Pints With Aquinas - 92: 6 Reasons to STOP coveting your neighbor’s goods

Episode Date: February 6, 2018

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Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Ah, I know what you're thinking. Don't give up your day job. Well, I did. Okay, and this is it. So thanks for bringing it up again. How much does healthcare cost monthly? Hey, welcome to Pints with Aquinas.

If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we're going to be talking about a very important sin, that of covetousness, and how to stop being such a covetous little bugger, because nobody likes you when you do that. In the Q&A portion, we talk about penance, we talk about transgenderism, we talk about responding to people who aren't really sure if essences exist uh and then also how to talk to people about thomas aquinas who love catholic stuff but think thomas is too intellectual this should be a fun episode here we go Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas.

This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. I'm Matt Fradd. I'm really glad you're here. Thanks so much for being here. You know what's coming up around the corner? Lent. I'm not kidding.

February the 14th, Lent is going to be upon here. You know what's coming up around the corner? Lent. I'm not kidding. February the 14th, Lent is going to be upon us. So, you might not know this, but you need to know it. Are you listening? You need to know it. Thomas Aquinas wrote a book of meditations for Lent. Yes. Doesn't that sound like a total Matthew Kelly thing to do where you write a meditation every day and you go through Lent? Well, Aquinas actually did that, which is just super cool. So because it's in the public domain, what I did is I recorded them all one at a time, very professionally. I have Gregorian chant playing in the background, so you'll feel very nice as you listen to it. And this, among a whole bunch of other stuff,

is available to you if you begin supporting Pints with Aquinas for $10 a month. It'll be really cool. You can listen to one meditation per day. It'll take you like 10 minutes a day to listen to the angelic doctor give you wisdom on how to have a great Lent. And you'll be giving charity to an Australian guy doing podcasts. So two for one, you know, two for one. The way you can support Pints with Aquinas is by going to pintswithaquinas.com, clicking support. That'll take you to Patreon and there you can give

10 bucks a month. Now, what you could do is donate for 10 bucks a month, you know, reap all the benefits and then cancel right before it charges your credit card. But that would be crap of you. So don't do that. But you could if you want. And, you know, no judgment, but don't. But you could, but don't. But I'm just saying, okay, here's what else you get if you want. And you know, no judgment, but don't. But you could, but don't. But I'm just saying, okay, here's what else you get if you give 10 bucks a month. You get my upcoming book on Aquinas' five ways. It'll be out really, really, really, really soon. And I'll sign it for you and I'll ship it to your door.

You can also get, you'll also get monthly exclusive videos if you give 10 bucks or more a month. By the way, we're going to start doing more of them. I think we could do at least one a week for you guys. You alone will have access to it. Also, if you give $10 or more a month, you get access to an ever-growing library of audio books. Look, you're the kind of guy who really wishes he could say he read this or that encyclical, but maybe you don't have the time. Well, listen to them because I'm recording them as well as other things over Thomas Aquinas. You know, you'll also get access to live stream events that we do. It's super cool. So, think about doing that. That'd be super cool. And I've said super cool twice now. So, I'm going to change

it and say that would be rather wonderful. It really would. You're a good human being. Hey, I want to share with you a message that we got recently. I've said this over Facebook, you know, social media a few times that we actually get some pretty amazing comments from people who are telling us of how they're converting. They say in large part due to this show. Now, I don't want to exaggerate. I think I've probably got about a dozen stories, but I wanted to share this one with you. Now, I asked this particular person, this man, if I could share his story. He said I could if I didn't share his name, so I won't share his name, but here's what he wrote.

This is just super cool, super, super cool to think how Points of Aquinas is helping people. He said, I just wanted to thank you again for your podcast. I've had a wild, crazy journey. I grew up Catholic, but when I went off to college, I dove into all sorts of fashionable philosophies and politics. I adopted different ones, one by one, but found them all wanting in some way or another. Eventually, I found my way back to the church just over a year ago, and Pints with Aquinas has certainly helped with that. Initially, I listened because I was curious, and St. Thomas was my confirmation saint. But as I started receiving the sacraments again, glory to God, that's awesome that you did that. And also you say studying and praying and listening to the episodes, the world started to make sense. The Thomist and Catholic view of the world is the only one that was able to address the issues that I had with the other

philosophies to put my head back on straight. If it weren't for your podcast, St. Thomas Aquinas, Edward Fazer, and all the other guests that you have on, who knows what would have happened to me? And then he says this, get ready. He says, Binds with Aquinas has been insightful, timely, and practical. The last few episodes have especially been helpful in illuminating as I seek to grow in holiness and discern my vocation. And then he says he's discerning, but coming a Dominican. That's wonderful. That is so wonderful. So I thought I'd share that with you. So a big thanks to everyone who supports the show and makes stories like that possible. All right. I'm excited about today's episode because I think that this commandment, depending on how you number it, the ninth or the tenth, the one having to do with not

coveting your neighbor's goods, is something that, like, when's the last time you confessed that? I think that many priests, I've heard priests say to me in the past that people don't often talk about this one. And I think it's in part because, you know, the whole American culture is sort of, I don't know, based around wanting what other people have. And I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute. But when's the last time that you confessed it? When's the last time I confessed being covetous? Is it because I'm holy in that area of my life? No. So why haven't I confessed it? Well, it's really one of those things I don't think to accuse myself of very often, but I should.

So let's read what Aquinas says. This is in his work on the Ten Commandments, and then I will stop and we'll go through it. Okay. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. There is this difference between the divine and the human laws, that human law judges only deeds and words, whereas the divine law judges also thoughts. The reason is because human laws are made by men who see things only exteriorly, but the divine law is from God who sees both external things and the very interior of man. That's why we read in the Psalms, you are the God of my heart. And again, from 1 Samuel, man sees those things that appear, but the Lord sees the heart. Therefore, having considered those commandments which concern words and deeds, we now treat of the commandments about thoughts. Okay, so those other commandments having to do with more exterior things like bearing false witness and stealing and so forth.

Now he says we're focusing on those thoughts. says. We're focusing on those thoughts. For with God, the intention is taken for the deed, and thus the words, you shall not covet, mean to include not only the taking by act, but also the intention to take. Therefore, it says, you shall not even covet your neighbor's goods. There are a number of reasons for this, and he's going to give us four reasons for this. But that's important to realize. So when we read, you shall not covet your neighbor's goods, that's not the same thing as stealing or talking him into giving them to you. Rather, it's just this inordinate desire for what he has, yeah?

And I say inordinate because perhaps he has a good that you are deprived of, which you ought to have by nature, such as food or something. But in many instances, this isn't the case. So, there are a number of reasons for this, says Aquinas, and he gives, as I say, four. Let's go through each of them one at a time. The first reason for the commandment is that man's desire has no limits because desire itself is boundless. But he who is wise will aim at some particular end, for no one should have aimless desires. And then he quotes Ecclesiastes, a covetous man shall not be satisfied with money. then he quotes Ecclesiastes, a covetous man shall not be satisfied with money. But he desires, sorry, but the desires, the desires of man are never satisfied because the heart of man is made for God. Thus says St. Augustine, and here's that classic line,

you hast made us for you, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. And then a quote from the Psalms. We could spend the entire episode talking about this, couldn't we? You know, when Aquinas deals with happiness in the Summa Theologiae, we've dealt with this in a previous episode, he talks about, can riches make us happy? His answer is obviously no, because the reason we get riches is in order to get something else, like stuff or power or control. So, it's not money. Money cannot make us happy by its nature, because by its nature, it's for something else. But he says in that part of the Summa that there are two types of riches. There's natural riches which sustain human nature, like clothing and houses and food and water and so forth.

And then there's this sort of money that man invented. And he said, when it comes to this, our desire for it is boundless. And here he's telling us why it's boundless. So let's talk a little bit about marketing, how that works, capitalism in general, of which I'm a fan, by the way. I think it's the best thing on offer. When you talk of capitalism, what do you mean? Well, here's a fun way to put it. I've heard someone, I think it was Ben Shapiro, put it this way. He said that capitalism is forced altruism. Forced altruism. In other words, make me something I want or starve, right? And there's something to that. I mean, this is how the market works. It doesn't matter how hard

you work to produce a particular product or a particular service. if people don't want it, they won't buy it, and you'll go under. And that's why when you look at the market and what's on sale, when you look, for example, on what's on offer on Netflix, it is a mirror into the human heart. And it's actually quite sad to see that many things on Netflix today are either pornographic or very dark. It says a lot about what we want. That's why they're producing it. Now, if you're a marketer, okay, you're marketing a particular product, what you have to do is elicit desire in the one you're marketing to so that they feel that your product would satisfy

a desire that they have. And what's interesting is many of the things you and I want, we don't even have a desire for. And so, they've got to pretend somehow that it'll meet a desire for something broader and more general. I mean, for example, when you look at perfumes and colognes, the advertising for that is ridiculous. It's like half-naked people on beaches looking hot and attractive. And it's, you know, they wouldn't use that advertising if it didn't work. And so, it's easy for you and I to say, that's ridiculous. That doesn't move me. I just want it because it smells good. But I don't think that's true. I think we do have a desire to be powerful and strong and free and handsome and beautiful or whatever. And these things really

do play at our emotions, right? The marketer places within us a desire that we weren't even sure we had five minutes ago. And now, we've just spent $80 on a bottle of perfume or cologne. I also think of, you know, whiskey. Now, what is whiskey anyway? I mean, it's just alcohol. It's just hard liquor. There's nothing that creative about making it necessarily. Same thing with beer. But when you look at all the marketing that surrounds this, I mean, scotch and whiskey, you know, different types of bourbon or something. It's very much like a distinguished sort of vibe that you get. And you want to be distinguished. You want to seem sophisticated. And that's why they appeal to that desire within you. It's interesting. My friend Sam Guzman from Catholic Gentleman, he put it this way.

interesting, my friend Sam Guzman from Catholic Gentleman, he put it this way. He said, very often what marketers do is they steal your happiness temporarily in order to sell it back to you. They steal your happiness temporarily in order to sell it back to you. So in other words, you're walking along the street, you're thinking you're doing pretty good, thank you very much. But all of a sudden, you see an advertisement for the Nintendo Switch, and you didn't know that you needed that or wanted it until now. But now you do, and you're not happy. And so, their marketing is so on your happiness. And if you give them a hundred and something dollars, they will sell it back to you. Ah, and then you're satisfied for a moment, and the next thing comes along, and then the next thing comes along. And what's interesting is these things that we desire don't even have to be trivial things or

things that aren't going to be a blessing to us. I think of prayer books or rosaries. You know, I have definitely done this. Just recently, somebody told me about the Blessed Be God prayer book, and I looked it up, and it looked very lovely. And I just had this feeling of praying and why this would be so good for me. Never mind that I've got like 20 prayer books on the shelf. You know, they don't work anymore. I need this new one. And the same thing's true, isn't it? Like you think around New Year's. I mean, you've got enough Bibles, but you're like, well, I'm going to read the whole Bible, so I need a new Bible. Why? It's like purchasing. It says something to us. It gives us this sense of happiness. And of

course, that's why it's so addictive. I mean, you think of Amazon, my goodness, Amazon has got this down to a T. You go on Amazon, it tells you what you want. They know what you want more than you know what you want because of what you've bought previously. Okay. But we all know this if we've lived longer than, well, long enough to be fully conscious. I mean, if you've been buying things, let's put it that way, the things that you thought would make you happy, you know that they don't. But for some reason, we keep putting that car back on the road, hoping it'll work. If I just have enough money, if I just have enough things, I'll be happy. And that is not it. Why? Because our heart has been made for God and you're trying to buy a

Nintendo Switch to fill that? You're trying to buy a prayer book to fill that? Yes, the prayer book can be made to direct your desires to God, but sometimes you just fall into the trap of buying fancy new rosaries and things. Yeah. So, this is really important. I think that we're aware of this. So, let's keep going through these and we'll say some more. Remember, he gives us four reasons why it says that we shouldn't cover our neighbor's goods. That's the first reason. You've been made for God. When you start coveting things that aren't yours, that you don't actually need, you're turning your desire for an infinite God to a mutable thing. The second reason is that covetousness destroys peace of heart, which is indeed highly delightful. The covetous man is ever solicitous to acquire what he lacks and to hold

that which he has. And then he quotes Ecclesiastes, I think, Ecclesiastes, I think. The fullness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. And then we read in Matthew, For where your treasure is there will your heart be also. It was for this, says St. Thomas, that St. Gregory said, that Christ compared riches to thorns. That's a powerful line, isn't it? The fullness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. You know, no matter how much money you have, more money,

more problems, right? It destroys peace of heart. If you get, and if I get into this habit of wanting everything we see that we don't have, it'll destroy peace of heart. And he says, that's a highly delightful thing. I love that. Indeed, highly delightful. So, you know, what's more important to have a peaceful heart, which is highly delightful, or a scattered and anxious heart so that I can get that watch or this car or that jacket, you know? Well, I think we would agree that if you were anxious and frustrated, then a jacket's not going to help. You would rather have a peaceful heart, which is highly delightful. So it's important, I think, that we're aware of this in our own self. It's very easy to see covetousness alive and well in other people, but it's not always easy to see covetousness alive and well in other people, but it's not always easy to see covetousness

alive and well in us, is it? By the way, I've been saying covetousness. I guess I should say covetousness. Here's the third reason Aquinas gives. Thirdly, covetousness in a man of wealth renders his riches useless both to himself and to others. Let's say that again because that's an interesting point. Where is he going with this? We might wonder. Covetousness in a man of wealth renders his riches useless both to himself and to others. Why? Well, because he desires only to hold on to them. He quotes Sirach, riches are not fitting for a covetous man and a niggard. A niggard is a stingy person.

I think that's what that means. I've never used that word. Let's see, niggard, N-I-G-G-A-R-D. Yeah, a stingy or ungenerous person. I can see why we don't use that word anymore. Oh, I said earlier that Aquinas gives us four reasons. I meant to say, let's see here, six. It's all squashed together in one paragraph. I didn't notice it earlier. So that's cool. We've got like three more reasons to get through. The fourth reason is that it destroys the equality of justice. Right? So, if you're a covetous person, then your desire for things and for money

will tend to be greater than your desire for justice, will be greater, and therefore, it destroys justice. And we read in Exodus, neither shall you take bribes. Well, this is why. Which even blind the wise and pervert the words of the just. And again, we read in Sirach, he who loves gold shall not be justified. Here's the fifth reason Aquinas gives. The fifth reason is that covetousness destroys the love of God and neighbor. For says St. Augustine, the more one loves, the less one covets. And also, the more one covets, the less one loves. How true is that? What a great little saying there, as we've come to expect from St. Augustine. The more one loves, the less one covets, and also

the more one covets, the less one loves. You should go tweet that. I'll retweet it. It's a good quote. And then we read in Sirach, nor despise your dear brother for the sake of gold. And just as no man can serve two masters, so neither can he serve God and mammon. You know, you hear these terrible stories, don't you, of people who never speak to their siblings again because of a fight they had over who's getting mom and dad's money. And that is such a tragic thing. And it might be easy to hear that and think, gosh, I would never do that. And I think that myself. But is that really true? Is that really true? Like I said earlier, it's easy to recognize covetousness in other people,

and it's not so easy to see it within ourself. And if we're going to be covetous in small things, we're going to be covetous in big things as well. This is why it's really important, I think, and we'll give some practical ways on how to do this at the end of the episode, that we look into our own heart and be honest about how we are coveting so that we don't end up like one of these miserable people. Finally, here's the final reason he gives. This is the sixth reason. Covetousness produces all kinds of wickedness. It is the root of all evil, says St. Paul. And when this root is implanted in the heart, it brings forth murder. And when you think about that, that was Cain and Abel. I mean, the reason Cain killed Abel

was because he was covetous of him, because he brought the greatest sacrifice to God, and God was pleased with him. So, he says, when this root is implanted in the heart, it brings forth murder and theft and all kinds of evil. They that will become rich fall into temptation and into the snares of the devil and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the desire of money is the root of all evil. And that's 1 Timothy chapter 6. That's exactly what he's talking about. This is what he talks about, the desire for money. This is covetousness. It's not money itself. Money is amoral. It's neither good nor bad. But this inordinate desire for it, this desire for it, says sacred scripture, is covetousness and is the root of all evil.

And then Aquinas concludes by saying, and note furthermore, that covetousness and is the root of all evil. And then Aquinas concludes by saying, and note furthermore, that covetousness is a mortal sin when one covets one's neighbor's goods without reason. And even if there be a reason, it is a venial sin. I mentioned this in a previous episode. It's important, I think, that we distinguish between mortal sin and grave matter, because something can be grave matter. Aquinas says here, covetousness certainly is that. But that doesn't mean that every time you discover that you're being covetous, that you're committing mortal sin. Because in order for a mortal sin to be a mortal sin, you have to be aware that you're committing it, know that it's wrong, and choose to do it anyway. And as I say, for many of us who have

grown up in a culture in which we see tens of thousands of advertisements a day literally aimed at eliciting covetousness within us so that we'll buy their thing, it's very easy to fall into this sin on accident. So that, of course, wouldn't be a mortal sin, but certainly we should be looking at this. So, how might we combat covetousness? Well, let me think of two ways here, okay? Maybe three. The first is gratitude. Gratitude, I think, would be a great defense and weapon against covetousness. Because if covetousness is this inordinate desire for that which we don't need, gratitude trains the heart in the opposite direction, where we are actually thankful for what we do have. And if you focus on being thankful for what you do have, instead of being upset for what you have not, you'll be a more peaceful person, which again, Aquinas says, is highly delightful. Now, my wife has a great little idea. She's got a little leather-bound

book, which she calls a gratitude journal. And she actually writes in it very frequently, and she dot points things that she's thankful for. So, I think she's got up to several hundred of these things. So, you know, her and I might go have a coffee together and she'll think, gee, that was lovely. And she'll pull out her journal from her purse and write, you know, one, having coffee with my husband or something like that. It's actually really beautiful to look through and see all of the things that she's been thankful for. Training our heart in gratitude is a way to become a more peaceful person and less of a covetous person. So that might be one way to do it. I think another way would be to be honest with somebody about your spending habits. You know, when you're married, well, I should say when

you're single, it's easier just to buy whatever strikes your fancy. If you're married, however, it can be a little more difficult, but sometimes we still try and get around it and buy something without telling our spouse because, you know, it's probably okay. Well, one thing I've heard couples do is they say, we'll tell each other if we're going to buy something over whatever, $20, $50, $100, you set the limit. This can be, and if you're faithful to this, this can be a way of accountability, not just spending money you don't have, which you shouldn't do anyway, but that it's a way to be accountable to our covetousness. So if I'm driving down the road and I see an advertisement for the latest, I don't know, PlayStation, and I think to myself, gee, I'd

really want that. And I have visions of myself playing it and being happy just like I was when I was a teenager, you know? Well, if I've made this commitment to my wife, I realize, oh, I've got to call her up and try and tell her I need a PlayStation. That's never going to fly. Yeah, this is probably a stupid idea. I'm not going to do it. You see? So it kind of puts a cap on our covetousness in that way. If you're single, you might choose to do this with a friend. That could be another way to do it. So those are just a couple of ways. I think we should train ourselves in gratitude and focus on what we're thankful for. This is why praising God and thanking Him, that being a part of our daily prayer and being very specific about those little things that have happened throughout the

day, that can be a great thing. Just finally, the last piece of advice I might share with you is that my wife and I do this. If you have children, you might think this is a good idea. At the end of each day, when we have dinner together as a family, we go around the table and say three things we're thankful for, or three great things that happened today. And everyone has to be quiet and believe me, I'm in a very loud family. Can you imagine that, knowing what you know of me? How is that possible? But we make people go around and say, what are three things you're thankful for today? And they get to tell us three great things that happened today.

So that could be another way of instilling gratitude in our children. Okay, well, that does it for the main bulk of this podcast today. Now we're going to take, as we usually do on this show, some of your questions. All right. Thank you to all of you who support Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. Thank you very much for supporting me and thank you for sending in some of your questions. I'm going to try to get with, I'm going to try and read these and answer them. Now I haven't read them ahead of time and I'm not as quick on my feet as I would like to be. So, we'll see how we do here. Let's see. Joseph says, Joseph Lucci, I think is your

name. Thanks, Joseph. You say, with Lent approaching, can you explain the purpose of fasting, mortification, and penance? I understand it's partly to have right relationship with God over old temporal things. What trips me up is explaining to Protestants the purpose of penance. If we can't earn our salvation, how do I explain this when asked next month? You know, there's a lot of ways we could go about answering this. One way might be to just say to them, are you in a relationship with somebody you care about? Are you married? Do you live with your parents, say? Now, I suppose they say, well, I live with my parents. And you'd say, okay, well, have you ever done anything to

hurt them? Well, yeah. Okay, what did you do, if you don't mind me asking? They might tell you. And you might say, and did you ask for their forgiveness? Yes. Did they forgive you? Yes. Good. Did you try to right the wrong or did you just say, well, they forgave me, so why should I have to do anything anyway? Well, I imagine if they're being honest, they would say, well, they did something. And this is true in any relationship. I mean, with my wife, if I hurt her, I ask her for... This actually happened recently. I was a bit of a jerk and that night I apologized to her. I said, I'm so sorry. I woke up, I was in a bit of a clearer space. I apologized again and she forgave me. But I actually went and bought flowers and brought them home to her. And you do that as a way of saying, well, I know you've forgiven me, but I still want to show you that I'm sorry. And when we go to the sacrament of confession, you see, when we are absolved from our sins, we are forgiven.

It's not that we have to perform the penance in order for the sins we confess to be forgiven. All right. I know some Catholics aren't sure of this. And so, you might think, maybe you've heard differently, but this is actually the correct answer. If you go and but this is actually the correct answer. If you go and confess, I don't know, stealing something from the local store, and you're repentant, you wish you hadn't, you've made a decision not to steal again. Well, when the priest absolves you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, you have been forgiven, and then he'll give you a penance. And I like to think of that penance. Now, that penance is something you must do, by the way. If you don't do it, if you deliberately choose not to do it, well, that's a new sin which you need to repent of. But it doesn't mean the sin of stealing has not been

forgiven, because it has. It doesn't make the confession invalid. So, maybe try to explain it to them like that. Again, much more could be said, but that might be one way to do it. Like there's a natural desire to make up and to show that I'm sorry. So that might be hopefully a bit of a help. Thank you very much, Joseph. Let's see. Joel Thorley says, hi, Matt, I was wondering if you could tell me how to respond to someone who says that things don't have essences, like a nominalist, or someone who claims that even if a thing has an essence, we cannot discover what it is. person may object the idea that God's essence is the same as his existence on the grounds that essence doesn't exist in actuality. Or when if they did, we are unable to discover what the essence of a thing is. Thus, we cannot claim that God is the pure act of existence. Thank you for your help and keep up the good work. So, when we talk about essence, we're just talking about

whatness. So, there's a whatness to this person's argument. He can explain it to you. There's a whatness to this person making the argument. What is he? needing to respond to nobody. So you might press him on that point. Essences clearly exist because essence just refers to the whatness of a thing. And if he can't tell that there is a intelligible difference between a microphone and a beer bottle, or between the Empire State Building and my dog Max, then he's insane. So, that might be the first thing to push. Secondly, even if we can't know what God is in this life, which we can't, you rightly point out that we can know that God exists. So, if this person wants to press the point that we can't know what essence is, I'm not sure if the first thing you want to do is try to argue that God's essence is existence. You might choose another

argument, such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument, that says that the best explanation for the beginning of the world is that is God. And so, maybe we don't know what God is, but we know that there was a cause, and what kind of cause might this be? Well, it seems to me to bring something out of nothing. This cause has to be extremely powerful, if not infinite in power. He has to be beyond space and time and matter, because that's the thing we're trying to explain, right, that was created, and so all of a sudden, you come up with this cause. You might not know the essence of it, but you come up with this cause that is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and unimaginably powerful. So, Joel, that might be

the beginning of an answer. Thanks for your question. Sharon Veazey writes, when someone has dementia or Alzheimer's and isn't, quote unquote, there anymore mentally, but wasn't in a state of grace beforehand, can he or she still receive forgiveness of sins, in particular through anointing of the confession? This is a great question, Sharon, and it concerns not just those who have Alzheimer's, but even suppose you're in a drunken state and you pass out and maybe you're dying or something like that. Well, what then? You know, you're not yet dead, you're not in a conscious state, so you can't actually recall and confess your sins. What then? Well, the church teaches that if the disposition of your heart is that you would confess them,

if you were conscious, then you would receive forgiveness. And so, that tends to be the general answer, and that would have to do with those who aren't mentally there anymore. If they were there, would there be any resistance in confessing, or would they have confessed? And this may not necessarily be an answer that we know, but we can trust in the mercy of God. Thanks, Sharon. Emily McJones says, how do you think Aquinas would have responded to the contemporary Western idea that gender is fluid and that children should be able to self-select their gender identity? I work in adolescent mental health care in a secular setting, so I'm confronted with this issue almost daily. I would love to have a good jumping off point to discuss this with colleagues.

Good luck. I think Aquinas would have said it's as insane as a person deciding that he was a bald eagle or a rattlesnake. or a rattlesnake. This thought that gender is fluid seems to me as inane as thinking that species is fluid. And we can give different examples, can't we? You may have seen examples of this online, Emily, if you seemed to me from your photo, at least, that you're a white person. Well, why don't you start identifying as a black person? And you might say that to your colleagues. You say, well, if I decided I was a black person, would that make me such? No. Well, why wouldn't it? Well, they'd give you all sorts of reasons, right? The fact is that by and large, you know, there are not by and large, there just are differences in male and female makeup, male and female brains. I read

an article in Scientific America that said that certain medication that's given for schizophrenia and others may end up being different in its makeup, the medication, you understand, whether or not you're a male or a female, because the male and female brain, for example, is so different. This idea that I can just magically decide one day I'm a man, one day I'm a woman, one day I'm an eagle, one day I'm Asian, is not in keeping with reality. And there are instances, of course, where sex is ambiguous, okay, such as Kleinfelter syndrome and other sorts of abnormalities. But it's important to point out that small anomalous cases where sex is unclear isn't an argument against the vast majority of cases where sex is clear. So, I wrote an article about this somewhere, I think,

so i wrote an article about this somewhere i think how to respond to transgenderism with logic and charity i would recommend um joe rogan runs a podcast he can be quite vulgar so if that's not your thing or if you don't know how to listen past that i understand but he interviews jordan peterson on gender a great deal and you might want to look up j up Jordan Peterson and see what he has to say on YouTube. All right, we think we have time for one more question. This comes from Xavier Mora. He says, Hey Matt, love the show. So I'm blessed with a great group of strong Catholic friends, but whenever Aquinas comes up, they tend to tune out and write it off as too intellectual for their tastes. How can I bridge this objection to show St. Thomas can provide insight into every aspect of life? Well, that's a great question, Xavier. And I think my podcasts are hopefully an example of how to do that because we don't just do podcasts,

do we, on the eternity of the world, what it means to say God's essence is existence and so forth. what it means to say God's essence is existence and so forth. We do episodes like we did today on covetousness. We've done episodes on how to overcome lust. Aquinas talks about that. We've done episodes on how to be happy, right? Aquinas talks about that. We talked about that a bit today. So it's true that Aquinas can be dry and rather bland and rather philosophical in his approach, but that's not true of all of his stuff. And even from his more philosophical writings, we can garner very practical truths. All right, we have more questions that have been sent in from you guys at Patreon. Thank you very much. I'll get to those in another episode. I want to thank all of you who support Pints with Aquinas

on Patreon. Remember, Lent is coming up. Now is the time to become a subscriber of Pints with Aquinas. You'll get a whole bunch of cool stuff in return. And one of those things you'll get in return is daily audio meditations from St. Thomas Aquinas throughout Lent, which I think would be a great way for you to grow in your relationship with Christ through the teachings of St. Thomas. So again, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support, and that's, it'll take you right to Patreon and you can give 10 bucks a month

or more if you want. Big thanks to everybody who's doing that. Also, if you like the show and you want to maybe leave us a review on iTunes, we always appreciate that as well. God bless you and chat with you next week. I battle with my consciousness I battle with my selfish flesh

whose wolves am I feeding myself to who's gonna survive who's gonna survive who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive?