 Welcome to the Spiritual Masters, a podcast from Tan Books and Tan Direction in which we look at the greatest and holiest writers from Catholic history. Join us as we explore the life and times in which they lived, an overview and study of their greatest works and how we as Catholics can look to these masters as models for our own holiness on our journey to heaven. Welcome back everybody. We are continuing our series on the Spiritual Masters and in this mini-series we are diving deep into the life and times and work of the great Saint Augustine, the doctor of grace, a church father, and he's a saint who have really come to love and admire the more I've got to know him and we're accompanied by my good friend Dr. Paul Thigpen. So thank you for being back with us today, Paul. Great to be here, Connor. Thank you. We've learned a lot over the last numerous episodes about, let's see, we've covered his life and times. We've covered the confessions, of course. We touched on the city of God and last time we dove pretty deep into the three major heresies that he contended with in his life. So that was a lot of fun. This episode we're going to focus on really Saint Augustine's love and appreciation for Holy Scripture and I find this particularly interesting that the main document, the main work that we're covering is entitled On Christian Doctrine and I kind of feel like maybe it's a misnomer because essentially this book is his explanation on how to properly read and interpret Scripture and I find this particularly interesting, Paul, because Augustine was such a philosopher. He was such a classically trained rhetoricician. He was a man of the world and we mentioned this at the end of the confessions. He finishes it with the three last chapters or books of the confessions, was on Genesis and I mentioned that I felt that that was a foreshadowing of how the remainder of his life was largely going to be his exploration of the wisdom embedded in Scripture and so whenever he wasn't busy fighting a heresy or doing his canonical duties as a bishop, he was doing commentary on Scripture and so what we're going to talk about his sermons later which are largely Scripture based, he did take time in 397 and then a little bit more in the year 426 and eventually we ended up with On Christian Doctrine which is four parts or four books put together to explain how he really dove deep into Scripture. So let's just begin first. Let's talk, Paul, tell us your knowledge of Augustine and how you think his training and rhetoric and his emphasis that classical education. How can you see how those tools, those particular skill sets that he learned may have helped him in his becoming a great Scripture scholar because nothing's by accident. God had him to have those secular trainings and he brought that to bear in his ability to read Scripture. Willie, he was deeply trained in how to present a message, what you're doing rhetoric and how to, excuse me, to persuade and to inform as Aristotle would have it, to inform persuade and delight and so I think for Augustine, part of what he was going to do in Scripture was to ask himself how was God through this word, he's writing, doing those things informing, persuading and delighting and the delighting part I think he would have enjoyed a lot because his native North African culture, the preaching and teaching apparently tended toward being witty and vivid and concrete and full stories and that kind of thing. So I think what's important to realize is that the classical background he had at the beginning made it harder for him to appreciate Scripture. And he says that in Confessions that he's used to reading philosophical treatises and instead he gets a story about Abraham almost killing his son and Adam and Eve with the fig leaves and that kind of thing and it was because of Saint Ambrose largely that he begins to see how you approach the Scripture and it's not the way you would approach Plato or Aristotle or something like that. And so both he's been trained in how to communicate. Now he's asking himself, okay, how is God communicating to us through his word? This is his word, it's the words of God. And he begins to understand it through, he talks a lot about signs, that perhaps if we were unfallen God might have communicated a different way but now that we are fallen then there's certain kind of accommodations you might say that God has to make to our fallenness in order to communicate as you went to a child for instance or to someone who's kind of a slow learner you would say, so you tell stories. So you use, you make analogies and you connect different points. You speak in symbols sometimes but as the general word he uses is signs, you speak in signs. And so God speaks to us in signs and that becomes the key to him, for him to reading and interpreting and also preaching the Scripture. You know, in the prologue of on Christian doctrine, Saint Augustine says that the Christian teacher kind of has three tasks and you are a great teacher of the faith you have taught in the classroom, through writing, through RCA classes just every imaginable way. He says the task of the Christian teacher and again this is in the context of how to read and interpret Scripture. He says they have to first discover truth in Scripture, second they teach the truth in Scripture and third they defend the truth in Scripture and that's the proper progression. Again you can see this very logical thing but a beautiful articulation of it. So first you discover it, second you teach it and then when necessary you have to know how to defend it. I'm sure you've experienced all three of those in your own life but I want to emphasize one other point he makes in his prologue. In order to do those three things properly, to do any of those, especially all three of them, he emphasizes humility and he does that because even in his day and we're in 400 something, in his own day, prideful people were already concluding that they didn't need authority to interpret the Scripture for them. They were able to read Scripture on their own and get all the message from God that they needed, a little bit of Sola Scriptora, you know, in a way and you're a convert so you certainly come from our Protestant brethren in that understanding but this issue of teaching authority in relation to Scripture was present all the way back in Augustine's day. Comments on that. Well and this larger issue of authority, he talks about it in the Confessions, I would talk about it, excuse me, in that light in RCA sometime where folks will say well can't, shouldn't you just be able to reason things out by yourself or you have your own experience, isn't it a lesser kind of knowledge to accept something on the word of someone else which is what you do with authority and I would respond away saying a customer responded. He said well let's see if you follow that principle throughout your life, how much will you really know? Let's start off with who are your parents? Oh well my parents are Bob and Jane. Well how do you know that? They told you that but you're taking them on their word. It could be and it actually has been the case of some people that they're not, they've adopted it but they don't want to tell them so for instance or how do you know that China exists, some far distant country, you've never been there yourself, you take it on the word of people who have been there. Because the balloons are coming over from there. Sorry, that put this show in a time slot. If they're listening this five years from now they might not have any idea what I'm talking about. But anyway and it's true, if you, I used to have my students and my interreligious courses talk about okay here's here's a list of things to know or that you could know and I want you to tell me beside each one put an R if you know it by reason, E if you know it by experience, A if you know it by authority. Wow, that's a great exercise. And I would even do things like the temperature outside and they say okay I'm looking at the thermometer so experience, no you're trusting what temperature it is on the authority of the person who made that that they actually did it correct and they're telling you that. Do you really take it to the extreme and and he makes this point, you hardly know anything if you wouldn't accept anything except what you experienced or what you could figure out by reason. Yeah. And so with scripture that's the so important that we need the authority of the church to understand. That's wonderful and you know he talks about in this prologue on Christian doctrine that God made us with other men. We're communal by nature just like the Trinity is we have to rely on other people that's only reasonable like so he's I think he's addressing people who think I can just take my reason to scripture and he's saying on the contrary reason makes you take other people as authority not you know so so that's the rational thing to do because we learn from others in every aspect of our life whether China exists just like you're saying so even even said you know the reason I came to the scripture was because of the church and the reason I came to the church was that reason led me to the place of accepting the church's authority and so it's a reason started them off getting to the place where yes I you know I accept the church's teaching it makes sense of so much anyway and so many other things and now that I have the authority then that helps me to to get the further understanding so it's it's faith seeking understanding but even to get to the faith there's kind of a way in which knowledge helps you I'll tell people they say you will you accept what the church says that's blind faith and say no actually I was an atheist it was reason that got me to the place of even believing in Christ and then it was further reason that led me up to the gates of the Catholic Church so the fact that I have faith in what the church teaches me thwartatively it's not blind I've been a whole lifelong journey that got me to that place hmm he was saying I think it's same thing yeah that's beautiful yeah just kind of marching through the book a little bit um he I just want to mention this is interesting in book one after the prologue and book one he has this interesting little thing he talks about use versus enjoyment and he talks about how there's a lot of things for our use for the use of our salvation even other people and I'm not this has not meant that they're not in themselves it's not really a conversation about that but other people other things job money you know wife kids whatever it is all of these are gifts from God that are useful for my salvation for working out my salvation but for God we should have pure enjoyment in him God is not useful for anything else yeah even my wife as you know she is useful for helping me get to heaven and having children but I mean she did that a lot she was very helpful but but God God is not useful for anything he's the end he's just the end and so you he talks about how you just place perfect enjoyment in him and I it's an interesting thing again it's book one of this entire work on scripture so he's you know I think and I'm kind of stuck on this idea we've been talking about a lot I think he's seeing his scripture studies as the apex it's like the it's the it's the complete part of his of his studying he reaches final enjoyment and learning about the Lord and scripture not and all the other stuff he makes me want to go back and read scripture as opposed to everything else about scripture you know I mean yeah so but moving on well I'm sorry go ahead any comments on that yeah beautifully that when you say joy that that's very important to me his notion of joy because in reading Augustine that led to the first book I wrote for adults was called the reason for joy and the thesis of the book the argument basically was if you go looking the first of all joy is different from happiness but if you go looking for joy you won't find it you have to go looking for the one who is joy to know and and he would talk about the what you might call the order of delight the order of joy the first you have to perceive the good and then you know the good this botanic know the good and then you love the good for what it is and then in loving the good you have joy you have delight and you see that in the confessions you know he's searching for he's searching for it and finally he starts to see finally he starts to see and then in seeing he knows more about God and then in knowing God wants to love God passionately and in loving God there's delight in this life is joy and you see it all through the confessions but you see it in other places like us too yeah that's beautiful book two just kind of marching through he addresses here after he talked about delight and enjoyment and loving God just for himself we get to book two and he says scriptures are obscure and he you know he's used to reading very logical text you know and everything but they are obscure and he says he thinks that they're obscure because we're fallen and so God had to provide us with kind of obscure texts to kind of incite us to continue to dig and to understand and he says here that memory is critical as we have to like internalize scripture but let's talk about that why do you think the the Lord could have written a much more clean and simple book for us he definitely could have likewise Paul Christ could have given the apostles a very straight A plus B equal C kind of catechism and he did not he spoke in parables so there's a consistency here again God using signs in scripture Jesus using signs in the New Testament in his life talk to us about that why does God do that to his children well I think several reasons one because the two we are we have we're incarnate beings you know we have embodied beings and and so much of what we how we think and stuff is in stories and analogies and visual imagery and that kind of thing so it's part of his accommodation to us in that way but also because parables of those things are what we call multi-valent they have several levels of meaning and the church has long taught this that in the scripture you've got several different layers of meaning really these possible meaning even in the same text and so it's a very rich textured way of conveying more than one truth at a time then it means you have to dive into it but the other thing and and Augustine was was really clear about this was in the matter of humility and he said that I think he was the one who said the scriptures um in some ways is uh so shallow so shallow not shallow in a bad way but you know the water is low enough that even little creatures can go and bathe but it's also deep enough that an elephant can drown so you know something like that yeah and it sounds like him and he says that um that it teaches us humility um he said why are there really obscure passages that maybe none of us have ever even figured out for sure and he says to teach us humility that there are things mysteries about God that we cannot figure out and the proper lesson from that is not what does this text mean but the proper lesson is I don't know at all on that note paul in book two he gives us uh seven steps to wisdom and interpreting scripture he lists them out and i'm just going to mention a few of them here he says fear of God you have to have fear of God to find the wisdom in scripture so that means those arrogant academics you know are gonna are gonna hit a wall they're gonna hit a wall and not see it he says purity of heart you have to have purity of heart to really be able to see uh what uh is God's message in the scripture he says you have to have holiness and faith so all of these things lead to wisdom and again this is a former academic guy talking but he sees you have to bring a certain spirit to reading scripture you know you've counseled countless people you're a man who has fear of God you you're a man of purity of heart talk to us about how how a person's own personal spiritual situation affects how they read scripture oh goodness in so many ways so he mentioned humility that's the first thing it does you don't come in thinking number one you know it already number two that you're even going to be able to figure it all out number three that your way is the only way in so everybody else has to understand it completely the way you do second love that if as saint rome you said that that um ignorance of scriptures ignorance of christ that your love for christ will bring you to this book and dispose you rightly for receiving what it has to say if you don't love god and you're reading the book and you get to a passage that says don't do x and you like to do x how are you gonna respond nah you're just trying to put that on i'll i'll skip over that and go to the next page but if you love them then that that disposition sets you up to say yes lord and then um so love humility um patience we have to have the virtue of patience because so many passages are not clear right away we have to have faith because there'll be things that are hard to believe and um contrary to maybe even what our experience tells us but faith allows us to say yes lord i believe help my unbelief yes purity of heart that he mentioned is so beautiful the the the notion of purity in the new testament we we tend to think right away of sexual purity it's just chastity but the word pure in in the greek there is pure in the sense of unadulterated only one thing yes so when we say on a carton 100 pure orange juice they're not saying there's no dirt in here because everybody knows they're not gonna have dirt and debris but it means that it has not been mixed with water or anything else so purity of heart then blessed are those who are pure in heart for they will see god purity of heart is that you desire one thing your heart is your will purity of heart is to desire one thing of the Protestant theologian once said kick your book and um if you're pure of heart in coming to it then you will see god in the scripture you will because in part if you're focused on god and that's the one thing you want then all the other things that might be distractions will fade away so you really focus on something your peripheral vision kind of fades out because that's what you want yeah that's awesome and i've i've been studying that notion of the purity of heart i give talks on the beatitudes i just gave one legatus in philadelphia the other day and we talked specifically about that purity of heart and it's not chastity it's something so much more than that and even our notion of our word for adultery comes from like you're contaminating a marriage with adultery because you've introduced another substance you know so it's kind of a fascinating idea but here's a man of the flesh agustin who is seeing if he really wants to understand scripture he has to you know embody these different traits and i just think it's beautiful and just to continue on shortly after that in book three he says almost exactly what you just said and talking about if you really search the scripture in love okay you're going to gain so much more from it than any historical or literary accuracy you can get i was having dinner one time with a small group of people and dr scott hawn and since then we've kind of become friendly and we talk every now and then we've done some work together in our publishing companies but i forget i forget what the context of the conversation was but i said uh dr hawn i'm certainly not a scripture scholar but here's my take on on this passage and he just kind of stopped me he's like whoa whoa whoa he said i really don't have interest in what scripture scholars have to say that's just scholarship i i care what real people have to say about about scripture he says people always apologize for not being a scripture scholar and he's like that's not what scholarship is a totally different thing i want to know what scripture means means to you in your life he's a very humble man yes and uh i was uh i was really taken back because he meant it sincerely it wasn't just lip service you know to be polite to you know a little guy like me but it was it was awesome but again it's that spirit of august and august and the saying the same thing here and just kind of going through his book four he goes through he gives very gives a crash course on rhetoric and he talks about how rhetoric can be used to teach the faith with eloquence and he believes the faith deserves that um and he of course you know did that to a great extent but to wrap this up to kind of bring it to conclusion he kind of drops the mic at the end okay he just brings it home and again this was all about how to be a good scripture scholar and he says that the preacher's life the the priest's life the bishop's life is far more important than any rhetoric or eloquence that they have and i think you know again this is in the context of on christian doctrine on how to read scripture how to teach scripture how to defend scripture and he's saying it's really your life that does that not your studies not your eloquence um and he brings it the very last thing he talks about he ends everything with yet again on that humility if you humbly approach scripture and you humbly teach it um then you're going to make a whole lot more headway than all those academics but i just love that that last point of if you want to teach your flock scripture you actually do it by your example versus your eloquence and this is like the most eloquent man to ever walk the earth so i again what augustin is saying about scripture how to read it how to teach it how to defend it it's showing us the internal his interior life and what he's trying to do any last thoughts on that i've i've heard it said before that uh you know watch what's what you are and what you do because you may be the only bible some people ever oh yeah you just nailed it yeah that's it that's what he was saying you just you just summarized on christian doctrine in a sentence well it's not original to me but yeah say that again you you may be the only bible that some people will ever read yeah that's beautiful yeah all right paul thanks so much for being here next time we're going to talk about on the trinity and see how the great saint augustin largely shaped uh the way in which we discuss the trinity so until next time thank you thank you kind of god bless you this has been an episode of the spiritual masters a podcast brought to you by tan 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