Why You Should Read Old Books

Summary

Thinking Fellows – "Why You Should Read Old Books" (March 22, 2022)

Episode Overview

In this episode—the first in a new "Why You Should…" series—the Thinking Fellows (Scott Keith, Caleb Keith, and Adam Francisco) explore why reading old books remains relevant and vital today. Drawing heavily on insights from C.S. Lewis, classical sources, and personal anecdotes, the hosts examine what qualifies as an "old book," discuss the pitfalls of ignoring the past, and present compelling arguments for making these works a core part of intellectual and spiritual life.

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Defining "Old Books"

Timestamps: 01:44–10:00

• What counts as "old" varies by context:

  • For Adam Francisco, "old books" are Greco-Roman or even medieval works, while something from the 1800s might seem modern (02:16).
  • Caleb notes, "if something is old enough to have been written in Latin first and then translated, it's probably also an old book, right?" (04:14).
  • Discussion around C.S. Lewis’s essay "On the Reading of Old Books," which serves as both a touchstone and a framework (06:29).

• Cultural context shapes our concept of "old":

  • The hosts reflect on generational shifts—what seems ancient to one may be familiar to another (05:32, 09:03).
  • Scott illustrates by comparing the perception of eras depicted in TV (e.g., "Happy Days" in the 70s about the 50s) to how fast culture now changes (10:06–12:36).

Quote:
"Old books could be a couple of categories... But is there something in the in between that if a 22-year-old is listening to this... something from the 60s could seem very old." – Scott (08:18)

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Why Read Old Books?

Timestamps: 16:55–43:00

• Resisting "chronological snobbery":

  • Lewis's notion that each generation is tempted to believe it's more advanced and uniquely wise—reading old books humbles that view (22:15).
  • "There's nothing new under the sun... reading old books certainly helps destroy that type of arrogance." – Caleb (22:15)

• Perspective and critical thinking:

  • Old books pull readers out of their own generation's context, beliefs, and echo chambers (12:36, 29:43).
  • They help foster deeper, better-informed conversations, extending our mental reach beyond 101-level thinking (29:43).
  • "Reading old books helps with your critical thinking and your logic skills... you can actually connect the ideas yourself." – Caleb (33:11)

• Learning from enduring human concerns:

  • Many contemporary issues—politics, aging, ethics—were tackled ages ago, often with surprising relevance (13:04–14:36, 30:03–33:11).
  • Scott: "Read Cicero writing on the idea of duties. You'll see things that you can apply but that aren't made from the exact... echo chamber of your day to day sociopolitical life" (14:05).

• Rediscovery, not reinvention:

  • The Renaissance and Reformation didn’t discover new ideas, but rediscovered and reinterpreted classical sources for their day (20:10–22:15).
  • "Even when we talk about Luther, he didn't discover the gospel, he rediscovered the gospel." – Scott (20:10)

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Practical Benefits for Modern Readers

Timestamps: 27:20–44:57

• For the busy, non-specialist reader:
  Adam poses: "Why should John, who's an electrician, who's raising kids... bother reading Cicero on duties or Athanasius on the Incarnation?"

  • Caleb responds: It enhances your understanding, conversations, and personal growth, especially if you're the kind of person who listens to thoughtful podcasts and wants deeper knowledge (27:40–29:43).
  • "Having read increases your ability to have meaningful conversations or build up on that knowledge." – Caleb (29:43)

• Broader perspectives reduce existential anxiety:

  • The hosts argue that constantly treating every modern crisis as ultimate is a symptom of ignoring the past (36:20–39:56).
  • "You won't know about those [past crises]. You live as a sort of materialist in your time, and you can't argue for anything that's more than you or anything that came before you." – Scott (39:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why ideas persist:
  "You'll find out that there's no new idea under the sun, especially theologically... The goal isn't to be creative. The goal really is to be in alignment with the Scriptures..." – Scott (18:20)

• Lewis’s advice for reading:
  "Lewis recommends... if you read a new book, read an old book, then read an old book, then read a new book... if you can't manage to pull that off, at least read an old book for every three new." – Scott (22:59)

• On learning from history:
  "If you read some old sources, you'll find out that consequences have come along throughout all of human history and not yet has one of them shown to be ultimate." – Scott (39:07)

• Comic relief:
  The running joke about Caleb being a "flat-earther":

  • Adam: "Caleb's... our millennial baby. He's an old soul. Anything he writes is going to be, in a way, old."
  • Scott: "He believes in a flat earth."
  • Caleb: "I do not believe in a flat earth. You guys gotta stop saying that on this show." (16:20–16:32)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Definition & Scope of Old Books: 01:44–10:00
• Lewis and the Value of Old Books: 06:29–08:18
• Cultural Generational Perspectives: 09:03–12:36
• How Old Books Offer Perspective: 13:04–14:36
• Rediscovering Ideas (Renaissance, Reformation): 20:10–22:15
• Chronological Snobbery & Arrogance: 22:15–23:38
• Critical Thinking and Conversation: 29:43–34:13
• Existential Crises & Historical Perspective: 36:20–39:56
• Practical Examples (Cicero, Elections, Aging): 30:03–33:11

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Closing Thoughts

Timestamps: 41:47–44:57

• Perspective matters:
  "Reading old books, reading history, will give you... a much bigger, broader, I would say liberal in the sense of free perspective. You're not bound to... the fleeting chaos of the moment." – Adam (41:49)

• Learning from the past aids decision-making:
  "It's harder to make good decisions if you're making them alone or... if you believe it's the first time anybody's had to make that decision." – Caleb (44:13)

• Final words:
  "Life gets better. The world might get a tad bit better if we stood on the shoulders of giants instead of reinventing the wheel all the time." – Adam (44:49)
  "Amen to that. That's a good place to end." – Scott (44:57)

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Key Takeaways

• Old books are more than relics; they are enduring windows into past wisdom, struggles, and aspirations.
• Reading them checks intellectual arrogance, broadens perspective beyond current cultural norms, and equips readers—specialist and layperson alike—with richer, more nuanced understanding.
• The hosts encourage reading old and new books in tandem and stress that, for Christians, aligning with enduring truths should take precedence over novelty.
• Practical recommendations: Pick up a classic (Cicero, Athanasius, Augustine), challenge yourself to alternate “old” and "new," and let these works inform your critical thinking and everyday decisions.

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For more episodes and resources, visit 1517 Podcasts at 1517.org.

Transcript

[Scott]

Foreign.

[Caleb]

Hello there and welcome to the Thinking Fellows podcast. My name is Caleb and I am joined by my father, Dr. Sky Keith, and by Dr. And Adam Francisco to record the first episode in a series that we're gonna call why you should. And we're just gonna tell people a bunch of stuff they should do.

[Scott]

We'll be real bossy.

[Caleb]

Yeah, we're gonna be real bossy. Thank you, fellows. Is brought to you by the 1517 podcast network of shows. You can go to 1517. Org podcasts to see all of our shows there. 1517 is of course, more than just a podcast network. You can go to 1517. Org to see daily blogs, videos, conferences, preaching helps, and a whole lot more. You will probably find something there that you'll find useful for yourself, your family, or your congregation if you enjoy the Thinking Fellows. Okay, guys, first episode of why youy. Should I briefly introduce this at the end of last week as sort of a. A way that we could creatively revisit topics that we've done before, that we can start rotating in some guests from the Fellowship and from other people and places that we know. But for this first one, I thought I would give us some low hanging fruit to try this out. And it's. I mean, it's briefly kind of related to the Lewis. It comes off the Lewis stuff. Well, I think so.

[Scott]

It does.

[Caleb]

Today we are going to do an episode called why you should read old books. And I think the best way to start this off is to answer the question, what is an old book? What makes a book old versus a new book or not a book?

[Scott]

Yeah, Lewis's entire library probably considered old books now. Right. Even though they were 20th century contemporary, they're sort of mid, early mid 20th century, 10th century works pushing 100 years now.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah, this certainly, it certainly depends who you ask on this question. You know, what constitutes an old book? Because for me, anything written maybe 1800s and later is fairly new.

[Caleb]

You know.

[Adam Francisco]

Old book for me is Greco Roman. That's it kind of. I mean, medieval stuff to me feels. And this might be a bit of the, the Oxford stuff in me, you know, where they have.

[Scott]

No, no, no, I don't mean this. I want to see the logo on that sweatshirt.

[Caleb]

It's a Concordia one this week.

[Adam Francisco]

Okay, Concordia. Shout out to Concordia Chicago. Yeah, there's, there's this. You just. It. You're gonna. Can you cut some of this out? Because I'm hemming and hawing here.

[Scott]

But no.

[Adam Francisco]

Like Lewis, who thought that the real division in at least Western history was not the incarnation of God in Christ, and there's like the ancient world and then everything out the Christian world thereafter. For Lewis, he really believed that the world was really very similar in terms of people's worldview, though, you know, with the incarnation, things change quite radically. The real mat. Radical change in world or Western history happened around the 19th century, around the scientific revolution. That's. That's the modern era and everything before that is pre modern, but there's much more coherence and unity before the scientific revolution. So I don't. I'm. That's just sort of the. I'm not trying to make some snobby point.

[Caleb]

I'm just saying I would say in, you know, when I was at Concordia, not Chicago, but Irvine, where you. Did you help design the core, Adam? Were you there during the. The origin.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah, I did.

[Caleb]

I mean, the. The old books sort of thing, once you hit the history and literature pairing that you guys put together were like basically Augustine and older, right? I mean, yeah, that was. That was what you guys had set up. Although I would say, I think for most people and myself included, if something is old enough to have been written in Latin first and then translated, it's probably also an old book, right? So the Lutheran Reformation is probably all old books.

[Adam Francisco]

Oldish. Do a little ish at the end there.

[Caleb]

I think there might be an argument to be made that something like books on the change that you just described, that this technological revolution could also be old books. Like, like Darwin's Origin of Species is a sort of pivotal old book. And I would say a lot of people who argue and talk like evolution is second nature to them have never picked up the oldest book in the evolution catalog, right? They haven't. They haven't read the Darwin. And so, you know, when you're having a conversation with somebody like that, boy, do you really wish they had read an old book, you know?

[Adam Francisco]

Well, and in that. That core curriculum you're mentioning in the second sequence or the second semester of that, we would read. I think the. One of the last readings was Solzhenitsin's Harvard address. So I think that's, I want to say, 1960s. And I remember students thinking. And we talk about it as if this is like, so modern and relevant, right? And they're thinking, this is so old just the way he phrased things or the way the translator translated the Russian. So it's my point, Scott, you make.

[Scott]

I think you're.

[Adam Francisco]

Because you're out of the frame on zoom, so you're probably still Making fun of me. But it really does depend on who you ask.

[Scott]

Well, if you.

[Adam Francisco]

What constitutes an old book, if you.

[Scott]

Recall, coming off of Lewis, if you.

[Adam Francisco]

Recall, I like the way you pronounce that.

[Scott]

I was trying to push you out because you mentioned you were at Oxford, so I just wanted to help you out as you.

[Adam Francisco]

When I was up at Oxford. Yeah.

[Scott]

That. CS Lewis, as we come off our Lewis series, in his introduction to Athanasius on the Incarnation, wrote a little essay called on the.

[Adam Francisco]

On the reading of old books.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Scott]

And what he distinguishes. I think he, like you being an Oxford man, Oxford man is probably talking about books that are sort of ancient. Ancient in origin, on the whole. But his argument has more to do with not neglecting new books. Right. Because he even, I think, if I remember right, says something like, I myself am an author. Of course, I want you to buy and read new books. But the. The problem with new books is that I think his phrase is that they are still on trial. In other words, their ideas are being currently put to the test. Now, if you sort of take that as a standard as to what's an old book or what's a new book, I think it would be very difficult to say that something. Well, maybe not as the words were rolling out of my mouth. I recall all the controversies we have over even like the formula of Concord, but that something that's 500 years old is maybe not still on trial, but maybe it is. But I think by still on trial, you know, what are we talking about there? You write a book, I write a book. It's been out for three years. You know, maybe it's an apologetic book or maybe it's Being dad or whatever. The ideas on are still on trial, and you're in. Part of them being on trial is I. Let me take Being dad as an example. My book, that. Part of that book. Part of the problem with that book for me is I'm. I'm still at the point of analyzing whether it can stand the test of time. Right.

[Caleb]

Whether it's a thesis that you put out into the world and sort of.

[Scott]

Or the references to vernacular. You know, in 30 years, if you read it, will the sort of TV shows or whatever that are mentioned in it just make no sense to people on trial in that sense. So I'd accept, you know, old books could be a couple of categories. I think if you're sort of looking at classical literature, that definitely qualifies. Right. So ancient works, of course, that qualifies. But is there something in the. In between that it. If you, if, if a 22 year old is listening to this, right, like you said, something from the 60s could seem very old.

[Caleb]

Well, I, maybe we can make the definition have sort of a value proposition that goes into the Y here of this, which is that it might be acceptable enough to, to get to books outside of your generation or living generations for the most part, right. To hit that border, partially because that gets you somewhere outside of the world you live in now and the assumptions of the world you live in now. So, like, Lewis is probably on the edge of that, right. Where there are still people from his generation alive. Some people's grandparents, great grandparents, they have experiences with that world or something, especially maybe over in Europe with people who lived through World War II more directly than over here. But once you get to that border, and I think we're certainly on that border with, like Lewis, but even one step back, you're finally in a world you don't recognize and that you haven't heard stories from people you live with.

[Scott]

Right. And so, like, this is going to sound. I'm going down a rabbit hole, but we're only at nine minutes, so I can do that a little bit. I was listening to another podcast, the Remnant, with Jonah Goldberg, and he was interviewing John Podoritz, and they were just doing culture stuff. Caleb doesn't like Jonah anymore, so he's shaking his head at me. They were just doing.

[Adam Francisco]

Shaking my head too.

[Scott]

They're just doing culture stuff. So calm down, both of you. But one of the things that they sort of brought up, and I've heard Jonah bring it up before, and I always think it is, it's interesting. And Adam will remember this more. The baby in the room will. But do you remember watching Happy Days when you were a kid, Adam?

[Adam Francisco]

Oh, yeah.

[Scott]

Which aired in the 70s, right?

[Adam Francisco]

Yep.

[Scott]

The fact is, is that Happy Days, which was set and I think 1959 and aired in the 70s, is farther away to, from us now than it was from the era that it represented by like a long shot. But when we watch that in the late 70s and 80s and it's depicting the late 1950s, the late 1950 seemed like a whole nother world to us even in the 80s. Right. One of the points they were making is that as technology has sort of upgraded, we've kind of compressed time. Whereas if you look, the equivalent would be to looking back at the show in like the late 1990s now. And if you did that, it wouldn't seem like another world to you, even though when we were watching something on the 50s in the early 80s. It really did. I mean, well, that would be like.

[Caleb]

Watching something from the 70s or 80s.

[Scott]

No, you're in 2020. But that's.

[Caleb]

I was born in the 90s, so if I'm watching something from the 90s that's contemporary with me, you weren't born in the 50s. So if you were watching Happy Days.

[Scott]

But it's still only. The time period is still only 30.

[Caleb]

35 years from the 70s.

[Scott]

Right?

[Caleb]

Yeah.

[Scott]

Okay, so. But even us in the 70s, it seemed like a whole nother world, and that's not as much the case. So I do think you have this interesting sort of perception. Right. So you have like. I'll go with Adam. Oldish, old and ancient. And I think here we haven't even talked about why you should read them yet. But I think here what you're talking about is some. Is at the very least reading something that's out of your own cultural context. Right. That's not making the same sort of cultural, sociological, political arguments as your current meilu. There you go. Oxfordian. Melo is. Yeah.

[Caleb]

And reason. And realizing that the world you live in is built up from those older ideas, which was built on older ideas, which is, you know, and that this isn't an island. And it also tempers some of our progress.

[Scott]

Right.

[Caleb]

We, we, we tend to believe ourselves very advanced because you have limitless access to information, you have decent health care, your car goes very far.

[Scott]

As for instance, if you read some of the firsthand accounts of the quote, unquote, founding fathers of our country, you'll see that they were concerned about the political stability of the republic. Right. That we have now lived in another 200 plus years as we are sort of concerned, I think, on both sides of the political spectrum about the state of the republic. You might find in there not the exact same arguments you've been looking for from contemporary sources, but people saying very similar things. Can this last? Here are the problems. Why it can't. Interestingly enough, I think a lot of the founding fathers thought that the people, slaveholding founding fathers of the time believed that the people of their time were not virtuous enough to maintain a republic and would say things, you know, like, without virtuous men who have faith in God, a republic is impossible. So that's even just going back to the.

[Caleb]

That's just 200 years.

[Scott]

200 years. Go back farther than that and you'll find the same things. I mean, you read the republic or read, you know, read Cicero's any of the works. Read, read Cicero writing on the idea of duties. Yeah. And you'll. You'll see things that you can apply but that aren't made from the exact, you know, what they call the echo chamber of your day to day sociopolitical life here.

[Adam Francisco]

So an old book is one that has a different. Is not just different in terms of the culture from which it came, but also different in terms of its worldview and so on.

[Scott]

I think so.

[Adam Francisco]

I mean, I like that.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

Because, I mean, I can't remember. I was trying to remember the actual instance, but there was a time where. I don't know if it was at Irvine or where. But there was this guy who was invited to teach for a semester and he lectured with Scott. You and I, we would consider it sort of very normal sort of lecture, you know, where he's on the whiteboard. He probably would have preferred a chalkboard, but he's just writing everywhere and drawing lines, connecting ideas and so on.

[Scott]

And he was talking about to try to do that, but the modern students very much zoned out.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah, well. Well, it. I mean, there's that, but then let's say you're talking about these permanent ideas or these things that have been, you know, held held together for some time. A modern, say, 21st century person who believes that the world is in, you know, very different than the past, that gender is a construct and all these other things is probably considers that classic Christian worldview, which is still very modern for some people, is very dated, very old.

[Caleb]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

You know, I mean, Lewis would call himself a dinosaur.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

And in many ways there are people who are. They're Caleb's, are, as you called him, our baby. He's our millennial baby. He's. He's an old soul. He's. Anything he writes is going to be, in a way, old.

[Scott]

Correct.

[Adam Francisco]

Because it comes from a different posture.

[Scott]

Right.

[Adam Francisco]

He has different politics. He believes in a flat earth.

[Scott]

He's a Christian.

[Caleb]

I do not believe in a flat earth. You guys gotta stop saying that on this show.

[Scott]

I mean, it could be true.

[Caleb]

It's not true. Oh, my gosh. Read an old book, maybe you'll believe in a flat earth.

[Adam Francisco]

Right.

[Scott]

He just advocated for it.

[Caleb]

Oh, man, I'm gonna get crucified.

[Adam Francisco]

We gotta tweet that or Twitter.

[Scott]

You know, our next why you should. It could be why you should believe in a flat earth. And you can get a guest on to make your case for you.

[Caleb]

Oh, boy.

[Adam Francisco]

Okay, so why should we read old books? I was Kind of when you sent the topic for the day, I was wondering if you were wanting to go, if you're wanting to discuss Lewis's intro to on the Incarnation.

[Caleb]

No, I was just sort of came to me because I was thinking of coming off of Lewis and it's so close to, you know, that. That subtitle that he has. But I felt like it was appropriate for the thinking fellows because if I. If I rewind us. Several years back, one of the running themes on the show was book recommendations. I mean, the first year of show notes was often like lines and lines of books. And what we realized is that we were like recommending how you could build a theological library in a lot of ways as we were doing the Lochi series. And part of it was, is that, you know, when you start a podcast, everybody has a podcast. Everybody thinks they've got a brilliant idea. It was a way for the show not to be self referential all the time, that we're just the experts. And I would say loads of the books that we recommended were old books. And so I thought this would be an interesting way to revisit the fact that our number one recommendation to listeners when our 45 minutes of jabbering was over was to go read something.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Caleb]

It was not to stop with the thinking fellows.

[Scott]

Yeah. Well, I could say in sort of. It's funny when C.S. lewis writes on the reading of old books, it's an introduction to Athanasius on the Incarnation, which is a classic work, theological work, attempting to suss out, you know, the. One of the big question. Yeah, One of the big questions of Christian theology is how or why the God Man. Right. How, how or why did God become man? Kind of ringing through John 1, you know, and. And God became flesh and dwelt among us type thing. Regarding theological books, one of the reasons you should read, and probably regarding any old book, one of the reasons you should read an old book, and Lewis talks about this in, in his essay too, is because you'll find out that there's no new idea sort of under the sun, like, especially theologically, that the goal isn't to be creative. The goal really is to be in alignment with the scriptures, even with all.

[Caleb]

Sorts of things, even with scientific ideas. Right. The idea that men could develop a technology that would allow them to fly is not very new. Right. That's not a new idea. And that got more and more sophisticated and perhaps technologically more possible. Yeah, more possible. But the idea of. Or envisioning what it would like for a man to Soar above the clouds is as old as time itself. It's a written.

[Scott]

Probably would have happened, you know, maybe, you know, a thousand years earlier if Rome hadn't fell, you know, all that.

[Caleb]

So that, you know, even scientific ideas are not as new as, as you would think.

[Scott]

No, I mean, part of the Renaissance and Reformation was literally a discovery. Right. In theological circles, we talk a bit about this as a rediscovery of the sources, the ancient sources, the Bible itself too, which sort of led to these theological. We don't even call them discoveries, we call them rediscoveries. Even when we talk about Luther, he didn't discover the gospel, he rediscovered the gospel right through the idea of reading the Scriptures in the, in the original languages. But part of that movement that I'm sure Adam can speak to better than I can was also a rediscovery of art and architecture. Architectural forms and mathematical computations that allowed builders to build, you know, exceedingly large buildings, all of which was lost, you know, at least in places for a period of time. All of this came from old sources. I mean, the Renaissance, I, I think it's safe to say in a lot of ways was as much an architectural rediscovery as it was anything else. Adam, correct me, I think that's true.

[Adam Francisco]

I definitely think that's true. In many ways, the Renaissance is a, an attempt to recreate, cover or rediscover ancient Greece and Rome, not just in terms of ethics or ideas, but also architecture, politics. Think of Machiavelli as the prince, which is sort of like, seen as like the example of medieval political thought, where he draws his cues from, from Livy and other Roman, Roman authors. So it's an attempt to re. Rediscover it, to recover it, but also to in many ways as much as much grief people give Renaissance thinkers like Erasmus, they're trying to fuse it all in with Christianity to make a better Christian civilization, if you will.

[Caleb]

Yeah, I think, I mean, we can try to answer the question with some like, direct answers or some clever answers. There's certainly a couple. And then maybe go off of it. I think the one the we just gave there's nothing new under the sun has a couple of side benefits. It tempers that type of arrogance that Lewis calls chronological snobbery. Right. Thinking that you're, you're so much better than the people that came before you, maybe even just a generation or two before you, you're so much different, you're so much more unique, you have something to offer the world that nobody before you ever did. I think reading old books certainly helps destroy that type of arrogance.

[Scott]

Lewis connects that to the, the reading of new books. Right. When I said already a new book is dangerous because it's still on trial. To that end, Lewis recommends in on the Reading of Old Books that people don't read sort of two new books back to back. But if you read a new book, read an old book, then read an old book, then read a new book, then read an old book. And he even says, well, if you can't manage to pull that off, at least read an old book. Every three new. For every three new books you read. I mean, in some ways, in some ways we could entitled this why you should read books.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Scott]

Because that's sort of.

[Caleb]

It's a lost thing.

[Scott]

It's kind of a lost thing.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Scott]

The buying of books is kept on pretty good. The reading of books has definitely listened.

[Adam Francisco]

But I was thinking back when Kayla was talking about our first year or so when we, when the show notes were just filled with book recommendations or links to Amazon.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

Pages. How you, you and I in many ways kind of learned to teach by watching Dr. Rosenblatt. And you remember how he used to, I mean, he'd be lecturing, then he'd stop and write something on the board and it was always the name and title of a book. And he'd oftentimes had the, the, the publisher and euros published, memorized. Then he'd bring books to class and pass them around as like a show and tell, if you will.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

And I mean, yeah, I, I suspect you do it. I still do it a bit in, in class that I just worried about.

[Caleb]

Getting them back, I'm sure.

[Adam Francisco]

Well, yeah, I don't give, well, I do give books out, but I tell myself every year, do not give books out anymore because you won't get them back. But just this earlier today I was, I'm doing a kind of independent study with two students and we're talking about their research papers. And you know, I'm like writing down titles of books they should look at because they're like essential to whatever they're looking at. And they're looking at me with, with eyes are glazing over. And one of them said, well, I do all my research online.

[Scott]

Oh yeah. Oh my gosh.

[Adam Francisco]

And now that might mean they go to the library electronic database and they pull down PDFs and so on. I suspect it doesn't mean that. It means they're looking at Billy Bob's blog on ancient Persia or whatever that may or may not have good stuff. It's certainly not been through any sort of peer review process.

[Scott]

Well, that's the thing. It may or may not have good stuff. To quote Louis, it's still on trial for sure. And beyond that, it may or may not be cited. Now, it'd be one thing if you were going to that blog and this is like one of the rare blogs that's excessively cited, and then you go check the citations and, you know, make an attempt to make your way through the original sources that Billy Bob used to write his blog on ancient Persia. But that's all, you know, doubtful to some degree. That was that. That was honestly one of the most disappointing things about undergraduate education at the university was just the lack of. Because I too, you know, remember being impressed with Dr. Rosenblatt's ability to remember, like, the year something was published and the publisher and the title and the author and da, da, da, go off it and passing books around. And I tried to do that quite a bit. I still do in the master class. But then you'd sit down and meet, and not only did it seem like the reading of old books was lost, but it would seem like the finding of any book was lost whatsoever. Because, you know, no matter how many times I would even give students books and say, here, it's on this page. And then, you know, I'm sorry, I suspect we can go real dark with this.

[Adam Francisco]

No, I suspect that most our listeners aren't wanting to write a research paper.

[Caleb]

No.

[Adam Francisco]

Maybe some, but, but I, I always wonder, and I, I know the, I can feel the answer. I don't know how best to express it. I guess, you know, why should John, who's an electrician, who's raising kids, maybe two, maybe four, who knows why? And he's, you know, he's busy, gets home from work, he's tired. He's got, he's doing, he's bringing kids.

[Caleb]

To football or why should he bother with any of.

[Adam Francisco]

Why should he bother reading Cicero on duties or Athanasius on the Incarnation?

[Caleb]

So.

[Scott]

Well, I got, I haven't, I haven't answered that for you, Adam.

[Caleb]

Well, I think if we're talking about. Let's assume Joe's listening to the Thinking fellows, right? You're trying to say, John, good job, John.

[Scott]

Yeah, thanks for your support.

[Caleb]

Is a Thinking Fellows listener. And we're saying, hey, you should read something. Why? My guess would be, if you're regular enough listener to pick up this episode and it not be your last Thinking Fellows episode, you're probably in it to learn something every week, right? You're probably in it for the interesting conversation. And because you walk away knowing something that you didn't know or being able to tell something you did know in a new way. And having read increases your ability to have meaningful conversations or build up on that knowledge. Right? This is like students would say, while I was at Concordia, why should I read any of the signed readings? Shouldn't I be able to just go to the lectures? Shouldn't I just go to class? Shouldn't everything I need to know just be at the three hours of class I have a week? Right. That was constant refrain. Why do I have to read? Isn't it the professor's job to teach me this stuff? What you learn is in that hour, which is really 45 minutes of lecturing that you guys would do, which is why the show was originally 45 minutes long, right? You are hoping that the students have read that so that you can increase their connection of that reading material to other things that are going to be happening in class. You can, you can draw on it deeper. You can maybe talk about something that you're not going to assign because it's higher level and connect it to whatever's relevant for the day. And so if you're in, if you're listening to the thinking fellows because it's been engaging and informative and all this thing, all these things, you are likely to learn more. Pick up on hints and cues that we're giving and maybe insider language that will matter to some people and not others, and actually learn more from every episode. If you've read some of the old books that are being referred to, are being referred to, even if not by name all the time. It also increases your ability to have conversations with somebody else who cares about these things because you don't have to go over the 101 every time.

[Scott]

Plus you could look really smart at a cocktail party.

[Adam Francisco]

That's that I think, is read books. You know, instead of asking that beautiful person across the way, notice I was gender neutral there. You know, hey, what's your sign? You can say, hey, what's your epistemology? And that. That's sure to impress.

[Scott]

It sure is. Like, why would the average person care? Now listen, one thing we're always, we're constantly concerned about lately are elections, right? And the results of elections. Because everybody is, everybody is. And it's been so turbulent and weird over the last, you know, 150 years. But why not then see what one of the greatest thinkers in all of history has to say on that. And go to your Barnes and Noble and pull a little book off the shelf by Quintus Tullius Cicero, who was a Roman statesman and battlefield commander and senator and just great political and philosophical thinker, and read his little book on how to win an election to know how people have begged, borrow, stolen, and cheated throughout all history to get elected to public office.

[Caleb]

That's an amazing one. Right? Because if you realize, if you're in my generation, people have only cared about elections for the last two because that's all I've been able to vote in. Right. So not very long. And if you listen to somebody's opinion, often strong opinion, who has only cared about elections for maybe four years, they never gave it a thought. And the first time they ever thought about it, they're a genius with all the answers, who knows everything that was right and wrong with this given election and how this is unprecedented and unheard of and this and that. You realize they're ridiculous. I mean, you could, you read Cicero, you could read the Founding Fathers and.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah.

[Caleb]

And if you've actually read any of that, realize how ridiculous American politics have been since day one.

[Scott]

You will see in how to Win an Election by Quintus Tully Cicero, that, that he warns about making promises to people who will remember those promises and says it's basically okay to make general promises to the, to the population, to the populace, because they're not going to remember after you get elected. Right. So, and then you wonder, why do politicians do that to that? Well, they're just taking Cicero's advice, you know, from the, from the times of Rome. Now, if you don't care about politics. Right. Some people don't. Everybody cares about when you get to be mine and Adam's age, everybody cares about getting old. So you could then go down to your Barnes and Noble and pick off off the Shelf how to Grow Old by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who was Quintus Tullius Cicero's brother, as he writes this, as a letter to his senatorial brother, as his brother is thinking about retiring and getting old and kind of gives him sage advice on how to grow old gracefully. Right. That concerns everybody. Now, if you listen to one of the next shows that we're going to do, which is probably going to be something like why you should learn an ancient language. The benefit of these two physical books is that you have the Latin on one side and the English on the other. So if you are trying to pick up Latin, it'll help you study your Latin too.

[Caleb]

Yeah. Now I do think, Adam, they're both.

[Scott]

Actually really good books, by the way.

[Caleb]

Yeah.

[Scott]

Just throwing that out there.

[Caleb]

No, it's kind of fun reading old books as you sit and think and make the connections to your life today. It's a lot more work than when somebody's telling you from today how to think about today, than when you can actually connect the ideas yourself. And in that way, reading old books helps with your, your critical thinking and your logic skills. Right. It takes you, we, we've talked about types of reasoning before. It takes you past consequential reasoning, which is where. Right. Some people are, are very stuck. Right where the, the, the number one consideration or maybe the only consideration for choosing to do X or Y is the harshest. You know, the types of personal consequences rather than running it through a more complex series of connected ideas. Something like having to think about how does Cicero relate to an American election versus reading a pundit tell you what to think about this election?

[Scott]

Right.

[Caleb]

Can help that critical thinking.

[Scott]

What are, you know, beyond all the modern fads about getting old, you could find that Marcus Tully Cicero has some very good advice for somebody like Adam who is struggling with the fact that his 18 year old son.

[Adam Francisco]

17.

[Scott]

17 year old son is now much, much stronger than him and could easily whoop his behind if he ever decided to. You find fact. Yeah. It's a fact that Marcus Tully Cicero says this. I no longer wish for the strength of youth. As you recall, he says that was the second objection to growing older that we listed any more than when I was a young man, I desired the strength of a bull or an elephant. People should use the strength they have appropriately, whatever their age. See, that should help Adam.

[Adam Francisco]

Not helpful. My back's a little sore because I was in the garage trying to catch up with my son this morning. But no, that is helpful. And I asked the question way back when, what, 10 minutes ago. Rhetorically. But at the same time, you know, one of the things I, when Scott, I guess you probably get this too when you're going around doing your talks, your or more seminar style things. People, you know, you're dropping names of books and stuff and people are asking not necessarily why, why should I bother reading this, that and the other thing, but they're kind of asking those sorts of questions. You know, there is a. Among Christians and it's been, I think a long time. I don't know when Mark Noll wrote the scandal the Evangelical Mind, I think it was like in the late 80s. But he, he made, he Argued that the, the real scandal of the, the evangelical, that is the conservative Protestant mind is that it has no mind that the.

[Scott]

Has no past.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah. There's this sort of anti intellectualism especially in American Christianity that in some way, maybe it's a small way, has led to the culture not to take Christianity very seriously.

[Scott]

Yeah, I think one of the things that's dangerous societally in general. We were talking about, I was talking about this with our friend Kurt at dinner last night or the night before. I don't remember.

[Adam Francisco]

You probably don't remember because you're getting old too. Just a little reminder.

[Scott]

Yeah, well, I need to reread how to Grow Old because I read it like 10 years ago when I was younger. But the. There is no sort of sense of meaning or past beyond our own lives right now and everything, you know, there's nothing in our lives that are, that's, that's penultimate and thus everything's ultimate. Right. You even see this in our political conversations. I don't, I'm not going to take a stand on sort of the man caused global warming thing here issue here. But I would say that the price we've paid of making that an ultimate existential crisis. Right.

[Caleb]

The end of the world.

[Scott]

The end of the world is that now we have going on an actual existential crisis that is sort of butting heads with the former existential crisis. That is everybody wants to support Ukraine in general. I'm just, I'm talking to common consensus here. I'm not talking about my opinion or your opinion or whatever, but common consensus is support for Ukraine and that Russia should be sanctioned. Right. That runs headlong into the fact that as a result of sort of the idea that global warming is an existential crisis, we shouldn't be producing our own, our own fuel and our own oil. And so what do you do when you cut, rush off our gas prices go up and now there's this like conflict between the two ultimate crises. My only point not to take a side on those things necessarily, but is to say if not everything were an ultimate crisis, you could sort of like you could make a decision and you could use sort of other sources to help you decide what is an ultimate crisis and what isn't. The problem now, I think is that everything's an ultimate crisis because there's nothing that came before us. There's nothing more meaningful than us. And then everything's based just on our sort of opinion of the fleeting research that we get day by day on a particular subject that is in air quotes or as they say at Oxford in inverted commas research.

[Caleb]

Well, an ultimate crisis gets us to that level of reasoning again, that consequential reasoning is from the top down. If you can make everything an ultimate crisis, you've made it the scariest consequence, you've made it the worst consequences.

[Scott]

What happens when another scariest consequence comes along? Yeah, if you read some old sources.

[Caleb]

You'Ll find out that one of those is not.

[Scott]

The consequences have come along throughout all of human history and not yet has one of them shown to be ultimate. Some have been very bad, right? World War I, very bad. World War II, very bad. Many wars before those wars, very bad. All on smaller scales because of the lack of technology to kill people as effectively we did in those other two wars, but still very bad.

[Caleb]

Famine, very bad, you know, pestilence, it.

[Scott]

You know, devastates a third of the population of Europe. Very bad. Yeah, but we're all still here, right? They didn't. They. They were all, in a sense, penultimate. They weren't ultimate. And it is some chronological snobbery to believe that the evil of your moment.

[Caleb]

Is the ultimate and that everything else.

[Scott]

Was not, and that everything else was, want was not. But you probably don't know about everything else, is my point. If you don't take in some old sources. Yeah, you won't know about those. You live as a sort of materialist in your time, and you can't argue for anything that's more than you or anything that came before you.

[Adam Francisco]

Word.

[Caleb]

Not bad.

[Scott]

Thanks.

[Caleb]

Not bad. Well, guys, any closing remarks that is 40 minutes. I'm in agreement here. Conversations are much more interesting. People's questions, like for the podcast, are. You're able to give deeper answers if somebody can indicate that they've read some other things. Right. Whereas if somebody indicates that the question or their thinking of it has only come from, say, the listening of a podcast or from their pastor at their church or something like this, the answer has to be much more tempered or has to be much more 101, because you have to try to lay out some. Some groundwork. And so I, I don't know. I think part of the argument for it is there's a type of growth or there's a type of conversation and fulfillment and experience handling and dealing with ideas that is enhanced if, if you've read some old books, I don't know.

[Scott]

I don't know how you can ever have a judgment that the end of the world is coming if you haven't read about all the people in the past who Thought the end of the world was coming. And yet the end of their world came before the end of the world came.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah. Yeah. People, ourselves included, need perspective.

[Scott]

Yeah.

[Adam Francisco]

And reading old books, reading history, so on, will give you reading old literature a much bigger, broader, I would say liberal in the sense of free perspective. You're not bound to the, to the whatever's current or the fleeting chaos of the moment. I've been kind of. Actually, you use the word penultimate, Scott, which is a very, Not a very Oxfordian word, but a great word. I've been thinking about Christ and culture, the way Christians are in, but not of the world lately. And one, you know, there's a, There's a lot of. There's one tradition. Lutherans tend to fall into this where they don't get all wrapped up in what's going on currently. You know, at least looking at the tradition from a longer perspective than just now. And there's a good reason for that and legitimate reason in that this world is passing.

[Scott]

Yes. And will end when God says it ends.

[Adam Francisco]

Yeah. And while we have kids, we have obligations on earth with our children, our parents and other neighbors that we have relationships with. And we take those things seriously, but not so seriously that it would distract us from the ultimate, the telos, the end that we're all aiming towards. And that's as. Speaking of an old author, St. Augustine in the City of God would refer to eternal blessedness. When we, when our pilgrimage here on earth is. Is done and we, We. We go to our reward earned for us by, By Jesus on the cross at Calvary.

[Scott]

Well, you can even. We should probably wrap up. But you can even learn from reading the old books, sort of pagan and Christian, the idea that of why you. Let's say you have a very strong modern opinion about whatever political, social, political issue. I don't give crap, whatever it is. But you can learn from these old sources why that position may or may not be a virtuous position indeed, you know, and sort of work through that on a level that's not just emotional, but you can only do that if you make access of.

[Caleb]

It's harder to make good decisions if you're making them alone or if you, or if it's. Or if you believe it's the first time anybody's had to make that decision. This is why you would ask. This is why if you're a new parent and you're having a problem, you would ask your parents for help. Right. You would ask your parents for advice. Even if you think that your parents didn't do a perfect job if you hit.

[Scott]

They had done it.

[Caleb]

They have done it. Yeah, exactly. They've had to make the difficult decision before.

[Scott]

Even ask them to tell the story of what they did. In making the decision, you can then have information with which to decide whether you want to do the same thing or not.

[Caleb]

Right.

[Adam Francisco]

Life gets better. The world might get a tad bit better if we stood on the shoulder of the shoulders of giants instead of reinventing the wheel all the time.

[Scott]

Amen to that. That's a good place to end.

[Caleb]

Very nice. Well, guys, thank you for listening to this episode. Hopefully afterwards you're in courage to pick up an old book or two. This is I hope to be a pretty long running series and I think there's some great ideas to get in here. If you think there's one that you might like us to cover that we might not think of, you can send that in to the show. There's a contact form at the bottom of the [e-mail]. Thank you for listening. We will catch you next time. Bye. It.