Pints With Aquinas - 75: How Scott Hahn was first introduced to Thomas Aquinas

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 75. I'm Matt Fradd. In today's episode, I'll be chatting with Dr. Scott Hahn, who is a theologian and Bible scholar, about how he first encountered St. Thomas Aquinas as a Presbyterian, and in his own words, anti-Catholic, and how St. Thomas Aquinas helped lead him in to the Catholic Church. Super great to have you here at Pines with Aquinas. I know many of you are fans of Scott Hahn, maybe that's putting it lightly, and I know I certainly am, and it was so exciting to be able to interview him. Before we get into today's show, I want to tell you about a new e-book that I just wrote. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com, you'll see it pop up.

Starting point is 00:00:58 The e-book is called You Can Understand Aquinas, A Guide to Thomas's metaphysical jargon. Now, it's about 20 or so pages. It's very dense, but it's going to help you. I think one of the reasons people give up trying to read Aquinas is that he does use metaphysical language that modern people aren't familiar with. And so, this really explains that language in a way you can understand. You can't buy the book, but you can get it for free right now by going to pintswithaquinas.com. Just plug in your email and I'll send you that book right away. Okay, well, let's talk a little bit about Scott Hahn. I don't usually spend a lot of time reading people's bios, but I feel like it's probably necessary for Scott Hahn. I want to invite especially today our beautiful Protestant

Starting point is 00:01:50 listeners and thank you so much for listening. Even though, of course, Scott Hahn is going to talk about how Thomas led him into the Catholic Church, please don't feel threatened by that or feel like this is going to be an in-your-face invitation to convert or anything like that, you're going to love Scott or Dr. Harner, perhaps I should say. He is so in love with our Lord Jesus Christ and with Holy Scripture. It's so evident. One of the things he said to me off the air is he wished that OP, by the way, when we refer to Dominicans, if you see father so-and-so or brother so-and-so with an OP at the end of their name, that means they're a Dominican. That's the order in which St. Thomas Aquinas was. Didn't put that very well, but anyway. And OP stands for

Starting point is 00:02:40 order of preachers. And Scott Hahn said to me, I wish it didn't stand for order of professors. And he speaks a lot about how, you know, Thomists or people who are interested in Thomas, like you and I, that's the reason you're listening to this podcast, presumably, we can become so enamored with Thomas that all we talk about is the works of Thomas. Well, guess what? Aquinas is interested not in himself, nor even in Aristotle, except for the fact that he points us to truth. Aquinas is predominantly concerned with holy scripture. I've said it before, but let me ask you again. Who does Thomas Aquinas quote the most? Is it St. Augustine? Is it Aristotle? No, no, no. It's actually holy scripture.

Starting point is 00:03:27 Is it Aristotle? No, no, no. It's actually Holy Scripture. So, a bit about Scott Hahn. He is an American Catholic lay theologian. He's an author, professor, and apologist. He's a former Presbyterian who converted to Catholicism. Perhaps you've read his book, Rome's Sweet Home. It's a book he wrote with his wife, Kimberly Hahn, about how they entered the Catholic Church. He also wrote a book called The Lamb's Supper, The Mass as Heaven on Earth. His lectures have been featured in multiple audio distributions through Lighthouse Catholic Media. Scott Hahn is known for his notable research on early Christianity during the Apostolic Age and various theoretical works concerning the early church fathers. Scott Hahn presently teaches at Franciscan University at Steubenville, which is a Catholic university in the United States, in Ohio.

Starting point is 00:04:19 He married Kimberly Hahn, who co-runs their Catholic Apostolate, the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. I want to say something else about Scott Hahn before we begin this podcast. Jason Everett, you might be familiar with him. He's a dear friend of mine. You know, Jason used to go to Steubenville, and he said to me that there was one night, you know, he stumbled in, not stumbled in, but one night he went into the church for was one night, you know, he stumbled in, not stumbled in, but one night he went into the church for adoration. And very often, you know, in the early hours of the morning, he would see Scott Hahn there on his knees before our Lord in the Eucharist.

Starting point is 00:04:55 And what a beautiful sign that is, that someone can be this devoted to the intellectual life, but that that not detract or divide the love relationship he has for our Lord. Enjoy the show. And as I said, be sure to go over to pintswithaquinas.com and get the copy of my latest book, You Can Understand Aquinas, A Guide to Thomas' Metaphysical Jargon. Here we go. I'm sure you get told this all the time, Scott, and maybe you've, I don't know, you tell me if you're unable to hear it anymore, but so many people are where they are in their faith because of your terrific work, and I just want to say thank you on behalf of me and them. You're very welcome, and thanks be to God for what He's able to do with sinners.

Starting point is 00:05:47 for what he's able to do with sinners. Yeah. Yeah, amen. Well, tell us a bit about when and how you were first introduced to St. Thomas Aquinas and what that was like. Yeah, I was a sophomore in high school when I experienced the grace of conversion. And then four years later, I was in college, and I was a staunch evangelical Protestant, a Presbyterian, a Calvinist, and I was interested in theology primarily, but you can't go very deeply into the subject matter of theology without recognizing there are philosophical underpinnings everywhere. And so I had to kind of sort out my philosophy, so I ended up adding a second major, theology and philosophy, and later I decided to comply with my dad, who was paying for tuition very good teacher, but he was an ex-Christian, or at least an ex-evangelical who had become somewhat liberal and anti-supernatural, not believing in the miracles and all of that.

Starting point is 00:06:54 But even he had a great respect for Aquinas. And so when we were handed the syllabus and given the assignments, we were stipulated that we had to find a medieval figure and read at least 500 pages of unassigned reading. And so very soon, I chose Aquinas. Another professor I had had a great respect for him, which was unusual for Protestants, evangelicals, especially Calvinists. And two or three of my professors kind of looked down on him as sort of the one who paved the way for all of the errors of Catholicism. So after I read 500 pages, I read another two or three or 400, and I just found myself so impressed by his clarity, his depth, but also his Christ-centeredness. And it wasn't just the Summa Theologica I was

Starting point is 00:07:46 reading, the Potentia and other sources, but everywhere he turned, he would cite Scripture ten times more than Aristotle. He would also draw extensively from St. Augustine. And so I realized why one of his earliest biographers described him as an overflowing river of scriptural doctrine. He just seemed to me to be sort of like the embodiment of wisdom, such as I aspired. I was an undergraduate. I didn't know exactly what I was called to do, but I wanted to grow in wisdom and insight, discipline and diligence. That was my fourfold prayer for the last four years since my conversion in high school. When I finally found a role model in him, because he seemed to be able to tackle errors with such patience and charity, that was the

Starting point is 00:08:36 other thing that struck me, that whenever he was tackling a difficult issue, he would always state his opponent's position first, and then as a discovery, he could often state his opponent's position first, and then as a discovery, he could often state his opponent's arguments better than they could, and come up with some additional arguments besides what the opposition had marshaled thus far. And then with a calmness and a clarity, he could then sort of show the errors and refute them, but never in a way that just seemed excessive. And I thought at the time, you know, if I were ever to be refuted, I would want to be refuted by a guy like him, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:10 because there was clarity and charity in equal measure. You've described yourself in the past as being anti-Catholic, and I imagine it was during that time that you began reading Aquinas. So how did you reconcile, you know, Aquinas' brilliance and insight with the fact that he was a Catholic? Yeah, well, at the time, I was first and foremost, you know, a Christian, but a Calvinist. And so, coming from that strict Reformed tradition as I was, I didn't really consider anything distinctively Catholic as something that was even potentially right. But I had to admit at the end of this medieval philosophy course that I'd never encountered a

Starting point is 00:09:51 Protestant thinker as clear-headed or as profound as Aquinas. And so my students, my friends, my colleagues caught on to this. I was sort of described as a Thomist Calvinist, which is sort of an oxymoron, you know, for evangelical Protestants. It's like, my colleagues, caught on to this. I was sort of described as a Thomist Calvinist, which is sort of an oxymoron, you know, for evangelical Protestants. It's like, you know, back then it was like being a married bachelor. But, you know, I did find two or three more professors who were evangelical, John Gerstner, R.C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, who were of the same Thomist pedigree despite their evangelical convictions or Calvinist standpoint. And so I just went deeper and deeper. But the thing that I found was that Aquinas was not just useful in the area of apologetics,

Starting point is 00:10:34 you know, the quinquazia, the five ways to prove God's existence. He wasn't just good when it came to the divine attributes. These were sort of the go-to topics for, you know, the conventional Protestants who liked him. I found that he was good not only in the area of apologetics and epistemology, but especially metaphysics, that God doesn't have being, he is being itself, and that this is sort of the primary truth. And so we describe various attributes of God, but really the sum total of all of his perfections really capture what he is from all eternity as being itself. And that

Starting point is 00:11:12 this is really what God was getting at with Moses at the burning bush, when he explained that he who is, is the one who's talking to you. That Yahweh is not just a Hebrew term, it really captures the fact that unlike all the gods of a Hebrew term, it really captures the fact that unlike all the gods of Egypt or the idols of all of the other people, this is a being who isn't given being, this is being itself. And so we all have our being from him, that he is being itself. And I just remember thinking at the time, with a calm and clear, intuitive sense that this is right as rain. I mean, this is luminous, this is penetrating, and this was drawing me in deeper and deeper. And then after a while, I began to realize that this is the path that leads to the

Starting point is 00:12:00 Trinity, and that his exposition of the fatherhood of God, the first person, the sonship of Jesus, the role of the Holy Spirit as life, as gift, and love, it was as good as anything I could find in B.D. Warfield, or Charles Hodge, or, you know, Louis Burckhoff, and all of the other standard systematic theologians that I was studying. And at the same time, I found that he was drawing Scripture in, not less than they were, but much more. I mean, not to the point where I'm thinking, oh, maybe I should consider becoming Catholic, but I just remember thinking, nobody is giving him a fair shake. This man knows Scripture better than any of my teachers. I wish that I knew God's Word like He did. I wish I could

Starting point is 00:12:46 think with the profundity, the practicality, and at the same time, the genuine love that He would exhibit towards opposing positions in a way that was so different than everybody else I would study. They were always just sort of declaring open war on whatever positions they would oppose, and Aquinas would do it with greater effectiveness, you know, sort of like less is more. Was this under, you know, Thomas' understanding of God's essence being existence, was this revelatory for you? Is this something you already believed that other Protestant thinkers had picked up on or not? you? Is this something you already believed that other Protestant thinkers had picked up on or not? No, most Protestants who employ Aquinas use him for the purpose of epistemology,

Starting point is 00:13:37 philosophy, and apologetics, especially the arguments for God's existence. Whereas what I found moving on from that, that his understanding and explanation of the mystery of divinity opened up an even deeper mystery, and that was the Blessed Trinity, which in turn just opened me up to the integration of faith and reason, of theology and philosophy, but biblical wisdom with this sort of reason, this rational wisdom that he seemed to dispense with such consistency. that he seemed to dispense with such consistency. Now, I've read about a conversation you had with a Catholic friend who was a big fan of St. Thomas Aquinas about your decision to come into the Catholic Church,

Starting point is 00:14:15 and you said that he said something rather shocking, something to the effect of, you're going to put away Scripture now. Would you tell us about that? You know, I want to do this with great respect, because this man has gone on, and I have a great esteem for him. He was extraordinarily brilliant, eccentric, as everybody who knew and loved him recognized, and immersed in Aquinas and in Aristotle. And he also knew the Bible, but it wasn't the same thing.

Starting point is 00:14:52 And so he was invited over to our apartment for lunch. He was puffing on his pipe, and he was asking me what I was considering for my doctoral thesis, you know, what subject matter. And so when I told him that I was going to focus on the relationship between the Old and New Covenants, he started puffing a little harder. And he said, and you're going to not focus on St. Thomas? I said, well, I'm going to draw extensively from him, but I'm going to focus mostly in the area of Scripture. And he said, and I know it was playful, he looked at me and he puffed on his pipe one more time, pulled out and said, why would you return to that Yiddish lore after finding the angelic doctor?

Starting point is 00:15:39 I mean, I laughed, but I also blew my breath because I knew he was kidding. Okay, good, Okay, good. That's true. Yes, yes. Yeah, and so I looked at him and I said, dear friend, can you, do you hear that sound? That's St. Thomas, not turning in his grave, but spinning. I said, nothing would betray his legacy as much as people who would wish to study him more than they wish to study what he studied and

Starting point is 00:16:06 mastered. And that's the Word of God. And he agreed, and we stayed friends. But I learned a lesson that the revival in Thomistic theology that was called for by Leo XIII at the conclusion of the 19th century was done in part, but not in whole. As Father Aidan Nichols, a Dominican, puts it, they wanted to study the Corpus of St. Thomas Aquinas. That is all of his writings. But they didn't want to necessarily master the sacred page the way he had. And when you go back and read Eterni Patris, the great encyclical on the restoration of Christian philosophy

Starting point is 00:16:41 that was penned by Pope Leo XIII back in 1878. It was his first of many encyclicals. He specifically recommends St. Thomas, the angelic doctor, the universal doctor, as being really the model. And at the same time, he underscores, he emphasizes how important it is to retrieve him by going especially to his biblical commentaries, how important it is to retrieve him by going especially to his biblical commentaries, which at the time I hadn't really even spent, I hadn't read. And so, I don't know if it was the second or third time that I read Pope Leo's encyclical, but that's when I began to realize this is the heart of St. Thomas, but it's the difference between Thomas and Thomists.

Starting point is 00:17:22 Thomists who want to study Thomas, and I would say, if you're going to take a wrong turn, there is no better wrong turn to take than to just study St. Thomas Aquinas. I mean, you really can't go wrong, but you can do better. And that is study Aquinas, and then go and study Scripture, and then having studied Scripture, come back, and you're going to appreciate Aquinas a hundred times more. And I can say with a kind of gratitude and humility that my oldest son must have picked up on this because he's finishing his doctorate at Notre Dame in theology,

Starting point is 00:17:57 and he's focusing specifically on the relationship between the old law and the new law in Aquinas, but how especially Aquinas draws from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.17, and the writings of St. Paul, especially in 1 Corinthians 10, but above all in St. Augustine, that St. Thomas was an Augustinian, but he was also a student of Paul, but above all, a disciple of Christ. And it's never A, B, C, or D, it's always E, all of the above. When you're reading Aquinas, you're studying a master precisely because of all that he has mastered, and how much he is allowing Jesus to master him. Oh, beautifully said. Now, you've alluded to this, but this idea that Thomas is first and

Starting point is 00:18:44 foremost a biblical theologian, as opposed to how some might think of him, which is a sort of souped-up Aristotle. Would you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, I mean, we often describe St. Thomas Aquinas as a systematic theologian, because if we were to use contemporary categories, it would seem as though that is what he is most of all. But when you look carefully at systematic theology, you begin to realize that systematic theology basically takes the mysteries of faith and subjects them to the categories of reason and logic, which is a very good and important thing to do. But in biblical theology, you do something slightly different. What you do in biblical theology is you recognize that salvation history represents a divine ordering principle. And as such, you can study salvation history not simply in terms of the past and the

Starting point is 00:19:47 present, or the old and the new, or moving from Adam through Noah through Abraham and Moses onto David. No, what you can recognize is what the early church fathers spoke of as the divine oikonomia. That is the plot, the story, what it is that was scripted in the very heart of God the Father for us as his children. And what I find is that this is what St. Thomas Aquinas did. He didn't simply arrange the doctrine of the Summa Theologica in a way that was simply or reduced to logic. It was rather something that was rooted in the oikonomia of what God does, revealing the theologia of who God is. I'm really just quoting from the Catechism here, paragraph 236. But this distinction can be simplified. Systematic theology is understood as based upon the logical order of various doctrines, whereas biblical theology is based on the chronological

Starting point is 00:20:53 order of God's fatherly plan, of the divine economy. So, in biblical theology, you study the inspired narrative of Scripture, not sole scriptura, but Scripture and tradition, in order to discern and explain the unity of God's fatherly plan and how it unfolds from the old into the new. And what you have to recognize, then, is that St. Thomas Aquinas is no less of a biblical theologian than he is a systematic theologian. I remember reading a doctoral dissertation by Frank Haggard that he wrote at Drew as a Protestant, writing his dissertation at a Protestant university, and he actually came to the conclusion that biblical theology captures St. Thomas' theological enterprise much more precisely and accurately than does the modern notion of systematic theology, which would arrange the doctrines in terms of some philosophical system, such as you might find

Starting point is 00:21:54 with Rahner or with Lonergan and others, too. And I've learned a great deal from these contemporary Catholic theologians, but the reason why I prefer St. Thomas is because he really prioritizes the chronological order of God's plan as it unfolds in the biblical narratives. Now, just because it's not systematic doesn't mean it can be illogical. What it really means is that you find a deeper logic revealed in the plan of God. You know, just because I have fathered my six kids, beginning with Michael and going down to David, you know, and I've had to adjust constantly because of my weaknesses, but also especially because of theirs. So when you study Scripture, you're not just looking at one thing after another. You're really studying God's fatherly love and how it's expressed differently

Starting point is 00:22:41 to different people in different times. And it's really what got me through some difficult years when I had three teenagers at one time. But it wasn't just a kind of, you know, psychological treatment. It was a theological penetration into God's heart, the heart of a father, who fathers like nobody else. And so I would say that St. Thomas is really good on the subject of Christ's priesthood and kingship. But he's especially, he's extraordinary when it comes to capturing the mystery of divine paternity. Now, how can you do that? Well, precisely because what God does in salvation history was always done for the purpose of showing us who he is from all eternity. And no matter how old we think creation might be, science says it's billions and billions of years, that's not the

Starting point is 00:23:32 same thing as being eternal, which only God is. And so the Trinity is the only God that exists. And Aquinas showed me the Trinity is really the only thing God eternally is, as being itself. And so the Trinity is the only thing that explains everything that he does as Scripture records it, and it also explains not only why the Church teaches what it teaches, but it also shows us who the Church is as the family that God is fathering. And so I blame Aquinas more than any ten others for kind of just showing me a road that would lead to Roman Catholicism. It was clear, it was straight, it wasn't easy, it was an uphill ascent, but I really do find that the revival in Thomism right now, the renewal in the study of Aquinas that is being pioneered by dear friends of mine, such as Matthew Levering, especially,

Starting point is 00:24:26 or Michael Dauphiné and others. It wouldn't have happened apart from the rediscovery of the centrality of the Bible in all that Aquinas does, not just his commentaries, but how the Summa was written for the purpose of training young Dominicans to be what Dominicans are, the order of preachers, not just the order of professors and teachers who are called upon to teach philosophy. They're the ones who are to proclaim the Word of God, and the Summa, when it's properly read, subordinated to Scripture, could empower and equip not just Dominicans, but any Catholic people, any person, to really allow the Word of God to penetrate into their

Starting point is 00:25:05 minds and hearts. And then in turn, you could become the instrument by which God will communicate His Word in a life-changing way to other people. Thank you very much for tuning in to this week's episode of Pints with Aquinas. I hope it blessed you like the discussion blessed me. I want to thank every one of you who tune in week after week to listen to Pines with Aquinas and to remind you that we have 75 shows in the bank. If you want to learn more about Aquinas, this might be a very helpful way to begin. Feel free to go through the back catalogue of episodes and begin listening. I can't tell you how many tweets and emails I get from people who say, I just found out about Pines with Aquinas and I've listened to the first 32 episodes this week. I'm thinking 32 episodes in a week. Oh my gosh, that's pretty incredible. So

Starting point is 00:25:50 I guess if you're going to binge on this or Netflix, maybe this is the better one. I also want to remind you one more time to go to pintswithaquinas.com and download my new book, You Can Understand Aquinas, Understanding Aquinas' Metaphysical Jargon. I'm almost certain I got the name of my book wrong, but go and get it right now because it's for a limited time only. You don't have to pay anything. Again, that's pintswithaquinas.com. And let me know what you think about the book. I think you're going to be blessed by it. I've had a lot of people say that it really helped them understand Aquinas and that they're now able to read it for themselves in a way they weren't able to before. God bless you and we will chat with you next week.

Pints With Aquinas - 75: How Scott Hahn was first introduced to Thomas Aquinas

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