Speaker 0 00:00:00 St. Thomas most recently has been applauded for his approach to faith and reason and their complementarity. There are borderline questions, technically they're called the preambles of faith. Yes, that reason is able to attain and most significantly, the knowledge that God exists.
Speaker 2 00:00:29 Welcome to the Catholic Theology Show presented by Ave Maria University. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Dnet, and today I am joined by Father Romanis Saari, a Dominican of the Province of St. Joseph. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 0 00:00:45 Father. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 Great. Uh, so today we're here to really kind of prepare for and celebrate the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 0 00:00:57 Can't think of anything I'd like to do better. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:01:00 That is wonderful. And so we really wanted just to kind of try to understand a little bit about, right, who is St. Thomas, why is St. Thomas a gift for the church? And not only, of course, his wonderful importance for theology, uh, but one of the things I was really struck when I read your recent book, uh, sanctifying Truth, Thomas Aquinas on Christian Holiness, was that you said St. Thomas was an example for all Christians. So maybe we could begin with that. How is St. Thomas Aquinas this brilliant theologian, this, you know, one of the best philosophers of the ages? How could he be an example for all Christians?
Speaker 0 00:01:41 Well, I think the shortest answer to that question, Michael, is, uh, because the teaching that St. Thomas gives us in all of his works is ordered to one thing and one thing only the salvation of souls.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 Hmm.
Speaker 0 00:02:04 It is true. St. Thomas spent six of his most productive years at the University of Paris in France. Of course, however, the rest of his academic life was spent in the service to the church with an eye toward promoting Christian Holiness. More specifically, one could say to help Christians get to heaven. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in his lifetime. Of course, Christians meant those who were united with the sea of Peter today, Catholics. Uh, but yes, so he's, um, he's a doctor. Uh, for everybody this has been, been obscured somewhat because academic types like to steal St. Thomas.
Speaker 2 00:03:06 Yes,
Speaker 0 00:03:07 It is true. We're very grateful to scholarship for, uh, establishing, for example, the works of St. Thomas and translating them. Indeed. Uh, I'll mention as a plug here, we have underway at Ave Maria some serious, uh, translations of works of St. Thomas and his commentators that have not yet appeared in English. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, especially the commentary of Cardinal Kain on the sum. But the point is that, um, St. Thomas understood his mission as the salvation of souls. Why? Because he was a Dominican, and that's exactly what St. Dominic said to the first Dominicans, you become one of us in order to first of course, sanctify yourself. And there, and then that's an important then mm-hmm. <affirmative> to save souls. St. Thomas summarized this in his, uh, laconic Latin, I would say in the phrase, it's become familiar to every Dominican contemplator at Ali's tro contemplate and give the fruits of contemplation, the contemplator that which one has contemplated to others.
Speaker 2 00:04:34 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, so in many ways. Right. Then St. Thomas was not only a great right professor of theology, a master in the University of Paris, uh, but as a right, as a Dominican for most of his life. He was also a preacher. He was forming and teaching other Dominicans. He was asked to develop a house of studies. So his study was for the sake of what we might call now. Right. The evangelization and formation of, uh, people amidst, uh, perhaps a very con, you know, a lot of confusing times that were going on during the middle, you know, ages. How is it that aquinas's, uh, dedication to truth served the salvation of souls, maybe first in his age and then perhaps in ours?
Speaker 0 00:05:37 Well, let me say first as a comment on your earlier remark about the fact that Aquinas devoted a great deal of attention and, and energy and time and writing to works other than those destined for the classroom. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:05:55 <affirmative>,
Speaker 0 00:05:57 One of the figures of the modern period who recognized this was none other than St. John Henry Newman, who if memory serves even before his conversion. I may be wrong on that. Someone in your audience will be able to correct me if I am, uh, translated into English. A work that many people don't recognize as that of St. Thomas Aquinas, the catina aria, the golden chain. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And the reason he did it is because in that text, St. Thomas took each of the four gospels and collected from the manuscripts available to him at that time, which admittedly were fewer than are available to us now. But nonetheless, a good chunk of the Christian heritage and organized what each of the, uh, fathers of the church, east and West said about the gospel text mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:07:00 <affirmative> and thus chain. He ch he linked them together and published them as a, uh, they were really became glosses as the medieval said, onto the text of the, uh, new Testament, uh, the gospels at least. Well, that was clearly meant to serve what we would call an apostolic purpose, and what you would call, uh, an evangel jail. What would anyone would today call an evangelical mm-hmm. <affirmative> purpose. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I think it's important to stress as we approach his feast day this year and 2023. Yeah. Time goes by when you're having fun, 2023, uh, that, uh, St. Thomas Yeah. Is a man for everybody mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:07:49 <affirmative>. Right. He would've done that, uh, that recovery in a way of the Petr Greek and Latin patristic understanding of the gospels. Right. In part to help preachers of the gospel, um, priests, bishops and, uh, perhaps some very well educated laity or perhaps d uh, houses of religious formation to be able to receive the teachings of Jesus communicated in the gospels received by the fathers. That's correct. So he, and in a way, Newman turn out to be kind of like broth, you know, in a way, uh, they're, they're united by a common love of the gospels and the fathers, which is something that sometimes we kind of might forget with a certain kind of overly academic image of Aquinas, who of course is, you know, right. You know, the genius commentator on Aristotle in these other elements. So that's a wonderful, that's a wonderful example. Um, how, how would you say that the, that that this aspect of truth, I mean, mean, I think in some ways in our own age, uh, it's, you know, the perennial theme maybe of pilot, what is truth today?
Speaker 2 00:09:04 Is there truth whose truth? Uh, there's kind of a, a, a cynical attitude, or maybe even just a despairing attitude, almost like people have become exhausted in their search for truth. How, how did Aquinas maybe in his day, uh, with some of the, uh, crises that were going on, and a lot of the confusion, maybe with the albigensians, if you wanted to say a word about that or something, uh, how did he try to help truth become part of our journey to God, like our, our, our our journey home to heaven? How is truth important for Aquinas in his day?
Speaker 0 00:09:46 Well, truth was important, excuse me, for St. Thomas in his day, for the very same reason. Truth is important for us in our day. Uh, we have to be very, uh, mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, uh, right. And the reason for that is very simple. Yes. There's only one truth. And the reason for that is that there's only one God. Yes. Who is the author of truth who makes the true, the truth. True. Now, St. Thomas came at that with the help of Aristotle and the transcendentals, uh, properties of being, but he also recognized that, um, if you had two truths in the world, then the, the unity, which we hear so much about today mm-hmm. <affirmative> is never going to be achieved because, uh, two truths about ultimate realities divides, which mean, by the way, see, in our own day, and ultimate realities include things such as human sexuality.
Speaker 0 00:10:47 Yeah. But even on a more, if you will, a higher level of abstraction, at least, uh, there's the famous, uh, incident in St. Thomas's life, which gives your audience today a bit of a, uh, what should I say, a peak at his personality. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he was in fact, back reason of his natural family related to the ruling families of Europe, including the French King, uh mm-hmm. <affirmative> distant relatives. But nonetheless, uh, he wasn't, uh, he didn't come from humble origins as many saints did mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so it wound up that, uh, the King of France invited St. Thomas and perhaps his pryor and a companion to dinner in the palace in, in Paris. At the time, France wasn't as big as it is today, but it was still significant. And, uh, during the dinner, which was a one can imagine even a Holy king, uh, nonetheless had a regal table. And, uh, St. Thomas. So the king notice began, uh, to get, uh, uh, to get lost in his mind. Uh, I, he became abstracted from the table conversation, and, uh, the king, uh, being polite to the man he knew was a very important, uh, figure even in his, in his own day mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, didn't pay any attention. And they went on with the dinner, and suddenly, uh, St. Thomas went with his hand on the table and, uh, the royal guests and, uh, St. Thomas exclaimed out of nowhere that solves the mannequins, <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:12:32 And the king smart man that he was immediately called the royal scribes and said, take down whatever he says. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, and this, the, and what solves the manes? Well, the manes, as you know, of which the Ians were a subset, shall we say, or a particular version of manism, were people who were do, who were radical, do list to the point of two gods a God that accounted for the good, and a God that accounted for the bad evil. Mm-hmm. And they were constantly at war with one another. Yeah. You don't wanna live in a manican world mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:13:08 <affirmative>,
Speaker 0 00:13:09 Because religion at best becomes a religion of fear. You want to live in a world where you know a good God. Yeah. Because the true God is a good God is in charge of things mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that he will do everything to ensure that his goodness triumphs. And when you think of the mystery of the cross to cut to the chase Yeah. One can't imagine a, uh, a more good thing than Christ's death on the cross.
Speaker 2 00:13:47 Yes. That's really, uh, helpful to see that if there's ultimately one truth, uh, that's rooted in one God, right. The source of all truth. So truth is something greater than each of us. Uh, and in a way, it's greater than the whole universe, because it comes from the true God who truly creates the world. Right. And in a way to kind of imitate his truth.
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Uh, and when maybe in the, uh, older, in, in the, you know, ancient world or in the medieval world, there were heresies of two truths. Two Gods an evil God and a good God, or maybe even at times, the truth of philosophy, which was different than the truth of theology that would create a con, a world that's necessarily in conflict, a world in which I could find no peace. So, you know, it, it, the irony there is that many people think that, uh, if they can, if everybody can have their own truth, that then they have, uh, a kind of, I don't know, almost like a kind of freedom, but it seems that it's actu what you're suggesting from Aquinas is that it's the opposite. Right. If each of us has our own truth, then we are in a state of
Speaker 0 00:15:06 I'm
Speaker 2 00:15:07 Not
Speaker 0 00:15:07 Conflict. Yeah. I'm not suggesting it. Uh, professor Doey, I'm telling you what St. Thomas would say, uh, this isn't an opinion. Yes. Uh, there's ways of going about this, of course mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, which, uh, but take for, but so that within the present context, people don't take away from the one truth one God. Uh, yeah. Uh, truths. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> remember now many people know the Suma, uh, theolog, but they should also recall St. Thomas wrote almost as much in a book called the Suma Contra. This is a contra as sometimes called Yeah. Which was a handbook for missionaries mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, to explain Catholic truth, including the one good and true God, who is the cause of all truth and goodness in the world. Yeah. Uh, to people who did not believe in Christian revelation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that included mainly, uh, uh, the adherence of Islam because the Dominican missionaries of the early of the, even as early as the 13th century encountered Islam mm-hmm. <affirmative> in various places of largely southern Europe. So, uh, yeah. The, uh, contra, so St. Thomas, we don't, sometime we don't want to make St. Thomas to be, uh, a version of modern absolutism, uh, political absolutism because, uh, he, he wasn't, and matter of fact, as far as the political order, he was celebrated against the followers of other, another great Saint Augustine in, in holding for the autonomy of the secular order mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a subordinated way, of course, to divine truth.
Speaker 2 00:16:56 Yeah. So, so that sense, right. That if all truth comes from God, then there is one truth, but we participate in that truth at various levels. And so Aquinas would also defend famously, right. The kind of, uh, the dignity, or I don't know whether that's the right word, but maybe, you know, the, the validity of human reasoning, uh, in its ability to somewhat know the truth about the created world, to discover the truth about human nature, to discover in a way the truth about God alongside not in contradiction to the truth about God. That's revealed. Would you say a word about that?
Speaker 0 00:17:38 Yeah. Well, St Thomas, of course, the reason, yeah. Uh, St. Thomas most recently has been applauded for his approach to faith and reason and their complementarity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the encyclical that name Fi raio Pope Saint John Paul ii. And, uh, there, as you may recall, the Pope devoted several numbers to explaining what he called the perennial validity of St. Thomas's, uh, approach to both philosophy and theology. Well, the easiest way to explain it is that St. Thomas recognized that God, uh, the, the human intellect participated and indeed was an image of the divine intellect. Not the same, of course, but nonetheless, an image of it. And in its own limited way, was able to come to a knowledge of truth, if to have truth and have no, uh, ability to know it would've been a cruel joke. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and we see this even in nature.
Speaker 0 00:18:42 You see this even Florida, uh, the plants follow the sun. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, a remarkable, uh, uh, flourishing, shall we say. And, uh, animals clearly. Uh, well, the ecology of the, we know that the big animals eat the little ones. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, including here, sometimes, unfortunately, small pets that walk too close to the water where alligators are hungry. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there's a whole, uh, ex, if you will, display of how truth and the alligator's smart. He, he wants living meat. He doesn't eat all the stones and grass Yeah. Stones at least mm-hmm. <affirmative> and other things that, uh, I don't know whether they eat grass, frankly mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they certainly doesn't eat inedible things. He eats live things and the nourishing and so forth. Okay. So, uh, the, the point of that, and we could go on with it mm-hmm. <affirmative>, is that, uh, if God had created a universe that, uh, without any inclinations, uh, towards the good and the true, that would've been a stultified universe.
Speaker 0 00:19:49 Yes. Yeah. So, um, that means St. Thomas recognized that even among things that many people think are matters of faith, there are borderline questions. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, technically they're called the preambles of faith. Yeah. That reason is able to attain, and most significantly, the knowledge that God exists. Some of these things are disputed today, admittedly, full disclosure, as they say on the television. But nonetheless, it, the traditional teaching is that the preambles include the immateriality of the soul, and therefore it's immortality, even it's immortality. And indeed, because of human freedom, some responsible, uh, accounting for one's actions mm-hmm. <affirmative>, all of that forms part of a, um, divine wisdom that one does not need to, to be a believer to attain.
Speaker 2 00:20:49 So that there is, uh, human beings with our reason, uh, in an imperfect manner, uh, nonetheless can recognize that a plant is a plant and a plant has certain ordering. An animal is an animal and has certain ordering to doing things. We can see ordering in the world, we see ordering in ourselves, and so we can recognize a divine order like that is not, that is above us. And we can also recognize, just as we can recognize, I mean, in a way that an alligator is not a plant, we can also recognize what a human being is. And so that a human being has an immortal soul, that a human being has a moral, uh, participates in good and evil. There's the, the moral law is not something we, we might be reminded of it by revelation, uh, but it's something in a way that we can discover. And many people, uh, right across, throughout history and across the world, have discovered, uh, the difference between man and an alligator <laugh>, and the difference between man and God, and the difference in a way that makes human beings subject to, uh, the moral law, or having this natural inclination to goodness. So Right. Morality, as we sometimes call it, then, is part of the kind of natural world that we can discover and reason about and talk about with our own human reason. Is that a correct way of formulating it?
Speaker 0 00:22:26 Sure. Um, but you can also see it very simply Yes. As you began to indicate there, uh, the world lives as if there's a true and a good <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:22:37 Yes, yes.
Speaker 0 00:22:38 Yes. Any, uh, I hope this isn't, uh, uh, an example that offends current, uh, political correctness, but any, uh, housewife that shops for her family, if she can't discern between a rotten apple and a good apple mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she's gonna make a very unhappy, uh, shopping list, uh, of a producer, a dinner that's not as what it should be. Um, people travel, uh, they don't do so much now, but formulated European travel. Mm-hmm. And the Michelin, all you need to do is pick up a Michelin guide and see how the French organize their restaurants between one, two, and three, and mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And you recognize that, uh, there's an ordering of good mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, true, which is, uh, now all right, when you get to taste. But there comes a point if anyone says, well, I much prefer, uh, a, uh, fast food hamburger, say, I won't use any brand names, <laugh>, uh, to a, um, a a steak served at one of the steakhouses of New York.
Speaker 0 00:23:50 Uh, they're here in Naples as well. Uh, I won't mention them either, but nonetheless, if no one, if they don't know the difference between a steakhouse where the bill today is gonna be $200 <laugh>, and the fast food where the bill is gonna be $5, that's a problem. And, uh, one might indulge it in a certain people and say, taste, uh, you can't dispute taste, but you certainly can dispute the quality of the beef served and either of those two menus. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, and you can go on with this, uh, you could bring it all the way up and ask the question, uh, why did any man choose this woman rather than another woman? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, for, well, there are all kinds of personal things, right. That, and it's not all limited to physical beauty or to, uh, but they are concrete features of the person's mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, we'll say personality.
Speaker 2 00:24:45 And it's rare that somebody's gonna pick a spouse based upon, uh, their ability to deceive me, their ability to be on faithful. Of course. Exactly. Right. So it's always
Speaker 0 00:24:56 Exactly.
Speaker 2 00:24:57 It's, it, we're, we're, we're always evaluating the world based upon, uh, some kind of ordering principle of an inclination to maybe integrity and wholeness, and then understanding the, you know, the corruption thereof. Uh, we're gonna, uh, take a break in a minute, but when we come back, uh, I'd love, uh, you know, father Romans to talk a little bit more about some of the books that you've written. And, uh, one of the great things that Aquinas was right, was not only a student of theology, but a teacher of theology. And so, I'd like to work, look a little bit at some of your teaching that you've done, uh, via these wonderful books.
Speaker 0 00:25:33 Good
Speaker 2 00:25:34 Pleasure. Thank you.
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Speaker 2 00:26:08 Father Sao, would you tell us a little bit about how you became, uh, a student of St. Thomas? How were you introduced to Thomas Aquinas?
Speaker 0 00:26:17 Well, the answer to that question is very simple. I, uh, I became a Dominican in, uh, it's 1964
Speaker 2 00:26:27 Okay.
Speaker 0 00:26:27 Which was before the council, uh, or truth to be told. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I went to Providence College in 1962 before the council began mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and, uh, prior to 19 62, 65, 68, depends where you wanna put it. It, uh, the, the Leonine revival of Tom, more or less dominated Catholic education, surely in the United States. And so, even if you didn't join the Dominicans, people of my generation met St. Thomas Aquinas in that theology and philosophy classrooms. And then as I entered more deeply into formation, of course, uh, the, the Dominicans, uh, our Dominican teachers simply explained St. Thomas is, she knew he belongs to us. And, uh, there were various attempts to, uh, make the tom of the sixties and seventies, what I'd call dialogic, namely to, to the point that at one point, I, I, I think there were about five or six different types of tomism mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:27:35 But in any case, we always went back to the first principles and used Thomas text. So, um, yeah, I was born into it, so to speak. And when it came time for doctoral studies, I was lucky enough to have, uh, father Coleman O'Neill, an Irish Dominican, who was one of the great Thomas of the period mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I had others in Washington, father William Hill, and Father Augustine, um, Wallace, uh, who each of whom published and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, upheld both the philosophy and theology of Aquinas. But it was a O'Neill that probably put a stamp on me, and that's why one of the first things I published was a repetition of his work, meeting Christ in the sacraments Alba house, still in print after, I think now it's almost 40 years. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and used widely, I'm told, in, uh, seminaries and formation houses and Catholic education programs.
Speaker 2 00:28:32 Yeah. And, and I think it's, there was during that time, maybe on, and of course, probably in every age, but especially maybe in the seventies, and there was a lot of confusion around sacramental theology and, uh, father Coleman O'Neill, uh, and your publication of his work was almost, I think you maybe called it sometimes like a sacramental realism. Uh, what, how was that, uh, helpful? How was like Thomas's kind of careful work helpful in creating a real theology of the sacraments? Because as I said, I think a lot of confusion, uh, was kind of in the air and probably continues to be today.
Speaker 0 00:29:16 Well, what your audience needs to know, which the many of them, uh, know, but perhaps don't advert to as much as they should, especially academic types. Jesus came before Decar
Speaker 2 00:29:30 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 00:29:31 The church was born at Pentecost, or at the Annunciation, either one works mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And those events took place before the birth of Renee Deco. And, uh, St. Thomas was born before deco. And, uh, that makes all the difference. It makes all the difference, the, the, uh, in this regard, it's the confidence that you have in the capacity of human intelligence to lay hold of the essence of things. And if you're doubtful about that, well, that provides another starting point for philosophy, then what Oh, one would call a philosophical realism. Now, I was privileged in Washington when I was there in the eighties. We had the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and we had with us, uh, professor Ken Schmidtz, a Canadian teacher who was who God be good to him. He's gotten to his reward, and which he richly merited because he was a great teacher of, uh, philosophy and recognized one of the world recognized, uh, experts on Hael.
Speaker 0 00:30:47 And he actually could read Hael in German. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, he, he was disappointed that his successor and the chair didn't, uh, in anyhow, couldn't, I should say, in any case, uh, Schmidtz taught me many things, and he had the wisdom, uh, to sum them up briefly, he said, modern philosophy by which he meant philosophy after the 16th century, is a footnote to Dayco. And that goes all the way up to people like what's Thero who, and, uh, fine. Uh, so as a result, um, the, how does that play out in the sacraments? Well, many people, uh, they become persuaded largely because things, perhaps priest say things that theology teachers say that the sacraments are symbols and their symbols that transpire within the context of a com communitarian, symbolic activity, otherwise known as the Sunday mass and other liturgies. And that the, the meaning of the sacrament is, uh, to be discovered in deciphering what the symbol means.
Speaker 0 00:31:51 Oftentimes, for me, that sounds very isolating. <laugh>. Yes. Well, empty, I mean, in a word, sacramental realism Yes. Does not accept that as the starting point, uh, as an O'Neill puts it. So, uh, beautifully, if St. Thomas and the Scholastics, cuz it's not just St. Thomas, it's St. Bon venture, it's done SCOs. I mean, uh, it's, this isn't just St. Thomas. No. He said if the medievals scholastics, who really carried the faith from the patristic period into the modern period had wanted to say that the sacraments work because they're effective symbols, they would've said that <laugh>, because they were perfectly capable of formulating that sentence in Latin. Okay. Yeah. But they didn't mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, even when you get down to, uh, the questions of, of causality and how they work in the sacraments mm-hmm. <affirmative> among about which they admittedly disputes among the scholastics Yes. And the disputes, the church recognized that the Council of Trent, by the language, it chose to use it. Um, the fact of the matter is that the sacraments of the ca, the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church do something. They are agents or causes of divine grace and not merely symbolic representations of them. No matter how much you, there's only so much you can, uh, pump up symbol mm-hmm. To become a cause.
Speaker 2 00:33:26 Right. Yeah. So sacramental realism is that idea that in the sacrament, God is doing something for our salvation. That's correct. So we are truly reborn in the sacrament of baptism, truly forgiven in the sacrament of confession, truly received Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity Right. In the sacrament of the Eucharist, uh, and all these different elements and Right. We're not in this kind of Cartesian world of split between spirit and matter, so that the,
Speaker 0 00:34:00 Uh, looking to put meaning onto the
Speaker 2 00:34:02 Symbol Yes. Where, where the matter is, um, only has meaning insofar as we attribute meaning to it. But if in the classical world, if the world is already created, then all matter already matters. And so we recognize the matter, we recognize in the matter the created order, both already at the philosophical level and then also at the Sacramento level. Right. And so I think that's really,
Speaker 0 00:34:32 And the best way to see that the church, even the most liberal theologian will, should not, and will not be allowed to argue for change of the matter of the Eucharist. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, even in places that do not grow wheat. Sure. Or do not grow the grapes from which wine is made. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:34:53 <affirmative>. Yeah. Right. So in all the sacraments right, the matter matters.
Speaker 0 00:34:56 The matter matters.
Speaker 2 00:34:57 And because the matter by God's, um, saving action becomes the means by just in some ways is the matter of Jesus. Christ's human nature matters for our salvation. Jesus has to have a true human nature on the cross to die Right. For us out of love. So in the same way than the sacraments right of water, the sacraments of oil, the anointing, the bread and the wine, all of these matter, you even think of the sacrament of the man and woman in marriage or the, for example, man in the priesthood. Right. Um, so yeah, those are really one that's a wonderful, uh, reminder. So I wanted to shift gears a little bit and just, uh, so you have, uh, some wonderful books here, uh, that you've, uh, written, uh, over many years and taught one book here is called The Godly Image, Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas. And it was recently, uh, reissued, was it after 25 years,
Speaker 0 00:36:00 I think more,
Speaker 2 00:36:01 Or it might have been 30 years. I was, um, te tell us a little bit about what were you, what was the, maybe the key point of trying to address this notion of Christian's satisfaction?
Speaker 0 00:36:13 Well, one of the, um, the key points that ecumenical discussions, especially the main line ones, Calvinist and Lutheran and Catholic mm-hmm. <affirmative> run into deals with the question of, of, of satisfaction. Can the creature, including the created human nature of Christ, make up satisfaction anything to God. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:36:42 <affirmative>. And so satisfaction, maybe for our listeners who aren't as familiar would be, uh, right. If I, if, if, if I dis if I hurt our relationship by prep, stealing your car, well, at least satisfaction, I'd have to somehow do,
Speaker 0 00:36:57 Do more than give the car back.
Speaker 2 00:36:58 I'd have to give the car back. But then also somehow do something to satisfy, reestablish the relationship in love and trust
Speaker 0 00:37:07 Satisfaction is a personal engagement. Uh, every Catholic is familiar with satisfaction, although it goes by the name my penance every time. Okay. The, you go to confession and the priest says, for your penance, say three Hail Marys mm-hmm. <affirmative> or whatever mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that in fact technically is called satisfaction.
Speaker 2 00:37:27 Hmm.
Speaker 0 00:37:28 The re the reformers didn't like that aspect of penance. Indeed, they didn't like penance at all. Um, but, um, and as a result, one, uh, it became very difficult to explain the sacrifice of the mass, namely that by his death on the cross, Christ made satisfaction to God for the sins of the whole human race from Adam to the last creature on Earth. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:38:01 <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:38:02 And both Calvin thought it was, it was a, a tragedy. And Luther, less Luther fine. I don't want to talk about the reformers mm-hmm. <affirmative> cuz they're experts on them. But I think no one will, uh, no one, uh, is going to say that either of the great, uh, reform to Lutheran traditions accepted the sacrifice of the mass as an essential part of Christian living. Okay. And gradually that meant too, that the Eucharist became less, uh, a part of, uh, that became a symbolic activity. Sure. Uh, the Lord supper. So, and, uh, to cut to the chase when a, a humanism was perhaps more active than it is today. That's another discussion. Uh, it was thought that if satisfaction could be shown to be something, say, less than commercial like makeup, it could be shown to be really a personal transformation of the, on the part of the sinner mm-hmm. <affirmative> to become sensitive to the divine goodness, you could say to the divine truth. Mm.
Speaker 2 00:39:04 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 0 00:39:06 Then, uh, it was thought that, uh, Protestant theologians would discover that it wasn't quite so commercial like, uh,
Speaker 2 00:39:15 I see. So like a commercial would be like, it's like an exchange. Like, so we're reducing a relationship out of love to just an ex This is the criticism of the Catholic. That's right. You would be, that it's just an exchange of like a contract, whereas you're trying, you were showing that it had a personal dimension in which we could recover and become sensitive again to the goodness of God
Speaker 0 00:39:39 And his
Speaker 2 00:39:39 Truth and his truth.
Speaker 0 00:39:41 No. That
Speaker 2 00:39:42 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So satisfaction becomes more of an inward transformation in accord with the objective reality of God and the world.
Speaker 0 00:39:52 That's right.
Speaker 2 00:39:53 Um, that's right. As opposed to merely like, I'm paying my taxes, so that's that I don't have the IRS investigate
Speaker 0 00:39:59 Me. That's right. That I mm-hmm. <affirmative>, these, the issues become complicated.
Speaker 2 00:40:04 Yes. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:40:04 But, uh, the broad, the book that you're asking about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that's why it's called the Godly Image. It's called the Godly Image. Because what satisfaction does is in fact, uh, let's forget the right verb here mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, enhance the Godly image, which is the gift of baptism
Speaker 2 00:40:24 That
Speaker 0 00:40:25 Each of us receives precisely for the, the reason you said we become more, i the word sensitive. Uh, it needs to be, you know, explained it's an intellectual sensitivity mm-hmm. <affirmative> that we might not feel, but we know that adhering to the truth. Yeah. But in any case, um, that's why I, and I did it by going through the works of St. Thomas to see where he spoke about it, uh, because many people were influenced by, shall we say, an unadorned reading of St. Ansel mm-hmm. <affirmative>, who's the one who made the, um, the concept. Yeah. Pot and postle of Catholic theology. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and St. Ansel, of course, was a man of an earlier generation. He was a monk. They were all different kinds of things that, uh, left him open to misinterpretation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:41:14 I think I remember somebody, or, or when I was, uh, teaching this sometimes to students of Aquinas, that sense of which, uh, Christ makes satisfaction on the cross, um, out of love. Right. So that it's out of this, um, as opposed to, um, you know, being
Speaker 0 00:41:31 Punishing, punished and angry God.
Speaker 2 00:41:32 Yeah. He's not being punished by an angry God. He is lo he is in the midst of Right. The full suffering under which he is going. He is completely loving God with God's own love, and therefore the satisfaction is that restoration to that communion of, um, and, uh, another, um, another book, uh, that you've written is Introduction to Moral Theology. Obviously, we don't have time to talk about the, you know, a a lot of, so many aspects of this, uh, book, which, uh, which we've used, uh, for a course here at Ave Maria, because it's, uh, such a substantive, uh, treatment. But maybe what's one thing you might try to say about, you know, if some, let's just say somebody's thinking of trying to buy a book for their local parish priest or, uh, for this Christmas or something
Speaker 0 00:42:25 Else, that, that would be a good one. Yeah. Uh, and I would say next year, 2023. Yes. Or this year, I should say we, 2023 is the 30th anniversary of the encyclical of John Paul two Verta splendor mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which was the first and up to now the last Pontifical papa statement about the principles of moral theology. Yes. And that book, for various reasons, is a commentary, an extended commentary on very tatu Splenda mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:42:56 <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:42:57 And it's an extended commentary on ver tatu slender, because it, uh, observes the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:43:06 <affirmative>, I remember when I was, uh, looking at it, I was impressed. And when I was, I was actually teaching it to students, I remember that this idea that the principles of moral theology are kind of in, they're, they're, they're part of our human nature and therefore recognizable by philosophical reasoning. Right. And yet, at the same time, in a way they're disclosed to us by Christ. And in Christ, we see that they've become Right. Our natural moral orderings, uh, are kind of taken up, taken up, but without being destroyed. Right. Uh, taken up into this greater love of God. Uh, and so is, is there you maybe, you know, could you summarize in a, you know, just,
Speaker 0 00:43:50 I, I can, because I'll just quote Pope Saint John Paul ii Yeah. I mean, the famous line out of, uh, the council, mind you, it said he put it in there as a bishop. Only in Christ does man discover who he is, by which he un means understands completely and perfectly.
Speaker 2 00:44:09 Mm. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:44:10 He didn't mean to exclude that, uh, you need Christ to know, for example, that adultery is wrong mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because you don't continue in that line of Yes, yes. But, uh, do you need Christ in order to realize the full heinousness of a violation of the marriage bed or the marriage contractor mm-hmm. <affirmative> or married love. Yeah. It helps.
Speaker 2 00:44:36 Yeah. That's, that's beautifully put. That's beautifully put. And, uh, this last book, uh, that you, uh, I think came out, uh, about a year or two ago with Magnificat on Sanctifying Truth, Thomas Aquinas on Christian Holiness. This book is really written for just, uh, you know, the average, uh, layperson Right. Uh, in the pew, just really any Catholic or really any Christian or even, uh, right. On any, anyone who's interested in, uh, learning more about Aquinas and learning more about truth, uh, what were maybe one or two themes that you really wanted to communicate to people, uh, in this, you know, non-academic
Speaker 0 00:45:14 Book? Well, the title gives you the main theme. Truth is not your enemy.
Speaker 2 00:45:19 Wow.
Speaker 0 00:45:19 Truth sanctifies. And, uh, this is a drama is a knot of, uh, our world today. Even truth, even truth that should be, uh, welcomed like the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, who doesn't want to be forgiven for their sins. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, who wants to carry them all around and become more and more convoluted in trying to justify them. Nobody should really want that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and, uh, we have a truth, it's called the sac independence and reconciliation in which the sin actual sins committed after baptism are forgiven, as you said earlier, completely. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not, uh, and, and that forgiveness doesn't depend on one's emotional state, forgi a sense of what feelings and so forth, but rather it's, if you will, an objective gift of the father to the penitent through the ministry of the church. Yeah. So, uh, truth, sanctifies and yeah, we should want the truth. And then secondly, uh, the truth is not something abstract that's gonna hurt us. Um, why can't I do the things that feel good? Uh, but it's the truth is gonna sanctify us because the more that we grow in conformity to Christ, which is what the, if you wanna find the truth in Connet mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which he says I am the truth, the more, of course we find, as again, John Ftu said, the true nature of our humanity mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:46:55 <affirmative>. And we might even think then in a way that sanctifying truth is, it's a liberating truth, a truth that frees us from some of the, uh, bondages of the, um, you know, ignorance or our own limitations of our age, um, or, you know, limitations of our either, uh, sins or fault misunderstandings. Uh, and when we discover that truth, we can then recognize that God is acting to restore us to communion with him. I also really enjoyed about the book is you mentioned that Thomas Aquinas is for everyone, and everyone is called to study. Everyone may not be called to study, uh, right. As a full-time job, but nobody is, I mean, we all have minds and we were all created by God. So how would you maybe say for, you know, I don't know, like, you know, just like people that are either very busy with work, very busy with families, how can they imitate St. Thomas's vocation to study?
Speaker 0 00:48:06 Well, today we're lucky, frankly, um, more than perhaps people of earlier generations because our, our media <laugh>, which it surrounds me here, both the, the visual media mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the audio media, and then the old-fashioned book and pamphlets and digital copies and so forth. In other words, it's becomes very easy to lay hold of instruction. Mm. Study requires instruction, and the instruction as, as every educator knows, can transpire at different levels. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you are the dean. You, uh, calibrate courses by, uh, one number after the other mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and any parent that's sent a child to school realizes that you don't start the child off in the seventh grade, I mean, and so forth. So, uh, it, it's easy to study. And the advantage of course, of learning the truth is that for at least the United States and the English speaking world, you escape the slavery of tolerance, which is the alternative to truth. That the highest ideal is to tolerate people's opinions, even when today, in some quarters, they reach what can only be described as caricature of humanity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's certainly true of the sexual, uh, conduct of the modern world. But yeah. But so, uh, yeah, the, you want to know the truth, uh, and you want to discover it early because not knowing it, uh, can in some cases lead to some pretty, uh, un unhappy, uh, sin truth.
Speaker 2 00:49:47 Yeah. That's really, so in some ways, right. To begin where they, to begin wherever you are. And, and I, I think that was a great, uh, way to recognize Yeah. If you can't, you know, take classes, you can listen to podcasts. That's right. Wonderful
Speaker 0 00:49:58 Example.
Speaker 2 00:49:58 Wonderful themes, and so many good books we have, I think right now as well. And, uh, so many wonderful books. It's, it's wonderful to see a, uh, professor of theology and, uh, um, you know, master within the, um, of sacred theology within the Dominican Order, again, who both teaches teachers and teaches, you know, um, lay people directly through your writings. Uh, you know, father, I just wanted to maybe ask you just a quick question. Uh, if you could just say at the end, um, first, uh, somebody who wants to learn more about St. Thomas, uh, maybe either a student of theology or even just, you know, somebody who's listening to this who's not very familiar, is there a, a particular book that you found helpful to introduce St. Thomas to students?
Speaker 0 00:50:42 Well, um, I felt the need for such a book and, uh, with the help of a young Dominican colleague known to you, father Kain Cudi, uh, we wrote such a book, it's called Thomas, and the Thomas, the first half of it is an introduction to the who Aquinas is and the general lines of his teaching. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. The second half is the study of the long suite of commentators, we call them Thomas, who themselves have kept St. Thomas's teaching alive by engaging the thought of their periods. And it, and, and the commentator tradition is 800 years. You might not, like not everyone maybe will be interested in the second half mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But in terms of a short presentation, a more classical one that's been around for, there was, there are all kinds of classical presentations of St. Thomas, uh, especially done in the first half of the 20th century.
Speaker 0 00:51:45 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because of, hopefully of 13th revival of Tomism. Yeah. And, uh, that includes figures that I think have been instrumental in your life. Dr. Dph, uh, Ralph McInerney, uh, has an introduction to St. Thomas and, uh, the French were great on popularizing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Ogar. And, uh, I, all of those I mentioned in this book, Thomas and the Thomas. Okay. And so they're there and in the English translations are there for people, university students, and people really want to get into Aquinas Pro. The master volume at the moment is, it's fairly thick and detailed, but it's the first volume of Jean Pierre Terrell's, Thomas Aquinas, the man in his work. And the first volume is his, the man in his work. Right. And you can, um, find that as Catholic University of America press.
Speaker 2 00:52:43 Well, excellent. Well, father Romano Saari, thank you so much for your time on our show.
Speaker 0 00:52:49 Well, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 00:52:52 Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you like this episode, please write and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation Circle so we can continue to bring you more free content. We'll see you next time on the Catholic Theology Show.
