A very interesting presentation by the Good and Angelic Doctor.
home.newadvent.org/summa/3153.htm#article5
Any thoughts?
BTW - if you are not used to Aquinas’s method - he will name 3 objections to what he actually thinks, then reply to those objections. So, the first objections sound like he is making a case FOR what he actually objects to; but he’s just setting up the targets to knock them down.
If you scroll up that page you will see his take on ‘lust’ in more detail. I think it’s important because we live in a time of “Why NOT do it” - lust of the eyes, lust of the body, pride of life etc - and the St. gives some very good answers.
Answers that are foreign to this decadent time.
Thanks for the second post explaining his style. When I looked at it earlier, I closed out because I was confused as to his position. So I went back and re-read it. It still a bit difficult to digest, but one thing is sure - as much as I try to live out my faith by obedience, I am falling short in so many ways. But from my conversations with others, even the devout, they basically admit the same thing. Curious, does anyone get to the point where there isn’t some lust that dominates/plagues them, perhaps not in an every day sense, but in some sort of “I will likely fail in this area at some point in the future?” Take for example a cookie. It has no nutritional value and the desire for a cookie is clearly fleshly and lust based… I never knew someone to eat a cookie except for the fact that it makes one feel good. Same with food in general. Most in America live to eat, they don’t eat to live. Hence, we have a ton of overweight people (first world problem) and this is rooted in lust, or pleasure seeking, if you will. If food isn’t your vice, maybe a lustful eye is… If not a lustful eye, maybe a few too many drinks to get a nice buzz. Perhaps nicotine is your poison. No? Maybe gossip or slander. No? Anger and fits of rage? Truly, I am doubting it is possible to live free of these things completely. It seems some vice has someone, somewhere. Some people have hidden vices, and some not to so hidden. Some vices are taboo, others are not. But, any vice is mastery over the body and is rooted in pleasure seeking. Hence, isn’t that lust? Lust is incredibly enticing. Having a difficult time lately trying to reconcile my attempts at obedience and falling short in so many ways.
You are not alone there my brother! One good thing about Thomas’s dissection of lust is this - it’s like waking up, in a way: I find that the level of society and culture is so low, that when I do fail - there seem to be no consequences. It feels like we’re all asleep.
But Thomas points out the very high possibilities against which we should measure ourselves - what we are in FACT losing when we fall short.
Forgiveness of sins - an unspeakably great thing. Actually putting out the moral effort to climb higher and be better - that’s something else. When Thomas points out the blessings we are missing by not putting out the effort, it’s like Wake-Up Dummy!!! 
One of the great minds in Church history was Thomas Aquinas. But when he had a mystical experience, he said this:
On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he replied,
When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said,
He was a very interesting man. I read a short book comparing him to St. Francis - both were treated favorably but quite the contrast.
Just another reason there is so much confusion in this world. Here I thought I had struck gold, then Randy comes in and points out that this person considered his own writings as but straw… Where does that leave me? Confused, as usual. If a great writer considers his past works as essentially nothing important, why should I? It seems like all the great thinkers are dead. I’d certainly love to know what his revelation was.
Hi Gabe:
I think Thomas would consider his mystical experience more important then his past intellectual writings. Having said that, we are creatures that use both our right and left brain hemispheres. Humanity needs to read what our scientists, philosophers and theologians have to say on topics. They are our road maps, while living in this world. Hence, you can benefit greatly by reading such thinkers as Thomas Aquinas. Now most of us don’t have earth shattering mystical experiences, but we can benefit from reading those of people like Saint John of the Cross, Hildegaard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Jacob Boehme, etc. If given the choice, I would prefer to have the mystical experiences then producing great works in theology, philosophy or literature.
Why not both? They are not mutually exclusive. Did he ever share any more on his experience? I understand your point Randy and as far as intellectual debates go, I think I am more open minded than most here. But, to some extent, being so open minded makes you unstable, as is my result. Rather than putting my fingers in my ears and pretending other viewpoints have no merit, I do see their merit. Because I see their merit, it becomes difficult to make a decision. You have someone like me, who finds it difficult to hold to a specific position which is why I often learn towards an agnostic approach. But, that leaves me a bit unstable, as you can understand. 
So there definitely is a part of me that would like to just say I believe “X” and never question it ever again… But, that would effectively require that I quit learning… How can a wise man become wiser if he thinks he is already perfectly wise?
Actually, no. Not in any historical records known to date. Now Blaise Pascal
But
There are folks who can defend their positions and some historically become great writers, philosophers and theologians. But Socrates said he knew nothing and went around asking questions. Buddha also had little to say and directed folks to meditate. And when Christ was asked
, he maintained silence.
This is not a criticism.
I do want to point out that Aquinas did not say, of course, that what he wrote was wrong - only that (I believe) in the light of his mystical experience, he ‘felt’ that the whole Truth was so much fuller and richer than the partial knowledge he had striven to expound, that in comparison the partial knowledge was not complete nor could it ever be. And I do wonder if he could have had that experience without having first worked his life at building the intellectual edifice on which he was able to stand and see something even greater.
What he wrote was not worthless!! The intellectual edifice his God-gifted mind was able to erect is a thing of great beauty and of great use to the Church and on a personal note, of great value as both balm for the spirit and guidance for the mind and heart.
There is no true mystical experience that renders other truth invalid. “All truth is God’s truth” as someone has put it, and thus valuable.
That being said, of course the Holy Spirit can open our eyes to the truth that is right before us and as a matter of fact, in our blindness we need that desperately. But that’s my point - if our visions are of something at variance with scripture, we have the obligation to weigh them. An angel of light may be no such thing. A vision such as Julian’s is, if true, a gift of wisdom in how to weigh certain truth in scripture - how to magnify certain parts of it in a way to throw light on the rest. Her vision was not of something alien - but of something that is Right There, that we might overlook or not see in its fullness. And we can thank God for the work of the Spirit that gives wisdom.
Straw (i.e. Aquinas) is still useful to appease the hunger of wandering horses (i.e. thoughts). Mystical experience might stop the horses in their tracks - at least for a time.
Well put - a good metaphor!!
Interesting how straw brings two very different things to mind to two different people. I was thinking straw in the sense the Paul used it… Burned up type straw… Not something that was lasting, like gold.
Here’s his revelation he wrote in a poem:
“Ask anything”
My Lord said to me.
And my mind and heart thought deeply
for a second,
then replied with just one word,
“When?”
God’s arms then opened up and I entered Myself.
I entered Myself when I entered
Christ.
And having learned compassion I
allowed my soul
to stay.
(robin)
Seeing as how you are aware of such things, might I suggest that is is well past time to recover the original irony of the text in Romans 1:18-3:20; that is, it could well be a critique, not Paul’s own systematic deployment - one primarily using reductions, but containing various other subtle argumentative strategies. When we grasp this interpretative reversal, the dogmatic consequence, in terms of Paul’s supposed commitments to a-priori prospective theology, here in the specific sense of the “justification by faith” model, are dramatic; essentially, these problematic commitments evaporate. But, when such false expectation (Western theology) are set aside, it is truely astonishing how many problems in Paul can potentially be solved, while he, himself ends up as a clearer, sharper, simpler, and rather more intellignet figure …
Blackbird pie, indeed!
That’s very interesting. I wonder if you could expand on that a bit?
Yes there is some odd humor hereabouts - and I’m guilty of some of it 
I just brought a new magnifying glass. So I’ll search these forum threads and see if I can spot that “odd humor” 
You keep looking; I’m having another piece of pie. Pie is good.