Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from St. Thomas Aquinas

660 Pages·2014·2.54 MB·English

by  Peter Kreeft

PRACTICAL THEOLOGY
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
FROM ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
PETER KREEFT
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
FROM ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
358 Ways Your Mind Can Help You to Become a Saint
from the Summa Theologiae
IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO
Quotes from the Summa Theologica, first complete American edition
© 1947 by Benziger Brothers, New York
In most cases the Scripture quotations in this book have been taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, Second
Catholic Edition, © 2006. The Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible: the Old Testament, © 1952, 2006; the Apocrypha, © 1957,
2006; the New Testament, © 1946, 2006; the Catholic Edition of the Old Testament, incorporating the Apocrypha, © 1966, 2006; the
Catholic Edition of the New Testament, © 1965, 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.
Some of the Scripture quotations, especially from the Psalms and the Wisdom books, are taken from the Douay-Rheims Version of the
Bible. The notation differs from that of modern versions like the RSV.
Cover art: St. Thomas Aquinas by Carlo Crivelli, 1476
National Gallery, London
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Cover design by Enrique Javier Aguilar Pinto
© 2014 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-58617-968-7
Library of Congress Control Number 2014943996
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Religion
2. The need for theology
3. Saints compared with theologians
4. How to interpret the Bible
5. The (a) reality and (b) inadequacy of our innate knowledge of God
6. The “problem of evil”
7. God’s necessity: “His essence is existence”
8. All perfections are in God
9. All that is, is good
10. Only three kinds of goods
11. Seeing God everywhere: the presence of God in all things
12. “Seeing” God in Heaven
13. Reason’s power to know God
14. Knowing God by analogy
15. We, not God, are the analogy
16. God’s knowing is creative
17. Human science = the knowledge of God’s art
18. Is God alive?
19. Predestination and free will
20. Does God love mosquitoes?
21. Why God loves all the different things in the universe and why we should too
22. Inequality is good
23. Do men or angels rank higher in God’s love?
24. Reconciling justice and mercy
25. How we can aid predestination
26. Personalism
27. Pain or sin: Which is worse?
28. God and evil
29. Why good must be stronger than evil
30. Do angels know the future?
31. How is the human heart known by God, men, angels, and demons?
32. The ultimate reason for patience
33. The greatest sin
34. Do creatures withdraw us from God?
35. Why is it important that we have only one soul, not many?
36. The innocence of the body
37. Why practicing the presence of God is the key to sanctity
38. Love vs. knowledge
39. Proof that we have free will
40. Free will is based on reason
41. Human freedom and divine grace
42. Do we know objective truth?
43. Human equality and inequality
44. The goodness of human authority
45. Chance
46. The connection between monotheism and peace
47. How our free choices share in God’s sovereign government
48. God’s action and presence in all things
49. How God is in His creatures
50. Angels can teach us
51. Guardian angels are real
52. Why evil spirits assault us
53. How “everything has a purpose” changes the meaning of life
54. Why life must have some single ultimate purpose or end
55. How even trivia are related to our union with God
56. Why wealth can’t make you happy
57. Why human honors can’t make you happy
58. Why being famous can’t make you happy
59. Why power can’t make you happy
60. Why a perfect body in perfect health can’t make you happy
61. Why pleasure can’t make you happy
62. Why even moral virtue alone can’t make you happy
63. Why nothing but God can possibly ever make you completely happy
64. What role our bodily senses play in our happiness
65. Happiness is the “Beatific Vision”
66. How we can get there from here
67. God alone suffices
68. Don’t expect perfect happiness in this life
69. Eternal security?
70. Happiness is unattainable by human power
71. The importance of knowledge
72. Why God can’t force us to will the good
73. Is there such a thing as partial freedom and responsibility?
74. Is sin due to ignorance?
75. Will vs. passions
76. Does God move my will or do I?
77. Man vs. animal
78. Reason and freedom
79. Being as such is good; all being is good
80. A map of good and evil
81. How much of life does ethics cover?
82. Listening to reason is listening to God
83. The sacredness of conscience
84. Holy subjective intentions or holy objective deeds?
85. Holiness in the passions
86. “My love is my gravity” (Augustine)
87. Love is cosmic
88. Loving God more than knowing God
89. Love’s end is union
90. Ecstasy
91. Zeal
92. St. Thomas the “soft-hearted”
93. Hatred
94. Self-hatred?
95. Hating the truth
96. The danger of unnatural desires
97. A recipe for happiness
98. Love and pleasure
99. Is pleasure helpful or harmful?
100. The pleasures of contemplation
101. Accentuate the positive
102. Three evils: sorrow (misery) is worse than pain, and sin is worse than sorrow (misery)
103. The worst thing about physical pain
104. The importance of well-disposed emotions
105. The importance of reason in morality
106. The proper role of feelings in a good man’s life
107. Why there are four cardinal virtues
108. The need for supernatural virtues
109. Is man innately good?
110. How to become virtuous
111. Moderation and extremism
112. “The greatest of these is love”
113. The reason there must be a “natural law” morality
114. The three dimensions of ethics
115. Spiritual vs. carnal sins
116. Evil and ignorance one more time
117. Passion and responsibility
118. Why God doesn’t give us enough grace to overcome sin
119. “The Devil made me do it”?
120. Why there is always hope for conversion even of the worst sinner
121. Evidence in our experience for Original Sin
122. The purpose of law, and why not to obey bad laws
123. The sacredness of the natural moral law
124. What the natural law is and how obvious it is
125. Why you must go beyond legal goodness to be good
126. Our obligation to secular human laws is not just secular but sacred
127. When may we and when should we disobey unjust laws?
128. The spirit vs. the letter of the law
129. The ultimate purpose of morality
130. The different levels of moral instruction
131. Why we need “organized religion”
132. Kindness to animals
133. The heart of the gospel is not its creeds or codes
134. “Progress”: Will there be a “third testament”?
135. The difficulty in being a Christian
136. Spirit and letter, internal and external
137. Going beyond the commandments
138. God’s presence in ordinary knowledge
139. Grace
140. Nature and natural virtue
141. Can we know that we are in the state of grace?