Pints With Aquinas - 47: Can the demons read our minds?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 47. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas the question, can the demons read our minds. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Listen, this show, Pints with Aquinas, depends on your support. So if you would like to support the show for as little as $2 a month, go to pintswithaquinas.com and click the Patreon banner and you can begin supporting. And for those of you who already are supporting the show, thank you so much. I know it's a cliche, but it wouldn't exist without you because it takes a lot

Starting point is 00:01:01 of time to do this show in my spare time, actually. And so, thank you very much. Can the devils know our thoughts? Have you ever wondered that? I think I have. Here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about Satan, by the way. We should probably begin there, shouldn't we? Since there are Christians who maybe today have fallen under the false belief that the church doesn't teach that Satan is real or that hell is real or that the demons exist. That isn't true. And it seems to me that if we want to say we are followers of Jesus Christ, then we ought to believe what Jesus Christ taught. And since Jesus Christ taught that Satan and the demons exist, and since Holy Scripture teaches it, and since his

Starting point is 00:01:50 Holy Church, which he founded, does, to say with a straight face that we follow Jesus while denying what Jesus taught seems to me to be, well, not a good thing. So, here's what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about Satan, and we'll begin in paragraph 391. Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the church's tradition see in this being a fallen angel called Satan or the devil. The church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel made by God. The devil and the other demons were indeed creatures naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing. Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This fall consists in the free choice of these created spirits who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents when he says, you will be like God. The devil has sinned from the beginning. He is a liar and the father of lies. It is the irrevocable

Starting point is 00:03:15 character of their choice and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy that makes the angel's sin unforgivable. There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death. But can they read our thoughts? Can the demons read our thoughts? Here's what Aquinas has to say. Now, let me just tell it to you right away. Aquinas says no, even though they are incredibly, perhaps even for humans, incomprehensibly smart, they cannot read our thoughts. So, before we look at some of the objections Aquinas raises, let's just look at part of his main answer. He begins by quoting Jeremiah 17. By the way, by the way, dear Pints with Aquinas

Starting point is 00:04:07 listener, did you know this? Let me ask you a question. Let's see if you can get it right. Which source does Aquinas quote more than any other? Does he quote Aristotle, Augustine? Now, if you said Aristotle, you'd be wrong, although he does quote him a great deal. If you said Augustine, you'd be closer to the truth, but still wrong. Aquinas quotes Augustine even more than the philosopher Aristotle. But more than these two, he quotes scripture, holy scripture, more than anything else. So, there you go, a little bit of trivia for you. All right. So, he quotes Jeremiah in saying, the human heart is wicked and inscrutable. Who will know it? I, the Lord, search hearts and the temperaments and test temperaments. Therefore,

Starting point is 00:04:56 it belongs to God alone to know the thoughts of human beings. Therefore, devils do not know the thoughts. The apostle says, and when Aquinas says the apostle, he means St. Paul, no one knows the things within a person except that person's spirit within the person. But thoughts are particularly internal to a human being. Therefore, only the individual human beings, not devils, can know the thoughts of that human being. can know the thoughts of that human being. Third, Aquinas quotes the work on church dogma, which says, we are certain that the devil does not perceive the interior thoughts of the soul. Now, Aquinas in this particular article, by the way, what am I reading out of? I'm not reading from the Summa Theologiae today. I'm reading from his work De Marlo, Latin for on evil. This is an amazing book. It can't be found online. At least I didn't find it.

Starting point is 00:05:50 And so paid an absurd amount of money for this book. In this particular book, he deals with all sorts of things having to do with evil, right? Sin, the devil, what makes an action evil and et cetera, et cetera. And in this particular article, Aquinas puts forward 17 objections to the point he wants to make. I know I've said it a number of times, but I still can never get over it. Aquinas was a brilliant man, not only brilliant, but open to the arguments of those who opposed him. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to come out with 17. And, you know, when you read them, they sound pretty convincing. Here's something to think about.

Starting point is 00:06:35 If you're listening to me today and you think that abortion is evil, or if you think that homosexual sex is morally good. Okay, I don't know what worldview you come from, but here's a question for you. Can you come up with just a dozen? I mean, HeroQuest comes up with 17. In other articles, he comes up with many more. Can you come up with a dozen arguments against a position which you hold passionately? So, if you're listening to me today and you think the Catholic Church is wrong in saying that two men can't marry or two women can't marry, okay, you're allowed to believe that, but can you think of 12 arguments against your position? 12 decent arguments against it?

Starting point is 00:07:28 position, 12 decent arguments against it? If you believe that abortion is evil, can you come up with 12 arguments against that position? I mean, maybe even pause the podcast right now. See if you can come up with three. It's a sign of a brilliant intellect and an open mind that one can entertain arguments and positions contrary to his own without accepting those positions or arguments and can show why they're wrong. So, let's look at about five, okay, of these arguments that Aquinas puts forth against his position. We'll look at the first two here. All right, so the first argument he puts forward against his position is this. Gregory says in his work Morals, we cannot perceive others' minds as long as we are in this life, since their minds are enclosed in vessels of clay, not glass vessels, but the density of things of clay cannot prevent the intellectual vision that devils have. Therefore, devils know our interior thoughts.

Starting point is 00:08:43 cannot, you know, if you and I meet one day, or maybe we've met in the past and you looked at me, you can't see my thoughts. In fact, you can't even see my brain. If you were to do something horrible to me, like split open my head, then you would be able to see my brain, but even then you wouldn't be able to see my thoughts. But, he says, when we're talking about Satan, we're talking about intellectual vision, which is different to bodily vision, which we have. And so, therefore, we should agree that devils can read our thoughts. Now, second objection, which is similar to the first, is this. A physical vision is related to physical forms. So, spiritual vision is related to spiritual forms, but sensory physical vision

Starting point is 00:09:27 can see the physical forms in sensibly perceptible things. Therefore, devil's spiritual vision can perceive the spiritual form in our souls, but such forms give form to our interior thoughts. Therefore, devils can know the interior thoughts of human beings. All right, let's look at Aquinas, how he responds to those first two things, first two arguments. Number one, human beings, he says, are prevented from knowing the thoughts of others, both by the very nature of thoughts, as devils are, and by the very density of clay bodies, as it were, that bodily senses, on which our knowledge depends, cannot penetrate. And Gregory is speaking in the latter regard. So, the devils can't see our thoughts. And so, he gives us two reasons. So, yeah, it is because of

Starting point is 00:10:21 our clay bodies, if you want to use that expression, the fact that you can't look into another person's head. But they're also prevented from knowing our thoughts in this sense, right? Let's see here, sorry. both by the very nature, so it's the very nature of thoughts that's at issue here. And so, when Gregory is talking, he's talking about in the second regard, not the first, but both would apply, right? We cannot know the nature of another's thoughts. Here's what he says in the second objection. He says, as physical vision can know only the physical forms proportioned to it, not every physical form. So, for example, if you think of bats, now, I know, I think it's quite a myth probably that bats can't see. My understanding is that they can see, but pretty poorly. But let's just pretend that they can't, okay? Their vision, right, wouldn't be able to see the light of the sun. Okay. So, just because we

Starting point is 00:11:27 have physical vision doesn't mean we can perceive every physical form. And so, Aquinas says, so also spiritual vision can perceive only the spiritual forms proportioned to it, not every spiritual form. And good or bad angels' spiritual vision can perceive our intellect's spiritual forms, but angels do not, on that account, perceive how we use the forms in thinking. Let's look at three more, okay? Let's begin here in the 13th argument he gives himself. And this seems really reasonable, right? The higher a cognitive power, the more power it has to know things. This is why Aquinas knows a lot more than you or Matt Fradd. But the devil's cognitive power is higher than that of human beings. Therefore, since human beings can know the thoughts of other human beings by certain physical signs, as Sirach says, and in Sirach it

Starting point is 00:12:35 says, quote, we know human beings by their appearance and wise men by face-to-face encounter, end quote. So, it would seem to follow that devils, in addition, perceive human beings' thoughts in themselves. Here's how Aquinas responds to that. Devils know a human being's thoughts better than other human beings do because devils perceive the thoughts by more concealed external signs, not because they perceive the thoughts in themselves. So, it is true, Aquinas says, you know, that angels are much more brilliant than us and therefore can perceive from our actions what it is we may be thinking. But that's a different thing, Aquinas says, than saying that the devils can perceive our thoughts in and of themselves.

Starting point is 00:13:34 Fourteen. This is the fourteenth argument against his position. If devils were to perceive such thoughts only by physical signs and not in themselves, they could not know them at all. Since the same physical sign is related to many things. For example, a flushed face can result from an internal emotion of anger or shame. But it is certain that devils know the thoughts of human beings in some way, as Augustine makes clear in his commentary on the book of Genesis. And his work on the divinization of devils and his retractions. Pause for a moment. Remember earlier, we talked about, can you come up with a dozen arguments against the position you hold strongly? I love it because not only does Aquinas come up

Starting point is 00:14:15 with more than a dozen arguments against his position, but he quotes three different sources from Augustine in one particular sentence. That's pretty cool. He's not putting up straw men. Anyway, let's go on with the objection. Therefore, they, the devils, know those thoughts in themselves. All right, here's what Aquinas will say. Excuse me, I've lost my position. No. All right, here we are. Generally speaking, the same physical signs can correspond to many effects, but there are some differences in particular signs that devils can perceive better than human beings can. So, this goes back to their superior intellect.

Starting point is 00:15:13 All right, one final argument, okay? Here it is. As Augustine says in his literal commentary on Genesis, angels know everything lower than themselves through forms that they receive at their creation. But our thoughts are lower than the angels, since our soul is by the ordination of nature inferior to angels. Therefore, devils can know the thoughts of human beings by those innate forms. And Aquinas responds in one sentence, Augustine meant to speak about lower natures, which angels by their nature know through forms implanted in them, not about voluntary thoughts. So, there you are, guys. There is five arguments Aquinas gives for why the devils can read, know our most interior thoughts, and he shows why that's not true. So, if you've been freaking out and wondering if Satan is listening to your thoughts or something, you don't need to

Starting point is 00:16:03 freak out about that anymore. And as we wrap up here today, I wanted to share with you a prayer that was recommended by an exorcist, someone who deals with people who are literally possessed by the demons or by Satan. Father Gabriel Amorth, his name is. He's from Rome. And one of the prayers he says is very powerful against Satan is the prayer Anima Christi. Now, this is a prayer that's generally thought to have been written by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Saint Ignatius puts this at the start of his spiritual exercises, and he often refers to it. And here's the prayer. refers to it. And here's the prayer. Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ,

Starting point is 00:17:01 strengthen me. O good Jesus, hear me. Within thy wounds, hide me. Let me never be separated from thee. From the evil one, deliver me. At the hour of my death, call me and bid me come to thee. That with thy saints I may praise thee forever and ever. Amen. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I will throw that prayer in the description of this podcast in case you'd like to memorize it. Probably a cool thing to do. Thanks for listening this week, and I look forward to chatting with you next week.

Starting point is 00:17:23 We've got a cool interview. this week and I look forward to chatting with you next week. We've got a cool interview. I'm going to be chatting with Dr. Kevin Voest about the seven cardinal virtues. So just as there are seven cardinal sins, right, we could talk about seven cardinal virtues. That's what we'll be talking about next week. Look forward to that. Until next week, to carry you And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you To carry you, to carry you To carry you

Starting point is 00:18:05 To carry you To carry you To carry you

Pints With Aquinas - 47: Can the demons read our minds?

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