The good news part of this point is that we can cooperate in salvation, as we cannot cooperate in creation.
The soul is the form of the body and the body is the matter of the soul, somewhat as the meaning of a book is its form or soul and the words are its matter or body.
The idea of resolving conflicts by killing people (which is what war is) is not a just thing, a just idea. In that sense there is no such thing as just war. But to wage a given war may be a just actio...
The difference between a counsel and a commandment is that a commandment implies obligation, whereas a counsel is left to the option of the one to whom it is given.
St. Thomas thus detects a primary source of presumption in seeking genuinely good things, like human happiness on earth, as if we did not need divine grace to attain them; and in the hope that we can...
Socrates: The corruption of the best things are the worst things. Or, The best, when corrupted, become the worst. As one of your English poets has said, Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Pure truth is possible, but pure falsehood is not.
Presumption and despair are opposite deadly sins. We hear a lot about despair, and the need for hope; but what is presumption?
Love makes more waves than hate. Wicked men will hate and fear you more for loving them than for hating them. They will quickly forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being r...
Light, life, and love parallel the three absolute values of truth, goodness, and beauty, the supreme values of the three parts of the soul; intellect, will, and emotions. God is all truth, goodness, a...
It is why God created matter, most of all the human body, which has the greatest power to make spirit visible. (Thus the philosopher Wittgenstein, asked what a human soul could possibly look like, ans...
It also works the other way around: the more you love any person (human or divine), the more you want to know him (or Him) better, and the more you do. And this always causes deep joy.
In essentials, unity; in inessentials, diversity; in all things, charity.
Humans are the lowest (least intelligent) of spirits and the highest (most intelligent) of animals. We are rational animals, incarnate minds, the smartest of animals and the stupidest of spirits:
He said He was God, in many ways and at many times in the Gospels. If this was not true, that would make Him either an insane fool, if He believed it, or a blasphemous liar, if He didn’t. His miracles...
He offers total mercy and forgiveness to all who will accept it by trusting Him and repenting of their sins, but He does not, and cannot, give forgiveness to those who will not receive His gift. Gifts...
God, I don’t know whether you exist or not. Maybe I’m praying to nobody, but maybe I’m praying to you. So if you are really there, please let me know somehow, because I do want to know. I want only th...
From Socrates through Aquinas, reason meant primarily the understanding of the nature of reality, the knowledge of the essences of things.
For we are not pure spirits who happen to be trapped in bodies. We are not even spirits who only have bodies, for we do not have bodies as we have possessions. We are bodies as well as souls.
Even God cannot make us love him. Forced love is a meaningless impossibility, like virtuous sin.