Pints With Aquinas - 237: Aquinas on Why There Can't be Many Gods

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Today we'll take a look at what Aquinas has to say about polytheism. Then we'll take five questions from patrons, including a question on the difference between Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Then, just for fun, I'll share with you my top seven short stories.   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

Hello and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd and I am currently drinking a pint of coffee because it's 11.19 in the morning. I mean, it would just be ridiculous if I was drinking the stout or something, which is the beer of choice, I should point out. If I were to drink a beer, it would be a nice, delicious stout with some Russian monk on the front, no doubt. Lovely to have you here. Okay, here's what we're going to do today. I want to share with you three reasons that Thomas Aquinas gives for why we should believe that there is only one God, why polytheism is false. Then we'll take a look at four reasons Aquinas gives for why people have believed in multiple

gods so that should be fun after that we'll take five questions from our patrons including a question on the difference between Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism and then just for fun I want to share with you seven of my favorite short stories not sure if you follow me on Instagram or not, but over the weekend, I finished finally Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. First time I've ever read it. I thought it was excellent. So I put that in the top seven. I'll be sharing them with you later on today. Hey, we've got a lot going on. Lot going on. Not only are we about to crest that 100,000 subscriber mark, but we've got a very exciting debate coming up for you soon. I'll be announcing that later on today. You're not going to want to miss that,

so please subscribe. Click that bell button because that kind of helps support the channel. So I'm excited about that. Also, I want to let you know that in early January, we'll be Um, in, uh, early January, we'll be putting on a series on salvation history by Dr. Andrew Swofford. This will just be for patrons. So if you've been wanting to, you know, get this beautiful pints with Aquinas, beer, Stein, signed books sent to your door, stickers, if you want access to all of these online courses that are taught by college professors, sign up right now, patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Dr. Andrew Swofford will be in the comment section. Not only will he be releasing these five videos weekly, he'll be chatting with you about your questions. He's going to be going

from Genesis to Revelation. So New Year is a great time to try to understand the scriptures and to rededicate ourselves to it. So be sure to go over to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Also, we've got some big announcements coming shortly, and that will, I hope, convict you as to why we are looking to get some more patrons. Okay, so without any further bloody ado, let's look at what Aquinas has to say here. It's a good question, right? Like, why is there only one God? Like, if I believe that God exists, why do I have to believe there's only one? Maybe there's a multiplicity of gods. What's the problem with that? And I think this just shows that we have a faulty understanding of what is meant by God,

what Christians mean by God. I think we have this idea that basically God is sort of like a bigger version of us. He's a superhero up in the clouds, maybe somewhere, who has a ton of power. Maybe he's all powerful, okay? But just like there can be multiple powerful superheroes, there could be multiple gods. Maybe they created the world together or something like that. What's the problem with that? Now, whenever this question is brought up in a debate with Dr. William Lane Craig, who is an evangelical Christian who does not subscribe to divine simplicity,

he points out, well, he refers to Occam's razor, the idea that we don't need to multiply hypotheses. We can be satisfied with the explanation that covers all the facts. If we don't need other gods, then we don't need to deposit other gods. That's how he argues for, I mean, he would probably say it a lot better than that, but there being one God apart from divine revelation, right? So he argues from philosophy to God's existence, and then he basically says, we don't need any other gods, therefore, it should suffice just to say that there is one God. Aquinas does not think that's a good answer, I don't think, as much as I love Dr. William and Craig. I think that if you hold to divine simplicity,

the idea that God is simple, that he's not made up of parts, right? That God doesn't have perfections, that he is his perfections. He is power. He is goodness. There is no distinction within God. If you subscribe to that, it becomes a lot easier to show why there must only be one God. So we're going to take a look here at what Aquinas says. at what Aquinas says. There is only one God. If there were more than one, there would need to be something that distinguishes them. That's basically his first point. So he gives three different points. He says it can be shown from these three sources that God is one. Here's the first. From his simplicity, which I just referenced, the idea that God is without parts, that he doesn't have attributes, that he is his attributes, right? So God's power and his wisdom appear different to us, but that's just how we're looking at it. Really, God is essentially one.

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. And here's a good analogy he uses. Since that whereby Socrates as a man can be communicated to many. So Socrates has a human nature and this human nature is communicable. I also possess a human nature. But what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates. Socrates isn't communicable. I also possess a human nature, right? But what makes Socrates Socrates is Socrates. Socrates isn't communicable. His human nature is communicable. So while I share Socrates as human nature, I don't share Socrates. I can't be Socrates and like he, there's two Socrates, him and me. Like there can't be another Matt Fradd, thank God. Like if there were another

Matt Fradd, you'd be like, okay, but this, like, okay, but it's not actually Matt Fradd because he's different to you. You see what I mean? So you can't communicate like your person to other people, but you can communicate. The nature is communicable. Aquinas says, 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. So just like you can't have many Socrateses, Socrateses, is that the plural? Socrates? If being a man were like that, then there couldn't be many men, but it isn't like that. Okay. Now, this belongs to God alone for, whereas we share human nature, like it's,

you know, my son participates in human nature. I participate in human nature. I have a human nature. God himself is his own nature. Therefore, in the very same way, God is God and he is this God. Impossible is it, therefore, that many gods should exist. That's the first reason he gives. What do you reckon? Here's the second. This is proved from the infinity of his perfection, for it was shown above that God comprehends in himself the whole perfection of being. This is one of Aquinas' five proofs for God's existence. Where is it? Is it his fourth way? The idea that there is this hierarchy of being. So like a stone has some perfection because it exists. A cat participates more in being than the stone. Prior to that, I suppose you could say like an earthworm participates more in being than a stone, but a cat more than the earthworm.

You know, a chimpanzee participates perhaps more in being. I certainly participate more in being than those things. Angels above me, right, are more perfected in being. I certainly participate more in being than those things. Angels above me, right, are more perfected in being, and God is his existence. So he is being, well, just to put it the way Aquinas puts it, he comprehends in himself the whole perfection of being. So if, says Aquinas, there's a bug on my table, sorry about that. If then many gods existed, they would necessarily differ from each other. That make sense? If there's like three gods, it's like, well, how do you know there's three gods and not one god?

And you'd be like, well, because his name's Harry, and he's super good at powerful stuff. And this is Jim, and he's slightly better at powerful stuff than Harry, but not as good. There would be a distinction. Why don't I just read Aquinas? Because me, apparently, ad-libbing is less helpful. Okay. If, then, many gods existed, they would necessarily differ from each other. Something, therefore, would belong to one each other. Something therefore would belong to

one, Harry, right, which did not belong to another, Jim. And if there were a privation, one of them would not be absolutely perfect. But if a perfection, one of them would be without it. So it is 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. That is an interesting point, right? So whereas the Greeks in the days of Socrates believed in many gods, Aristotle believed in one God. So it's interesting that even in that climate and apart from divine revelation, Aristotle can argue to the existence of only one God. Here's the third reason we know there's only one God. And this is kind of a little more practical. He says, this is shown from the

unity of the world. 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. That's a good point. For many are reduced into one order by one better than by many. Like, this is a really good point. Like, I used to have a job, believe it or not, before, you know, I just started talking into a camera and

drinking coffee and reading Aquinas. Thank you, Jesus, for my life. And we would get together in these jobs, and you'd have these big bloody meetings, and there's several people, and you're all trying to make a decision. And oh my goodness gracious, the chaos that can sometimes ensue. When multiple people try to do something it can be obviously a very good thing but if you've got like multiple gods which as we've seen is impossible trying to order the universe you wouldn't get the sort of order that we see in nature there would be a conflict um for many are reduced into the one order by one better than by many. Because one is the per se cause of one, and many are only the accidental cause of one in as much as they are in some way one.

Since therefore what is first is most perfect and is so per se and not accidentally. It must be that the first which reduces all into one order should be only one, and that one is God. So that's pretty good. Okay, so I've got an analogy I want to use, and it might be terrible, and we could be bordering on the heretical God have mercy on me if that is the case. But if you think of God as the explanation outside of all explanations, I think that's kind of what people mean when they talk about God. Like, what explains contingent being? Well, this contingent thing. But what explains that?

And you arrive at an explanation that is not self-explained. So asking, why isn't there multiple explanations for everything that exists? There would need to be an explanation for why there were multiple explanations until you get back to one. Or here's another bad analogy. If you think of God as the bedrock of reality upon which beings exist because of that bedrock, then asking, like, could there be other gods is like asking, could there be other bedrocks? Like, what's beneath the basement? It's like there's no need. It's like everything that is contingent and exists because of existence itself need not have another existence that is existence itself. That was very complicated and may not have made sense. I'm not sure. Anyway, those are the three reasons that

Aquinas gives and I, for one, bloody well like them. This podcast is quickly going off the rails. I can feel it. We're coming back to my center, drinking more coffee, which is not stout. It really is coffee, I promise. But if I showed it to you, it would look like stout. So, you know. All right. There are four reasons that Aquinas gives, four motives, which have led men to believe in a number of gods. This comes from Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Apostles' Creed. Thomas Aquinas' commentary on the Apostles' Creed. The first reason, the dullness of the human intellect. The second reason was human adulation, like we get super into different people and divinize them. The third is human affection. And the last motive is the malice of the devil. All right, so let's go through those. The dullness of the human intellect. Dull men,

not capable of going beyond sensible things 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 seemed most beautiful and most valuable in the 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. And then he quotes from Wisdom 7, 2 and 3. and then he quotes from Wisdom 7, 2 and 3. They have imagined either the sun and moon or the circles of the stars to be gods that ruled the world

with whose beauty, if they being delighted, took them to be gods. Okay, this is one of the most beautiful passages in Wisdom and it's a shame that our Protestant brothers and sisters do not have it. I wonder if I could see it. If I can find it, because I'm not even sure if it's verse two and three. It's somewhere in wisdom. And I wish I had looked it up before going live. It has this beautiful

line, you know, like men looked at these beautiful things, fell in love with them and assumed them to be gods. And it says, but they're without excuse, sort of like Romans 1. If they think these things are beautiful, let them know how much more beautiful is their creator. It's this gorgeous, gorgeous passage from wisdom. Here's the second reason. So men are dull. Second, human adulation. So 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. Here's the third reason, human affection. For sons and relatives was a third motive. 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 serving either their affections or the king's gave the incommunicable name to

stones and wood, wisdom 14. Here's the last motive. And this is really interesting. The last motive is the malice of the devil. The devil wished from the beginning to be equal to God. And thus he said, I will, and this comes from Isaiah, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Isaiah 14, 14. offered to him, he does relish the fact that thereby irreverence is shown to God. Thus he spoke to Christ, all these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. What a terrifying thing when you think about that, you know, I'll give you all the glories of the world. All you have to do is worship me. Wow. For this reason, those demons who entered into idols said that they would be venerated as gods. And then from Psalm 105, 5, all the gods of the Gentiles are demons.

The things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. How powerful is that? So you think about these many things that men have worshipped and bow down towards and attribute divinity to. These things are demons. So it's funny, like you might read the Old Testament and be like, look at these crazy people, you know, like worshipping things that don't exist. Well, they do. It's just they're demonic. They're not divine. So there you go. Those are the three reasons Aquinas gives for why there cannot be a multiplicity of gods and the four motivations he says men have had,

or in one instance, the devil has had in leading us to worship or to believe in other gods. So there you are. All right. I want to get to these five questions that we've received from our patrons. One of which, as I said, has to do with the difference between Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. But before I do that, I want to say thank you to Hello. Hello is a fantastic app that will help you how to pray. It is really, really good. And I think you should check it out. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd.llow.com slash Matt Fradd. hallow.com slash Matt Fradd. A lot of people write to me.

They talk about developing a prayer routine. How can they pray on a more regular basis? Hallow is a great way to do that. If you're just getting started or if you've been praying for a while and kind of, I mean, you know, maybe you want to kind of recommit to your life of prayer. This is a great way to do it. They have men and women who, like, you can choose a male voice or a female voice who lead you in these different meditations, in the rosary or Lectio Divina, nightly examine and these sorts of things. It's really cool.

They have sleep stories and things like that. So they have, like, a free version of their app, which you can get right now. But if you want to get access to the entire app and they've got a bunch of bonus material, go to hallo.com slash Matt Fradd and sign up there and you'll get three months for free. hallo.com slash Matt Fradd. hallo.com slash Matt Fradd. All right, let's take some questions here. Man, I am so bad at reading names. I don't know if y'all have ever just tried to read names and you just realize at that moment that you're really bad at it,

but that's my experience every time I read your names. I remember being in Canada leading this retreat and we were given a list of the people who would be in our small groups, right? I was the leader of a particular small group. And being from Australia, I had never encountered the word Jacques before. And so instead I said, Jacky's. Yeah. Anyway, this person is Andrea Doval. What is the difference between Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism? I think you said many today believe in semi-Pelagianism, but what is that? So Pelagius was a British monk. Whether or not he held to this or not, I'm not sure. But anyway, Augustine was one of the big opponents to this. It's the idea that man has the capacity to seek God without God's assistance, without there being any help from God.

You can, again, read what Augustine has to say in response to the Pelagians. It was condemned as a heresy by Pope Zosimas in 418. So what's semi-Pelagianism? in 418. So what's semi-Pelagianism? It's, it's, it's semi-Pelagianism is kind of like a, uh, it's like a watered down Pelagianism. It's a way to kind of say, okay, we want our Pelagianism, but we also want the church, what the church fathers are saying. So what about like a in between sort of thing? Uh, it's the idea that, um, basically God helps us in what we do, but a lot of it comes down to us again. Here we go. I haven't studied this a great deal, so I'm only going off what I've read in the Catholic Encyclopedia and things.

But there's a distinction that's made between coming to God and growing in God's grace that the semi-Pelagians wanted to make. And they said, okay, once you come to God and grow in his grace, this is something that's given to you by God. But coming to God, you need not have God's assistance. And so this is also considered a heresy and was labeled such in the second council of Orange in 529. I mean, the bottom line is, if we are saved, it is due not to ourselves, but to God, right? It's God the Father who plans our salvation, not me and not other men. It's God the Son who gained my salvation by his death and resurrection. And it's God, the Holy Spirit who infuses the love of God into my heart. We read about that

in Romans. So I don't know, maybe that's a helpful way of beginning to think about it. Devin Odell says, Hey Matt, barring death, I'll be coming into the church on Easter. My family and I were mostly raised Lutheran and, much to my surprise, they've been extremely open and eager to hear what I've learned about church teachings over the last year or so. Until it comes to the topic of divorce and remarriage. Many of my family members are divorced and remarried. When I talk about church teaching on the subject, it seems no matter how gently and lovingly I approach the topic, they respond as if they've been personally attacked. Any advice? I got a question like this recently. I think this is quite common. This is a really difficult thing

because if you say to somebody, God exists and here's an argument why, or you can experience God, why don't you come with me to this prayer group? We can read the scriptures together. I mean, it's one thing to abandon a theoretical idea. Ideas are theoretical, I suppose. It's another thing to feel like there's something I'm doing that's wrong. You know, like if people are in a illegitimate relationship, which they think is a marriage, and you tell them, yeah, you're not married, you can see why people would take this personally and be offended by that. It's like, why are you condemning this thing that makes me happy? Why are you casting shade on

this relationship that I have with this man or with this woman who I love and who is so good for me and who helps me to be a better person? So gosh, what would I do? Well, I actually have people in my life who were married outside the church and who are Catholic and therefore aren't in valid marriages. It's definitely not something I would lead with. I'm not even sure it would be something that I would bring up in the middle. But I think I would want to evangelize them and try to evangelize them, talk to them about the good news of God and the salvation Christ has won for us. us. I think when people are coming into a relationship with Christ and are beginning to become serious about eradicating serious sin from their life, maybe if they're not yet baptized, they want to be baptized. They're not yet confirmed. They get confirmed or they start going to church. I think that can be a time to be like, okay, we need to deal with this. And I think someone's heart is being led by grace there. They're now in a position where they're open to hearing more difficult things like that. But being told the most difficult thing up front, I don't think is very helpful.

Like just an example from my own life, when I came to Christ when I was 17 years old, if you had have said to me, okay, but in order to be a Christian, you have to condemn fornication and you have to acknowledge that it's wrong. I don't know if I would have been able to do it because I still was under that worldly belief that if you really love somebody, then it's okay. But rather, I came into a relationship with Christ. I started to pray. I started to experience the joy of the Holy Spirit. And it was in that context that I think I began to be open to these other things. And so I don't know if that's helpful or not, but there you are. Cheers. Beth Wright asks, as a Protestant looking into

Catholicism, I have a ton of questions, but here's the ones for today. Can a non-Catholic go to confession and can you explain the Jesus prayer? All right. Can a non-Catholic go to confession and can you explain the Jesus prayer? All right. Can a non-Catholic go to confession? I mean, yeah, but as a non-Catholic, you can't be absolved of your sins. So I guess not really. You can't really participate in the sacrament of confession. I mean, you think about it, to go to a priest for confession is to acknowledge that God has given the bishops and those who participate in his ministry this gift of forgiving or retaining sins, like it talks about in John chapter 20. So if you're starting to accept that, you might just want to become Catholic and then get to confession. I've met some priests who say, you know, I can't absolve you, but you're welcome to come and have a chat with me. You know, you're even, I mean, I have some priests who might say you're even

welcome to come and confess your sins, and we can talk about them together, but I can't kind of give you absolution. So that would be the answer to that. Your second question had to do with the Jesus prayer. Yeah. So the Jesus prayer, I have a chotki on my wrist. I pray the Jesus prayer quite a lot. I don't have my other one. So I love praying the Jesus prayer. And honestly, just from an earthly standpoint, if you struggle with anxiety, I feel like, and maybe I do to some degree, or certainly have, the Jesus prayer is really helpful. I first learned about the Jesus prayer

from a book called The Way of a Pilgrim. And the way the Jesus prayer is formulated in that is Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Is that right? Lord Jesus Christ, yeah, have mercy on me. The more fuller kind of fleshed out

is a version of that is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me. The more fuller kind of fleshed out version of that is, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner. So what I do is I will breathe in and say, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, all the way in. And I'll breathe out and say, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. And I'll just continue to pray that. I just sort of take my prayer,otki. Chotki is a Russian word for knot, I think, by the way, but you know, my prayer rope, I'll just take it with me wherever

I go or I walk, wherever I travel, wherever I drive, and I'm just trying to pray it continually. I think St. Augustine talked about like prayer can be desiring, you know, to desire God. And so even though it's difficult, right, to always come up with ways of talking to God in prayer that feel creative and make you feel good and make you feel passionate, I mean, we've got stuff to do. You can't actually always feel super passionate. And if you can, like, it would be difficult to sleep

and everyone around you would become very annoyed. But you can desire God as you walk about, as you clean the kitchen, as you take your kids to soccer games or whatever else. So that's what I do. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy. And I just repeat that over and over and over and over and over and over, and it kind of becomes psychosomatic. I find that when I'm consciously, when I cease praying the Jesus prayer, like I'm, you know, I don't know, like I'm like, okay, I'm done intending to pray the Jesus prayer because like I've got to focus on other things. I'll find that because I

attune the words to my breath, I actually do it without realizing that I'm doing it. I've even had instances where I've woken up and have found myself praying the Jesus prayer. Now, I probably wasn't doing it while I was sleeping, but like when I became kind of conscious, I found that like it's almost like you kind of bring the two together, your breath and the prayer. And so if you pray it so much, it kind of gets to a point where breathing without doing the prayer becomes weird. So in that sense, it's really beautiful. doing the prayer becomes weird. So in that sense, it's really beautiful. My wife actually under went surgery a few years back and she woke up and she was unconscious and she was saying, Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And she was told that she was saying that by the nurse once she became conscious and came out of the drug state. I don't know, man,

it's pretty cool. Pretty cool thing to ask Jesus for mercy. And when we think about the Jesus prayer, it's like you're acknowledging the divinity of Christ, right? Lord, you are Lord of my life. You are the Christ. You are the second person of the blessed Trinity. Lord Jesus Christ, right? If you fill that out, Son of God, you're acknowledging who He is, and then you acknowledge who you are, and then you acknowledge what unites the two of you. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, and what am I? Like, I am a sinner. Like, I am in need of you. And I think, obviously, that's primarily meant to be about the fact that I'm constantly sinning. You know, like like I'm just in my pride, my vanity, my self-love, my lust, my, you know, all these temptations. So I'm asking the Lord to forgive my sin. But I think when you say to somebody like, have mercy on me, I think we have biblical

examples where that means more than just forgive my sin. And nothing's coming to mind right now, but I would imagine if you were to read the scriptures, we might find like one of the, was it the, was it the man who said, come and heal my daughter, you know, have mercy on her. I actually don't know, but I should have looked this up again before, but since we're doing this live, I can't, I'm sure there are instances within scripture where somebody says to another, have mercy on me. And they don't mean forgive my sin, but what they mean is like, meet me in my need. Give me what I need, you know. So, is that good? That's what I do, man.

I love to pray the Jesus prayer. Super into it. Super, super, super, super into it. It's my thing. Why am I whispering? I don't know. It's getting weird. For Anthony's story says,

Is there a marked difference in the Byzantine Catholic community and other Catholic communities that you've been a part of? For those of us in the Western Church, what should we consider about the Byzantine Church to see if we maybe ought to move over? So I think that, it's funny, I know that I am a Western Catholic who attends a Byzantine church and has done so for the last four years. I'm aware that all of my children receive sacraments.

I'm aware that my baby received Eucharist. So what I'm about to say might sound hypocritical and maybe it is hypocritical, but I think that people should stick to the tradition that they're in, including me probably. I think the reason there are so

many Western Catholics in Byzantine churches is because we are refugees from a myriad of banal liturgies, poorly celebrated liturgies. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to crap on Novus Ordo or great priests who are celebrating the Novus Ordo. That's awesome. But I think for many of us, we go and it's just like, I don't, this is just not beautiful. I mean, you've got the guitar up there and you, I don't know. It's just, it's sad. And I think we want reverence. We long for reverence. I think, do you remember that episode of The Office where, what's his name?

Oscar. It was Andy who shoots. Oh, no, no, no. It was Dwight who shoots the gun that causes Andy to almost go deaf. And it was Oscar who was inspecting the carpet. And one of the things he says is, oh, my goodness, there's hard wooden floors under this. Why would anybody do that? Like, why would they put carpet over the hardwood floors under this. Why would anybody do that? Like, why would they put carpet over the

hardwood floors? And I think that people like me and many people who watch this channel, we look at the abuses that have followed, I'm not saying have been perpetrated by, but have been, that have followed the Second Vatican Council. And we're like Oscar. We're like, why would anybody, why? No, no. Why would you do this? Why did you get rid of the communion rail? Why did you get rid of the incense? Why did you tell us to stop praying our devotions? Where did the Gregorian chant go? Where is the beauty? I think this is how a lot of people feel, baby, baby, baby. That's how I feel. Not sure why I called you baby three times, but that's how I feel. And I think that's how many people feel. And so because of that, I think people end up going to the Byzantine church. So I do think though,

this sort of natural piety or this piety, we ought to be interested in where we came from, in our heritage. And I think that rather than escaping to the Eastern heritage, we should try to stay where we've been planted and go to a traditional Latin mass, perhaps. There is so much beauty in the West. There's so much beauty in the East. But if you come from this, like this Novus Ordo stripped down mass where all of those beautiful traditions

have been removed, and I'm not saying that's always the case, but I think in a lot of cases, then it makes sense. You know, you're just like, I just need the beauty. I need the reverence. I want to kiss the earth.

I want to go somewhere where people aren't shuffling about the place like it's a freaking Walmart. I want to go to sacred ground. Anyway. Bob Appleby says. um bob appleby says what are your thoughts on the confraternity of warfare founded on saint thomas aquinas's battle for purity he says my accountability group group just finished drive 21 and we're waiting for the arrival of forged can't wait okay there was a lot there so for those of you who aren't familiar let me say these three things really quickly i just wrote wrote a book called Forged with Jason Everett.

It's like a 33-day, what do you call it? Medcurriculum or something that helps you break free of porn. It's really bloody good. Strive 21 is a course that I created. Let me show you what it looks like. Looks like, looks like, looks like. Boom. Looks like that.

Strive 21. It's a 21-day detox from porn challenge I created. You get 21 videos, one video per day. There's over, how many men now? 24,000 men in the course right now. It's free and you can be as anonymous as you want. So that's what he's referring to. He just finished that.

That's awesome. Okay, what is the Angelic Warfare Confraternity? Okay, so this is really cool for those of you who might be struggling with lust in some way, and you want to kind of, I don't know, be a part of a confraternity. That is to say, be a part of brothers and sisters, you know, who are, you know, trying to grow in purity. Check this out. Let's just read it. The angelic warfare confraternity is a supernatural fellowship of men and women bound to one another in love and dedicated to pursuing and promoting chastity together under the powerful patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The confraternity is an official apostolate of the Dominican order.

So this is pretty cool. The cord, a blog of purity. So I think you actually might wear a cord under your clothes. I've never kind of joined the confraternity, so I actually don't know. Let's go to their shop and see if they have it. Angelicwarfareconfraternity.org. So go check that out. Oh, yeah, so there's a medal that's just for those who are in the confraternity. That's cool. Look, here's the knotted cord thing.

Okay, so let me explain what this is. thing okay so let me explain what this is um so i guess when thomas aquinas was being held captive in his uh childhood castle um his brothers brought in a prostitute to try and dissuade him from joining the dominicans and it said that he took a fiery brand from the fire and chased her out of the room with it which you know that's one way to do it. And on the wall or on the door, he is said to have burned a cross, the shape of a cross. And he is said to have a vision of angels who girded him about the waist with a cord of some sort of cord. Here it is here. Here's the kind of image after he chases the woman

out of the room. See this cord that this angel is holding over here? And it said, again, I don't know what the kind of basis is for this, but I suppose if it's an official apostle

of the Dominican order, there's got to be some basis for it that's kind of established in his earliest biographies. It said that he never struggled with chastity after that. So anyway, that's pretty cool. Look at this. To be worn only by validly enrolled members of the confraternity pre-knotted. There you go. I'm not sure what all the knots mean, but I'm pretty sure that you pray like a decade or you pray 20 Hail Marys or

something like that. And you do that for everybody in the confraternity. So you're all kind of helping each other spiritually. So there you go. Angelicwarfareconfraternity.org. So check that out. What else do I have? As far as questions. Okay. Oh, was that it? Yeah, I guess that was it. I think we answered all those questions. Good, good, good, good, good. All right. So now just for fun, I want to share with you seven of my favorite, um, short stories. Now here's what I want to ask because many of these short stories are old. So I'm sure you can find them online. If you dear YouTube viewer find the link to each of these stories, post a comment with the names and the links to these stories, and I will pin your comment to the top.

So here are seven of my favorite shorter stories. Like, I think there's a lot of people who want to get into reading beautiful fiction, maybe even want to begin to read the classics, but are not sure how. Honestly, I think the reason I started getting super into Dostoevsky and other authors was my pride. I just wanted to be the kind of person that was interesting and into classical books and stuff. I think it was Chesterton who said, a classic is a book that everyone wants to say they've read, but nobody wants to read, which is really funny. But honestly, I think that's why I started reading the classics because I just, it was pride maybe. I mean, I don't think it was entirely unhealthy. I think it was just like, I know interesting people who read good books. I would like to be like that

because they seem like they have a more fuller life. And so that's why I started getting into them. So here are seven. These are not in order because I don't, I didn't want to do that because I couldn't choose. Here are seven. There are more, but here are seven of my favorite short stories. This may be my all-time favorite. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Absolutely beautiful novella on death.

I actually read this to my children. We were visiting a beach. We were staying at this beach house in Florida. And every night for about four or five nights, I read this story to them. It is powerful, powerful, powerful. I mean, they talk about, you know, memento mori, like remember your death. If you want a short story that will help you do that check out that the death of ivan ilich by tolstoy again you can find that online here's another one of my favorite short stories would be by flannery o'connor it's a story called the river absolutely heartbreaking story uh and there's a lot in that story actually that that you don't get right away. I don't know if I want to spoil it for you because the ending is just heartbreaking and a beautiful allegory in many ways.

So I don't want to ruin it for you. But that said, if you are a patron, we just, I don't know, several months ago, Father Damien Ference led a seven-part video series. It was a short course in Flannery O'Connor. So that's always available, just so you know. When you become a patron, it's not like that's over and done with. You can get access to that. Here's another short story that I read several years ago that I loved. It was by H.G. Wells called The Time Traveler.

He also wrote a short story called The Invisible Man. I think that's recently been made into a movie. Haven't seen it. I'm sure it's crap. So the time machine was absolutely amazing though he goes into the future and you know he sees this civilization that's essentially split you know so you've kind of got the working class and the upper elites i guess and then over time they have evolved to such a degree that the elites having lived this big cushy life are now these really frail-looking creatures, whereas the blue-collared folks are kind of like living beneath the surface and are

kind of more rough. It's really interesting. One of the things I loved about it is that it's a beautiful reflection on what the universe will be like if God does not exist. The universe has been, what, if God doesn't exist, what do we say? What is it? Where did it come from? Where are we going? We've been coughed into existence by a blind cosmic process that didn't have us in mind. And cosmologists tell us that the universe is basically winding down as it runs out of energy and will eventually be ruinous. That's where we're headed. And there's this beautiful line that I just pulled out here to read to you. It's when the time traveler goes way into the future and there's nothing left except this gigantic red sun in the sky. And here's what he says.

All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, Absolutely powerful. All of these stories, by the way, are something you could read either in a night or like two or three nights. So it's not going to take a lot of effort. So check that out. I think H.G. Wells was somewhat anti-Catholic, actually, but it's not going to take a lot of effort so check that out it was a it's a i think hg wells was somewhat anti-catholic actually but it's a great story um here's my here's my fourth on the list rothschild's fiddle or sometimes called rothschild's violin by anton chekhov who was a russian playwright i'm not sure if he wrote any full-length stories but he wrote a bunch of

short ones and rothschild's Fiddle is absolutely amazing. I read it to my wife a couple of months ago, and oh, man, she couldn't handle it. My wife is one of these beautifully optimistic, energetic, extroverted people who doesn't have a lot of time for meditating on the sorrowful things of life. So I remember reading this to her, and she's like, okay, that's good. The story is really sad. Rothschild is the Jew who the man encounters and gets a relationship with. I'm pretty sure he's the Jew. I hope I'm not getting that mistaken.

But the main character is a coffin maker in town, basically. That's his job. And if people would just keep dying, that would be awesome because he would be able to make more money kind of thing. And he's got this awful relationship with his wife who he just hates, just detests and treats her like crap. And it's only after she dies that he realizes that he did it. My gosh, it's gorgeous.

Okay, number five. You're like, how is that gorgeous? I want to kill myself just hearing the description. Okay. Number five would be the strange case of, and I just read this over the weekend, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I'd never read it before. I was recently at St. Gregory the Great's Academy up in Pennsylvania, an amazing boarding school. And they had this on the shelf and I asked if I could take it and they said, yeah, so I did. Well, they offered and then I took it. So it's like a science fiction-y story where this guy by the name of Dr. Jekyll realizes the duplicity within man and within his own heart

and concocts a potion in order to separate those two things so he ends up taking this potion and dr jackal becomes mr hyde and even looks very different and mr hyde is just this evil wicked human being who engages in all of this you know nefarious activity. And he doesn't feel guilt for doing it. So even though he gets to do it, he doesn't feel guilt because after him, it's not him, it's someone else. So anyway, it's really bloody good. One of the things that I loved...

So what happens is he takes this potion to become Mr. Hyde, right? It's like this separate identity from him. But eventually, he just keeps becoming Mr. Hyde on accident. He doesn't even take the potion. He ends up becoming Mr. Hyde himself. And it's this really cool struggle that we all experience between choosing evil things and those evil things end up dominating us. One interesting thing about this is that when Dr. Jekyll talks about his experience of being Mr. Hyde, he feels lively. He feels energetic. But everybody's experience of Mr. Hyde is that he's this disgusting little creature.

And I think that's like a really interesting allegory for sin, right? Because sometimes when we engage in sin, we feel alive in the moment, but it really is pathetic and miserable what we're doing. So check it out. It's a really good book. Okay. Number six, you've got two more, is The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft. The next two are going to be kind of more horror stories, but not in the kind of modern sense of horror. The next two are going to be kind of more horror stories, but not in the kind of modern sense of horror. They're very excellently written. H.P. Lovecraft, the next one will be Edgar Allan Poe.

But yeah, The Outsider is, if you're going to read one story from H.P. Lovecraft, I would recommend The Outsider. It's a fascinating turnaround that takes place at the end, which I'm not going to tell you about because I'm going to ruin it for you. Now, I'll be honest. I actually have not finished this next short story that I'm going to recommend. Maybe I'll get a chance to do that today or tomorrow. The reason I'm recommending it is because the writing is just incredible. It's called The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. And I have read and read and re-read the first paragraph of this. I'm going to read it to you right now just because it is so beautiful. Listen to this, would you? Listen to this. Many of you know that my sister and I write short horror stories.

We are crap. I should speak for myself and I write short horror stories. We are crap. I should speak for myself. I'm just so bad. And when I read geniuses like this who can use words the way they do, I realize just how bad I am. By the way, my sister and I are going to be publishing that book of horror stories soon. It'll be on Amazon. I'll let you know when. But listen to this, would you? I'm going to read it a couple of times, even if it gets annoying. Here we go. During the whole of a dull, dark and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone on horseback through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I know not how it was, but with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half pleasurable because poetic sentiment with which the mind usually receives, even in the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. How good is that? Let's just read the whole bloody story. Now, I looked upon the scene before me, upon the mere house and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees with an utter depression of soul, which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after dream of the reveler upon opium. Man, I mean, that is amazing. Let me just read that first sentence again. Okay. It's my podcast. Shut up. I can do what I want.

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone on horseback through a singularly dreary, tractive country, and at length found myself as the shades of the evening drew on within view of the melancholy house of Usher. So I'm going to read the story. I haven't read it. I keep reading that first paragraph and then rereading it because it's that good. So those would be my favorite, I'd say seven of my favorite stories. As I say, if you want to find the links to each of these, I'm sure you can find the PDFs online. Write a comment and I will pin you to the top. Guys, I want to say thank you for being here.

Later on today, I'm going to be posting a video about a huge debate that we're doing very soon. And let's just say it's one that everyone has been asking for. So it's going to be very exciting. Do me a favor, subscribe and click the church bell right there. Okay. Or the bell button. Let's say it's a church bell because it'd be nice to get 100,000 subscribers. I'm just saying, I know it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but it would make me feel good. And I like feeling good. So click subscribe, click that bell button, leave us a comment. And thanks so much.

Oh, tomorrow I'll be interviewing Father Terry Donahue, I believe is his last name, one of the most brilliant people I've ever met, on Eucharistic Miracles. You're welcome. Buckle up for that.