← Thinking Fellows
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- [00:00]
Bruce Hillman
Foreign.
- [00:20]
Caleb Keith
Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith, and today I am joined by Scott Keith, Bruce Hillman, John Hoyam and Adam Francisco to talk about Thomas Aquinas, of all things. I can't remember if we've talked about.
- [00:36]
Scott Keith
We have. We have done an episode on Aquinas. Oh, we did.
- [00:39]
Caleb Keith
In, like, Great Thinkers of the Christian Faith series. Wow. That was a long time ago that we did that. But today we're going to talk about Aquinas because Aquinas is gaining popularity.
- [00:53]
Scott Keith
Of course he is.
- [00:55]
Caleb Keith
You know, I'm sure this happens in ways.
- [00:56]
Bruce Hillman
Yes, it should.
- [01:00]
Caleb Keith
But not with the crowd you would suspect, I suppose is the thing. And this is.
- [01:05]
Scott Keith
Oh, can I guess? Young men.
- [01:07]
Caleb Keith
No, that was. Yeah. So young men, I would say evangelicals looking for more serious faith. Who else is it gaining popularity with? Certain Lutherans, certain Reformed. So Protestants, I would say, like people.
- [01:23]
Scott Keith
Considering the ones that call themselves scholastic.
- [01:26]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, those ones are people actually calling themselves scholastic.
- [01:31]
John Hoyam
Are there?
- [01:31]
Scott Keith
Yeah. You know, at least one that totally does.
- [01:36]
John Hoyam
I didn't know they described themselves that way.
- [01:39]
Scott Keith
Describes himself that way.
- [01:40]
Caleb Keith
No, no, no. It's totally. It was totally a thing.
- [01:44]
Scott Keith
In fact, there's a. I'm a scholastic.
- [01:46]
Bruce Hillman
We had.
- [01:47]
Caleb Keith
I had an experience where I had people come jump me a little bit at church, bombarding me with questions after church, who called them, literally said, well, we're scholastics, Reformed. And I thought that was very interesting. I was.
- [02:02]
Adam Francisco
What.
- [02:02]
Caleb Keith
What denomination was that again?
- [02:04]
Adam Francisco
Nablardian.
- [02:06]
Caleb Keith
That's right. But today we're going to do what I think is a very online optimized title for this episode, which is, what did Aquinas get wrong from a Lutheran perspective? So why. Why historically would Lutherans critique Aquinas? I don't really want to say, oh, my gosh, this episode's goal is to make it so people don't read Thomas. That doesn't make sense to me. I think people should read as much as they can or are willing to read and educate themselves. But what is it about Thomas that's objectionable from a Lutheran perspective? And why has this historically been the case?
- [02:51]
Scott Keith
Who's beginning.
- [02:52]
Caleb Keith
You actually wanted to. To begin, I think. Right.
- [02:55]
Bruce Hillman
Scott, it sounds like you've got plenty of opinions, so you should go ahead.
- [03:01]
Scott Keith
Well, I'm going to start out not that saucy and just say that I think that it's fair to say that scholastic theology that the reformers were reacting to in the early Reformation was on the whole, based on the theology of Thomas Aquinas. So so when you say that, I mean, there'll be some other influences mixed in there. But if you're going to point to one sort of person that had a very intense influence on the Roman Catholic theology of the time that Luther and Melanchthon and others reacted against, it was that of Thomas. And so when you say, what parts of his theology do Lutherans do disagree with? You could just sort of trace out the history of the early Reformation and talk about the things that you would think of doctrine of sin, doctrine of the will, doctrine of grace, even faith, doctrine of the church, justification, as Adam said, even eschatology, even like sort of what is the end goal here. All these things were objected to by the Reformers. And most of the objection, at least early on. You can even read this in early Melanchthon, even though I think he readopted a lot of it had to do with the conclusions that Thomas came to because of the methods he was using that were just strictly Aristotelian, and that these sort of led to conclusions that the Scriptures were. Don't necessitate. But if you sort of take the, you know, some ideas from Scripture, some ideas from church tradition, some ideas from decrees of councils and whatnot, and then you sort of filter all those things and trying to find truth through an Aristotelian framework, you kind of. You come up with conclusions that are not always supported from Scripture alone. And that, you know, that this is where the art. This is where the early Reformation argument is. This is where, you know, the confessional Lutheran argument is against Scholastic theology. And so there's a lot there from the Lutheran perspective to say that Aquinas got wrong. Is that a good lobbing it up there?
- [05:22]
Bruce Hillman
Well, that's pretty good. We can wrap up.
- [05:27]
John Hoyam
That's the whole thing, right, Scott, that Thomas and Scholastic theology in general reaches conclusions that. I think the way you put it is that the text does not necessitate because it's an attempt to create a, you know, if you will. I think one book described them as cathedrals of the mind, you know, like these huge pictures, worldviews, if I know Caleb doesn't like that term, but he's gonna have to.
- [05:56]
Caleb Keith
You keep saying that, but I'm the other person who ends up using it on the show the most.
- [06:00]
John Hoyam
But, you know, they're seeking to construct a worldview that increasingly answers questions that Scripture doesn't clearly answer, but for the sake of a kind of like a totalizing truth, if you will, because they really do believe. And this is to the credit of Thomas a little bit, you know, I don't know that he didn't say it this way. But for them all truth is God's truth. And they really do think that if you put your mind to it.
- [06:40]
Caleb Keith
You.
- [06:41]
John Hoyam
Can arrive at an objective picture of reality, almost a totalizing picture of objective.
- [06:49]
Scott Keith
Reality that'll be very internally coherent too. And that's the thing that makes it appealing to people, I think, is it is appealing. And that's one of the things you ought to be careful of, is that it is appealing because you can, through Thomism, come in with conclusions that really fit and make sense, as opposed to when you're sort of just relying on the Scriptures and you're left with, you know, God leaves some things hidden, which means that you can't rationally explain every behind the scenes aspect of how God does what he does, how he accomplishes what he accomplishes. But when you sort of allow reason to take a greater hand in that, you can make explanations that do tie up that bow very neatly. And it does make a lot of sense and it does become very appealing. It's just maybe it's wrong because that's not actually what Scripture is saying.
- [07:47]
Adam Francisco
I think there's something in Lutheran DNA, which I've always appreciated. It was one of the reasons why I actually found Lutheranism attractive, which was a higher sense of mystery, that's how I would just put it simply, or embracing mystery than some other traditions. I mean, there's a reason, I think, why Lutherans, for example, and Calvinists are always kind of pitted against each other in a sort of duel because they're so close to each other, but in some ways they're really foundationally, fundamentally approaching the text differently. I mean, everybody of course has to interpret the text, the biblical text. But I think like what you see in Thomas and what you see to some extent in Calvinism is, as Scott is saying, is this sort of like logical consequentialism. So once you make a statement, it has to be non contradictory and it builds on more statements and then those statements have to be non contradictory and they have to follow a logical progression and eventually you sort of get away from where you started and it's all, like Scott said, it's all really brilliantly and impressively deduced. The question is, what you end up with? How far have you actually gotten from what the text itself is telling you? Because the text is telling you something, but is it telling you something that consequential and that detailed? And I think a lot of times Lutherans are not willing to follow that logical consequentialism as far as, say, Calvinists and Thomas would.
- [09:23]
Bruce Hillman
Can I inject something sort of from the world of popular. The content creation mill that's somewhat current, that might give us a sort of entry point.
- [09:39]
Scott Keith
He's trying to say we're old and we don't keep up on the old socials.
- [09:43]
Bruce Hillman
No, no.
- [09:43]
John Hoyam
Is this just a fancy way of saying, like what Caleb does on X or Twitter?
- [09:48]
Bruce Hillman
Well, I think you'll see what I mean.
- [09:50]
John Hoyam
Quoting Twitter.
- [09:51]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah, yeah, no, it's exactly that. And this might reveal something of my social or my media diet, but I was watching an interchange between Michael Knowles and Tucker Carlson. And Knowles, of course, is this kind of famous conservative pundit, I guess you'd say. He's a podcaster, but he's also Roman Catholic and he was defending Vatican ii. How this connects to Thomism, I hope will be evident in a moment. But one of the things that he was defending is this idea of anonymous Christians. Are you familiar with this concept? The idea that anyone. You know, if it's kind of like the blind man and the elephants, you grasp the tail, I grasp the leg. This is the trunk, you know, you hope the tail.
- [10:40]
Scott Keith
That's when I heard that joke. They were grabbing something else, but that's fine.
- [10:44]
Caleb Keith
We gotta.
- [10:45]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah, we gotta. We gotta keep our clean rating. Of course. But he was defending this idea that, you know, Protestants, atheists, Hindus, Muslims, all have some access to truth because all truth is God's truth. I heard this just a moment ago and that the function of grace in this framework, like you have in Vatican ii, where you can have all these kind of non Christians who are rewarded at least for their effort. This is the do what is in you idea of medieval theology. Basically the idea of nature and grace and the integration of Aristotle and Scripture under a framework of realist metaphysics is fundamentally there to reward everyone for their efforts to seek truth. Which really kind of, to my mind, one of the major Lutheran criticisms of this idea of the anonymous Christian or of nature and grace. Grace does not destroy but perfects nature, is that it puts the human being in the position of making his or her way to God in some manner that will be rewarded by God instead of being, well, as we say in the Reformation, solas by grace alone. The Thomist probably wants to say something like grace alone. But as I was listening to this interview and this defense of seeking after God under the rubric of various different religious traditions, I was thinking there's a lot of place for the human will and the human effort in this system.
- [12:41]
Scott Keith
And my critique of it would be even more basic than that. It's that I and the Father are one. No one comes to the Father but by me. When you do that kind of theology, what you do is you make access to salvation in some way other than through Christ alone. And that is where I think this ultimate. This sort of reliance on effort, reliance on will, however you want to do it, sort of somebody can be doing work that pleases God without even know it, even though they don't confess Christ. It leads to a theology that is absent salvation on account of Christ alone. Which I think for Lutherans, if the solas are a whole different conversation. But if you're going to talk about the solas, Solas Crispus is the central.
- [13:27]
Bruce Hillman
Well, they are all interlocking.
- [13:30]
Scott Keith
I know they're. I think Thomas is part of the interlocking puzzle.
- [13:35]
Adam Francisco
I think he's a little slippery if people aren't very careful to read him. Because if you read him on baptism, he's really, really close to Luther on this. He believes it's by grace alone. He believes that it's not of the will. He says that the human will can't do anything about it. But then, as you keep reading Aquinas, you start to learn that the baptism is sort of this first infusion of a powerful grace, not a declared grace that God gives you from the bench of the courtroom because of Christ's sake. You're now saved, but a sort of. I'm being a little unfair to him, but sort of a tool, like a superpower tool that's being given to you. A superpower of love where now the process of being fully saved takes place. And in that process, your will does have a role. But it's a will that has to be. It's a will that's been turned by grace that you can't do yourself. But then the will has to sort of cooperate with it. And that includes pursuing the virtues and charity and love as Christ has put into you. So if people read.
- [14:55]
Scott Keith
The point of this, when I try to explain.
- [14:57]
Adam Francisco
Sorry, I was just gonna say. I'll end with this. If people. When people read Thomas, you know, he's so good. He's very precise and concise, which is nice. You can read his little sections, and they're just like, not very long, and they say a lot.
- [15:11]
Scott Keith
The suma is like. But that's fine.
- [15:13]
Adam Francisco
Yeah, but I mean, each one.
- [15:14]
Scott Keith
Each one is very, like, concise. Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah.
- [15:18]
Adam Francisco
You can Follow the syllogisms really, really easily in Thomas.
- [15:21]
Caleb Keith
Correct.
- [15:21]
Adam Francisco
And then you could be like, oh, that's what he believes.
- [15:23]
Bruce Hillman
But.
- [15:23]
Adam Francisco
But to your point, Scott, he has a lot more to say, and you have to combine everything he's saying to get a real sense of what's going on.
- [15:32]
Scott Keith
So when I used to try to explain this kind of thing to freshmen, it's really hard to go that deep with people that maybe don't even know they're at a Christian college. And you're sort of trying to give them this idea. And one of the things you can, I think, and then I'm totally open on being corrected on this way of looking at it. The way you describe Thomas on baptism, I would say that's kind of like when you're baptized to Thomas, you're brought through the doors of the church and you're handed your grace bucket, right? And this is like the beginning step. And the rest of your life is going to be about trying to fill up that bucket of grace in the hope that when you die, it's full enough that you can trade it in for salvation and all sorts of things add to this bucket. Now, of course, when you're a baby, because Catholics practice paedobaptism, of course, when you're a baby, they're not going to say, your will is very involved in being pushed through the door of the Church and being handed your bucket. But everything after that, you know, the fact that you. You come to the sacraments, that you go to confession, you know, your acts of charity, all of these things that you might say add to the bucket, are then acts of the will, because that being pushed through the door of the Church is sort of that. That thing that ignites your will to be able to carry the bucket around to the various places where it'll get filled up. And that is just. I mean, this whole picture in the first place of infused grace is one of those ones that makes a lot of sense when you wrap it into a syllogism, but is not very biblical.
- [17:20]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, there's active perseverance in the faith.
- [17:25]
Adam Francisco
Right.
- [17:25]
Caleb Keith
Is the thing. And I think this helps explain why, let's say evangelicals who break into looking for more historic explanations for their beliefs sometimes end up liking things like Thomas, where they might be able to put sacraments off a little bit, but can say something like, you know, this is putting to more precise terms what I mean by committing my life to Christ or by participating in this quiet time. It's, you know, it's a moment It's.
- [18:01]
Scott Keith
A moment of grace. Difficult to excerpt Thomas from the theology, from the sacrament.
- [18:06]
Caleb Keith
Sure.
- [18:07]
Scott Keith
I would think that on the evangelical side, the part of Aquinas that they probably like are sort of like the proofs for the existence of God so they can go out and argue with non believers.
- [18:15]
Caleb Keith
I think that's part of it. But you'd be shocked at what this grace perfecting nature, I actually think is the most popular part of the theology. I can see that, too.
- [18:25]
Adam Francisco
Can I just ask clarification? Because I'm not a Thomas, but my understanding is almost in my water. It's not a bucket of grace. Right. The grace is infused and fully given through the sacrament.
- [18:37]
Scott Keith
Yeah. It's just. I mean, it's a bucket of merit.
- [18:39]
Adam Francisco
Right. That's why I want to make the distinction. There's actually a bucket of merit that you fill.
- [18:43]
Scott Keith
Okay, so.
- [18:44]
Adam Francisco
But you fill it through the grace that's been deposited. I think that's probably true.
- [18:48]
Scott Keith
I think that's probably true. I think there's a couple ways to read that is that, you know, at the end of the day, the thing that you're trying to get full enough of is grace. And one of the ways that you do that is like through meritorious works. And so I think you can actually play that either way they go so hand in hand, really, that it's going to be hard to pick out one or the other. And again, man, they're 18. I'm trying to.
- [19:16]
Adam Francisco
No, I guess I'm saying. I think that's the Lutheran distinction.
- [19:20]
Scott Keith
Right.
- [19:20]
Adam Francisco
Like, I don't think Thomas says you can get that meritorious works are grace, but we do. I think Thomas is saying that the meritorious works are.
- [19:31]
Scott Keith
Are the result of grace.
- [19:33]
Adam Francisco
Yeah, yeah. But I think Lutherans are perpetual part of the problem.
- [19:37]
Scott Keith
How do you get more. How do you get more grace to do more meritorious work? So it's by the meritorious.
- [19:41]
Adam Francisco
Well, you get the sacrament.
- [19:43]
Caleb Keith
The sacrament. We would say that their system of the sacrament is notorious.
- [19:48]
Adam Francisco
I mean, you get it in baptism, you get it in Lord's Supper, and. And sure, you get it.
- [19:53]
Bruce Hillman
You accrue merit by doing works of charity.
- [19:57]
Scott Keith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although not too many, because you got to leave some to the monks.
- [20:00]
Caleb Keith
So I think from. From all, all four of you, there has been a theme, which is it's.
- [20:09]
Scott Keith
That Adam likes Thomas and the rest of us are a little critic.
- [20:12]
Caleb Keith
He was pretty good.
- [20:15]
Bruce Hillman
Adam just likes. Likes the apologetics. He likes arguing with non believers.
- [20:19]
Scott Keith
Who doesn't?
- [20:21]
Bruce Hillman
That's a fair point.
- [20:23]
John Hoyam
There is also this, like, if you think of Thomas in context 13th century, you know, he does in many ways help pull back the University of Paris and other universities move towards an embracing of a double truth doctrine. So as much as I think it's.
- [20:46]
Adam Francisco
What'S the double truth doctrine?
- [20:47]
John Hoyam
I'm not sure that the truths of philosophy, the conclusions you draw in philosophy are true even if they contradict the truths of theology. And Thomas steps into that mix and using Aristotle because this basically I don't know that you could say Averroes Ibn Rushd, as he's called in Arabic, the guy who, who he's a 12th century guy from Spain who writes commentaries on Aristotle. They make their way up into France and elsewhere and everybody's mesmerized by them. I'm not sure why, but he, it, it sort of interpreted Aristotle as holding to a eternal view of the world, that God is just sort of like a fashioner of pre existing matter, that the soul is not eternal and things like that. And the arts faculty at the University of Paris in particular, I think maybe up in Qolm as well, where Thomas spent some time was teaching, that they were all mesmerized by Thomas or Aristotle because he's new and avant garde as liberal arts faculty kind of are. They always push through these trends and they begin pushing the conclusions of Averroes interpretation of Aristotle as if it's a dogmatic truth, if you will. And the theologians are saying nein. At least in Germany they're saying nein. France they say no. But then Thomas gets in the middle of that and shows that Aristotle can be used and directed towards Christian ends. The problem is, as we Lutherans would say, and I don't know that this is wrong, but I don't think it's. I think it kind of can become cliche as a cliche that Thomas baptized Aristotle. I mean that's fine as a kind of a handy description of the overall thing, but I think it's a little more, as I like to say, nuanced. Nuanced than that. But in his context, I mean, so he's doing that also in his context. So he's 13th century, he's an early Dominican. You know, the Dominican order has only recently been approved by the Pope and it's tasked with teaching routing out heresy. And in like towards the, I guess the middle of Thomas's time, they're the order that sort of spearheads mission work among Muslims and Jews and, and others. So it's like we say Scott, you know, martyrs get a pass from us. Thomas wasn't a martyr. I think he died because a tree limb fell on, hit him in the head. But.
- [23:41]
Scott Keith
God was like, time to come home. You're doing too much damage. Yeah, doing too much damage.
- [23:46]
Bruce Hillman
Oh my gosh.
- [23:46]
Scott Keith
But, you know, he did his. I said he went to heaven.
- [23:53]
John Hoyam
His work, though, you know, Summa contra Gentiles. And he also wrote a. A work that's not that. I think only recently was discovered. And by recently I mean in the last 50 years or so. A real practical instruction on how to contend for the faith among Muslims shapes even Luther's approach towards Islam. Luther will translate a work written by a. Not a. Like a physical disciple of Thomas, but a guy named Ricardo de Monte de Croita, who will write probably the most influential work against Islamic that Luther will translate into German. And while Luther will remove some of the Aristotelian kind of arguments, he does so mostly because he wants to make sure his. His translation is practical for German soldiers and so on that might end up in the Ottoman world, but he keeps the. The substance of the argument that the apologetic approach and approves of it. So. And that.
- [24:53]
Scott Keith
That's sort of. And there's a lot of. To be impressed by in Thomas Aquinas too. The interesting thing, when you hear like there's a resurgence of people are really into Thomas, I'm always thinking to myself, I wonder what they're reading. Let's get them into this, because these are massive works. I remember Rod at one point talking about the Summa contra Gentiles and saying, oh, thank gosh, we didn't have to go through that. We just had to go through the Summa Theologiae. And it's like, okay, that was already big enough. That's pretty impressive by itself. And so I think one of the things within Lutheranism, it's kind of funny because you can see when I started out, I focused really on the early Lutheran writings. And you'll just hear the critique. The schoolman, the schoolman, the schoolman, the schoolman. They don't mean just Thomas, of course, but he's sort of like the ultimate sort of representation of that that changes as time goes by. Because one of the things that even Lutherans find is that the methods that Aristotle uses to make logical arguments are very handy when you start to ask questions, right? So you can make a lot of assertions just from the text, but sometimes you get asked questions. And when you start to try to answer those questions or dogmatize the answers to those questions, you do bring in a lot more of These Aristotelian type arguments. And this starts with Melanchthon as early as like 1530. And it makes its way into the formula of Concord for sure. But if you read something like Martin Chemnitz on the two natures of Christ, good luck getting Aristotle out of that thing. Like, if you're going to say that Aquinas baptizes Aristotle, you have to say that Chemnitz does in parts too, because the arguments are. It's the same function that's being used there. It's the same method that's being used there. Now maybe it's being used more carefully by Chemnitz. I would say it probably is, but it's difficult to say that, you know, it's. We were able to stay away from it for very long.
- [27:19]
Caleb Keith
Can.
- [27:21]
Scott Keith
I.
- [27:22]
Caleb Keith
So one of the popular, as I was saying, the popular thing that I'm seeing today, of course this is anecdotal in some ways, but what are you seeing on Twitter? Twitter, but also YouTube. Also every popular. I mean, it's like, I know you guys don't do this, we're on YouTube. But if you have to, if you end up watching popular Protestant theologians, the amount of interaction with this is very high. Right?
- [27:47]
Adam Francisco
Yeah.
- [27:47]
John Hoyam
I'm just messing with you, Caleb.
- [27:49]
Scott Keith
Okay.
- [27:50]
Caleb Keith
Also, it was, as I said, it was in my church.
- [27:53]
Scott Keith
Yeah, this is true. It was a trip. It was so much fun because there was three guys like ganging up on Caleb. And I was just like sitting about five feet away, sipping on coffee, and he kept looking over to me like, can I get a little help over here? And I'm like, you're doing fine, bud.
- [28:07]
Caleb Keith
And it turned. It turned out that, you know, because, well, this is an Internet and online thing. They knew to find me because they knew we. That I had an anti scholastic bent to my Lutheranism.
- [28:24]
Scott Keith
All because of Twitter?
- [28:26]
Caleb Keith
No, I think all because of the podcasts.
- [28:27]
Scott Keith
Oh, all because of the pocket.
- [28:29]
Caleb Keith
And so that was interesting.
- [28:31]
Scott Keith
Right.
- [28:31]
Caleb Keith
So that has made it to the Internet, has made it to real life. But the thing that I think is happening is, as Adam said, the worldview and the against to truths is popular because it seems that we're back to that where you should be able to, whether it's science or whether it's some sort of cultural truths, hold those separate from your. Christianity is sort of a demand of culture in the world today. And so people looking to reject that, go and see that Christians in the past have rejected that. That there's a rich and powerful tradition of that that has Thomas as A backbone. And then you start seeing some other things as you read it in its entirety and it impresses you. Maybe for some of these people, it's the one true systematic set of theology they've read too. When you've seen these tomes, and then you begin to wonder, can I maintain the benefits of Protestantism, the comfort of grace alone, faith alone, and reintegrate some of these scholastic categories or truths from the past in a different order? And then they wouldn't be wrong. So, for instance, the one that I see as cooperation and grace perfecting nature, I think what's happening is people are postulating is the problem, the order. Is it that that happens during some sort of preservation or before justification or as the act of justific. What if I just took this whole category and dropped it in the sanctification bucket? Could I then use Thomas again? Could I say that we're part of this rich tradition? Could I take all of these truths about grace that Thomas can't be all wrong about because he was this great theologian who maintained the truth of Christianity? And can I just locate it in a different part of my theology? And so I think that's where a lot of this is coming up today is can I just shift grace perfecting nature to an after justification reality? Can I make cooperation an essential part of sanctification? Not in the Wesleyan sense, but more in this moved forward by the sacraments, empowered by prayer and devotion and liturgy.
- [30:54]
Scott Keith
And whatever else, Less a fire in my bosom and more a good argument.
- [30:58]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, can I do that? And I think the answer is no in most of these cases still. And there's.
- [31:09]
Bruce Hillman
Are you talking, Caleb, about like a Reformed kind of Thomism or a Lutheran? I think it's probably the role of the sacraments is going to be different for the reform.
- [31:22]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, I agree with that. I would say that's probably what I'm seeing with Lutherans, though, the sanctification stuff, the cooperation is definitely, I think the Reform Scholastics and Lutherans also hopping on to that as well. I mean, there's pieces.
- [31:35]
Bruce Hillman
Well, yeah, definitely, definitely. In the case of the Reformed, you know, this. This idea that, you know, is kind of associated with, I don't know, somebody like Richard Baxter and a number of other 17th century reformed writers, that there's a difference between justification as a kind of singular, fixed relationship with God that happens once at the beginning and then is followed by sanctification and the kind of works that allow you to inherit heaven, that there's a difference between those two, that you're Justified by faith alone. But you get to heaven by being in yourself, righteous, or at least getting there. That's an idea that allows a kind of Thomistic framework of what I would call ascent or mimesis, mimicking the goodness of the divine being, which is summum bonum. It basically allows you to, in a kind of bookkeeping manner, say, like, maintain sola fide justification, but it doesn't actually affect the framework of the salvation paradigm itself and lets you basically, you know, still be a complete and total legalist, if I could so bluntly.
- [33:04]
Adam Francisco
The import and appreciation of Thomas in Lutheran circles, though, is usually because this is my experience is usually more along the lines of natural law.
- [33:17]
Caleb Keith
I mean, I actually think that's another side of the coin. My anecdote is that I'm seeing the grace and cooperation stuff the most, the natural law thing a couple years ago for sure. And that's part of, again, I think a lot of this all has to do with the same thing that we talk about a lot, which is changing culture, sort of the, the dissolving of ethics in and sort of corporate ethics, especially holding Western societies together. Christians going, it, it's our duty to help maintain this, to help be a part of the solution to this. And so they've gone through phases of what that would look like. I think the natural, the natural law, the embracing of natural law is one of those phases. I think motivating Christians to be more active ethically through this sort of structure of grace. Perfecting you and cooperative sanctification is another part of that, where all they're looking for is some success of Christians having influence in the public sphere. And some of that is saying, I want to reignite Christians to do this. So maybe the Christians aren't really the problem. They're acting mostly ethically, externally, of course, but they're not excited and enthusiastic about it. They're not sharing it with their neighbors. They're not giving good apologetics for moral behavior. And so then if you reincorporate this, maybe I can excite you. Maybe if it's about cooperating with God in grace, we can do that. And natural law comes in there as maybe the objective basis to then have an apologetic conversation about ethics.
- [35:07]
Bruce Hillman
But the whole thing ends up, I think that the metaphysics and morals stuff is kind of of a piece in terms of challenging modernity and post modernity. So like, if law and ethics are tied to the divine being in some ways as the highest good, it allows you, like on a, on a metaphysical level and also in the realm of ethics to engage in a game of one upmanship with like Marxist ideology or liberal ideology. Because if you, if you're kind of operating with a, like what you might call a modernist, even doctrine of God where God is kind of a being on our level, he's one being among other beings. He's just one item on the menu, so to speak. But if you can do an end run around modernity completely by relativizing all rival accounts of truth or goodness through this kind of account of metaphysical realism, then you can position all other rival accounts of goodness and truth as sort of perhaps Christian heresies or intellectually insufficient theories of goodness and truth. In other words, it's kind of, I think that this is kind of a reaction to some of the excesses of the 20th century that tried to accommodate theology to, say, existentialism in one case or to Kantianism in another, or the accommodation of Christian thought to some of the ideas of Hegel by returning to the medieval synthesis of, you know, reason and revelation, we can do an end run around the whole problem of modernity. And I think that that's for its intellectual purveyors. I think that's kind of the power of the critique. I'm not saying that I subscribe to that. I'd rather do an end run around modernity in different ways. But I think that's certainly a huge part of the appeal for a lot of Christian intellectuals who are frankly embattled and feel as though they have absolutely nothing to say before kind of a hegemonic liberal or modern worldview. Sorry to use the word, but there it is.
- [37:54]
Caleb Keith
I love also the battle going on in the name descriptions here. I see that Adam has written not atomist. And Bruce is written, thinks Adam is a Thomist, which is just, I think.
- [38:05]
Bruce Hillman
I just described pretty well. I just steel manned the reason that a lot of intellectual Christians and Protestants in particular have been drawn to this. I mean, Caleb, basically this is the argument of radical orthodoxy. And you know this firsthand from having studied with the Milbanks and so on.
- [38:25]
Caleb Keith
But yeah, it's. Well, and I, you know that that side of it is important, but I find that it's just interesting when you start getting lay people start asking you questions about grace all of a sudden again, like, can, can grace?
- [38:46]
Bruce Hillman
If only. If only they would.
- [38:48]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, well, but like for instance, one of the reasons I bring up the reordering problem is my question is, does the Lutheran critique of Thomas on grace and grace perfecting nature and grace enabling cooperation or infused grace Working with stay true after justification? Because that's part of the argument now, is that. No.
- [39:13]
Scott Keith
That you can just transport all of Thomas's arguments that were arguments describing justification to sanctification.
- [39:20]
Caleb Keith
Yeah. So does Melanchthon's sort of recapturing of a definition of grace as an attitude on the part of God, is that all that grace is? Or is grace after this attitude has been bestowed upon you now a substance again? Do Christians access grace in both kinds? That's some of the questions I think, that sort of have to be tackled about a Lutheran critique of this today. Is our definition of grace sufficient biblically, theologically, whatever.
- [39:54]
Scott Keith
Yeah. I mean, to the sinful mind that always wants to be a theologian of glory, it's a very dissatisfying answer to say that. No, grace is always what it is. It's God seeing you as just on account of Christ alone, because that's boring. And it's the same thing over and over again. What if I could spice it up a little bit and say, well, now it is now that you are justified, whatever that means, then it is now something else that you really do contribute towards man. Isn't that good news for you? Because what else would you be doing with your time? What else would you be doing with your time? And so I think it all gets to be a scam to try to make, to bring merit back in. Somehow. This never just leaves itself at the door of, well, now I'm just talking about what I do once I am saved. It always makes its way back to my contribution. I've now done something apart from Christ's work alone for me, apart from the great exchange, the happy exchange, apart from all of that. I've now done something that I have just done that has made God smile today. That's the end goal of the sinner. The sinner doesn't want to say that they are so simple and unclean that there is nothing at any point that they can hand over to God that is not sin.
- [41:21]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah. And I think that the sinner also is drawn to the idea that salvation is a process that's not yet complete. We were talking about baptism earlier, and the thing that came to mind there for me is that, yeah, Aquinas is right about some of the power and benefits of baptism, but it's a starting point, not a destination.
- [41:42]
Scott Keith
That's right. And for the Lutheran, the church door.
- [41:46]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah, for the Lutheran, baptism is the destination. You never progress beyond the power. Forgiveness and benefits of baptism are always returning.
- [41:56]
Scott Keith
It's never better than the Day the water was poured over your head.
- [42:00]
Caleb Keith
And then we're to Erasmus in some ways, which is now all that fear. And what I'm talking about with this moral question today too, and moral apologetics goes, so what motivation does a Lutheran have for doing anything then? Why would I do or try to do anything in society?
- [42:20]
Scott Keith
It's the same world, same motivation that the child in the family, the child that knows that they're loved in the family because they are part of the family, because they've been brought into this family has for doing anything within the family. It's like, you know, it's not, it's not that, hey, if you get good grades this semester, you're now more a son than you were last semester, right? Or that you. Or that, okay, good job. Now we're not going to kick you out tomorrow because, boy, it was really dependent on that report card. You know, you're there. And now you get to live in this family. You get to be here. You get to sort of look around and see what this family is like, and you get to be part of it. And being part of it means that you have neighbors here and that they, that they serve you. They bring you the words of forgiveness, they bring you the words of love on account of Christ. And you bring it to them not in the sense that you're progressing evermore in that or that you're piling up a list of, hey, I've done it, now I present it to God. You still know that you will always do it imperfectly, but you get to do it right and you get to do it freely. Not as somebody who, if they don't do it, you know, there's a threat there.
- [43:39]
Caleb Keith
I think one of the things, and.
- [43:40]
Scott Keith
I get that that's not as satisfying to the sinful being. It's not.
- [43:46]
Caleb Keith
I also think it's hard when people don't see that. What I think you're putting out here, which is the in and out of the family distinction or the dead and alive distinction, which is, which goes, you know, basically I never felt the being out, right? So I don't know what it means to be in. And so it's also a type of self righteousness that was like, I was never truly bad enough or heathen enough or unbelieving enough to not be a Christian. But I have had this spectrum of experience within Christianity. And so what I really need is, you know, you telling me, well, now I get to be part of this family. I've always been part of this family. So what's my, my real motivation is not taking seriously enough the depth of sin.
- [44:28]
Scott Keith
What's funny is in a lot of ways, Dan and I, in tough text, have been going through proverbs. I should know this since we've been doing it for weeks. 34, I think. But it's kind of funny when you're going through the proverbs, right? What do you say about them? At the end of the day, one of the things that you can do is you can say, well, yeah, because so many of them are just, you can see. I actually think now that we've been doing it more, you can see sort of the law, gospel dynamics in a lot of the proverbs. But you can also see that a lot of them are, well, yeah, they're just good advice. They're just good advice. Like if you do these things, yeah, you're not going to do these things all the time, perfectly, whatever. You may not ever do them because you're a sinner, but if you do these things, like, your life will be better. Things are going to go better for you, you know, overall. And so it's kind of stupid to ask, well, what's, you know, it's like, what's my motivation for not being a complete loser? Can you give me some, can you give me some things that would, like, encourage me to just not be a complete waste of time?
- [45:36]
Bruce Hillman
And isn't that, isn't that kind of the folly of sin is that you fail to do the thing that's obviously the right course of action or you do the thing that everybody told you was a bad idea, but you did it any way. And this is why I always find the whole, I actually think this ties into Thomas, the whole kind of trend that I keep hearing this all over the place with Lutherans. Like, people just need the pastor to tell them what to do in life. It's like, no, they don't. They know what they're supposed to do. Actually, everybody does. That's the human condition. That is the problem.
- [46:18]
Caleb Keith
Sin.
- [46:20]
Adam Francisco
It's interesting when Augustine is asked about this motivation question, he has a whole theology sort of on this, some of which is match as well as Lucianism and some which doesn't. But Augustine has a phrase where he says, you know, once you've, once you've become a Christian, what all that, all that God requires of you is a joy and delight. Which of course smacks against Lutherans right away. No, the law kills you. The law kills you. But if you read Augustine more carefully, what he's really saying There is that the motive to do good and be like Christ is joyful because I'm free. It's a freedom that gives me my motivation, not this sitar that's hanging over my head that at any moment can come down and, and strike me. It's interesting because I think nowadays we're very hyper focused. Ever since the Reformation, really, we're really hyper focused on the question of psychology and motivation. Like, like our true self is how we feel. So the theological language has always reflected this. If you read the Church Fathers in pre Augustine, you don't really see this hyper focus on like the anxiety of figuring out my motivation to, to behave. It's much more based on what are you doing? It's, it's more flat than I think.
- [47:41]
Scott Keith
Yeah, this is very, I feel like this is a very modern American question. Like. Yeah, but I get it. If you didn't live in this complete life of luxury, the like, well, why should I go to work? Well, because you're gonna starve.
- [47:57]
Adam Francisco
To your point, it's like, what motivation do you have to do your hobbies, this in your passions?
- [48:04]
Scott Keith
Yeah.
- [48:05]
Adam Francisco
Well, you might be able to locate some, you know, logical reasons, but really it's just because, to use Augustinian language, because your heart is desirous of the good.
- [48:17]
Scott Keith
And so that's a really good example.
- [48:19]
Caleb Keith
Well, Bruce, but what you're pointing out is the accusation of the law when somebody goes, but I don't feel like that about, you know, being nice to my wife doing. Right, yeah, of course you don't, because.
- [48:29]
Adam Francisco
You'Re hearing it as a have to. So that's where the law is working. If you hear it as a get to. Because remember Paul talks about we have a dual nature, right? So we have a flesh and we have a spirit nature. And that flesh nature never wants to do what God's law says unless it's convenient for our flesh to follow the law, in that case for some other thing that the flesh is after. Otherwise the flesh has nothing to do with the law. But the spirit, of course, is freedom. Right? So if, if I see loving my wife in any particular example as something I get to do because I like to make her happy, well, there's the freedom that I have in Christ. But yeah, if the law accuses me because it points out to me I'm not doing that, well, it's not going to come to me as a happy motivation. But when we repent, I think that part of repentance of those things that the law convicts us on is being in Some way convinced at our deepest level that it's a get to and not a have to. And that's when I think we start to find joy in pursuing the things God wants because we're not pursuing them out of fear.
- [49:51]
Scott Keith
You'll never get to what you just left. I mean, I'm going to take everything you just said, not just that last part, but you'll never get there without a doctrine of the symbol. And that's one of the big things. It's lacking in any kind of medieval theology and in any modern theology.
- [50:06]
Caleb Keith
Yeah, it's a mix of sin and grace instead of total sin. Total grace.
- [50:12]
Scott Keith
Your hobby thing was right on. It's like all of a sudden, without it being meritorious, Caleb is going to come to me and go, well, why would I even want to go snowboarding now?
- [50:23]
Adam Francisco
Right, Right.
- [50:24]
Caleb Keith
Doesn't make any sense.
- [50:28]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah, it's probably like on some level the apt comparison for a Thomist framework or other kind of patristic doctrines of salvation would be more like exercise than hobbies. Exercise brings joy, but fitness requires painful effort. And some people are better disposed to achievement than not. And there's a reason that there are few that when you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up, oh, I want to be a professional football player. That doesn't happen very often. Right. There's very few people who are truly excellent in and say athletic achievement because it's hard, but it is good for you and it does feel good and it does bring certain kind of joy. Right. That would be the burden of the kind of Thomist view of salvation.
- [51:33]
Scott Keith
But there's still whether you do it or not. And that's going to be all wrapped up in sin whether you stay fit or not, whether you whatever or not. But you don't actually need a connection to it being meritorious in a salutary way. In other words, it doesn't have to be saving before God for you to be able to present an argument why you should do it. That's the point. Right. Or saying, oh, it's going to make you, you know, you were on step one of being a Christian. If you do it, you're now on step two, and hopefully one day you'll get to step 10, which is the best of the best Christians. You don't actually. And again, going through Proverbs, it's kind of funny because it's like you don't actually need that to be able to just sort of answer your own question of why should I exercise? Why shouldn't I eat 500 Twinkies a day. Why shouldn't I be mean to my wife? You can answer all those questions without ever connecting it to your salvation. And that's the interesting thing. If we had to connect it to salvation, you'd never be able to make an argument that the pagan should be nice to his wife, or you'd never find a pagan that was nice to their wife. And neither one of those things are true.
- [52:44]
Bruce Hillman
I think the point that I'm making, though, is that there is a great burden and a great accusation if you do attach performance to salvation.
- [52:56]
Scott Keith
That's why I said it's pleasing for the person that is making the argument that you should and for the person that thinks they're doing it. The problem is it's damning when you think you're doing it.
- [53:06]
Adam Francisco
In the medieval monk and writer Thomas A Kempis.
- [53:12]
Scott Keith
Not another Thomas.
- [53:13]
Adam Francisco
This is a different Thomas. This is a different Thomas.
- [53:16]
John Hoyam
This is even worse.
- [53:19]
Adam Francisco
His imitation of Christ, which is a very works sort of based thing. But he has this one part which I've always found fascinating where he says. Where he makes the observation. He says, I thought when I was younger and I got older as a Christian, what would happen is that I would in some way be, you know, sinless, essentially, that. That these habits would be formed in me and I would sin less. And he says now that I'm older, what I've actually found is I just have learned to sin better.
- [53:47]
Scott Keith
Yeah.
- [53:47]
Adam Francisco
And what he means by that is like his public sins from his youth, he's able. Those have been. He doesn't do that as much, but his inner sins have actually gotten far worse. And so I think it's an interesting observation when we talk about, like, habits and progressive sanctification and whatever category you want to bring to it, there is this sense where sin is just all the way down and it's not going away. And our merits and our efforts just can't stamp it out. We can polish it and we can give it plastic surgery and we can dress it up, but what we really need is a savior from it because there's just no way we can get rid of it. And it probably does just get worse. We just do. Probably, like everything else in life, we learn to get better at it, even when we think we're not.
- [54:38]
Scott Keith
Yeah, well, that's such a good point. I. If we. I could. Oh, you have something, Adam, Go for it.
- [54:42]
John Hoyam
I don't. I mean, I have. I have a story about Thomas and how wonderful he was.
- [54:48]
Adam Francisco
Thomas Aquinas or Thomas Akimus.
- [54:50]
Scott Keith
Go ahead, go ahead, tell your wonderful story about Thomas Aquinas.
- [54:54]
John Hoyam
Well, do you know. So first of all, we're talking about the angelic doctor here, right?
- [54:58]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah, true.
- [55:00]
Scott Keith
Or the either one.
- [55:01]
John Hoyam
Do you know the story of his early life? You know, he's put into a Benedictine monastery, Monte Cassino and his family's kind of on the upswing in terms of their attachment to nobility. And they figured if he's, you know, he demonstrated kind of an intellectual prowess at an early age. And so they put him there because that the Benedictine order had a ton of money. And the hope is that the family, if he becomes an abbot, will rise in socioeconomic stature. But Thomas, he's such a good guy as a teenager. Like, I don't want to be a Benedictine, I want to be a Dominican, which is much more. They have to beg for their food. He ghost, he goes on his own accord to a Benedictine monastery or to a Dominican monastery. His family, somewhere along the line arranges to have him kidnapped. They put him under house arrest for a year. Hopefully he'll change his mind. They're thinking, right. But to really sort of get him to change his mind, they spring for like a super hot prostitute to get him to sin, you know, so that he'll feel bad and won't want to become a Dominican. And the story is Thomas was such a good, good bloke that he takes a, like a stick that's been in the fire and to avoid the temptation starts like poking at the prostitute, like to get her out of that room to avoid falling into sin. So, but anyway, that's the story.
- [56:39]
Caleb Keith
That's your story.
- [56:40]
Scott Keith
I don't know that he's not on his main story. He tortured her.
- [56:44]
John Hoyam
Well, he didn't touch her.
- [56:46]
Adam Francisco
He didn't, you know, he just so.
- [56:48]
John Hoyam
Distant, is so disciplined in his sanctification that he knew he would fall into sin if he could not get that super hot.
- [56:56]
Bruce Hillman
Let me ask you a question. Is Thomas the only witness to this event?
- [57:02]
Adam Francisco
No. There's a prostitute who has burn marks somewhere.
- [57:05]
Scott Keith
Probably her account is recorded for us.
- [57:11]
Adam Francisco
I was just gonna say he must have been a successful Dominican because if they have to beg for food, he was so fat that you can see his desk. And the monks, because he would spend all day writing, they made him a special desk that they carved so that he could fit a carve out stomach in it while he was writing.
- [57:31]
Caleb Keith
Bruce, that's actually, I was gonna say a great point. Thomas was known for his health ailments, often self inflicted by His. The stories of not leaving his study.
- [57:42]
Adam Francisco
Right.
- [57:44]
Caleb Keith
And one of, I would say the.
- [57:46]
Scott Keith
Not his eating in his drink.
- [57:48]
Caleb Keith
Well, his eating, his drinking, his not leaving his study. Lots of things. All the things theologians do.
- [57:54]
Scott Keith
I mean, it happens Luther was.
- [57:55]
Adam Francisco
Supposedly had issues from his ascetic life as well.
- [58:00]
Caleb Keith
I think the point would be in some of this, which is you can't actually by reorienting where all your effort is gonna go if it's going to be to like more spiritual discipline or other particular types of works of grace, which is a lot of this as well, which is sort of a refocus on church and spirituality. As John brought up the ro Re, enchanting the world, bringing religion back to life, poked in the eye as part of it. Other things get left out. Right. And this was a huge problem with the Reformation too, when it came to monasticism, which by all accounts is people living a life set apart for works of. Of merit or works of grace or segregation.
- [58:41]
Scott Keith
Oh, look at both of you. And curl the mustache.
- [58:46]
Caleb Keith
And one of the things about the Lutheran Reformation was identifying the level of harm that actually monasticism did to society, did to families, did to various people in your life. And then even the type of self harm that can come from, you know, emphasizing one set of works over another set of works. And so you can't escape. None of these will actually escape sin. Right. You might, as Bruce said, you might shift it around to the types of sins, but you're not going to escape it. And you may cause new types of harm that you didn't even really imagine. And Christianity, Christianity is not a system for progressively improving the world as sin. It is a total. It's a proclamation of the total death and the total resurrection of the world in Christ. And that's the hard part to swallow is that we live here in a world that's constantly changing around us. Ebbs and flow of good and evil, or of comfort and turmoil. And we want to make Christianity fit within that scheme instead of totally overcoming, entering in and destroying that scheme. And I think that's where Lutheranism's sort of holistic answer to where this system goes wrong lies, which is that this life is going to remain. And yet the solution is not sort of progressive or cooperative work with God in this world to transform yourself, the world, or other people. It is Christ who has totally transformed you and will raise you from the dead. And that's. That's where it rests.
- [60:28]
Scott Keith
All that matters is the finished work. Christ.
- [60:30]
Bruce Hillman
Yeah.
- [60:31]
Caleb Keith
So with that, we thank you for listening to this episode. On Thomas Aquinas. If you enjoy the thinking fellows, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also watch this on YouTube and various things like that, and we'll have a short video on this topic over on the 1517 YouTube channel. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.
- [60:51]
Scott Keith
Bye.