Pints With Aquinas - 44: What is grace? Why is it important? With Michael Gormley

Episode Date: February 14, 2017

I chat with my mate, Gomer, about what St. Thomas (and the Catholic Church teaches) about grace. --- Learn more about my guest Gomer - http://www.layevangelist.com/ And his podcast Catching Foxes here - http://www.layevangelist.com/catchingfoxes/ --- 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

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 44. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer, ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we'll ask St Thomas this question. What is grace and why is it important? He's in your house Thank you very much for joining us once again at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a bar stall next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy. Today I will be joined around the bar table with a good friend of mine, Michael Gormley, otherwise known as Goma. You're going to love the show. Before we jump headfirst

into it, however, I want to thank everybody who has begun financially supporting Pints with Aquinas. If you want to do that, I'd be tremendously appreciative. Go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the big Patreon banner, and you can donate as little as $2 a month, which is 50 cents an episode, right? Just by doing that, I give you different thank you gifts, like this ever-growing library of exclusive audio content where I interview philosophers, converts, and apologists. And this is only for those who support the show. There's also gifts like books and stickers delivered to your door and maybe me interviewing you on Pints with Aquinas. I've said it before and I mean it. I know that people aren't supporting the show because they get to get a sticker.

Yes, I get it, right? People support the show because they just appreciate it. And I'm so appreciative of you thinking the show's worth supporting. So again, go to pints with Aquinas.com, click the Patreon banner and learn how you can support the show today. Let's get underway now. Before we do, I have to play this little funny musical thing. Goma, as I say, he's the one I'm interviewing. Just after we got off the show, he sent me this little audio clip that he put together. So it's like a little introduction to the show. So we don't usually do this, but it's kind of funny. So you're going to love it. Here we go.

Come, child, and let us listen to the wisdom of the angelic doctor. It's time for Pints with Aquinas. Michael Joseph Gormley, a.k.a. Goma. Good to have you with us. Oh, it's good to be here, Matt. Thank you. That's my Australian broadcasting accent. Well, it's actually terrifying. It's terrifying.

Thank you. Well, brother, I am not a beer drinker myself. I'll be honest. The whole show is a ruse. I'm actually drinking Laphroaig scotch. I just came across this recently. It's a 10-year-old is their standard one, I think. Very peaty.

It's gorgeous. Do you like scotch or not really uh so i me and liquor don't have a good history so i stay away from it and it stays away from me good for you yeah what are you drinking oh i'm drinking uh miller light a fine pilsner beer you know what i forgot to do i forgot to introduce you i'm sure that my listeners listen to you as well because your podcast is absolutely awesome. So tell us about you and your podcast. So my name is Michael Gormley, and I am the – I never know what to start off with.

You want to do the right thing, right? I'm a husband. I'm a father. I always forget that. I just go like, these are my jobs. And the people are like, are you married? Yes, they are important in my life. No. So I am, I work full-time at a parish. I'm the coordinator of evangelization, which just means I do adult faith formation, but with style. I, that's my full-time job. I have a second

job where I run a website called layevangelist.com. I started a podcast with my buddy Luke over a year ago. It is called Catching Foxes. And the point of that podcast is basically we take themes in faith and in culture and just talk about them. So one of the great things, I'm a big fan of like Catholic Answers is a reason why I'm Catholic. And they have a lot of great programs, but it's a lot of instruction, right? I mean, you were on your show, on there with your show. I worked for them for three years, yeah.

Oh, there you go. Well, yeah, there's that. But also you were on an episode that you rebroadcasted through. That's right. This podcast. And you were talking about hell and some other stuff,

but, you know, it's great. Hell, et cetera, et cetera. But, I mean, it's great. It's instruction, right? So you're not like you're dealing with things that are church teaching and you're explaining it in a clear and concise manner. Me and Luke, there is nothing clear and concise, I feel like about our show. So our tagline is discussion over instruction. Well, today we're going to talk about grace. And before we read what Aquinas says, we want to speak about grace, but in particular, we want to speak about, you know, can we be saved without it? But why don't you tell us what is meant by grace, Goma? Yeah, so first of all, when we talk about grace, we're talking about God's operating power in our

lives. So God's favor resting upon us. You'll hear that a lot from our Protestant brothers. God's own life. You'll hear that a lot from Eastern Christians. But the main thing when we think about grace is, and I love this line from St. Thomas, he calls it the force of grace. That grace is added to the human person so that, and this is kind of where I want to take this, so that we can actually enter heaven and be in union with God for all eternity. So without grace, we can't do that. With grace, we can.

It becomes possible to do that. And so Aquinas just distinguishes two major different categories. I mean, he has a bunch of distinctions in different ways, but I like sanctifying grace. That's the grace that saves us, that makes us holy, that restores our righteousness and rectitude with God. But then the other one is what he calls – did you read this? To me, this is kind of like a redundant. Gratuitous grace? Right, which I think we might call actual grace.

Right, right. Or we could call it gracey grace. I mean, like that's what gratuitous – any of it. Yeah, that is good. I just saw what you said there. Yeah, gratuitous grace. And so when we have that notion of it's not the grace that saves you personally, but it's the grace that enables you to save others. You know, you could call them charisms. That's one of the examples that he uses. He goes right into St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. In 12 and 14, it's all about the charismatic races of like praying in tongues and prophecy and healing. And then my favorite thrown in there, administration.

I have the gift of miracles. I have the gift of healing. You got to write something. You know, don't want Wendy to feel unappreciated. Right. Administration. I can organize pencils good for you Billy everything's coming up millhouse today

very good yeah well I guess so I guess we could I've heard this analogy you know that sanctifying grace kind of gives us what's necessary uh so for example if you were dropped at the bottom of the ocean you would die because uh you don't have what you ought to have to live in that environment. And so sanctifying grace gives us what we need to have if we're to enter heaven, whereas actual grace or gratuitous grace is kind of what prods us from the outside, not that which dwells within us, but kind of kicks us in the pants. Yeah. Yeah. Kicks us in the pants. I think that's a quote from Aquinas. That of kicks us in the pants. Yeah. Yeah. Kicks us in the pants. I think that's a quote from Aquinas.

That's actually Augustine. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I answer that. Grace that kicketh in the pants. Well, let's read Aquinas, and then I want to let you just unshpill on this a little bit. This is from, we should tell folks,

if they're interested in reading along the first part of the second part of the theosyma theologiae question 109 article 5 in a world oh my goodness that was brilliant that was brilliant let me try in a world nailed it it. This is why we pay Americans to do our advertising. Okay, he says, acts conducing to an end must be proportioned to the end, but no act exceeds the proportion of its active principle. And hence we see in natural things that nothing can, by its own operation, bring about an effect

which exceeds its active force, but only such as is proportionate to its power. Now. Totally, totally, totally. That totally makes sense, right? Hashtag toads, hashtag toads. Now, everlasting life is an end exceeding the proportion of human nature,

as is clear from what we have said above. Hence, man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to everlasting life. And for this, a higher force is needed. That is the force of grace. And thus, without grace, man cannot merit everlasting life. Yet he can perform works conducing to a good which is natural to man,

as to toil in the fields, to drink, to eat, or to have friends, and the like, as Augustine says in his reply to the Pelagians. Take that, Pelagians. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that's essentially what we're talking about, right? We're not endowed with the ability to fly, so if we are to fly, then something else has to be given to us, like a jetpack. When are they coming out with jetpacks? Thursday around noon. Oh, like a jetpack. When are they coming out with jetpacks? Thursday around noon. Oh, goodness.

Thank goodness. Okay. But they cost a fortune. Okay. Well, I'll stick to those. What are those things called that everyone's riding around on? Hoverboards. Hoverboards.

Have you tried one of those? I tried one of them at Seek recently and it fell over and broke my nose. Yeah, people die immediately when they get on them. And as a man with the body of St. Thomas Aquinas, but shorter, I don't try to get on things that require balance. I try to avoid those. I'm what they call front heavy. I tend to lean forward. Gravity pulls on me in that direction.

Now, if you're talking about a scooter, you're talking about a scooter, son. I'm all over that. All right, go on. Tell us something exciting about grace. So for me, this understanding, the Catholic understanding of grace, I feel like has been totally lost on the pew sitter and the average day Catholic. I work, that's my main job is working with people on the pews. And because this is the, I mean, to many of us who are familiar with these sorts of conversations,

this might seem kind of rather 90s or 80s, but it is the stereotypical question, you know, what is it you must do to get to heaven? Right. And still, I think, not just Catholics, but most people, if they believe in heaven, would say something like, you know, just do your best to be a good person. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And the problem with that is it's not about doing our best, which there's plenty of problems there, but it's our ever-shifting standard of what is a good person.

I mean, over and over, I'll talk with, you know, I did youth ministry for years. I still do youth ministry events and whatnot. And so every so often I'll talk about God and heaven and the necessity of having faith in Christ. And this kid will come up to me and say, well, I'm going to go to heaven. You know, I'll like, even though I'm an, you know, even though I'm not like devout, like I'm a good person. And I always ask him this question and I've never not gotten this answer. I say, what is the definition of a good person? How are you a good person? And what do you think the normal response is?

Oh, golly. What does it mean to be a good person? I think he would say something like, I don't hurt anyone. I've never killed anyone. Yeah. And almost always they'll be like, well, it's not like I've killed someone. I mean, it's not like I'm Hitler. I'm not kidding you. It is uncanny how many times people say, well, it's not like i've killed someone i mean it's not it's not like it's not like i'm hitler that's what they i'm not kidding you it is uncanny how many times people say well it's not

like i'm hitler and you're like wow so that's your standard that's the bar equals not hitler yeah so hell is literally just filled with hitler yeah you get to the pearly gates are you hitler no well done my good and faithful servant you win show. Show him what he's won. So the problem with that is the shifting standard of what is goodness. And I always tell people, how about instead of comparing yourself to the worst of society, literally, why don't you compare yourself to Jesus Christ and tell me how good you are? And, you know, sometimes people will be more thoughtful. Other times they'll be like, wait, what? No, come on.

But the idea is to draw our minds to this one thing. When we feel good about ourselves, we pick people who are worse than us, morally speaking, and we hold them up to be our standard. And then we say, look how much better I am than them. And when we feel terrible about ourselves. It's like Trump today would be the kind of equivalent, I think for many people, uh, Meryl Streep,

Meryl Streep will hold Trump up and say, look at how much better I am than him. And look at all the qualities he doesn't have. Look at all the qualities I just happened to have. And wouldn't you know it, my qualities, not his qualities are the ones that make someone good. And,

or to, or to hit a little closer to home, maybe many of us who are listening may have made, use hillary to be the standard you know like i'm not committing abortion yeah it's like uh-huh good that's really great but what are you doing i'm still in favor of dropping bombs over everyone else that's not a pregnant woman who lives in america but other than that so right i just make it weird i think i made it weird but um it's okay but the the other thing is if you're depressed right if you're struggling with depression or whatever right you have this this self-hatred going on you will compare yourself to people who are better than you and you will always come up uh come up

lacking right and these are the projects that are always doomed to fail for self-justification. And I think for so many Catholics, so many people in general who think, I mean, have you seen that terrible, oh my gosh, terrible whitewashed movie, Gods of Egypt? Oh, I thought you were going to say Therese, that movie. You know that movie, Therese? You seen that movie? No, I don't watch movies like that. Marvel, Star Wars, right? I'm not going to watch Therese. Actually, I did see Therese a little bit. I was like, wow, holiness looks disgusting and boring. Yeah. Hello, my daughter.

Hello, father. Yeah. Anyhow. No, what movie are you talking about? Gods of Egypt. Oh, yeah. No, I didn't really see it. With Gerard Butler and the guy from that movie

with the thing uh and the whole point of the egyptian myth to get into heaven is you place your good deeds when you die you travel a river blah blah blah and then you place your good deeds on the scale and then they place a single feather and if it outweighs the feather then you get to go to heaven or whatever it is um well in the beginning of the movie it's you place gold and they weigh the gold and if you put enough gold then the gods will let you in and they're the the the hero of the show in self-regarding jerk who learns his lesson and then becomes a good person who sacrifices himself he ends up constituting the new law which is it's your good works Only good people get to go to the heavens or whatever. And that is the myth that endures that whether you're Christian or not, all I got to do is be a good person. What's the definition of a good person? Well, I'm not that terrible

person over there. And people think that's the democratic way. I can never understand this because if we don't have shifting standards of what is actually right or wrong, good or bad, Because if we don't have shifting standards of what is actually right or wrong, good or bad, then how do I know that I'm on the good side versus the bad side? Is there literally a scale? Like if I have 50 bad deeds and 51 good deeds, do I just get in? You know, people don't understand that that actually, it actually sets us up for a big failure. Because what if you don't realize the evilness of your life until the end of your life, right? You're there dying and finally death has forced you to confront the limits of the way you've lived your life, the emptiness of it, the sheer terror that awaits you. And then you say, I am so sorry.

And then you die. Like you try to repent. Does that repentance equal 50 bad deeds 100 you know like so this notion of of of requiring everything is grace number one makes us competitive with our neighbor uh and number two doesn't actually give us strong moral grounds to say yes i am saved no i'm not saved it literally just leaves us saying, I mean, I think I am. I'm better than Hitler, you know? And when we bring in the notion of grace and the saving death of Jesus Christ, what that does is it takes the onus initially off of us and places it

where it belongs on God. And this is where St. Thomas would call the operative power of grace, that God is, he is the one that's doing the initial operation in your life. He's doing the work. That's what he means by operation. He's doing the work in your life of grace. And then when you respond to that, that's called cooperative grace. That's where you both are operating. It's never, grace is always present.

Whenever you do a good deed, grace is present. Whenever you have an act of faith, grace is present. And so the problem is when we reduce everything to just this notion of, well, I got to be a good person. Yeah. What does it mean to be a good person? What does it mean to try your best? Right. I mean, we all have mother.

We all have shifting standards. Let me finish that sentence. We all have shifting standards of what does it mean to try our best. Right. Yeah. I mean, if we're feeling lazy, we let ourselves off the hook all the time. Well, I was going to go to church, but football, you know. Mother Teresa had that great line in America.

You say give until it hurts, but I say keep on giving because then soon there will be no more hurt, only love. Wow. Right. So if you're an American. Wasn't that Dostoevsky? I'm just joking. I'm sure she said it. Shoot. What if it was Dostoevsky? I'm just joking. I'm sure she said it. Shoot.

What if it was Dostoevsky? I'm just joking. What an idiot. Am I right? So many people attribute quotes to her. I'm like, really? Where's the source? It was Mother Teresa who said, hey, I'm back.

Or St. Francis. Hey, the first objection Aquinas gives to himself might be something you want to respond to, and that's this. It would seem that man can merit everlasting life without grace, for our Lord says, if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments, for which it would seem that to enter into everlasting life rests with man's will. But what rests with our will, we can do ourselves, since it seems that man can merit everlasting life rests with man's will. But what rests with our will, we can do ourselves, since it seems that men can merit everlasting life. So what do you say to the person who doesn't give you that standard response? At least I'm not Hitler.

What do you say to the person who says, I keep the commandments like Christ told us to? I believe it was Mother Teresa who said, no, I'm just kidding. To be or not to be, no, the notion is that we lose sight of is the ability to keep the commandments is a grace from God to will and to work for his good pleasure is the grace of God. It is God operating in us and then us co-operating with that grace. Scripture is very clear where it says that God has prepared the works for you to do, right?

And so this notion that faith and work... By the way, that's exactly the answer Aquinas gives. I'm not sure if you know that, but really well done. Oh, hey, there we go. Nice. He's replied to that objection. Yes! See, I told you, me and that guy, we're just... Sometimes you get one. Right, yeah. But that's

the problem is so many people think, well, I mean, I can do good. You can do good. You can do good. But it's because God's grace is already moving in yet. So I think that for people to say, well, I can do good, but I don't need grace. They don't realize how deep

grace is moving in our lives. What does this whole notion of grace tell us about heaven then, and also hell? Well, I think Aquinas would say, because he said it in the middle part, now everlasting life is an end. I think Aquinas would say, because he did. Oh, Tommy. Now everlasting life is an end exceeding the proportion of human nature. And the problem is we domesticate heaven too much. For us, heaven is like a really, really good day that never ends. And it's not the entire union of the soul with God for all eternity and rapturing love and truth itself, you know, to know as we are known.

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has prepared for us, right? So we tend to like minimize what heaven is. And once we minimize what heaven is, right, a warm sunny day forever, what ends up happening is then, yeah, like I could earn that. I can earn a few minutes peace. I could earn maybe a lot of peace by being good for most of my life. peace. I could earn maybe a lot of peace by being good for most of my life. But what people don't realize is the gift that God is giving us is eternal life, a share in divine nature. And when you take your eyes off of that ultimate end, a share in your divine nature, when you don't see that, then you can trivialize heaven and you can dismiss hell Because hell is like a really bad day, and you don't want that, and why should I have a really bad day? But if hell is the lack of heaven, and I'm made for

heaven, then hell necessarily has to be the fire and the frustration, the uncomfortable. You know, C.S. Lewis has a great line, in heaven there is music, there is silence, but in hell there is only noise. C.S. Lewis or Mother Teresa said that, but this notion, I'm going to keep going. This notion that hell is terrifying and all that stuff, but hell is what happens when the promise of heaven is rejected, right? And heaven is so great. Hell, if God is my ultimate end and I choose myself instead of my ultimate end, then I'm going to burn in frustration just pure existential frustration and that is hell right and so I feel like people in Catholics particular we don't talk about heaven enough you know like they used to be in the 90s I don't know

if you remember this but a lot of people would complain you know I never hear people talk about hell I never hear people talk about hell do you remember that like a lot of people used to complain about that well i still think that's probably true oh no it's totally true so people used to complain about it more uh i and then i heard dr peter kreft say uh i never hear anyone talk about heaven yeah everyone's worried about hell when was the last time you heard a conservative preacher or whatever ever talk about heaven well now that's a good point and because we don't know what we're losing we don't even talk about it we don't we don't even know what the christian life is because how could we know the means if we don't if we totally disregard the end right so grace makes possible your soul to be united to God for all eternity. How could you earn that on your own?

Tell us a little bit, if you don't mind, about your own kind of experience with grace. From the little I've heard, I don't know you terribly well, Goma, but from what I've heard in your Catching Foxes podcast and when we've chatted one-on-one, it sounds like you were a pretty eager conservative, whatever that term might mean to you, Catholic. And I wonder if you dealt with scrupulosity or maybe not enough and how as you've grown in your understanding of grace, you've found more freedom and joy and fulfillment in your Christian faith. I was caught up in a sin that I thought I had mastered that was in my past. And I was a senior or junior at the time. And I just fell into, and I was sank, I sank into depression on Easter Monday,

and it lasted for three days. And someone invited me to mass and I had this rule, I would never say no to invitation to daily mass. So I go and I sit with this girl and I realized that she didn't actually invite me to mass. She was just telling me that she was going to mass. And I looked around. I realized I was sitting in the middle of her household, kind of like a Catholic sorority thing. And I'm the only guy. And I'm like, oh, I'll go sit on the end. So I sat on the end of the pew in the aisle, next to the aisle.

And then Father Dave Pavanka walked down. Now, if you don't know Father Dave, very charismatic preacher, but he likes to pull people from the audience and ask them questions or whatever. And I knew that he knew me, so he would feel comfortable pulling me out. And I, I got scared and he started, this was, um, so like I said, it was Easter, Easter week. He said, how many of you in this room are sinners? And everyone raises their hand. And he said, how many of you in this room are saints? And one guy in the back raised his hand and he's like, really, you're a saint. And he's like, Oh, no father, you know, and there's always one guy. And, uh, he said, why is it that you are so quick to identify with the evil in your life and so quick to run away from the good that God is doing in your life.

And those words hung in the air because I remember responding because I let Satan rob me of my joy. And I said that like a thousand times over and over again in my head, like I was stuck on a loop. And the next thing I know, I look over and Father Dave is standing in the aisle right next to me. And he goes, Michael, I want you to stand up. So I stood up and he puts his arm around me in front of the whole congregation. Now, meanwhile, I have only eaten once in three days. I didn't shower. I'm wearing clean clothes, but other than that, there ain't nothing clean about me. And he says, everyone,

I want you to meet Michael Gormley. He's not perfect, but he's a saint. And this singular moment, he then walked me every three or four pews and introduced me as a saint over and over. You're like, can you just punch me in the face? That would be preferable over and over again. And he said, because, you know, like St. Paul starts off his letters to the saints, to the holy brethren, all this stuff. And it's like, quit sleeping with your mom, like all these like horrible, quit being in discord and all this stuff. And it's like, quit sleeping with your mom. Like all these like horrible, quit being in discord and all this horrible stuff. And yet he still calls them saints. And he's like, if you have the power of God's grace, like the power of the Holy spirit, you can live the life that God desires for you. And, uh, I ended up writing him a letter, um, thanking him for, uh,

bringing my pride down. Like, Oh, I'm a hurt little dove. And he just brought me that grace that literally set me free from sin. Beautiful. Yeah. So that's what I think people are missing when we domesticate heaven. We miss opportunities. We don't have expectant faith for God to do big things in our lives or in other people's lives. So we just kind of expect mediocrity.

Yeah. Okay, so I want to do two things before we wrap up today. I'd like you to speak to those on either side of the spectrum. So there's those who think that in order to get to heaven, it's entirely upon their shoulders, and they have to do, just as you say, a number of good works that exceed the bad works. Okay? Maybe you've just sort of explained a little bit about how you're in that position, but maybe address that.

Then address the other people who are like, you know, God's grace, man. So, yeah, I'm a sinner. I've noticed it's – we all feel very comfortable saying I'm a sinner, Yeah, I'm a sinner. I've noticed it's – we all feel very comfortable saying I'm a sinner. Yeah. But none of us feel very confident or comfortable saying, you know, I have temper tantrums or I like to masturbate to my iPhone. Hey, you know, we don't unashamedly say the particular sin that it is we do.

So maybe speak to those who are happy in their sin and don't realize that they need to repent of it and could go to hell. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, honestly, to those who think they have to win heaven, now, you cannot receive the grace of Christ and then act against it. St. Paul says, live a life worthy of the gospel. We do not live a worthy life in order to get God's grace. Because we first have God's grace, that enables us to live a worthy life. We think with a pagan mindset so often, it's natural. It totally is natural because we're fallen, broken human creatures to think that it starts with us. And it doesn't.

It doesn't start with us. It doesn't end with us. That it begins with God's movement of grace in our life, acting and moving within us in order to get us to realize that I need my heavenly father. I need God in my life. I need his power, his strength. I need the force of grace in my life. The reason why we think we don't is actually a deeper pride that says, I got this. You know that song, I Got the Power? I literally heard that song while I was reading scripture as a high school student.

And there's a psalm or proverb that says, say not, I have the power. As that song was playing. So you know what I did? I smashed my stereo because that's what the Lord wanted. Did you really? No, I did not. Well, it's funny because I've done some dramatic things after my coming to Christ, let me tell you. We'll compare notes at the end of the podcast.

Because, you know, we actually have a lot of Protestant listeners, too. And, of course, it's not just our Protestant brothers and sisters. It's Catholics, too, who might have this idea that, well, look, I've come to Christ, I've been baptized. It's pretty much a foregone conclusion now that I'm just going to be saved in the end. When we refuse to cooperate with God's grace, we are choosing not – see, this is the problem I think many people lose sight of, that grace gives us the ability to receive God's love and life into our lives. But we can do things that directly contradict God's life and love and thus alienate ourselves from the gospel.

We can do things that are unworthy of the kingdom of God, that are unworthy of the gospel. And by doing that, we are making our souls unfit for the presence and the kingdom of God, right? And so, you know, St. Paul fills his – almost every one of his longer epistles has things like, for do you not know that the idolater and the adulterer and all these people can't enter the kingdom of God? They can't inherit the kingdom of God. It's because God, as C.S. Lewis says, God wants servants who can become sons. But what if the servants are constantly running away and they never want to become sons? Right. So in the end, our grace prepares our soul. Um, we,

we dispose our soul to receive that grace. But even that St. Thomas says is a grace to prepare. It is a grace. Everything is a grace. But if God has given us this grace, uh, the book of Hebrews says,

uh, it talks about, look at what happens if we neglect, not even reject, but just neglect. so great a salvation. So I feel like as Christians, we should not rest with I'm a sinner, even I'm a sinner saved by grace. But that needs to return us to this desire, a holy discontent with the way we currently are and a desire to be worthy of the gospel, right? I think that in and of itself is a desire that could only be in us by grace because we want to be awesome.

We will turn that into a desire to be better than others. It becomes competitive. It becomes about pride. But grace causes us not to think about others, but to think about the glory of God and how I prepare myself by virtue to be one with the glory of God, right? Yeah, beautiful. Those listening, if you're interested, I did an episode number 38, and it was can I know for sure whether I'm in a state of grace? the Council of Trent and Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, basically this idea that we can have moral certainty, even a high degree of moral certainty, that we're in a state of grace, but that we can't know infallibly except for a divine revelation, and that for two reasons.

One, we can't be sure that if we do fall from grace that we'll repent, and two, we should also leave open the possibility that we could be deluding ourselves. And I think that we might not like that idea. It might not seem plausible to us. But then when we consider the fact that we actually know some people who would probably say to us, absolutely, I'm in a state of grace, and they don't see what they can't see. They don't see that they're like kind of really arrogant, actually, or selfish or self-absorbed. Like they have no idea. And so if that can be true of other people and we can see it, and yet they absolutely can't, then that also has to be possible for us.

Yeah. to be possible for us. Yeah. Yeah. And so being aware of being in the, in the state of grace, you can know by the fruits, uh, you can discern by the fruits of this, but that's why St. Paul says, if any man stand, let him take care lest he should fall. Like, don't just sit there thinking, well, I'm good. I'm all good. That's what we call the sin of presumption. And I feel like there's a great line from, from GK Chester. And right before he was received into the Catholic Church, he was reading what's called the Penny Catechism. And it had this line where it says the two sins against hope are presumption and despair. And he said those are the twin sins of my generation or this modern era is we either presume or we despair. And the only thing that can destroy our presumption is God calling us to

hold our life, hold your life. And the only thing that could destroy our despair is that God's offer of grace remains through his son, his son's gift of mercy. So it's the cross that makes us better, but it's the cross that first confronts us when we're not better. And that is grace. All of that is grace. Beautiful. Well, we're going to wrap And that is grace. All of that is grace. Beautiful. Well, we've got to wrap up here. So thanks so much for sharing with us today. Goma, tell us more about where people can learn more about you. Layevangelist.com, you mentioned that in the beginning, Catching Foxes. I know you write somewhat on these issues and also speak about them, yeah? Yeah, really my main job is to travel Catholic parishes, and the way I feel like it, it's to combat Pelagianism. Define that for us briefly,

because we've been speaking about it without mentioning it directly. That's true. Pelagianism centered on the priest Pelagius, who believed, number one, that he didn't really believe in the fall, but he believed that Christ came not as savior, but as exemplar. And what his task was, was to show us how to be truly moral. And thus our goal as Christians is to be, it's a kind of white knuckle, be moral on our own power. His main opponent was St. Augustine, who wrote, who most of St. Augustine's treaties on grace came from his against the Pelagians and stuff. And then the Pelagians tried to modify what they said, and they became semi-Pelagian, and that too was condemned. So the church is, the Roman Catholic Church is firmly on the side of grace and firmly condemns the notion that you can earn your salvation.

Excellent. Thanks, mate. Thank you very much. Sorry for ruining your show, bro. No, it was amazing. It was good. Thank you. Thank you so much for tuning in this week to Pints with Aquinas.

I want to ask that you do me a favor. Go to Pints with Aquinas on itunes and please rate the show the only exception is if you think it's a terrible show that deserves one star in that case go and rate gomer's show but if you love the show show us some love by going to itunes and giving us five stars if you think it's worth that god bless bless you guys. Speak to you next week. Thank you.