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Today’s text is taken from The Aquinas Catechism which is essentially homilies given by Aquinas on the Nicene Creed.
In this podcast we’ll take a look at 2 analogies Aquinas gives to explain the incarnation and 8 heresies regarding it.
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First of all, if you haven’t yet subscribed to Pints With Aquinas on iTunes, remedy that here!
In this episode of Pints With Aquinas I interview my mate and fellow apologist, Trent Horn. Trent is, in my mind, one of the most persuasive and intelligent apologists of the Catholic faith out there today.
Trent’s new book (which I highly recommend you get) which we spoke about on the show is called Why We’re Catholic: Our Reasons For Fatih, Hope, and Love. It’s that one, general book you can hand to anyone as a starting point for helping them find their way into, or back to, the practice of the Catholic Faith.
In today’s episode of PWA, I allow Trent to respond to a number of points comedian Ricky Gervais made in a recent interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.
Though you’ll get to listen directly to what Gervais said in the podcast, here’s the full interview if you’re interested:
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In today’s podcast I answer a listener question—”Did Thomas ever say ‘drink to the point of hilarity’?” Then I chat with my good mate, Sam Guzman, founder of The Catholic Gentleman about 5 tips to drink beer like a connoisseur.
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Today we chat to Thomas about Limbo. What is it? Are Catholics bound to believe in it? If it does exist what do the souls there experience?
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Whether those souls which depart with original sin alone, suffer from a bodily fire, and are punished by fire?
Gregory Nazianzen in his fortieth sermon, which is entitled On Holy Baptism, distinguishes three classes of unbaptized persons: those namely who refuse to be baptized, those who through neglect have put off being baptized until the end of life and have been surprised by sudden death, and those who, like infants, have failed to receive it through no fault of theirs. Of the first he says that they will be punished not only for their other sins, but also for their contempt of Baptism; of the second, that they will be punished, though less severely than the first, for having neglected it; and of the last he says that “a just and eternal Judge will consign them neither to heavenly glory nor to the eternal pains of hell, for although they have not been signed with Baptism, they are without wickedness and malice, and have suffered rather than caused their loss of Baptism.” He also gives the reason why, although they do not reach the glory of heaven, they do not therefore suffer the eternal punishment suffered by the damned: “Because there is a mean between the two, since he who deserves not honor and glory is not for that reason worthy of punishment, and on the other hand he who is not deserving of punishment is not for that reason worthy of glory and honor” […] Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing that which his nature was unable to obtain. On the other hand, those who are under sentence for original sin will suffer no loss whatever in other kinds of perfection and goodness which are consequent upon human nature
ST. Appendix I, I, I.
Whether these same souls suffer spiritual affliction on account of the state in which they are?
right reason does not allow one to be disturbed on account of what one was unable to avoid; hence Seneca proves (Ep. lxxxv, and De ira ii, 6) that “a wise man is not disturbed.” Now in these children there is right reason deflected by no actual sin. Therefore they will not be disturbed for that they undergo this punishment which they could nowise avoid. […] Now in these children there is right reason deflected by no actual sin. Therefore they will not be disturbed […] [T]he pain of punishment corresponds to the pleasure of sin; wherefore, since original sin is void of pleasure, its punishment is free of all pain. […] [I]f one is guided by right reason one does not grieve through being deprived of what is beyond one’s power to obtain, but only through lack of that which, in some way, one is capable of obtaining. Thus no wise man grieves for being unable to fly like a bird, or for that he is not a king or an emperor, since these things are not due to him; whereas he would grieve if he lacked that to which he had some kind of claim […] Hence they will nowise grieve for being deprived of the divine vision; nay, rather will they rejoice for that they will have a large share of God’s goodness and their own natural perfections.
ST. Appendix I, 2.
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I’m convinced that friendship is under serious attack in our culture. Actually, let me rephrase that. I think that everything good is under serious attack in our—whatever this is we live in and are apart of, friendship no exception.
Today’s podcast on what Aristotle and Aquinas have to say about the goodness and importance of friendship is worth listening to, taking to heart, and sharing with other sensible people who want to save and promote good things.
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In this episode of Pints With Aquinas we take a look at what Aquinas had to say about epistemology (that branch of philosophy concerned with how we know stuff).
Three Opinions on How we Know Stuff
On this point the philosophers held three opinions. For Democritus held that “all knowledge is caused by images issuing from the bodies we think of and entering into our souls,” as Augustine says in his letter to Dioscorus (cxviii, 4). And Aristotle says (De Somn. et Vigil.) that Democritus held that knowledge is cause by a “discharge of images.” And the reason for this opinion was that both Democritus and the other early philosophers did not distinguish between intellect and sense, as Aristotle relates (De Anima iii, 3). Consequently, since the sense is affected by the sensible, they thought that all our knowledge is affected by this mere impression brought about by sensible things. Which impression Democritus held to be caused by a discharge of images.
Plato, on the other hand, held that the intellect is distinct from the senses: and that it is an immaterial power not making use of a corporeal organ for its action. And since the incorporeal cannot be affected by the corporeal, he held that intellectual knowledge is not brought about by sensible things affecting the intellect, but by separate intelligible forms being participated by the intellect, as we have said above (Articles 4 and 5). Moreover he held that sense is a power operating of itself. Consequently neither is sense, since it is a spiritual power, affected by the sensible: but the sensible organs are affected by the sensible, the result being that the soul is in a way roused to form within itself the species of the sensible. Augustine seems to touch on this opinion (Gen. ad lit. xii, 24) where he says that the “body feels not, but the soul through the body, which it makes use of as a kind of messenger, for reproducing within itself what is announced from without.” Thus according to Plato, neither does intellectual knowledge proceed from sensible knowledge, nor sensible knowledge exclusively from sensible things; but these rouse the sensible soul to the sentient act, while the senses rouse the intellect to the act of understanding.
Aristotle chose a middle course. For with Plato he agreed that intellect and sense are different. But he held that the sense has not its proper operation without the cooperation of the body; so that to feel is not an act of the soul alone, but of the “composite.” And he held the same in regard to all the operations of the sensitive part. Since, therefore, it is not unreasonable that the sensible objects which are outside the soul should produce some effect in the “composite,” Aristotle agreed with Democritus in this, that the operations of the sensitive part are caused by the impression of the sensible on the sense: not by a discharge, as Democritus said, but by some kind of operation. For Democritus maintained that every operation is by way of a discharge of atoms, as we gather from De Gener. i, 8. But Aristotle held that the intellect has an operation which is independent of the body’s cooperation. Now nothing corporeal can make an impression on the incorporeal. And therefore in order to cause the intellectual operation according to Aristotle, the impression caused by the sensible does not suffice, but something more noble is required, for “the agent is more noble than the patient,” as he says (De Gener. i, 5). Not, indeed, in the sense that the intellectual operation is effected in us by the mere impression of some superior beings, as Plato held; but that the higher and more noble agent which he calls the active intellect, of which we have spoken above (I:79:4) causes the phantasms received from the senses to be actually intelligible, by a process of abstraction.
According to this opinion, then, on the part of the phantasms, intellectual knowledge is caused by the senses. But since the phantasms cannot of themselves affect the passive intellect, and require to be made actually intelligible by the active intellect, it cannot be said that sensible knowledge is the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge, but rather that it is in a way the material cause.
ST I, Q. 84, A. 6.
This is, however, manifestly false for two reasons.
First, because the things we understand are the objects of science; therefore if what we understand is merely the intelligible species in the soul, it would follow that every science would not be concerned with objects outside the soul, but only with the intelligible species within the soul; thus, according to the teaching of the Platonists all science is about ideas, which they held to be actually understood [I:84:1].
Secondly, it is untrue, because it would lead to the opinion of the ancients who maintained that “whatever seems, is true” [Aristotle, Metaph. iii. 5], and that consequently contradictories are true simultaneously. For if the faculty knows its own impression only, it can judge of that only. Now a thing seems according to the impression made on the cognitive faculty. Consequently the cognitive faculty will always judge of its own impression as such; and so every judgment will be true: for instance, if taste perceived only its own impression, when anyone with a healthy taste perceives that honey is sweet, he would judge truly; and if anyone with a corrupt taste perceives that honey is bitter, this would be equally true; for each would judge according to the impression on his taste. Thus every opinion would be equally true; in fact, every sort of apprehension.
Therefore it must be said that the intelligible species is related to the intellect as that by which it understands: which is proved thus. There is a twofold action (Metaph. ix, Did. viii, 8), one which remains in the agent; for instance, to see and to understand; and another which passes into an external object; for instance, to heat and to cut; and each of these actions proceeds in virtue of some form. And as the form from which proceeds an act tending to something external is the likeness of the object of the action, as heat in the heater is a likeness of the thing heated; so the form from which proceeds an action remaining in the agent is the likeness of the object. Hence that by which the sight sees is the likeness of the visible thing; and the likeness of the thing understood, that is, the intelligible species, is the form by which the intellect understands. But since the intellect reflects upon itself, by such reflection it understands both its own act of intelligence, and the species by which it understands. Thus the intelligible species is that which is understood secondarily; but that which is primarily understood is the object, of which the species is the likeness. This also appears from the opinion of the ancient philosophers, who said that “like is known by like.” For they said that the soul knows the earth outside itself, by the earth within itself; and so of the rest. If, therefore, we take the species of the earth instead of the earth, according to Aristotle (De Anima iii, 8), who says “that a stone is not in the soul, but only the likeness of the stone”; it follows that the soul knows external things by means of its intelligible species.
ST I, Q. 86, A. 2.
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Today I chat with Fr Ryan Mann about 15 (or so) stories about St Thomas Aquinas that we really hope are true. It’s a fun episode. 🙂
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Today I’ll be drawing from what Aquinas has to say about sex in the Summa Theologiae. Since I’ll be drawing from multiple questions, I won’t put up the text this week. But if you’d like to read through those questions yourself you can go here: Supplemental section Questions 41,42,49.
In this episode of Pints With Aquinas we look a letter Aquinas allegedly wrote to a fellow Friar about how to better acquire knowledge.
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The Letter:
“My Very Dear Brother,
Since you have asked me how you ought to study in order to amass the treasures of knowledge, listen to the advice which I am going to give you.
1. Advance up the streams, and do not all at once plunge into the deep: such is my caution, and your lesson. I bid you to
2. Be chary of speech,
3. Slower still in frequenting places of talk:
4. Embrace purity of conscience,
5. Pray unceasingly,
6. Love to keep to your cell if you wish to be admitted into the mystic wine-cellar.
7. Show yourself genial to all:
8. Pay no heed to other folk’s affairs:
9. Be not over-familiar with any person, because over-much familiarity breeds contempt, and gives occasion to distraction from study.
10. On no account mix yourself up with the sayings and the doings of persons in the outside world.
11. Most of all, avoid all useless visits, but try rather to walk constantly in the footsteps of good and holy men.
12. Never mind from whom the lesson drops, but
13. Commit to memory whatever useful advice may be uttered.
14. Give an account to yourself of your every word and action:
15. See that you understand what you hear, and never leave a doubt unsolved:
16. Lay up all you can in the storehouse of memory, as he does who wants to fill a vase. ‘Seek not the things which are beyond thee’.
If you follow these things, you will attain to whatever you desire. Farewell.