We will resume the podcasts on Sunday. (They only give you so many minutes per month.)
So far, we have covered…
1. The basic project of Book IV of Summa Contra Gentiles. That is, to clarify the truths we Christians believe by divine faith that transcend reason, and to defend them from apparently reasonable objections.
2. Sacred Scripture reveals that the eternal Father has begotten the eternal Son, as we confess in the Nicene Creed.
3. The Adoptionists, Sabellians, and Arians misunderstood Scriptural teaching on this. Their errors led to further clarification of what precisely the Bible teaches us about God.
4. Reasonable minds raise good objections to the doctrine of the divine generation of a Son by the Father.
5. The “psychological analogy” can help us understand what we mean by the Father generating the Son.
…St. Thomas will go on to use the psychological analogy to resolve the objections that remain unanswered. Then we will move on to the Holy Spirit.
It’s hard work, to be sure, understanding St. Thomas’ ideas. Listening and re-listening to these podcasts is like long-term training for a marathon. But, IMHO, great spiritual gain comes from the pain involved in the strain when we train our minds like this.
Thank you Father Mark for taking on this project. I bought the book and my learning style is to read along with your audio and I seem to be grasping it pretty well. What a mind God gave St. Thomas Aquinas!