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If we want to see what the implications of the reformation were for the reason/faith problem, we get little help from the 95 theses. We still need to look at Luther, but we need to look at those points in his theology that deal explicitly with the nature of faith, authority, scripture, and reason.

References used in episode:

“A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians”, Martin Luther.

“Address To The Nobility of the German Nation” (1520), Martin Luther.

“Commentary on Genesis, Vol. I, Luther on the Creation”, Martin Luther, Project Gutenberg, Trans. by John Nicholas Lenker.

“Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” 1517, Martin Luther.

“Reason and Faith in Luther”, in Reason and Belief, Brand Blanshard, based on Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews and Noble Lectures at Harvard.

-"Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages," A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

-Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes.

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You can follow me on Instagram @juan.p.alcala or on Facebook @jalcala9.

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We now have to make the transition from the middle ages to the early modern period. In this episode, I'll give an over view of humanism, one of the major cultural movements at the end of the middle ages.

Quotes from the episode:

Aquinas quoting Augustine: “God has proved to us how high a place human nature holds amongst creatures, inasmuch as He appeared to men as a true man.”

First quote from Oration on the Dignity of Man:“But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand — since we have been born into this condition of being what we choose to be — that we ought to be sure above all else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of Asaph the Prophet, “You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,” might rather be true; and finally that we may not, through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing.”

From Erasmus's The Praise of Folly:“Let him buy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is no living in this world, and you'll say this piece of wisdom were rather a stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or friends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives a course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is impossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the great diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to fools?"

Second quote from Oration on the Dignity of Man:“All those who attach themselves to one or another of the philosophers, to Thomas, for instance or Scotus, who at present enjoy the widest following, can indeed test their doctrine in a discussion of a few questions. By contrast, I have so trained myself that, committed to the teachings of no one man, I have ranged through all the masters of philosophy, examined all their works, become acquainted with all schools. As a consequence, I have had to introduce all of them into the discussion lest, defending a doctrine peculiar to one, I might seem committed to it and thus to deprecate the rest.”

Episode references:

-Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, Kindle Edition.
-Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, The University of Adelaide Library, Kindle Edition.
-Johan Huizinga. Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, Kindle Edition.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q.75, Arts.1-4.
-Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, Q.1, Art.2.
-Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, Seventh Edition, 2003.

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I’ve asked my Patreon supporters to send in their questions about any of the material we’ve covered so far, and they did. So this episode will address their specific questions, and I think it will be valuable to all of you listening, since their questions may very well be your own.

A word about Patreon. Patreon is a platform that allows projects like mine to recruit financial support from those who see the work I do as valuable or as beneficial to their own lives. This characterizes my listeners. Out of their belief that the ideas I work through in this podcast are valuable, they generously partner with me to make the production of the podcast possible.

I am grateful to them. In response, I do my best to give them access to extra features that aren’t available to the general public. This includes occasional bonus episodes and, as reflected in this episode, the ability to send me questions that I will explicitly address.

Many of you may know that I’m in graduate school, that I work part-time, that my wife works full-time, that she and I have a 20-month-old son who keeps our lives full, and that I’m involved in several other projects that fill my days. I’m thankful for all of this, really, but it does ensure that the podcast doesn’t always receive the attention I want it to. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and have found value in it, would you consider supporting it financially? On the Patreon platform, you’ll find the options to give $1, $5, or $10 per month. Your support will help me keep the podcast going and to make it better.

If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account, which you can find here or at juanpalcala.com/podcast.

Resources used in this episode:

-"The Influence of Aquinas," Christopher Upham, The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas.

-"Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages," A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

-Pensées, Blaise Pascal.

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Aquinas’s legacy is as one who tried to show a compatibility between Aristotle’s system of thought and Christian teaching, defining the borders between reason and faith.

One of the easiest ways to see how Aquinas does this is to notice how he divides two concepts: these concepts are (1) the preambles of faith and (2) the mysteries of faith. The preambles of faith are those aspects of knowledge of the created order that are available to the unguided human reason, whereas the mysteries are those parts of Christian teaching the rely on divine revelation.

References used in this episode:

-"Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages". A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

-Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

-The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

Extended quotations in episode:

From Summa (see citation above) pg. 61:

Question, 12, Article 12: “It seems that we cannot know God in this life.”

Aquinas's response:

“Our natural knowledge takes its beginning from sense. Hence, our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. But our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God, because the sensible effects of God do not equal the power of God as their cause. Hence from the knowledge of sensible things the whole power of God cannot be known; nor therefore can his essence be seen. But because they are his effects and depend on their cause, we can be led from them so far as to know of God whether he exists, and to know of him what must necessarily belong to him as the first cause of all things, exceeding all things caused by him. Hence we know of His relationship with creatures that he is the cause of them all; also that creatures differ from him, since he is not in any way part of what is caused by him; and that creatures are not removed from him by reason of any defect on his part, but because he superexceeds them all.”

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode nine of a series on reason and desire.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account, the link to which can also be found at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @juan.p.alcala or on Facebook @jalcala9.

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In this episode, I share with you one of Bonaventure’s sermons, which, I think, gives us a good idea of how Bonaventure thought about the roles of philosophy and theology. It will also show us how he thought about the problem of certainty.

Link to the sermon is here.I meant to post all the passages I quote here, but I'm limited in how much I can add. So I've eliminated the longest passages (the first and the last) and provided instead the timestamp and the place in the text where they show up. Enjoy.

2:15 - Section 1, p. 1.

7:40 - “There would be no authority, unless revelation had preceded it.”

9:13 - “Every (something), which is known, is in itself necessary and to the very knower certain.”

9:57 - “Since, therefore, things have ‘being’ in their own genus, they also have ‘being’ in the Eternal Reason; nor is their ‘being’ entirely immutable in the first and second manner, but only in the third, that is, insofar as they are in the eternal Word: it remains, that nothing can make things perfectly knowable, unless Christ, the Son of God and Master, be there.”

12:39 - “There is also required, second, for cognition of this kind, certitude on the part of the knower. But this (certitude) cannot be on the part of that, which can fail, and/or from that light, which can be obscured. Moreover, the light of such (a cognition) is not the light of the created intelligence, but of the uncreated Wisdom, which is Christ.”

15:01 - “God gave me true knowledge of those things, which are, that I may know the disposition of the world and the virtues of the elements, the start and the consummation and middle of the seasons.”

15:54 - “Just as the Earth could not be seen except it be brightened by light, so those things which are handed down in the (academic) disciplines, though everyone without doubt concedes that they are to be most true, it must be believed, that they could not be understood, unless they were brightened by Him as if by their sun.”

19:09 - “Therefore invoking Jesus, the Light of the Father, which is indeed the True (Light), which illumines every man coming into this world, through which to the principle Light, the Father, we have access, we look back, as much as is possible, into the illuminations of the most sacred utterances, handed down from the Father, and we will consider, as such as we are able, the hierarchies of the celestial souls, manifested symbolically and anagogically to us by these (illuminations), (as we) look back to the principle and super principle Divine Clarity of the Father with the immaterial and untrembling eyes of our mind.”

21:53 - “From the aforesaid, therefore, there appears, the order by which and the author by whom one arrives at wisdom. For the order is, to begin from the stability of the Faith and proceeds through the serenity of reason, to arrive at the savoriness of contemplation.”

23:51 - “Moreover that He be called the reason of understanding, must be sanely understood, not that He be the sole, nor the bare, nor the whole reason of understanding. For if He were the sole reason, cognition of science would not differ from the cognition of Wisdom, nor cognition in the Word from cognition in the proper genus.”

26:10 - Section 18, p. 9.

References used in this episode:

-Cullen, Christopher M., Bonaventure, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

-St. Bonaventure, “Christ, The One Master Of All", Translated from the Quaracchi Edition of the Opera Omnia S. Bonaventurae Vol. V, 1891, pp. 567-574, with original notes.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode eight of a series on reason and desire. If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes.

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The next step in this project is to consider a movement of thought that occurred in the late middles ages and which will help us better understand how the middles ages understood the relationship between reason and faith: scholasticism. Its key representative is Saint Thomas Aquinas who lived through the middle years of the XIII century, but in this episode we'll take a look at one of Aquinas's contemporaries, Saint Bonaventure.

Bonaventure’s intuition, unlike Aquinas's, was to reject Aristotle altogether, since he thought certain aspects of Aristotle’s thought went against Christian theology. Despite this rejection, he did engage with Aristotle in substantial ways.

The Plato/Aristotle debates of the XIII century are another important step in our effort to identify the course of reason from classical antiquity to the present.

Episode resources:

-Cullen, Christopher M., Bonaventure, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

-Glavin, Leonard, "A Comparison Between the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure on Mary, the Mother of God," Marian Library Studies: 29 (2015).

-Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

-“Socrates to Sartre and Beyond,” Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode seven of a series on reason and desire.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account or at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @juan.p.alcala or on Facebook @jalcala9.

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In this episode, we’ll consider two ideas that Anselm developed using both the tools of theology and of philosophy. But to understand exactly how reason is being handled during this time, we need to look not only to Anselm’s arguments themselves, but also to his attitude about them.

Anselm provides an in-depth look at the medieval impulse to reconcile reason and faith. We also see the tendency to communicate truths in the form of certainty and necessity.

Sources used in this episode include:

-Leftow, Brian. "Anselm on the Necessity of the Incarnation." Religious Studies 31, no. 2 (1995): 167-85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20019733.

-Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

-“Socrates to Sartre and Beyond,” Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode six of a series on reason and desire.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account or at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

Just a heads up. The next episode won’t be published until May 31st. As you may be aware, I am a graduate student living with my wife and son in Valencia, Spain. We are approaching the end of the semester, and that means that I am swamped with papers and such. So, I need to focus on that awhile. In the meantime, you can revisit past episodes to re-familiarize yourself with the project.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @juan.p.alcala or on Facebook @jalcala9.

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This project began when I said in episode #1 that one of the reasons we have a hard time managing the relationship between reason and desire is because we have a faulty view of reason today. We’re trying to figure out how it is that we got here. In this episode, we’ll say a couple more things about Augustine and then introduce a new figure: Anselm of Canterbury. We’ll see Anselm’s relationship to Augustine and try to understand exactly what Anselm, 500 hundred years after Augustine, did with reason.

Sources used in this episode include:

-“Socrates to Sartre and Beyond,” Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

-Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode five of a series on reason and desire.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account or at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

If you want to stay as informed as possible about the publication schedule, or any interferences with it, you can follow me on

Instagram @juan.p.alcala

or

Facebook @jalcala9

Episodes are released every other Friday.

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It may seem strange to think that Platonic philosophy propelled Christianity into a position of offering an intellectually rigorous account of reality. But at the dawn of the middle ages, through Saint Augustine of Hippo, that's exactly what happened. In this episode, we'll trace a direct line from Plato to Augustine and show how Augustine takes reason and reconciles it to faith.

Sources used in this episode include:

-“Socrates to Sartre and Beyond,” Seventh Edition, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

-Reason & Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages. A lecture series by Dr. Thomas Williams on Audible.

Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode four of a series on reason and desire.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on itunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account or at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

If you want to stay as informed as possible about the publication schedule, or any interferences with it, you can follow me on

Instagram @juan.p.alcala

or

Facebook @jalcala9

Episodes are released every other Friday.

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Thanks for listening to the Poiein podcast. This was episode three of a series on reason and desire.

For a thorough yet concise description of ancient Greek philosophy, see Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, by Samuel Enoch Stump and James Fieser, 2003.

If you enjoyed what you heard, be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes. If you’d like to support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at the Poiein podcast’s Patreon account, which can be accessed at juanpalcala.com/podcast. If you benefitted from this episode, consider sharing it with a friend who you think might also benefit.

So, this episode is a bit late. For those of you who follow my family or me on Instagram, you know our lives have been wild. I won’t enter into details, but I will say that I found it impossible to drop this episode on time. Sorry about that. To increase the likelihood that this won’t happen too often, I’ve decided to make episodes just a bit shorter, which you’ll notice in this episode. I’ve also decided to drop episodes on Fridays instead of Sundays. This will work better for me and my family’s sanity and could, I think, make for some good weekend listening. Thanks for your understanding.

If you want to stay as informed as possible about the publication schedule, or any interferences with it, you can follow me on Instagram @juan.p.alcala or on Facebook @jalcala9.

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I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that imagination could tell the truth, that it could teach us crucial lessons about the human condition.

It has seemed to me that imagination is a sort of junction between reason and desire, and that a study of it would appropriately follow last episode's ideas. To introduce the idea, I want to focus this episode on the one thinker who created the most imaginative fantasy of the twentieth century: J.R.R. Tolkien.

On March 8th, 1939, Tolkien gave a talk at the University of St. Andrews which was then published under the title “On Fairy Stories.” It is perhaps the closest thing to a literary manifesto that we get from Tolkien. In it he lays out his thoughts on imagination, fantasy, language, myth, and so forth and argues that, as far as we can tell, the creation of mythologies, the sub-creation of other worlds, has been present with Man as long as he’s been able to think and speak. Departing from Tolkien's thoughts, my argument is that human imagination is a central element in navigating ourselves in the world.

To support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at The Poiein Podcast’s Patreon account:

patreon.com/poieinpodcast

or at:

juanpalcala.com/podcast.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Much of this material was originally published in Reconsiderations, a publication of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, and it is with their permission that this material is here now. The essay was entitled “Sub-Creation: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Vision of Imagination at Work.”

References for this episode:

1. “On Fairy-Stories” included in the collection The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (HarperCollins Publishers, 2006).

2. “Mythopoeia,” Tree and Leaf (HarperCollins Publishers, 2001).

3. The Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994).

Poem from Tolkien to Lewis:

Mythopoeia

“The heart of man is not compound of lies,

but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,

and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,

man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

his world-dominion by creative act:

not his to worship the great Artefact,

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, ’twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we’re made.” (Mythopoeia, 85)

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The relationship between reason and desire in human experience presents perennial problems. These problems have been with us a long time. They’re as ancient as Plato’s dislike for poets and as current as every advertisement that makes an appeal to our passions. These issues will always be with us. Why? Because we are both thinking creatures and longing creatures. But just because there seems to be a constant tension between two seemingly irreconcilable concepts doesn’t mean we should abandon the attempt to understand the relationship between them. In this episode, we'll attempt to do just that.

To support the production of these podcasts, donate the amount of your choice at The Poiein Podcast’s Patreon account:

patreon.com/poieinpodcast

or at:

juanpalcala.com/podcast.

Much of this material was originally published in Reconsiderations, a publication of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, and it is with their permission that this material is here now. The essay was entitled “Learning to Love: Reflections on the Relationship between Reason and Desire.”

References for this episode:

1. Saint Augustine, Confessions, Translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford University Press), pg. 3.

2. Ibid., pg. 208.

3. James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love (Brazos Press), pgs. 1-2.

4. Saint Augustine, Confessions, Translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford University Press), pg. 202.

5. Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Translated and edited by Ronald Martinez and Robert Durling (Oxford University Press), pg. 663, lines 46-63.

6. Ibid., pg. 667, lines 130-131.

7. Ibid., pg. 667, lines 142-145.

8. Excerpt from Lino Pertile, Paradiso: A Drama of Desire, pgs. 154-155, found in Elena Lombardi, The Syntax of Desire (University of Toronto Press), pg. 167.

9. Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Translated and edited by Ronald Martinez and Robert Durling (Oxford University Press), pg. 682

10. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperCollins Publishers), pgs. 136-137.

Excerpt from Dante's Paradiso (Lines 46-53):

And I, as I approached the goal of all desires,

perfected within me, as I should, the ardor of my desire.

Bernard was beckoning to me and smiling, to

make me gaze upward, but on my own I was

already such as he wished,

for my sight, becoming purer, entered deeper

and deeper into the ray of the supreme Light that

is true in itself.

From here onward my seeing was greater than

speech can show, which gives way before such a

sight, and memory gives way before such excess.

As is one who sees in dream, and after the

dream the passion impressed remains, but the

rest does not return to the mind:

so am I, for almost all my vision has ceased,

but still there trickles in my heart the sweetness

born if it.

Final Sentence of Paradiso:

Here my high imagining failed of power; but

already my desire and the velle were turned, like

a wheel being moved evenly,

by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.