come into our mind that are sexually pleasurable that we don't will. But it's another thing entirely to choose to be engaged in them. And when we do, it's very difficult to pull ourselves away from them. And so he says, let's see here. Yes, she began to sing so that

I had to tear my mind from her with pain. I am, she chanted, I am the sweet siren who sways marinas in the midst of the sea. So sweetly do I please them with my song. And so for those of you who aren't aware, a siren was these sort of creatures that people aboard a ship who had been on the seas for days and weeks and maybe months, they began to go sort of crazy and they would see these beautiful half women, as it were, who were singing sweetly to them. And they would gradually go to their demise on the rocks or they would end up in shipwreck. Those who are used to me can hardly depart, so fully do I please them. Her mouth had not yet closed again when a lady saintly and swift appeared. Now, we're not quite sure who Dante has in mind

when he talks about this lady. It could be Beatrice, the woman he loved and wrote the entire poem for. It could be Mary. I like to think of her as Mary. When a lady saintly and swift appears. So think about this. You've got this hideous woman who Dante is becoming engrossed with. And then this beautiful woman appears alongside me to put her to confusion. And then the lady says to Virgil, who was escorting Dante through the Purgatorio, O Virgil, Virgil, who is this? She spoke fiercely, and he came with eyes fixed solely on that honored one. Listen to this.

He seized the other, that is the crone, the siren, and bared her front by rending her robes. And he showed me her belly that woke me with the stench that issued forth. I moved my eyes, and the good master, at least three times I have sent you my voice, rise and come. So you've got this horrible old crone. Dante becomes fixated with her. The blessed mother appears and speaks with fierceness. Virgil acts by tearing the robes of this woman and her true hideousness is revealed to Dante. And it's only kind of after that,

that he kind of wakes up. So I think that that's a great analogy for pornography or lust, how it blinds the mind, leads us to be rash and thoughtless and inconstant. Okay. Now, as we've said, those were the four daughters that concern the intellect. These last four concern the will. So here's five, six, seven, and eight. Self-love, hatred of God, love of this world, and despair of a future world. So self-love. What do we mean when we talk about self-love? It was interesting. Prior to doing this show, I looked up self-love just to see what it would have to say. And it's all good. It's saying self-love's great, and here's how to have self-love. And obviously, we shouldn't hate ourselves, and we ought to have an appropriate view of ourselves. But when the Christian speaks of self-love, he is talking about a man who prefers himself to God

and neighbor and truth in some way. So a lustful person's attention, I think Aquinas is saying, is turning away from the truth of the natural order of things, away from God and away from neighbor, and is now fixated on self, on its own pleasure, and on its own rationalizations. Because it seems to me that whenever we choose to engage in sin, something that is vicious, it's not enough for us that other people tolerate these vicious acts. We demand or begin to demand that they celebrate these acts. Isn't this true? So it's not enough that people don't judge you. You need them to celebrate this immoral action that you're engaging with because I think deep down you know it to be immoral.

And you've heard me talk about Friedrich Nietzsche's understanding of resentment, which is that French word for resentment. And when Nietzsche uses it, he means this. When one believes himself impotent to attain a particular good, he demonizes the good and makes a virtue out of his weakness. I mean, I can think of so many examples can't you suppose you're driving to work and you've got like a you know one of those bloody ham and cheese mcmuffins in your lap and you're not terribly pleased about the fact that you've just gone to mcdonald's because you've told yourself you'll eat well but they taste good and so you're driving to work. And as you're driving with it in your lap, eating it, you know, you look over and you see a bunch of people working out, running around a building, maybe CrossFitters or something.

In that moment, you could say, good for them. I really need to be more like that. And maybe I need to work out. You could do that. really need to be more like that and maybe I need to work out. You could do that, but you and I, I think, are often more likely to be like, yeah, I mean, that's fine, but I don't want to be super into my appearance. I'm fine the way I am. I think it's okay that people eat fast food occasionally. I think that's actually good. I think if people are totally hung up on how they look and that's actually a bad thing. You see what I mean? We can talk

ourselves into demonizing something that's actually good and making a virtue out of something that's not. Now, I'm not equating eating the odd McMuffin meal with lust or pornography or anything like that, but I think the analogy holds. And I think what happens is when we're engaging in this sin, whether it be a pornography or adultery or fornication or whatever, we begin to justify it and kind of rationalize it and come up with some bizarre rationalization for why these acts are in fact good and that this comes from self-love. Now, the sixth daughter is hatred of God. Why is that? hatred of God. Why is that? Well, if this sort of self-love and rationalization leads us to pervert the truth such that we no longer seek to conform our behavior to the truth, we now seek to conform truth to our behavior. Okay, well, God is truth, right? God is goodness, right? Goodness and truth,

these are transcendentals, that is to say the same thing looked at through a different lens. So God is truth, and we begin to hate the truth as we seek to bend it towards our will, which of course we can't do. We can only pretend that it's been done or that we are doing it. And I think this is what leads us to hate God. How dare he not be okay with this, you know? And you even hear people say things like, I don't believe in a God who would deprive me of this, you know? God wants me to be happy. God told me to leave my spouse, you know? I believe in a God who desires my fullness of life, you know? and we just speak utter crap like that in sort of virtuous language to cover up what we know we've done. And what we've done and what we're doing is absolutely horrible. It's like that crone with the deformed hands and the white skin, you know.

This hatred of God then leads to two things, love of this world and despair of the future world. And these come hand in hand here. Love of this world, despair of the future world. as we mentioned before, a human being is a rational animal and so has both corporeal powers and intellectual powers, right? Incorporeal powers. So corporeal powers are like our animal powers of nutrition, growth, reproduction, sensation, and appetite. And our incorporeal powers, as we've already mentioned, of intellect and will. But the lustful person, and here I'm not speaking of myself, by the way. I don't consider myself above this. I consider myself in the fray with you. But you and I are learning together here from Thomas Aquinas. We

are so full and fixated on the pleasures lust affords, that we're no longer concerned with the pleasures of heaven and indeed find the pleasures of heaven, as they're explained to us, to be rather cold and abstract. We no longer desire them. In fact, they become sort of undesirable. They become sort of undesirable. Sort of like, and we could use analogies here, you know, sort of like the man who watches so much pornography, he's now unable to read a good novel because he can't concentrate. Let's think of another analogy, one that doesn't have to do with sex. Suppose a man becomes accustomed to eating McDonald's and drinking Mountain Dew. To now suggest that a man eat a lovely steak dinner with vegetables and a glass of wine, he might find that disgusting. And it's not because that thing is disgusting, it's because he's habituated himself to a lesser good and actually has lost his taste for what he

ought to have a taste for. And this is what does happen to those of us who are immersed in lust. And so I think our prayer ought to be, Heavenly Mother, when we pray to our Blessed Mother, Heavenly Mother, wake me up. Expose me. Expose, rather, the reality of the sin that I'm engaged in, its ugliness, and help me to love what I ought to love and hate what I ought to hate.

Anyway, so those are the eight daughters of lust. Blindness of mind, rashness, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, self-love, hatred of God, love of this world, despair of a future world. So there you are. of this world to spare of a future world. So there you are. All right, before we take a look at what, why I think you should respect Metallica and appreciate what the lead singer James Hetfield has had to say. This is my show. I just get to expose you to whatever I want to expose you to, apparently. I want to take some questions from our patrons. But before we do that, from our patrons. But before we do that, I want to say thank you to Halo for sponsoring the podcast.

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over at patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. First question comes from, let's see here, Teresa Groves, who says, have you and your family seen The Chosen? What are your thoughts? If not, you need to see it. So good, she says. And I've got good news for you, Teresa. Next week, I will be interviewing Jonathan Rumi, who plays, plays of course the person of Jesus Christ in The Chosen so yes not only have I seen episodes of it I actually know Jonathan Rumi and he's agreed to come on my show so please subscribe dear viewer if you have not yet subscribed to the channel we're almost at a hundred thousand subscribers and I would love

to get there before too long please click subscribe in that bell button so you don't miss out on that interview coming up I'm really looking forward to that actually. Next question comes from Vincent Wise. Vincent says, I recently had a conversation with a friend who is atheist. He made the claim that the only way to learn truth is through science. I said, I disagree, but wasn't sure about how to defend that statement. What is your thoughts on that? So I think whenever we argue, it's important that we define our terms. So you might want to say to your friend, what do you mean by science? Because of course, when Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle used the term, they're using it in a different way to how we use it today.

Science comes from a Latin word, sciencia, or sciencia. I'm not actually sure how to pronounce it, which means knowledge. So science and philosophy, for the majority of mankind since the Greeks, meant the same thing. Metaphysics was a science. Theology was a science, et cetera. But when we talk about science today, we're using it in a narrower sense. Science is a method of investigation that we've invented to discover truths about the natural world. But your friend who says that the only way to learn truth is through science is not actually a claim that can be proved by science. And therefore, the claim is a self-referentially incoherent claim. Right. If I can only learn truth through science, what I just said, if I make that as a statement, you can only learn truth through science. Okay, that's a true proposition, I think.

How do I prove that? Well, I can't actually prove it by the scientific method. So the person who says you should only accept that which can be shown true by science is saying something that's, as I say, self-refuting, self-referentially incoherent. When you refer the claim upon itself, it refutes itself. It's like saying I don't speak a word of English. Well, if I say that, I clearly am refuting what I'm trying to claim. If I say you should not accept that which cannot be shown true by science, this is really a philosophical axiom that I'm beginning with in order to try to make sense of the data or reality in front of me. So if the only way to learn truth is through science,

then it's not true that the only way to learn truth is through science, since in order to believe that the only way to learn truth is through science is not actually through science. Does that make sense? So that might be how to respond. Blake Martin, thanks for being a patron, Blake, says, what do you let or want your kids to read, watch thoughts on fantasy literature that is not overtly Christian, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, versus those that are Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings? So this is a really good question. And I think maybe I've evolved somewhat on this position. Here's how I think of it. I want my kids to read good literature, and then I would see mediocre literature and movies as fast food. Not all movies. I think there are some movies that are better than others. I just don't think that that should be your staple, you know?

So, yeah. I mean, I don't actually have strong opinions on Harry Potter. I started reading it with my son and actually my family, and I just didn't like him. And people, I know, take issue with this. I saw Harry Potter as sort of manipulative, maybe hateful, sort of getting back at people who got at him. Very much the victim. I don't know. I just didn't like him. Now, people tell me that I'm wrong or that just because the storyline is perhaps more sophisticated or in-depth than I would like it. It doesn't make

it bad. So I'm open to the argument of Harry Potter being a good series of books. I just, I didn't like it. So yeah, my son recently read Lord of the Rings. We read the Chronicles of Narnia. We read the old fairy tales. So I would highly recommend getting a really good book. Maybe the Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales. We read those most nights. Kids absolutely love them. Yeah, so there you go, for what that's worth. Let's see here. Elise K. Ruckleshaw. If I just butchered your name, you'll forgive me. Or at least you should, because I'm sorry. In my RCIA class, I was told that basically everyone will go to heaven. Oh, for goodness sake. basically everyone will go to heaven. Oh, for goodness sake. I'm sorry that you got told this from these bad RCI instructors. She said, anyway, regardless of religion, golly, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Yeah, you bloody well should because it's false and you

should speak to the priest. And if the priest doesn't listen, you should speak to the bishop. She says, coming from Protestantism, first all maybe I misunderstood if not can you explain maybe there's another way to see John 14 6 I'm converting regardless to me the bottom line is the Eucharist so I'm trying to align myself with Catholic belief but this doesn't seem to fit with what I understand about scripture which might be off yeah so I would recommend going back a couple of weeks ago I did an episode uh I think I called it will everyone be saved and there we kind of go into detail about this idea. What does our blessed Lord say?

When he's asked, will many be saved? He says, the way is narrow that leads to life and few find it. The way is broad that leads to destruction and many find that. So how your RCIA class instructor can take what is so clear and flip it and like actually contradict the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I can see why we would want to flip it because I hate the idea of hell. I hate the idea that I might go to hell. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I would much rather sort of blind that part of my intellect or cover up that part of the scriptures and believe that basically everyone goes to heaven, but it's just not what our blessed Lord said.

So you're getting faulty teaching here. so i would recommend going back and maybe listening to that episode that i did uh you might find it helpful douglas shea westfall says i would like to see how you would respond to a euthyphro dilemma concerning canonization. Huh? Could the... Oh, he's talking about biblical canonization. Could the church have picked any book whatsoever to include in the Bible, or were there features of the books that constrained the church's choice? If textual features constrained the choice, then we don't need counsel to affirm Scripture.

If textual features didn't constrain choice, then it seems like Scripture is arbitrary. Not fully thought through, just something I've been wondering. Thanks. All right, that's a really good point. So for those of you who are not familiar with the Euthyphro dilemma, it comes from a work of Plato's called Euthyphro, in which Socrates is talking to Euthyphro about, what is it? Is it piety or virtue? I think virtue. I'm not sure. I forget now. I think it's piety. You can correct me in the comments. But Socrates asks Euthyphro, is something good because the gods command it?

Or do the gods command it, something, because it's good? And this is a dilemma, right, that Euthyphro tries to respond to. And so here, Douglas seems to be saying, if I could formulate it as a dilemma, he seems to be saying, is the Bible inspired because the church canonized it, or did the church canonize it because it was inspired? And so I would say that this is not a dilemma because I think the second option is the true option. The church canonized the scriptures because the scriptures were inspired. The church doesn't make the scriptures inspired. The church canonized the scriptures because the scriptures were inspired. The church doesn't make the scriptures inspired. The church recognizes inspiration.

But without the church having authority, you cannot trust the church's recognition of those scriptures as inspired. So that's the Catholic argument. We just accept these books that we find in our Bible. we just accept these books that we find in our Bible we don't realize what was actually the authority of the Catholic Church which said what the books of the Bible were and the first time we have a kind of authoritative declaration of the canon of scripture comes from the council of Rome

382 yeah 382 yeah I think so 382? Yeah. 382? Yeah, I think so. And then Hippo and Carthage kind of confirm it. So that's the problem, right? If you want to say I accept the Bible as the inspired word of God, even though there are 72 or 66, if you're a Protestant, books in it, you have to say, well, how do you know that? Because the books aren't self-authenticating. of Protestant books in it. You have to say, well, how do you know that? Because the books aren't self-authenticating. If you're interested and you're a patron, I did a debate with Cameron

Bertuzzi over on Patreon about Sola Scriptura. Also, there's a show. I featured a debate between Patrick Madrid and James White on my show, so go check that out. Okay? Thank you so much for your questions. All right, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to help you try to love Metallica, all right? This is just for fun, so, you know, no worries if you don't want to. I grew up loving music when I was 12 years old. I got really big into the Beatles. I started playing guitar, big into the Beatles. I was about 13.

I was about 14. I heard of Metallica. Now, of course, okay, if it needs to be said, I'm not like affirming everything every band member has said and done either as part of the band or individually, but I really liked Metallica. I just love the loudness of it, which I think is probably typical for a teenage boy. But I also came to think that they're really talented musicians. So what I want to do now is do two things. I want to share with you a lovely little clip from a Metallica song. And if you're like, I could never listen to Metallica, I just want to play you about like 20 seconds of this lovely song just to see what you think.

That way, even if you don't like Metallica, you can say, I don't like him, but yeah, okay, that was pretty good. That's my hope. And then I want to share with you a really beautiful interview that James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica, had where he talks about living a lifestyle of sin, or of alcoholism and of lust, and how he wants to leave that behind because it's really beautiful all right so let me just share this with you this comes from and i'll be honest i don't know how much i'm allowed to share of this song before i get sued by metallica but let's face it that would be fun and would be quite newsworthy um this is from their song Orion on Master of Puppets, which is their third album.

And if I'm going to work out, I like listening to Master of Puppets. So a lot of this is really thrashy, but this part isn't. So listen to this. That nice bass. That nice bass. Bit of a slow intro to what's going to come next. Come on. By the way, this song is 8 minutes and 27 seconds, and there's no words.

It's just instrumental. All right, here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes. No, it didn't. All right, let me just jump in. Is this it? Yes. Yes! Yes!

Alright, so I like that. You don't have to, but that's one of my favourite songs by Metallica, Orion from their album Master of Puppets. All right. So I want to share this interview that James Hetfield had on his, it was a 2004 documentary, I think, called Master of, called Some Kind of Monster. And listen to what he says here. He says this, and I'm reading the transcript. And listen to what he says here. He says this, and I'm reading the transcript. He says, I'm working on really hard on being the best dad and father and husband I can be. And the best me.

I don't want to lose any of the stuff I have. I know it could all go away at one time. And that's a tough part of life. And then, and it's just, it's a total rebirth for me, looking at life in a whole new way. You know, all the other drinking and all the other junk that I was stuck in, it was so predictable, so boring. I'm out there looking for excitement in all this stuff. The results are the same, man. I wake up the next day somewhere in some bed. I don't know who this person is next to me.

And I'm drunk, completely hungover and have a show to do. And the result is the same, you know? When life now is pretty exciting. You don't know what's going to happen when you're kind of clear and here and in the now, in the moment. Man, I just have a lot of love for James Hetfield. I have a lot of love for anybody who overcomes a sort of addiction. And certainly, you know, certainly Aquinas. No, certainly Hetfield has been through a great deal, you know,

with his alcoholism and stuff like that. But I just, I just love that because I was 2004, right. And I had just recently come to Christ in 2000. I was still friends with a lot of the guys that I used to do play heavy metal with. And I was kind of distancing myself from that scene. And I remember some of those friends, like having respect for Hetfield, you know, for saying these kind of things. And these are the guys who are getting drunk, hooking up, fornicating and these sorts of things. And like, here's the guy they look up to. Right. If the pope says that fornicating and getting drunk, you know, the results are the same and it's boring. And if you want excitement, you want to quit that stuff.

They wouldn't listen to him. But when James Hetfield says it, I remember just being so moved by that. And it's so true. And we all know it's true. That sin makes us boring. And it's the saints who are fully alive. And since we want to be fully alive, we want to live life to the full, right? To kind of talk about it in worldly terms.

Or John 10.10 terms. Then we want to quit sin, which blinds our mind, makes us thoughtless, immerses us in self-love, as Aquinas says, leads us to hate God, to have an inordinate love of this world, and have despair for the world to come. So there you are. I hope that was a helpful episode of Pints with Aquinas, in which we talked about the eight daughters of lust. Later on today, I will be interviewing a good friend of mine, Ben Handelman. We're going to talk about what the Catholic Church really believes about justification because there's a lot of confusion out there. And I know we have many people who watch Pints with Aquinas who are open to converting to Catholicism and they want to know what the church teaches about justification.

So we're going to be discussing that today. And we've got a lot of great stuff coming up for you as well. So if you're not yet subscribed to the podcast, please click subscribe and that bell button. And that would mean a lot. Also, if you want to support us on Patreon, patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. That'd be huge. We are doing daily meditations for Advent in which you can click play and listen to a five-minute meditation from Aquinas in which he, you know, I actually read to you his words. We have Gregorian chant in the background. It could be a beautiful way to prepare for Christmas. So if you haven't committed to doing anything right now for Advent, you might want to go over to patreon.com slash mattfradd, become a patron for $10 or more a month. Today is your last day, by the way, to get this car magnet. We're not giving it out after this month. So if you become a patron for

$10 or more a month, you get a signed copy of my book, Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. We send you stickers. You get access to these daily meditations for Advent, but just this month. So today's the last day, I think. Yes. Sign up on patreon.com slash Matt Fratton. We'll put this five inch by five inch car magnet into the book that we send you, and it'll instantly make your car at least $10,000 more in value, I think. I'm not going to commit to that, but I'm pretty sure that that's what's going to happen. So God bless you, and we will chat with you later. Thanks.