Dr. Vost on Thomas Aquinas and Virtues

You can find the complete interview here

Kapler: I know that Aquinas was very instrumental in bringing you back to Catholicism. How did that happen?

Vost: I was drawn into atheism by various philosophers: Ayn Rand, a philosopher associated with a philosophy called Objectivism was one. Albert Ellis was a psychologist. He had a system called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy; he also happened to be an atheist. These people, Ayn Rand in particular, said her system was based on the philosophy of Aristotle. Albert Ellis said his psychology was based on an ancient system of the Stoic philosophers. Now it just so happened that both those Stoic philosophers and Aristotle were not atheists; they were theists. These were also systematic thinkers that St. Thomas Aquinas knew very, very well.

Well, it wasn’t until my early forties that I first came across the writings of Thomas Aquinas himself. Here I saw an absolute, true master of the writings of Aristotle. There’s a saying I like to quote from Charles Darwin, “My modern peers of the day are like mere school boys compared to old Aristotle.” I had that kind of an ah-ha when I came across Aquinas!

Kapler: Aquinas – I’ve heard you describe him, most recently in your book Unearthing Your Ten Talents, as a master of psychology. What did you find in St. Thomas that you didn’t find in the other great psychologists you have studied, and even taught about as a college psychology professor?

Vost: Much of his work in psychology comes through in the Second Part of his Summa Theologica. Thomas examines in great detail what it means to be a human being. How is it that we think, and how is it that we feel? How does this reflect us being made in God’s image? Thomas looks at things like: Virtue, how do we make ourselves our best possible selves? Sin, how do we avoid those things that pull us away from God and make us less than what we are? There’s a true profundity of thought there.

Kapler: When you talk in Unearthing Your Ten Talents about “the virtues,” they aren’t something we hear a great deal about today – not in pop psychology, not even from the pulpit, at least not in my experience. Why does Aquinas put such emphasis on “the virtues,” this list of habitual qualities; and why do we need to pay attention to that today?

Vost: Thomas wrote in the thirteenth century, and much of theology focused on sins and our fallen human nature, things that are very important. Thomas also wrote a great deal about those, but he also had an emphasis on how we are good, very good – wondrously made in the image of God. So to understand ourselves, we have to understand the powers God gave us. And virtues are basically perfections of those various powers.

The Catholic Church and the upside down faith

The Catholic Church teaches this upside down faith of Christianity. What the world calls popular, The Church shouts it down. When world makes everything a personal choice, The Church cries out for the lack of love. What the world cherishes, The Church reminds will pass away. What the world too easily embraces, The Church reminds to be slow to befriend. The Church fights a lone battle, preaches the love of a God made Man who died to exemplify it. It makes its way to every road and station of the world glorifying the love of God and whistling the praises of his mercy. It celebrates the dignity of life and the nobility of human action. It condemns commoditizing human dignity and rationalizations of the human mind. The Church dances its way to serve and willingly lays itself as a carpet for anyone who has found the love of Christ to enter into its triumphant mysteries. The Church has been doing all these down centuries defending its creeds and guarding the good of Mankind in a passing world which it pilgrims.

for His friends

Giving up your life doesn’t seem so difficult when the question is of a friend that is going to gain. Jesus said no man has greater love than one who lays his life down for a friend. It seems Jesus knew that love moves us to lay our lives down for others without thinking of losing our money, our time, our desires, dreams and our very lives. A patriot dies for his country. He loves his country. And what is friendship but love. We offer a seat to a friend we see in the bus not because we are selfish and couldn’t see the plight of tens of others standing next to us but because giving your seat to a friend is a iota of giving your life in a little way. The train journey only demands your seat. But it is the model derived from Jesus’ example of no man having greater love than one who lays his life down for a friend. And Jesus did the same. He invited us to friendship when he laid his life down. We are his friends. We have no other way to love others than befriending them. Sure, we often are protagonists in a passing act of compassion or generosity. But that is what it is, a passing act, a burst of compassion or zeal of generosity. But the zeal of friendship flows constantly in the blood reminding us “Love…Love…give your life for your friend…lay it down” Friendship affirms a committed heroic love, unlike a passing heroic compassion or generosity, which is always ready when a friend requires to be loved. Friendship doesn’t leave you to the mercy of a heroic leap in virtue. Friendship silently mortifies oneself as a testimony of love. It readily crucifies one’s own passions and interests so that those of a friend can be redeemed.

We just stay where we are

I can understand just staying where you are. It is difficult to take a dip and contemplate how it would be to learn swimming. It is easy to contemplate but difficult to take the leap in to the cold water. It is easy to just stay where you are: I don’t know to swim. But this list is endless. Who really doesn’t want to learn a musical instrument or read a profound and moving book or watch a musical performance that leaves you blushing and child-like, or trek the cold, moist and wet mountain or take children on a camp or listen to a wise person share his experience. We all can contemplate this, but difficult to actually give ourselves to our contemplation. We eventually stay where we are. It is easy to go with life not bothering, not trying harder, not going out of your way to make someone happy, not trying to intervene in another’s life as it is too much of a discomfort and we are afraid of what they will think. Life is good however it is, live and let live. We just stay where we are, believing what we want, doing what we feel, living each day unable to tell one day from another, unable to tell one hue from another on a canvas. It takes courage to feel accountable. It takes courage to grieve and to burst out in enthusiasm. It takes courage to be cheerful all day. It takes courage to believe that one is a child of God and so one has to seek Him in all things. It is easy to stay where you are, to preach a religion of love and brotherhood because everyone loves Love and agrees that we have a common brotherhood but difficult to imagine an undying faith, a sustaining relationship with God and a journey of transformation. This is difficult. Love and brotherhood is easy, they are lofty words, no one tries to delve deeper, what really that love means. So we can keep saying the same things on and on. We just stay where we are.

Faith in a post modern world

Temptations come in strange often creative ways. One of the strongest temptations yet underrated and under talked about is the temptation to think nothing really counts or has meaning or is supernatural or my actions, my smile, my courage, my love was just a passing moment and does not possess eternal consequences and effects. These temptations subtly throw darts on one’s faith and deflate the enthusiasm on a dry afternoon or a sulking evening when everyone is busy doing what is done every day. Conversations aren’t exciting, people don’t have inspiring faces, everyone simply looks like they have come to fill their stomach gluttonously and get back to work in an equally reluctant fashion. Everything around seems lacking significance and just another purposeless moment. It is at these moments when you look around and you see hounds racing toward your heart, what now looks like juicy meat in order to dispel your sense of grandeur about faith, about a Lord who died for you and that it is not worth fighting for, it is not worth living, everything is but a evolutionary process and instinct. Just pass through it and have a good time. This, I believe is the intellectual decoy of The Enemy which he uses when your heart doesn’t seem to be fired up and you have not enthusiasm to go with. This is The Enemy’s world and you are playing an eternal game in his corrupting and perishing backyard. He is going to play hard, on your mind by crushing entirely or making us believe what we hold on to, Love in Creation, Justice in Condemnation and Mercy in Redemption is but a mere delusion and a romantic fairy tale. And he is going to attack your heart with all the shallowness and mediocrity around establishing that the heart cannot love for there is no such thing as love. Each one only looks after himself. There are prayers we say shut within our rooms. There are prayers we say like thoughts shooting out of our heart when we think of people, aspirations. There are prayers we say when we think deeply on a virtue or on an event. But to overcome this temptation of nothing really counts is a battle field prayer, a war cry, choosing ‘faith and meaning’ and standing your ground on enemy line. This is nothing short of an act of faith in a modern and post-modern world.

The man who loves

Love makes us leave everything in order to serve the lover. No sooner has the phone rang, than he has left his books and his pen, he has stopped eating and forgotten himself. Some leave their bath when the phone beeps, for the call they are expecting. Some spend all day waiting for the letter or email. Love makes us cut off all the attachments. Everything else seems unimportant and unessential save the affection of the lover, to be at his or her feet and to serve him.

Prayer requires often at least an iota of such love. Where do I go, Lord, my hope is in you? A man who cuts off all the many little things vying for his heart, those men or women vying for a minute of his time, who switches off the TV or the iPOD, or minimizes the website, or gets off the phone call or stops talking or studying because it is time for Prayer. This man is in love. It takes love to pray, more than anything else. All of us can dance and watch a movie or cuddle a loved one. But many of us cannot always listen to another or talk to another. We are into everything but love. The man who leaves everything and sits down to pray listens and talks. He is in love.

Two contradictions: Sanctity and Comfort

Comfort and sanctity can not go hand in hand. In this world, all pursue comfort whereas in reality, it is a garden to grow sanctity. It is the battle field where soldiers of sanctity are born but what is left of us, comfort-driven men, are merchants and traders of pleasures: one for another. Comfort sees the joy of rest and Sanctity sees the joy of watching the neighbor at rest. Sanctity is always trying to protect itself in a Man who wishes to be always at work. Through work, he guards his sanctity for work is harsh, work has thorns, work has sweat and work presupposes humility. Work and discipline embraces many little crosses which adds more coal to the fire of Sanctity. Comfort avoid all crosses, where there is no cross, there is no sanctity. Comfort seeks the conventions of the world, to live life as a king, sprawled on a couch hands outstretched, a visible glory. But sanctity seeks only greatness. It hides its glory portraying the ordinariness of the man without and greatness of the soul within.