- 12/5/2025
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00:00:00There is no sacrifice of the mind required to be religious.
00:00:08Thomas Aquinas, really more than anyone else in the tradition,
00:00:12boldly asks all the questions.
00:00:15If you've got a theologian who says,
00:00:18whether there's a God,
00:00:19well, that means anything's open.
00:00:21That means any question's possible.
00:00:22Good, good.
00:00:24We have nothing to be afraid of.
00:00:25Reason poses no threat to religion.
00:00:27When both reason and religion are authentically understood.
00:00:31That's what Aquinas got.
00:00:33And see, without him,
00:00:34we'd be, I think, in a much more confused state of mind.
00:00:57We'll be right back.
00:01:27We'll be right back.
00:01:57We'll be right back.
00:02:27We'll be right back.
00:02:57We'll be right back.
00:02:59We'll be right back.
00:03:01We'll be right back.
00:03:03He was philosopher, scientist, biblical commentator, theologian, mystic, and above all, a saint.
00:03:11We'll be right back.
00:03:12It's that last description, which is, at the same time, the most overlooked and the most clarifying.
00:03:18If you read Thomas simply as a rationalist philosopher,
00:03:22you'll miss the point of almost anything he wrote.
00:03:25Thomas was a saint, deeply in love with Jesus Christ.
00:03:28He was a spiritual master.
00:03:30He was a spiritual master.
00:03:31And the whole purpose of all his writing was to place us on the road to Christ.
00:03:35Toward the end of his life, Thomas Aquinas was stationed in Naples.
00:03:49In fact, I'm standing right now in the cell that he occupied, at the friary of San Domenico Maggiore.
00:03:55During those years, Thomas was working on the last part of the Summa Theologiae, his theological masterpiece.
00:04:01One of the texts in that last part dealt with the Eucharist.
00:04:05And Thomas had a very special devotion to that sacrament.
00:04:08It's moving to me to think that in this very place, he was thinking through and writing that text.
00:04:14When he finished, he wasn't entirely satisfied.
00:04:17And he placed the text at the foot of the cross, as though asking for approbation.
00:04:22And a voice came from the cross.
00:04:24Thomas, you've written well of the sacrament of my body.
00:04:28What would you have as a reward?
00:04:30With all his heart, Thomas Aquinas wanted nothing other than Christ.
00:04:49Nothing more or less than Christ.
00:04:53Grasping this is the key to grasping all that he wrote.
00:05:00Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225, in the family castle of Roccaseca, near the town of Aquino, situated about midway between Rome and Naples.
00:05:23His mother, Theodora, was descended from Norman and Neapolitan gentry.
00:05:30And his father, Landoff, was a minor nobleman.
00:05:33Thomas' family was caught up in the confusing and shifting politics of the day, which pitted the Pope against the Holy Roman Emperor.
00:05:42When Thomas was only five years old, he was sent to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.
00:05:49Not too far from his home.
00:06:02He would stay among the Benedictines for nine very formative years.
00:06:08Far too many commentators have overlooked the importance of Thomas' sojourn in the Benedictine world.
00:06:27At Monte Cassino, he would have learned the rudiments of the contemplative life, and he would have fallen in love with the scriptures, especially the Psalms.
00:06:38In his maturity, Thomas would understand theology as essentially an elaboration of the Sacra Pagina, the Holy Page.
00:06:49There is a delicious story told concerning Aquinas at this early stage of his development.
00:06:55After hearing his teacher discourse on God during an elementary catechism class,
00:07:00young Thomas reportedly said,
00:07:03But Master, what is God?
00:07:08He never stopped asking that question his whole life long.
00:07:14I'm a seminary rector, so I deal with people applying to the seminary all the time.
00:07:26And it's not true in every case, but in a lot of cases.
00:07:29You have these young men that say,
00:07:31Yeah, when I was four, five, six, I wanted to be a priest.
00:07:34It was already in my heart, in my mind.
00:07:36So that's not all that unusual.
00:07:38Something else I'd say is, how many swimmers start at five or six?
00:07:43How many skaters start at five or six?
00:07:46How many divers?
00:07:47You know, I started diving when I was five.
00:07:49You know, we don't think we're imposing on them or we're violating their autonomy.
00:07:53They perceive some excellence.
00:07:56In that case, some, you know, sports excellence.
00:08:00And by God, they want to get at it.
00:08:03Because they want to be the best in the world at it.
00:08:05So what's so wrong with saying, I perceive this excellence of friendship with God,
00:08:10and I want to get at it right away?
00:08:12It might be our prejudice against religion.
00:08:16There's something psychologically problematic about that.
00:08:19But we don't think it's psychologically problematic to throw a kid into a swimming pool
00:08:22when he's five years old and get him up at 5.30 in the morning
00:08:25and get him going in his practice.
00:08:27So I don't know.
00:08:28I think this is more of a prejudice on our part.
00:08:30...
00:08:41...
00:08:49Cuando era 15,
00:09:06Tomás dejó Montecasino
00:09:07por motivos políticos
00:09:08y tomó lo que se llamaba
00:09:10de la Universidad de Naples
00:09:12en la nueva fundación de la Universidad de Naples.
00:09:15En Naples,
00:09:17el adolescente se convirtió
00:09:18a double radical.
00:09:20Under the influence
00:09:21of his professor,
00:09:22Peter of Ireland,
00:09:24Tomás became a devotee
00:09:25of the Greek philosopher
00:09:26Aristotle,
00:09:27whose writings
00:09:27had been condemned
00:09:28by a number of popes.
00:09:31Though some of his texts
00:09:32were known in the Christian West,
00:09:34the bulk of Aristotle's corpus,
00:09:36including his treatises
00:09:37on God and metaphysics
00:09:39and the nature of the soul,
00:09:40were just coming
00:09:41into circulation at this time.
00:09:43Many serious Christians
00:09:44felt that Aristotle's view
00:09:46represented a threat
00:09:47to Catholic Orthodoxy.
00:09:49But others felt otherwise,
00:09:50including Peter of Ireland,
00:09:51who taught here
00:09:52at the University of Naples.
00:09:54They felt Aristotle
00:09:54represented a breath
00:09:56of fresh air,
00:09:57a new approach
00:09:58to religious questions,
00:09:59more grounded
00:10:00in this worldly reality.
00:10:02In a word,
00:10:04Aristotelianism was an exciting,
00:10:06even dangerous movement
00:10:07in mid-13th century Christendom.
00:10:10And Thomas Aquinas
00:10:10would become
00:10:11one of its most enthusiastic adepts.
00:10:14But the Aristotelian radical
00:10:15became even more countercultural
00:10:17when he embraced
00:10:19the other great revolution
00:10:20of his time,
00:10:21the mendicant movement.
00:10:22While he was still
00:10:27a university student
00:10:28in Naples,
00:10:29Thomas took the habit
00:10:30of the preaching friars
00:10:31of St. Dominic.
00:10:34Like his contemporary
00:10:35Francis of Assisi,
00:10:36Domingo de Guzman
00:10:38felt that Christianity
00:10:39needed to be revitalized
00:10:41through a return
00:10:42to the radicality
00:10:43and simplicity
00:10:44of the gospel message.
00:10:47And so he gathered
00:10:48around himself
00:10:49a band of brothers
00:10:50dedicated to lives
00:10:51of preaching,
00:10:53poverty,
00:10:54and radical trust in God.
00:10:57For some,
00:10:58the presence of Franciscans
00:10:59and Dominicans
00:11:00was a sign of renewal
00:11:02in the church.
00:11:03But for many others,
00:11:05it was a scandal.
00:11:12Thomas' parents wanted him
00:11:13to be the abbot
00:11:14of Monte Cassino,
00:11:16a respected position
00:11:17at an established institution.
00:11:20The last thing
00:11:21in the world
00:11:21they wanted or expected
00:11:22was that he would join
00:11:24this strange
00:11:24and upstart group
00:11:25of beggars.
00:11:28So on his way to Paris
00:11:29to begin his Dominican formation,
00:11:32Thomas was waylaid
00:11:33by his own brothers
00:11:33who had been sent
00:11:35by their mother
00:11:35to stop him.
00:11:37Though they tried
00:11:38to tear his Dominican habit
00:11:39from his back,
00:11:41the young Aquinas
00:11:41clung to it desperately
00:11:43until they stopped.
00:11:46They then locked him away
00:11:47in a family castle
00:11:48in the hopes
00:11:49of dissuading it.
00:11:54It only caused
00:11:55his resolution
00:11:55to deepen.
00:11:58During this time
00:11:58of seclusion,
00:12:00he studied the Bible
00:12:00intensely,
00:12:01memorizing large portions
00:12:02of it.
00:12:04According to a famous legend,
00:12:06his brothers introduced
00:12:07a comely prostitute
00:12:08into Thomas' chambers,
00:12:10hoping to coax him
00:12:11from his celibate commitment.
00:12:12The young Dominican
00:12:15chased the girl
00:12:17from the room,
00:12:18shouting and brandishing
00:12:19a torch.
00:12:21Eventually,
00:12:22his family relented
00:12:23and allowed him
00:12:23to go his way.
00:12:26Thomas traveled
00:12:27with his Dominican companions
00:12:28to the intellectual capital
00:12:30of the Christian world
00:12:31at that time.
00:12:31In the middle
00:12:51of the 13th century,
00:12:53Paris was a magnet
00:12:54for scholars
00:12:55from across Europe.
00:12:57Young students came
00:12:59to the left bank
00:12:59of the Seine,
00:13:01still called to this day
00:13:02le quartier latin,
00:13:03the Latin quarter,
00:13:04because of the language
00:13:05spoken by these
00:13:06international students.
00:13:08They came to hear
00:13:09lectures from
00:13:10and to argue with
00:13:11the finest scholars
00:13:12of the time.
00:13:15The Paris style
00:13:16of theologizing,
00:13:17brash,
00:13:18skeptical,
00:13:19public,
00:13:20even a tad irreverent,
00:13:22represented a departure
00:13:22from the more
00:13:23conservative,
00:13:24monastic approach.
00:13:25When Thomas Aquinas
00:13:26arrived here
00:13:27in the new Athens
00:13:28of Paris
00:13:29in 1245,
00:13:31he found his
00:13:31intellectual home.
00:13:33He also found
00:13:34the most important
00:13:35of his mentors,
00:13:36the Dominican scientist
00:13:37and philosopher
00:13:38who,
00:13:38even in his own lifetime,
00:13:40was referred to
00:13:40as Albertus Magnus,
00:13:42Albert the Great.
00:13:44Under Albert's tutelage,
00:13:45Thomas continued
00:13:46his underground study
00:13:48of Aristotle.
00:13:55In 1248,
00:13:58he followed his mentor
00:13:59to Cologne,
00:14:00becoming the great
00:14:01man's apprentice.
00:14:04While a student there,
00:14:05Thomas,
00:14:06taciturn,
00:14:07self-effacing,
00:14:08and by no means
00:14:09slender,
00:14:10was given the nickname
00:14:11the Dumb Ox of Sicily.
00:14:16When Albert heard of this,
00:14:17he remarked,
00:14:19I assure you
00:14:20that the bellowing
00:14:21of that ox
00:14:22will one day
00:14:23fill the world.
00:14:25Thomas Aquinas
00:14:29was ordained
00:14:30a priest in Cologne
00:14:31in a predecessor church
00:14:32to the great
00:14:33Cologne Cathedral.
00:14:40In 1252,
00:14:42he returned to Paris
00:14:43in order to commence
00:14:45what we would call today
00:14:47doctoral studies.
00:14:49And in 1256,
00:14:51the 29-year-old Aquinas
00:14:52became a
00:14:54magister of theology
00:14:55and began to lecture.
00:15:00A magister's tasks
00:15:01were laid out clearly.
00:15:03First,
00:15:04he was to preach,
00:15:05for primarily,
00:15:06he was a
00:15:06magister sacre paginae,
00:15:08a master
00:15:09of the holy page.
00:15:12Preaching would conduce
00:15:13naturally toward
00:15:14biblical commentary,
00:15:15and biblical commentary
00:15:17would lead
00:15:17to the searching out
00:15:18of complex theological questions.
00:15:22These questions,
00:15:23the medievals called them
00:15:24questiones disputate,
00:15:27were not entertained
00:15:28abstractly or simply
00:15:29in the pages of books.
00:15:31They were addressed
00:15:32in the context
00:15:32of very lively
00:15:33public debates.
00:15:36A master,
00:15:37such as Thomas Aquinas,
00:15:38would announce
00:15:38an upcoming disputatio,
00:15:40and then students
00:15:41and faculty
00:15:42and interested outsiders
00:15:43would gather.
00:15:44The initial part
00:15:46of the discussion
00:15:46was led by a baccalaureus.
00:15:48We call him today
00:15:49a doctoral student.
00:15:51He'd entertain questions,
00:15:52objections,
00:15:53arguments from the floor
00:15:54and respond as best he could.
00:15:56All this time,
00:15:56the magister,
00:15:57the master,
00:15:58was present,
00:15:58but he remained silent.
00:16:00The next day,
00:16:01the same audience
00:16:02would gather,
00:16:03and this time,
00:16:04the magister would give
00:16:05his literally
00:16:06magisterial resolution
00:16:07of the question.
00:16:08Then he would respond
00:16:09to what he took
00:16:10to be the best objections
00:16:11from the previous day.
00:16:19Thomas Aquinas'
00:16:20Summa Theologiae,
00:16:22generally regarded
00:16:23as his masterpiece,
00:16:25is a literary rendition
00:16:26of a series
00:16:27of these
00:16:28questiones disputate.
00:16:31A typical article
00:16:32in the Summa
00:16:33begins with a statement
00:16:34of the issue,
00:16:36like the summoning
00:16:36of the question disputata.
00:16:38That is followed
00:16:40by a series
00:16:41of objections,
00:16:42like the comments
00:16:43and questions
00:16:43from the floor,
00:16:45and that is followed
00:16:46by the magisterial
00:16:47resolution of the matter,
00:16:49and finally by an answer
00:16:50to the objections.
00:16:53It is so important
00:16:54to remember
00:16:55the lively background
00:16:56for Thomas' texts
00:16:57as we make our way
00:16:58through them.
00:17:06So historically,
00:17:07what was so significant
00:17:08about where we're standing?
00:17:09I'm standing
00:17:10on the Rue de Fouard,
00:17:11which is in the Latin quarter.
00:17:12It's a very short street,
00:17:13but it's referred to
00:17:14as the berceau de l'université,
00:17:16that means the cradle
00:17:17of the university.
00:17:19The word fouard
00:17:20is an older French word
00:17:21that has a sense
00:17:22of like bales of hay
00:17:24or straw,
00:17:25because the students
00:17:26would gather here,
00:17:27they'd put straw
00:17:27on the ground,
00:17:28and they would sit,
00:17:29and their professors
00:17:30would lean out the window
00:17:32or lecture them
00:17:32in the open air.
00:17:34So in the very early days,
00:17:35when the students
00:17:36spilled off the island
00:17:37onto the Quartier Latin,
00:17:39you know,
00:17:39the university
00:17:40hadn't fully developed.
00:17:41That's how it started.
00:17:43So the Fouard
00:17:44gives you the sense of that.
00:17:45Also, right around
00:17:46the corner from here
00:17:47is the Rue d'Antes,
00:17:48Dante Street,
00:17:49because Dante came here
00:17:51in the very early
00:17:5114th century,
00:17:52maybe 1302 or something.
00:17:55And he would have sat
00:17:56on these bales of hay
00:17:57and would have listened
00:17:58to his professors.
00:17:59You look at the Divine Comedy,
00:18:00it's filled with
00:18:01Thomas Aquinas,
00:18:02filled with the scholasticism
00:18:04he learned here.
00:18:05So it's always very moving
00:18:06to me to come to this spot
00:18:07and realize,
00:18:08you know,
00:18:08the whole university movement,
00:18:10which starts in the 13th century,
00:18:13we're at the very beginning
00:18:15of it here.
00:18:15Aquinas' literary career
00:18:32lasted only about 25 years,
00:18:35but his productivity
00:18:36was nothing short of staggering.
00:18:39His collected works fill
00:18:4150 double-columned folio volumes.
00:18:45Thomas was obviously a genius,
00:18:47but he was also a man
00:18:48of extraordinary order
00:18:49and discipline.
00:18:53His day began with two masses,
00:18:55one that he celebrated
00:18:56and a second at which he assisted.
00:19:00And it continued
00:19:01almost without interruption
00:19:02as a cycle of reading,
00:19:04teaching, and writing.
00:19:08It is said that he dictated
00:19:09different works to as many
00:19:10as three secretaries at once,
00:19:12turning from one to the other.
00:19:15He would take a brief nap
00:19:16in the middle of the day
00:19:17and would frequently dictate
00:19:19arguments in his sleep.
00:19:23He was famously absent-minded.
00:19:26They say that a brother Dominican
00:19:27was assigned to sit next to him
00:19:29at meals to make sure
00:19:30he didn't put anything
00:19:31inedible in his mouth.
00:19:35One of the best-known anecdotes
00:19:37about Thomas Aquinas
00:19:38concerns a dinner he attended
00:19:39at the table of King Louis IX
00:19:41of France, St. Louis.
00:19:44In the midst of a raucous conversation,
00:19:47Thomas sat in abstracted silence,
00:19:50as usual, lost in thought.
00:19:52And then suddenly,
00:19:52he brought his meaty fist
00:19:54down on the table,
00:19:55shook all the cups and plates,
00:19:57disturbed all the diners around him.
00:19:59And he said,
00:20:00that will settle the Manichees.
00:20:03He just formulated an argument
00:20:05against the dualist heresy
00:20:06of Manichaeism.
00:20:08But one of his Dominican brothers
00:20:09turned to him
00:20:10and said rather sternly,
00:20:12don't you realize
00:20:12you're at the king's table?
00:20:14But the saintly king,
00:20:16far more concerned with truth
00:20:17than decorum,
00:20:18said, no, no,
00:20:19send a scribe immediately
00:20:21and take down the friar's argument,
00:20:23lest he forget it.
00:20:36No account of Thomas Aquinas' life
00:20:48would be complete
00:20:48without some reference
00:20:51to the events
00:20:52that immediately preceded his death.
00:20:56When he was in Naples,
00:20:57December the 6th, 1273,
00:20:59the Feast of St. Nicholas,
00:21:01Thomas was saying Mass
00:21:02in the presence
00:21:03of his friend Reginald.
00:21:04And something extraordinary
00:21:06happened during that Mass.
00:21:08For afterward,
00:21:09Thomas Aquinas broke
00:21:10his routine of 25 years.
00:21:13And he said,
00:21:13I cannot write anymore.
00:21:16When pressed on the matter,
00:21:17he simply said,
00:21:18I cannot.
00:21:20Everything I've written
00:21:21seems like straw
00:21:22compared to what's been revealed to me.
00:21:34After filling thousands of pages
00:21:54with words,
00:21:56the great master abruptly fell silent.
00:21:58What happened to Thomas Aquinas?
00:22:02There's some evidence
00:22:03of a physical dimension
00:22:04to the experience
00:22:05he took to his bed soon after.
00:22:08And when his sister saw him,
00:22:09she described him as
00:22:10stupefactus,
00:22:12dazed or out of his senses.
00:22:15That doesn't begin to explain it.
00:22:18Thomas saw something.
00:22:19In January of 1274,
00:22:31the Pope asked Thomas
00:22:32to attend the Council of Lyon.
00:22:35Despite his failing health,
00:22:37he set out on the journey.
00:22:39But on the way,
00:22:39he became desperately ill.
00:22:42He was taken first to a castle.
00:22:45But Thomas said,
00:22:45I don't want to die
00:22:46in a secular place.
00:22:47Well, the closest religious house
00:22:50was this Cistercian Abbey
00:22:51of Fossanova.
00:22:53He was brought here,
00:22:54brought to this very room.
00:22:56Some say that during his last days,
00:22:58he dictated a commentary
00:22:59on the Song of Songs.
00:23:01It was here,
00:23:02just behind me,
00:23:03that Thomas died
00:23:04on March the 7th,
00:23:051274.
00:23:06Sometimes I think God does speak
00:23:23in a much more direct,
00:23:24unambiguous way.
00:23:25You see it in great Biblical figures.
00:23:27You see it throughout
00:23:28the history of the Church.
00:23:29And yes,
00:23:30in people like Catherine of Siena
00:23:31and Thomas Aquinas.
00:23:32Now,
00:23:33how do you determine
00:23:34the difference between
00:23:35that experience
00:23:36and let's say someone
00:23:37who's just schizophrenic
00:23:38or just crazy
00:23:39and they're hearing voices?
00:23:40Then you've got to look
00:23:41at the totality
00:23:42of a person's life.
00:23:44Was Thomas Aquinas
00:23:44a deeply troubled,
00:23:47strange,
00:23:48anxiety-filled,
00:23:50problematic figure?
00:23:52No.
00:23:52He was, by all accounts,
00:23:54a very integrated,
00:23:56centered,
00:23:58balanced person.
00:23:59And so you look
00:24:00at the totality of the life
00:24:01and say,
00:24:02well, I don't think
00:24:03this is schizophrenia
00:24:03or some mental illness.
00:24:05I think this guy
00:24:07is witnessing to
00:24:07a real experience
00:24:08that he had.
00:24:09So I think the voice
00:24:11of God issue,
00:24:11you can read it
00:24:12a lot of ways,
00:24:13more generically,
00:24:14more symbolically
00:24:15and metaphorically,
00:24:16and in some cases
00:24:17very directly.
00:24:19There was a study done
00:24:20some years ago
00:24:21and the conclusion of it was,
00:24:23America is a nation
00:24:24of mystics.
00:24:25And the author meant,
00:24:26you scratch the surface
00:24:27of most people's lives,
00:24:28you'll find lots
00:24:30of reports
00:24:31of this kind of strange,
00:24:33mystical encounter
00:24:34with higher powers.
00:24:36So we can say,
00:24:37oh, the person's nuts,
00:24:38but an awful lot of people
00:24:40have had these
00:24:40extraordinary experiences.
00:24:42So I think that's probably
00:24:43the right way
00:24:44to contextualize it.
00:24:45that way.
00:24:58So I think that's pretty cool.
00:24:58¡Suscríbete al canal!
00:25:28I think it's fair to say the answering of that question became the principal obsession of Thomas' life.
00:25:36A curious feature of his Doctrine of God is how agnostic it is.
00:25:42Thomas is much more likely to tell you what God is not than what God is.
00:25:46Though he wrote, as we saw, thousands of pages about God, he always honored St. Augustine's dictum,
00:25:52Si Comprehendus, Nones Deus.
00:25:54If you understand, that isn't God.
00:25:58The great temptation is to turn God into a supreme version of a creature.
00:26:14To think of him as one being, however exalted among many.
00:26:18Thomas clarifies that God is not a being.
00:26:24He's not in any genus, even that most generic of genera, namely existence.
00:26:31Rather, God is, in Thomas' pithy Latin phrase, ipsum esse subsistence.
00:26:39God is not an item in the universe or alongside it.
00:26:56Rather, he's the reason why the contingent and evanescent universe exists at all.
00:27:04Atheists, both old and new, rather consistently miss this point.
00:27:08When they find no evidence for this supreme being, they confidently declare that there is no God.
00:27:18But they're mistaking God, as Thomas understands him, with the gods, supreme items within the realm of nature.
00:27:26The true God is the answer to the question, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:27:33Thomas sums this up by applying to God a term that belongs properly to God alone, namely simplicity.
00:27:49Now, we tend to construe this term in precisely the wrong way, thinking it means something elementary or undeveloped.
00:27:54What Thomas means is that God is the sheer act of being itself, not this or that type of thing.
00:28:02Being, without restriction and without limitation.
00:28:09In creatures, there's a distinction between what Thomas calls essence, what it is, and existence, that it is.
00:28:16So, for example, I'm a being, but I'm a human being, a being of a very particular type.
00:28:21This camera into which I'm gazing right now is a being of a very definite technological type.
00:28:27The trees around me are beings of a botanical type.
00:28:30But none of this obtains in regard to God.
00:28:34There is in God no distinction between essence and existence.
00:28:38To be God is to be, to be.
00:28:42Do you see how this is just a more philosophically precise reformulation of the great answer that God gave to Moses
00:28:48when the patriarch asked, what's your name?
00:28:52And God said, I am who I am.
00:28:59As the simple reality, God is that whose being is unconditioned,
00:29:06unrestricted, unlimited.
00:29:08This is why Thomas speaks of God as infinite, without borders.
00:29:16It's also why he's described as immaterial.
00:29:19It's not as though God is less than material.
00:29:22Rather, his being transcends the limits inherent in a material manner of existence.
00:29:29This is also why God is referred to as eternal.
00:29:32Time conditions material things.
00:29:36But God stands outside of time.
00:29:41Thomas also speaks of God as immutable or unchangeable.
00:29:46This has nothing to do with impassivity in the psychological sense.
00:29:50It means that God cannot improve or move from an inferior to a superior state.
00:29:56Instead, he's utterly perfect and fulfilled in his manner of being.
00:30:04Perhaps you've noticed by now that this procedure is largely negative.
00:30:10Thomas telling us what God is not, rather than what God is.
00:30:16What does it mean to be immaterial?
00:30:20Eternal?
00:30:22Infinite?
00:30:23Immutable?
00:30:24Well, we really don't know.
00:30:27For nothing in our ordinary experience is like that.
00:30:31Nevertheless, real spiritual insights can be gleaned from these reflections.
00:30:35To say that God is immutable is to say that he's reliable.
00:30:39He doesn't pass in and out of emotional states.
00:30:42He doesn't fall in and out of love with the world that he's made.
00:30:45To say that he's eternal is to say that he's not stuck in any particular moment of time.
00:30:50And therefore is present to all moments of time.
00:30:52To say that God is immaterial is to say that he's not restricted to any one place,
00:30:58but can therefore be present to all places.
00:31:00But is the God of Thomas Aquinas personal?
00:31:21Yes.
00:31:23Since he's in possession of all the perfection of existence,
00:31:28he must have mind, will, and freedom.
00:31:32God knows and loves himself first,
00:31:35and then knows and loves all that participates in his being.
00:31:40His knowledge of the world is not passive and derivative, but rather creative.
00:31:45Things exist because God knows them into being.
00:31:51This is why the 139th Psalm is right.
00:31:54Lord, you search me and you know me.
00:31:58You know when I sit and stand.
00:32:00You understand my thoughts from afar.
00:32:03My travels and my rest you mark.
00:32:06With all my ways you are familiar.
00:32:11God's love follows from his knowing.
00:32:13For to know something as good is ipso facto to will it,
00:32:18to rest in it, to savor it.
00:32:23God loves his own perfection with an absolutely perfect love.
00:32:29This love is so intense that it spills over.
00:32:34Creation is nothing but the fruit of this effervescent love.
00:32:38I talked a lot about Thomas' view of God
00:32:47as not a thing in the world,
00:32:50not a thing at all,
00:32:52not a being at all,
00:32:54but being itself.
00:32:56This is so important for the debates going on right now
00:32:59because you read the great atheists,
00:33:01people like Feuerbach and Marx and Freud and Sartre,
00:33:04and now read their disciples today,
00:33:07you know, the new atheists so-called.
00:33:08They all share this in common.
00:33:10They all think of God as some big being.
00:33:14Some say he exists.
00:33:16Some say he doesn't.
00:33:18I call it the Yeti theory of God.
00:33:20You know, some say there's a Bigfoot.
00:33:22Others say there isn't.
00:33:22Let's go find out.
00:33:23Let's look for evidence.
00:33:25See, but the problem is the question's set up
00:33:26entirely the wrong way.
00:33:28The creator of the universe
00:33:30is not an item within the universe.
00:33:33Think of the Russian cosmonaut that goes up,
00:33:35you know, in the 1950s, goes up into space.
00:33:36He says, hey, I've gone up in the heavens and there's no God.
00:33:39Well, see, that's precisely the wrong way to look for God.
00:33:42You don't find him as one more thing in the universe.
00:33:45Rather, God is the condition for the possibility
00:33:47of the existence of contingent things.
00:33:50That's a fancy way of saying
00:33:51that God is the sheer act of being itself
00:33:54in and through which all finite things find their existence.
00:33:57And so part of the problem with atheism is
00:33:59it sets up the question the wrong way.
00:34:02If they knew what Thomas Aquinas meant by God,
00:34:04they wouldn't ask the question that way.
00:34:06The end of the universe is the same way.
00:34:36¡Gracias!
00:35:06¡Gracias!
00:35:08What makes Thomas Aquinas perhaps most relevant to our time
00:35:31is his approach to the issue of faith and reason.
00:35:35For many rationalists today, faith is simply credulity or superstition or gullibility,
00:35:44believing things on the basis of no evidence.
00:35:50It would certainly be anachronistic to say that Enlightenment-style rationalism was in
00:35:54vogue in the 13th century, but nevertheless, a form of rationalism was indeed prevalent
00:36:00in the Paris of Thomas' time, namely Latin Averroism.
00:36:06This was a westernized version of the theory of Averroes, the Islamic philosopher, who would
00:36:11argue that theology represents relatively primitive thought, appropriate for the unsophisticated,
00:36:18whereas philosophy is the speech of the intellectual elite.
00:36:22What this gave rise to in its western Latin form was a double true theory, whereby something
00:36:29could be true theologically but false philosophically, and vice versa.
00:36:34Trace of this view can be found in the present day, for one of the upshots of Latin Averroism
00:36:40is that, finally, faith and reason have nothing to do with each other.
00:36:44At the end of the day, faith is simply irrational.
00:36:47This is precisely what Immanuel Kant and his enlightened colleagues thought, and why they
00:36:51encourage people of faith to grow up intellectually.
00:36:55Well, Thomas Aquinas was having none of this.
00:37:05He stood passionately and resolutely against Latin Averroism and the double truth theory, insisting
00:37:12that faith and reason cannot come into conflict with one another precisely because they come
00:37:17from the same source, the God who is truth itself.
00:37:29For Thomas, faith is not below reason, not infra-rational, rather it stands above reason, supra-rational.
00:37:40It is not opposed to reason, but goes beyond it.
00:37:44Its darkness comes not from an insufficiency of light, but from an excess of light.
00:37:51But this means that reason can explore the faith with complete freedom.
00:37:57There is no sacrificium intellectus, no sacrifice of the mind involved in authentic religious
00:38:03faith.
00:38:25I realize that when you talk about Latin Averroism, it can sound like something so sophisticated
00:38:29that only specialist historians might be interested, but there is a huge resonance.
00:38:34The basic idea was that faith and reason split apart.
00:38:37So this view had it that something could be true theologically, but false philosophically.
00:38:43True according to faith, but false according to reason.
00:38:46Was the Aquinas sense right away, it's a very dangerous thing.
00:38:49Now faith and reason just become unmoored.
00:38:52Some people of faith, even to the present day, will accept that view.
00:38:56Say, hey, what I believe, don't ask me any questions.
00:38:58I'm not open to criticism.
00:39:00I know science and reason say this, but my faith says that.
00:39:05It's a fideism.
00:39:07On the other side, you've got a rationalism that says, well, faith is just a lot of old nonsense,
00:39:11a lot of old superstition, and reason, science, teach something else.
00:39:16Faith and reason have drifted apart.
00:39:18Thomas Aquinas, back in the 13th century in this city, sensed the danger of this, because
00:39:23he knew that God is the truth.
00:39:26Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.
00:39:29If God is the truth, then anything true, whether it's mathematical truth, scientific truth,
00:39:35philosophical truth, is from God.
00:39:37And therefore, it can't be at odds, finally, with faith, which is from God.
00:39:42So he kept the two of them together, which I think is enormously important.
00:39:46Whenever faithful people are tempted to say, oh, don't ask any questions, whenever scientific
00:39:51people are tempted to say, oh, faith is a bunch of nonsense, Thomas Aquinas stands
00:39:56to athwart those two positions, and brings them back together.
00:40:26One of the most signaled contributions of Thomas Aquinas was in the area of theological anthropology,
00:40:53to give it its technical description, more simply, his understanding of the human person.
00:40:59What strikes you first about Thomas in this area is how anti-dualist he was.
00:41:05Aquinas was much more at home with the biblical idea of the unity of the person than he was
00:41:10with all those forms of platonic dualism that dominated Christian thought before him.
00:41:18For Thomas, the soul is not an alien power standing over and against the body, nor an unhappy spirit
00:41:25imprisoned in the body.
00:41:28Rather, it is the form of the body, the energy that makes a body distinctively human.
00:41:35This statement from the Summa is typical.
00:41:38The whole human soul is in the whole body, and also in every part of the body, just as God is present to the entire universe.
00:41:50Also this.
00:41:52The soul is in the body, not as contained by it, but as containing it.
00:42:00One upshot of this unifying view is that the body should be reverenced.
00:42:06Here again from Thomas.
00:42:09We ought to cherish the body.
00:42:11Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, but from God.
00:42:16And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by a friendship of love.
00:42:21So Thomas is not a dualist.
00:42:24But didn't he believe in the immortality of the soul?
00:42:27Well indeed he did, because the soul's intellectual capacity, its ability to engage in properly abstract thinking,
00:42:34is a sign of its immateriality.
00:42:37Nevertheless, he was convinced that in heaven, body and soul come together.
00:42:43Here's his own language.
00:42:44At the resurrection, the soul resumes not a celestial body, or the body of some animal,
00:42:50but a human body, made up of flesh and bones.
00:42:54Heaven is not a place of pure spirit.
00:42:57It's an embodied place.
00:42:59Because no human soul would ever be perfectly happy, apart from a human body.
00:43:20Another key dimension of Thomas's anthropology is his biblically based conviction that the
00:43:39human being is made in the image and likeness of God.
00:43:44This has nothing to do with physical resemblance, for God is not material.
00:43:50It has to do with the curiously infinite capacity of the mind and the will.
00:43:59The mind is never satisfied by any of the particular truths of the sciences or philosophy.
00:44:06It wants to know the truth itself.
00:44:10The will is never satisfied by any particular good.
00:44:13It wants the good itself.
00:44:15In a word, both mind and will are ordered to God.
00:44:24By nature, we are ordered to something beyond nature.
00:44:28And from this paradox flows much of the drama and poetry of the human condition.
00:44:34The human being is made for ecstasy, for the journey into God.
00:44:42Thomas referred to theology as a science.
00:44:48Well, look at the sciences that begin, you know, in the 16th century.
00:44:51And, of course, we're still asking all kinds of questions.
00:44:54The sciences have a way of opening up.
00:44:57As you answer one question, ten new ones emerge.
00:45:00The same is true of the science of theology.
00:45:03You know, the best minds of the time in the Middle Ages went in for theology, as the best minds
00:45:08probably today go in for the sciences.
00:45:10You have the best minds of a given era looking at these questions.
00:45:14They're going to find all sorts of things to explore.
00:45:17And when you read the text of Thomas Aquinas, they're breathtaking.
00:45:20You can see the autographs of Aquinas that crabbed writing of his.
00:45:25Like, the detail of his mind and the nature of the analysis is just extraordinary.
00:45:32He was a genius.
00:45:33He's a bit like, you know, an Einstein or a Newton or a Kant or a Plato.
00:45:38He was a genius within the structure of his time intellectually.
00:45:55He was a genius and a man who used to be the Lebensmittel, in France,
00:46:11A Weihnachts, a learning learning, for the actresses and 실мотрите life.
00:46:18¡Gracias!
00:46:48Though it's overlooked in most treatments of Thomas Aquinas,
00:46:51the great Dominican saint is best characterized, I think,
00:46:54as someone deeply in love with Jesus Christ.
00:46:57You can sense it in his devotion to the Eucharist and to the other sacraments.
00:47:01You see it too in his rather extraordinary mystical experience,
00:47:05but perhaps most clearly in his writings on Jesus,
00:47:08which I think are the linchpin to his whole thought.
00:47:12As a text in the third part of the Summa Teologiae,
00:47:14I've always found it very moving and very clarifying.
00:47:18The topic under consideration is the appropriateness or fittingness of the Incarnation.
00:47:24Aquinas says something is fitting in the measure that it's congruent with your nature.
00:47:29Thus it's fitting for me now to be speaking to you because I'm a rational animal.
00:47:33Well, God's nature is to be the good.
00:47:36And as the ancient adage had it, bonum diffusivum sui.
00:47:40That means the good is diffusive of itself, it gives itself away.
00:47:44When you're in a good mood, you don't turn inward, but rather you overflow, you effervesce,
00:47:49you go out of yourself.
00:47:51So we can see the supreme goodness of God in the sheer variety and fecundity of what he's made.
00:47:57God did not remain in isolated self-regard, but rather he gave himself away.
00:48:03But if God is the absolutely highest good, then it would follow.
00:48:14It would be convenience or fitting that God would give himself in the fullest possible manner.
00:48:19And this, says Thomas, takes place when God joins to himself a created nature, becoming one with creation.
00:48:31The Incarnation is therefore the surest and purest indication of God's goodness.
00:48:37We could sum this up by saying that the good God is ecstatic.
00:48:45He tends to stand out from himself, ecstasis, to move toward the other in love.
00:48:51But this fits perfectly with Thomas' reflections on the human person.
00:48:58For we saw earlier that human beings, by their nature, tend outward and upward, ecstatically reaching out toward the good and the true.
00:49:08Jesus Christ, the coming together of divinity and humanity, is accordingly the meeting of two ecstasies.
00:49:20A divine ecstasy that reaches down, and a human ecstasy that reaches up.
00:49:28With the icon of Jesus Christ in mind, we can also understand with greater clarity one of Thomas' master ideas.
00:49:35Namely, that the true God and humanity are not in competition with one another.
00:49:44Thomas says with the mainstream of the Catholic tradition, that Jesus is the hypostatic or personal unity of two natures, divine and human,
00:49:52that come together without mixing, mingling, or confusion.
00:49:56Jesus is not quasi-human, quasi-divine, like Hercules or Achilles.
00:50:01Nor is he merely human, like a great saint, nor merely divine, as the Docetists would have it.
00:50:07Rather, he's truly human and truly divine.
00:50:11Neither nature having to compromise itself to make way for the other.
00:50:15Now, can you see how this doctrine coheres with, and indeed gives rise to,
00:50:21Thomas' sense of God as ipsum esse, or being itself.
00:50:26If God were a supreme being, however great, he'd still be one finite nature among many, hence would compete with creatures.
00:50:34A supreme being could not become incarnate, without compromising either himself, or the integrity of the creature he becomes.
00:50:41The God who does indeed give himself away utterly, becoming a creature, but without undermining himself or the creature he becomes,
00:50:56cannot be one being among many.
00:51:00What a beautiful and illuminating coincidence of teachings.
00:51:03You know, Thomas' status as a thinker is kind of a complicated issue.
00:51:16Go back to the early 20th century, Bertrand Russell, you know, the great philosopher, writes a history of philosophy.
00:51:21And he includes Thomas Aquinas, but he's a minor character.
00:51:24In fact, he closes the chapter by saying,
00:51:26I don't really understand his enormous reputation, because he's just a competent commentator on Aristotle.
00:51:31That would be a very reductive, modern dismissal of Thomas Aquinas.
00:51:37At the same time, you've got some on the Catholic side that would probably so elevate Thomas as a philosopher.
00:51:43My point is this.
00:51:45He was indeed a philosopher, even a great one, but he's best read as a theologian.
00:51:50Above all, he wanted to use philosophy in service of a higher end, always to move people to Christ.
00:51:56So he's a complicated intellectual figure that way.
00:51:59You can isolate some of his writings and say, well, there's his philosophical work, and read it simply that way.
00:52:05But I think that violates his own spirit.
00:52:07I would rank Thomas Aquinas as one of the four or five greatest thinkers in the Western tradition.
00:52:12And that includes Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and, you know, some of the very best.
00:52:17But it's a complicated thing, because he's both philosopher and theologian.
00:52:22But the very best way to read him is philosopher in service of theology.
00:52:26¶¶
00:52:28¶¶
00:52:32¶¶
00:52:34¶¶
00:52:36¶¶
00:52:38¶¶
00:52:48¶¶
00:52:50¶¶
00:52:52¶¶
00:52:54¶¶
00:52:58¶¶
00:53:14¶¶
00:53:16¶¶
00:53:18¶¶
00:53:20¶¶
00:53:22¶¶
00:53:32Why is Thomas Aquinas a pivotal player?
00:53:35¶¶
00:53:37He showed as completely and passionately as anyone in the tradition
00:53:41that Christians could think deeply about their faith.
00:53:46For him, no question, even the most fundamental, was off-limits.
00:53:50he demonstrated thereby
00:53:53that faith and reason are not in opposition
00:53:56to one another
00:53:57that being a believer
00:54:00involves as we saw
00:54:01no sacrificium intellectus
00:54:04in our time
00:54:08when so many hold that religious people
00:54:10are simpletons and religious faith
00:54:12only accrued superstition
00:54:14Thomas Aquinas remains
00:54:17more relevant than ever
00:54:19he is also pivotal
00:54:22because he beautifully exemplified
00:54:24a truly catholic mind
00:54:27by which I mean
00:54:28a mind open to every
00:54:31and any influence
00:54:32willing to embrace the truth
00:54:34wherever he found it
00:54:36Thomas was inspired
00:54:39of course by the bible and the great
00:54:40Christian theological tradition
00:54:42but he also read and cited with
00:54:44enthusiasm the pagan philosophers
00:54:47Plato, Aristotle and Cicero
00:54:49the Jewish rabbi
00:54:50Moses Maimonides
00:54:51the Muslim scholars
00:54:53Averroes, Avicenna and Aviciberon
00:54:56even when he disagreed with a thinker
00:54:59as he did with Origen and C.J. Abraban
00:55:01he always did so with respect
00:55:04and without polemics
00:55:05in this he's a wonderful model
00:55:08for our time
00:55:09when the religious conversation
00:55:11is sadly so marked by rancor
00:55:13and vituperation
00:55:14finally he's pivotal
00:55:17in his understanding of God
00:55:19as non-competitively transcendent
00:55:21the God of Thomas Aquinas
00:55:23as we saw
00:55:24is not a threat to human freedom
00:55:26and human integrity
00:55:27but the very ground of that freedom
00:55:29and that integrity
00:55:30Thomas Aquinas would agree
00:55:32with St. Irenaeus
00:55:33that the glory of God
00:55:35is a human being fully alive
00:55:37at a time when so many people
00:55:39see God's existence
00:55:40as undermining the human project
00:55:42how liberating
00:55:43and clarifying
00:55:44this doctrine is
00:55:45the God of Thomas Aquinas
00:55:47is the God
00:55:48of the burning bush
00:55:49that power
00:55:51whose proximity
00:55:52makes the world
00:55:53more beautiful
00:55:54and more radiant
00:55:55without consuming it
00:56:10the love of God
00:56:12is forever
00:56:13and down
00:56:14with his son
00:56:14who actually
00:56:15in his naj Slow
00:56:18up
00:56:19in vituperation
00:56:20and the great
00:56:21gods
00:56:21will expand
00:56:23and appreciate
00:56:24his aid
00:56:25to your heart
00:56:26as one of the greatest
00:56:28powers
00:56:29or
00:56:29in the church
00:56:31in this trat
00:56:32as one of the炙oses
00:56:33that he realizes
00:56:34its not worth
00:56:34telling
00:56:35but
00:56:36even
00:56:36that
00:56:37is
00:56:37more
00:56:38impression
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