Hello everyone, I hope you guys are well because today we're going to have a discussion hellthread
on G. K. Chesterton's book of St. Thomas Aquinas. Since you guys have been reading the book I will cut it short: this book is a short introduction on St. Thomas's life. But do not be deceived, this book doesn't only contain the life of St. Thomas but also Chesterton's critique agaist the modern world and his philosophy. This 94 pages book brings more than what you would expect from an an introduction.To open the discussion, I will bring out questions. The first one is: Apart from being a biography of St. Aquinas, what other themes do you think were central to the book?
As always be civil or and enjoy the discussion #bookclub
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1. Apart from being a biography of St. Aquinas, what other themes do you think were central to the book?
- Placing 13th Century Christendom within the contxt of wider society. The opening chapters, showing Aquinas' family as archetypal medieval aristocracy, brought out how heterogeneous and hierarchical this society was; today, although we are more specialised in our vocations, almost all of us fall into some variation of the 9-5 homo economicus; even politicians and billionaires are roped into a somewhat homogenous post-modern secularism. The background of the 13th century threw this into sharp relief.
- Aquinas' virtues of Humility, Faith and Reason:
- Humility is presented somewhat differently to how we see it nowadays. Instead of the cringing obedience and weakness that modern society associates with humility, there is an unassuming air, a respect for one's limits in knowledge and capability, and a sense that one's persepctives and opinions should not be pressed upon others without sufficient justification.
- Faith is something very difficult for us to understand, and it is hard to place within our modern context. In the case of Aquinas it seems to be a gift of divine grace, inborn. It is difficult not to envy this in him. I don't know about you guys, but it almost makes me wish I were Catholic. This is not a simple choice to be made, it seems. Faith is faith - although perhaps Aquinas' aim is to convert?
- Reason, Chesterton argues, is absent from modern discourse, and it is hard to see how things have gotten any better. Systematic application of reason to life, in the service of a single, unitive philosophy, is both incredibly and appealing and seemingly incredible in the world we now live in. From where we stand, Aquinas' time must seem far simpler and perhaps this is some of his appeal; the vast breadth of modern knowledge beggars belief that one man could credibly bring it under his aegis and impose a system. That being said, human life may have changed at the extremes but there is little that is not conditioned by the human condition; there is good reason to use the philosophy of Aquinas, setting questions of religious belief to one side, as a bedrock and foundation for understanding the kernel of life.
Now you are making me want to read into his virtues here.
It's strange how we now live in a different era despite living in the same world with the same human condition. Things are the same around us but our society is different. That it is more difficult to have faith, that we have redefined things like humility to be a bad thing. Sometimes I, too, wish that I could believe in these things. That it wasn't so difficult to have faith. I live in a world that has decided that god is dead and faith is obsolete. It's hard to reconcile with it all. Even religion has decided that rather than focusing on faith, it has become worldly instead. So going to some churches, I get very similar global messages.
These ideas about humility and faith remind me of how C.S Lewis describes the four loves, in particular the idea of charity and how it relates to love.
Hello bookfriends,
the conversation might have started a bit slow but it came to be very interesting.
I'm thinking we should post the rest of the questions, see if there's any more interest and take it from there.
3. What's your impression of the journey of St. Thomas?
4. Do you think that there can be Saints in the modern age?
5. What did you think of Chesterton's writing style and him as an author? Would you read any other books of his?
Having every member participate in the discussion threads, to the extent everyone feels comfortable to, is very important since it would not only make for a great group read but it would also elevate the Club to something more than simple parallel reading, it'd transform it into a community.
Thank you for you attention.
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4. Do you think that there can be Saints in the modern age?
I think Saints are defined within a Christian context, and while we might see more Christian Saints, they may not have the impact that they had in the past.
Without a centralising philosophy or religion, value judgements become far more fluid and thus it's difficult for an individual to exemplify what a culture needs at a given time - there are tens if not hundreds of interwoven cultures, each of which may pass like ships in the night with respect to their own saints, see Linus or RMS who come close to saints in the open source world but outside few have heard of them
And I don't think you can describe RMS or Linus as Saints because their influence doesn't have the totalising effect of St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Francis. Or perhaps that's just a contemporary illusion?
If RMS and Linus are Tech Saints, what does a Pagan Saint look like? was Nietzsche a Saint for those who would combat nihilism?
Every era has saints. It's harder to build the legend these days though, there's too much noise to signal
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