MM#247--Philosophy 101--Aquinas, part 1

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

Hello, i am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute And welcome back to our continuing series of Philosophy 101, where we are following the great four volume series of books called Socrates Children by Peter Krief, who is our guide for this wonderful philosophical deep dive into the end of the poll, as I often say now. So if you are new to Philosophy 101 or just tuning in number one, thank you for joining us. We greatly appreciate it. We hope you come back for more of these nuggets of wisdom that we cover here every Tuesday and Thursday. Number two again, our guide and mentor for this mini course in Philosophy 101 is Peter Krief, and Krief tells us that we only need to know nine of the big philosophers of all of human history because they represent the big ideas that we are confronted with on a daily basis, and the others, in fact, he covers over. He covers up to the top 100 philosophers in all human history and his four volume set The others are just filling in the gaps of the big nine. So that should give us some assurance. If you don't like reading philosophy or if you don't understand. Our world is in a bit of a crisis right now and you're wondering how in the world. Do we get here? Perhaps do we forget everything we've learned as a human species for the last 4,000 years? Well, that's a great question. I mean, after all, we as a society are struggling with which bathroom to go into these days. I mean, it doesn't get any worse than that, does it? Nevertheless, let us understand who are these big nine folks that we should know. The big nine, real quick again, are Socrates, plato, aristotle, augustine, aquinas, descartes, hume, kant and Hegel. And to help you out, we will put our previous Philosophy 101 episodes in the show notes so you can catch up very quickly if you missed any of those previous episodes. And one last announcement before we break into today's mojo minute It's going to be in two parts, so the second part will air one week from today. And now, with all that administrative catch up out of the way, let us ponder one of the greatest intellects in all of human history. St Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274 AD. And again, to make sure we're on the same page, our book that we're pulling these quotes from is Socrates' Children, volume 2. It's written by the great professor Peter Krief. So with that, let's roll to our first poll quote on this great saint and philosopher. Tomists are thinkers who consider themselves disciples of Saint Thomas more than any other philosopher. He they consider themselves. They consider Saint Thomas the wisest, most brilliant philosopher in the philosophical mind of all time. There have been more Tomists than Platonists or Aristotelians or Augustinians or Cartesians or Humanans, continians, nechians, marxists, hegadarians or anything else in the history of philosophy. This philosophy has staying power. It is still a very live option 750 years later, and has shown itself capable of assimilating new philosophical developments like extensilism, phenomenology and personalism, as well as the discoveries of modern science. Why? The first reason has to be telling the truth That trumps everything else. Let's stop here real quick. Is that not great stuff right there? What a concept. Telling the truth that trumps everything else, no matter what, and searching for the truth matters too. Both of these things in our postmodern world and post-Christian world is going at a cliff at breakneck speed. So we would do well to listen to this man who lived 750 years ago but who could describe and explain almost everything he wrote about with clarity, with simplicity, with common sense. So with that, let's go back to the book. The simple, direct and common-sense nature of this fact answer. Of this first answer leads to a second. His thought is Aquinas, that is, his thought is remarkably simple, direct and, above all, common sense of cool, even though it is expressed in an abstract, technical and difficult medieval Aristotelian or scholastic terminology. That is the point of GK Chesterton's biography St Thomas Aquinas The Damocs, which many Thomas regard as the greatest book ever written about St Thomas. Once you understand about a dozen Aristotelian terms, he is actually very easy to read. Ah, this is good stuff right here, and I just love it when books offer other good book recommendations. So, note to self, put GK Chesterton's biography, st Thomas Aquinas The Damocs, into the pipeline to read. All right, that is noted. Let's roll back to the book for more about St Thomas and his life. So we're listing the reasons that St Thomas should be read and studied. We've already tackled the first two, first being telling the truth. That trumps everything else. And number two, he's very simple and direct and common sense of cool to read. So the third reason to read and study St Thomas Aquinas is a third like a guest, and he has a great sense of cool, like a guest, and he had a heart as well as a head. He was a saint and a practical man. Peasants, kings and popes wrote to him for practical advice and always got it. One example his advice for dealing with depression A glass of wine, a hot bath and a good night's sleep. Many of his theoretical points have practical, life changing applications. Fourth perhaps more than anyone else in history, he combined two essential ideals of philosophical thought exact logic and intuitive wisdom, clarity and profundity. He wrote clearly and simply about the most profound questions of God and man, life and death, good and evil, mind and will, soul and body, fate and freedom, virtue and vice, the natural and the supernatural. He always seemed formidable on his first reading and always seems to become clear and clear on every subsequent rereading. He is a transparent window with no emotional, ideological or personal baggage. Everything is quote bottom line, straight to the point, and nothing is asserted without definition, explanation and proof. The fifth reason more completely than anyone else before or since, aquinas synthesized or married faith and reason, christianity and Greek philosophy, religion and science. Philosophy is a science in the broad pre-modern sense. He had an inclusive rather than an exclusive mind. Within philosophy itself, aquinas synthesized insights from nearly every major philosopher before him. And the sixth reason Aquinas was not only inclusive and synthetic but also very analytical. He combined careful, elaborate detail with the quote big picture, the cosmic sweep or the metaphysical worldview. And the seventh reason is Aquinas was judicious and moderate, careful and patient to avoid opposite extremes and over simplifications. Boy is that not refreshing. So to understand what the greatest minds to have ever lived, we would be required to read somebody who is simple and direct, albeit you have to know and understand roughly about a dozen Aristotelian terms. But other than that, once you got that, you can conceivably understand with ease one of the greatest minds to have ever written about the study of philosophy. Oh, and he wasn't a guy who was not super practical. I mean, i just love the little quip about. For depression, get a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good night's sleep. I like it. But having been at my Catholic parish for coming up on the 20th year now and my parish is run by Dominicans of which take great pride in having one of the greatest saints ever to have lived to be part of their order And St Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican I'm always picking on the new priests that come out to our parish, the newly ordained Dominicans. They have just read a lot of Aquinas. It's part of their study, it's part of their formation. So I'm always picking their mind how to read St Thomas. Now many of them are super happy to talk about how they were at first once intimidated. Yet almost all of them say, once you start reading him and you understand his personality and his writing, they say that's very true, that he is a bottom line guy, straight to the point, like grief tells us here. And then comes my favorite point of grief describing Aquinas's writing Quote. He was not only inclusive and synthetic but also very analytical. He combined careful, elaborate detail with the big picture, the cosmic sweep or the metaphysical worldview. I just love that sweeping view, that metaphysical worldview type of writing. I love it in history, i love it in philosophy, because to me that is what matters. If whatever point you're making in whatever argument, if you cannot fit it into the great cosmic sweep of history or his story, so to speak, then it starts to break down very quickly. For me at least, i start to lose interest and I think a lot of people out there, including you, might lose interest. Things that are of the truth or seeking the truth, or are things in a sense permanent The permanent things and the truthful things. They have staying power, and staying power is the stuff that we are all interested in. When it doesn't have staying power and you're not, it's not close to the truth. We all have an intuitive sense. It's almost like I don't know. Natural law perhaps, but what about Aquinas' life? What can we learn about Aquinas' life? Well, let's go back to the book and hear what Creef says about Aquinas in his life. Born the son of a rich, influential Italian count, he was a child prodigy, both in intelligence and sanctity. At age five, aquinas asked his teacher the stunningly simple question what is God? And, not satisfied with his answer, decided to become a theologian and a philosopher to find out. He once endured surgery without a tear or an anesthetic. He feared only one thing thunder. He had seen his sister killed by a lightning storm. When he was very young, his parents groomed him to become an abbot in Christendom's most prestigious religious order, the Benedictines at the time, eventually the abbot of their most famous monastery, montecassino, and eventually, perhaps the next pope. But Aquinas, like a hippy teenager, ran away to join the new and not yet respectable teaching order of wandering begging friars, the Dominicans, who were sort of an intellectual version of the Franciscans. To stop him, his brothers kidnapped him. They locked him in a castle room. They sent in a prostitute to tempt him. Aquinas immediately seized a log from the fireplace with which he quickly pursued her to exit and burned across on the door. Eventually his family gave up. He had won the duel of wills. Aquinas was a very large man. He walked thousands of miles across Europe. Rather than ride donkeys, which were too small for him, or horses, which were too rich for him, he studied under St Albert the Great, the most famous teacher in Christendom, an Aristotelian who focused on scientific questions. Aquinas was also shy, silent and placid that his fellow students called him the dumb ox. Albert hearing this said prophetically, you may call him a dumb ox, but I say his bellowing will be heard around the world. My oh my, with St Albert right, indeed, that dumb ox has bellowed around the world and is still doing so. It's part of the reason why Aquinas is the greatest theologian and philosopher to ever have lived, at least in my mind. His writings on so many topics and those writings being so close to the truth. We can now say that, as the human mind can try to understand the fullness of truth, aquinas' explanations and his philosophical treatises on understanding that truth are supremely great. He is a doctor of the church and one of the foremost theologians that the church has turned to to understand God and man, and frankly, that's what makes Aquinas supremely great. But let's finish out his life so we can move on to his writings in part two. As a theology professor at the University of Paris, he loved the public debates called disputed questions, in which professors had to field unpredictable questions and objections from both students and faculty and to do so in clear, logical form. The format of the Summa Theologiae is a natural summary of these debates. This was very absent-minded. Once required to be present at a banquet honoring the King of France, the wise and saintly Louis, ignoring the prestigious guest conversation, he suddenly thought of an argument and smashed his fists on the table with glee, muttering That will settle the manachias. The wise king, instead of being insulted, called for his secretary to bring pen and paper to record it before it was forgotten. Once, traveling over a mountain range, when the sun emerged to illuminate a whole kingdom below, his traveling companion said When it be grand to own all that you can see, aquinas replied I'd rather own the missing page of that Aristotle manuscript. In his scale of values. One page of truth trumped a kingdom Once. He thought and spoke four times as fast as anyone could write. He wrote his massive Sumas by dictating to four secretaries at once, one sentence after another, with no revisions or second drafts. His own handwriting is hurried and scribbled and hardly legible. A few months before his death, he refused to finish the Summa Theologiae or to write any more at all, calling everything he had ever written straw. compared with what he had seen in a mystical experience, straw was used in the Middle Ages to cover animal dung. St Paul used the same image in Philippians 3.8. Shortly before his death, he made a general confession of all the sins of his life. His confessor emerged from the confessional weeping saying the sins of a child of five, his most revealing story of all. His fellow monks once found him prone on the floor of the chapel in the middle of the night in audible conversation with Christ on the crucifix, who said to him You have written well of me, thomas. What will you have as your reward? He answered simply Nothing but you, lord. He would have said that those were the four most eloquent words of his life. The rest, by comparison, were straw. He had written all of his life. He was extremely learned and knowledgeable, but it was all straw. Everything he had written was straw Unbelievable. But for Aquinas, love begets love. He wanted nothing but to be with a Lord. So in today's Mojo Minute, just like in our last Mojo Minute, if you haven't read Augustine, i would highly encourage you to do so. And so I will say again the same for Aquinas. If you haven't read St Thomas AquinasI would highly encourage you to do so. He is well worth reading, especially for our times. Now We will be offering some summaries down the pike to help you with reading Aquinas, but for now, if you want to flourish at a very high level of understanding St Thomas Aquinas and his worldview, it will put you on the fast track to do just that Flourish, and flourish at a very high level, i might add. Now, please come back next week for part two of Philosophy 101 on St Thomas Aquinas.

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