Happy Feast Day of one of my Favorite Saints - Thomas Aquinas!

St. Thomas Aquinas is definitely one of my favorite saints, if not my favorite. I don't like being too committal on something like that! Aquinas isn't just another saint (as if there is such a thing). He is a pre-eminent saint. He is a doctor of the Church but in my opinion, easily one of the top. His Summa Theologiae is definitely the most used extra-biblical source within Catholicism when it comes to issues of morality, theology, and various other Catholic topics.

I went to Mass today and the priest mentioned something about Aquinas which I think we sometimes forget. We know he had a towering intellect (I'll get into that more later), but he was also an extremely holy and devout mystic. Yes, a mystic. We rarely think of him in those terms. In fact, all too often we implicitly seem to categorize saints as either mystical or intellectual. Both of these characteristics are wonderful and important, but we shouldn't always make such black and white distinctions.

It's actually quite an amazing thing when one thinks about it. There isn't a dichotomy between faith and reason in any way. In fact, as we can see from the example of Thomas Aquinas, one only strengthens the other. A false dichotomy often put forth by secular society is between "spiritual" and "religious", implying that to be spiritual means to not be preoccupied by all the "rules". I explained in a previous blog why this is a false dichotomy. An example of this is the common expression among traditional Catholics of Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, which essentially translates to the way we pray is the way we believe.

Perhaps it doesn't fit perfectly but I think that expression does tell us something. To know God is to love God. I think that's the point from which St. Thomas comes. He helps us to better understand God and his will so that we can love him ever more fully.

To me, this comes up when understanding various concepts within the faith. If we do not have a good grasp of these concepts, we can be easily led astray. For example, knowing what true humility or true patience entail will lead us to be holier and better people. If we operate under a false idea of what these terms mean, then we can be led into bad areas without even knowing it.

The same goes for the nature of God Himself. If we have an insufficient, incorrect, or outright heretical viewpoint of God and His Nature, we can easily fall into sin and error. Ultimately we cannot be happy in this state.

St. Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274, around 800 years ago, yet his teachings have stood the test of time ever since then. This further bolsters the fact that his ideas are perennial, and not shifting as with the current moral relativism. Truth is truth and it doesn't change. Over all the centuries and through all the various peoples of the Earth, these truths speak to us. St. Thomas has stood the test of time and we can fully trust in what he is saying.

I mention this because I feel that we as fallible human beings can easily fall into error. Often this is not deliberate, it is just a sort of dulling of the sword. We inadvertently fall into sin through many small, poor decisions. Because of faulty philosophy and theology, people can be led astray. This is why we need teachers (or "doctors" in Latin) to guide us. We know that by listening to such men and women, we are listening to God through them and not to our own fallen desires.

On an intellectual level, I find St. Thomas to be an unparalleled resource. He speaks on so many different subjects, and yet there is consistency. This is impressive given the fact that his Magnus Opus, The Summa Theologiae (sometimes written as Summa Theologica) is 3x bigger than the entire Holy Bible! It would be difficult to write even a few pages without having some inconsistencies, but St. Thomas was able to achieve this in such a large tome - obviously with God's help.

I am not suggesting that St. Thomas was infallible in everything he said. He is probably the most complete theologian in the Church's history, but he did make some small errors. Only the Church is guaranteed the charism of infallibility by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Despite the fact that Thomas had one of the greatest intellects of all time, he was one of the most humble men as well. There are many stories of his humility. I will attempt to recount one of them. As a child in school, he spoke so infrequently that people assumed he was dumb, both literally (unable to speak) and in the modern-day meaning of being stupid. His nickname, in fact, was the "Dumb Ox". The idea that he wasn't the best student was so widely believed, that his teacher St. Albert hired a tutor to help out this poor, dumb, child Thomas. Yet, soon after beginning to teach the young Thomas, the tutor, astounded by the boy's brilliance, did something spectacular: he asked, in his own humility, if St. Thomas would switch roles with him and become his tutor.

Later in life, St. Thomas (who is said to have never committed a mortal sin) was praying when he had a profound mystical experience which caused him to declare that all his magnificent writings were but straw. This is not to be misinterpreted to mean that his writings were false or unimportant. Rather, compared to a direct experience of union with God, his writings were infinitely less significant. This shows his holiness and humility.

I could go on and on in writing about this great saint. In this day and age of confusion and relativity, we need St. Thomas Aquinas all the more!

Don't get your religion from scientists

Some letters from Einstein were sold recently at an auction. In these letters, Einstein criticizes Jewish and Christian religion, peppering his letter with comments about superstition, etc. This was publicized in the news.

We shouldn't listen to scientists when it comes to religion. It doesn't make sense. Scientists think in terms of science. They use physical evidence to prove something. Each scientist has a particular field, some are chemists, some are biologists, some computer scientists. They have a particular area in which they feel comfortable.

A computer scientist could not be a biologist because their way of thinking is too different. A computer scientist thinks in terms of wires and electrons and commands, whereas a biologist thinks about animals, cells, organs, behavior, and things of that sort. A biologist might be able to understand medicine better than electricity.

In the same way, scientists in general behave a certain way and shouldn't be trusted to understand religion or theology or God very deeply. It is simply a different skill set. You can't pull out your calculator and calculate how large God is. But for certain scientists, especially ones like Albert Einstein, who really excelled in certain areas, they are good at certain things and not as good at others.

Einstein was good with a calculator, but he may not have been too good at sports. Therefore, he would end up on the basketball court trying to calculate trajectory, while the other players were scoring baskets. The same goes for religion. Einstein was not predisposed to understand religion and God. However, it is important to note that Einstein was certainly a theist, which is important to remember.

I think the confusion of this comes from the fact that some people think that religion is something anyone is entitled to just invent as they see fit. This is simply not true. Originally theology was considered the highest form of education, and things like literature, science, and law were considered inferior. The most advanced degrees, which took the longest to acquire, were religious ones. Philosophers of a bygone era were much more revered than any other field. That's because there is a right and there is a wrong. The job of theologians is to find out the truth, and there's nothing more important!

Moral Relativism vs. Moral Absolutism

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before the papal conclave gathered to elect a new pope, made a speech about the Catholic Church and the world. He said we as citizens must seek to avoid the "dictatorship of relativism". I have been reading a book called A Refutation of Moral Relativism, put together by Peter Kreeft. The following is a short essay of mine of why moral relativism is untenable.

Slavery is wrong, as is murder. Most people accept these. But, how do these people know these things are true? Someone told them, but who told the tellers? Eventually it comes from reason. Each person possesses reason; each has a conscience. How can an action be judged as right or wrong? We must appeal to an authority, and that authority is natural law.

Natural law is as strong and binding as physical laws such as gravity and energy. They do not depend on our interpretation or feelings, they exist independently. Murder is wrong regardless. It doesn’t matter how angry we are, how much higher our status is than the victim’s, it makes no difference how much the person “deserves” it, because it is inherently wrong. Sometimes however, this distinction is hard to make, and we cannot determine ourselves right from wrong.

Most people nowadays accept that slavery is wrong and an affront to each person’s dignity as a human being. It cannot be accepted. But what if you were to speak to someone from 300 years ago who owned slaves. You two could argue about whether or not owning a slave is right or wrong. But the truth cannot have it both ways, truth can only be one. Truth never has and never will change. Your opinion is not the truth, your status does not give you the truth, the truth is the truth, and exists independently. If morals are not based on an absolute truth, what are they based on? The only alternative is a relative truth. This, by definition, is a truth which one person accepts, but someone else may reject. It comes down to opinions. In one person’s opinion, slavery is right, in another’s, it is wrong. So who’s right? According to relative morality, either could be or simple is correct. This makes no sense. You have an opinion, but an opinion cannot be an opinion about an opinion, an opinion is an opinion about the truth. Therefore, you must discover the truth in order to determine if your opinion is right. Your opinion could be wrong.

You cannot simply say something is wrong, especially if you admit you do not know. You just have to sit back and watch things happen and hope they turn out for the best. The only model which you sanction is anarchy. You can accept your own opinions, but you must then also accept everyone else’s, no matter how much they offend you. Otherwise, you are saying that a relative morality applies to you, but that an absolute morality applies to everyone else’s. In other words, you have to accept that a person owns a slave, because in their opinion or their own “personal” morals, that is alright. If you say they should not own a slave, you are overriding their moral perspective, and appealing to a superseding value which surpasses this person’s belief. Therefore you are appealing to something greater than personal relative morality; you are appealing to an objective, transcendent morality. You have two options: you can admit there is an absolute morality, or you can maintain a relative morality, but by doing so you must accept everyone else’s behavior and morals. Law enforcement cannot stop them from doing something, because that would be saying your morals are more worthy than the other person’s morals. You could only do something personally to rectify the situation. Saying something is right or wrong would not be valid either, because you would have to admit that you did not know, and you could not impose your personal morals on anyone else. You could at most say, “I do not personally believe that is right”. Only when you admit that there is a natural law, one which is above personal opinion and beliefs, one which is unchanging, can you claim that an action is morally right or wrong.

The God of Reason

Christians, and particularly Catholics, believe in a God of reason, as opposed to a God of pure will without reason. We are to submit ourselves to God's will, but his will and reason are perfectly aligned. This doctrine is very beneficial to our religion as a whole, because it allows for thing such as justice and peace on Earth. In this short essay, I will briefly describe why this is the case.

As Catholics, we believe there are two sources of information from which a person can live his life. The first is natural law, or reason, which is within all people. The other is revealed truth, which is truth given to us by God, in various forms, including the Bible, the Church, the teachers of the church or Magisterium, which includes the Pope, Bishops, etc., as well as information obtained from ecumenical councils, and similar meetings.

Revealed truths cannot necessarily be ascertained through reason alone. It is important to understand also that revealed truth does not contradict reason, for they both contain truth.

Believing God to be the God of reason is important in how we live our lives. Believing that we can know things through our own minds is very important. This allows us to explore nature and discover scientific information and come to conclusions about nature. It allows us to know whether something is just or unjust, as well as how to treat one another. Many horrible things have been done in the name of religion, and sometimes these things have been done by people who have rejected reason. They do things in the "name of religion", as if religion was commanding them to behave in a certain way, despite how they personally felt about it. They may say they were opposed to it personally, but had to become somehow God had commanded them to do this. This is sort of like suicide bombers. Obviously, it goes against reason to be a suicide bomber for two reasons. First of all, we should not desire to kill ourselves, and secondly because we should not desire to kill others, especially innocent people. Reason would caution us against doing such a thing, whereas someone might look in the Bible or other holy book and based on their own personal interpretation think that God requires this action from us, even though it makes no moral sense. God is ultimately just, and would not want us to commit an unjust and immoral act, such as killing innocent people.

As an example of the negative impact of denying reason, we can look to Muslim Extremists, who promote such things as suicide bombings, etc. They reject reason, saying the only thing they can really know is God's pure will, which they say is impossible to understand, therefore should not be questioned at all or even understood. This position can lead to some very dangerous acts. People stop questioning whether something is right or wrong and instead rely on others to tell them what to do. They blindly commit crimes against humanity, without listening to their own reason. This point of view has lead to many problems, especially in the Muslim world. Around a thousand years ago, the Muslim world was flourishing with many discovers in science, the arts, mathematics, and other areas. This was possible because God was viewed as the essence of reason, and it was believed that humanity could possess reason as well. This knew that humans could know things such as science, math, arts, etc. In fact, Muslims, in many ways, especially the sciences were more advanced than Christianity. St. Mark's Cathedral was constructed mostly by Muslims nearly 1,000 years ago in Venice. I will discuss this in another blog posting.

This opinion and way of life however was conquered by Muslims who felt that we as humans could know nothing except the will of God, which might seem pleasant or scary for humans, but which only made sense to God. By abandoning reason, they essentially abandoned God's gift of understanding and violence took over.

Many evils in the world could be prevented if people used the reason God gave them. Deep down, I believe everyone knows that killing unborn children is wrong, for example. I will discuss this topic further in another blog, but I think people have abandoned their reason on this topic, and their own human ability to understand good from evil. We must all be careful to use reason when making decisions. Pray that God may impart true reason and love into our minds and hearts so that we may always do what the God of Reason and Loves wants of us.