Matt Fradd
Spirituality/Belief • Books • Writing
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November 01, 2024
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On the Lookout for Sins of Speech - Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Hello! I'm writing a book at present on sins of speech for Emmaus Road. I've been thinking a lot about cultivating healthy habits of communication, so just thought I'd share a few thoughts. Prayers for you during this Holy Week!

00:20:01
The Practice of the Presence of God - Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

There are various different prayer practices that people have used in the tradition as a way of remaining in the presence of God--the practice of the presence of God (or recollection) is just one. In this video, I explain a little how it helps us to connect the dots between earthly life and heavenly realities.

00:19:43
Life on the Struggle Bus - Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

These past two months have been a bit brutal : ) Sleep, in which I typically indulge sparingly (not by choice), has been practically impossible. At a certain point, it's like: "What's going on?" This video narrates my attempt to make sense of a stressful time. . . . Where is the Lord in the midst of anxiety?

00:21:02
Simple NEW Lofi Song

Working on an entire album of lofi music. Here's one of those songs. Album should drop next week. THEN, a couple of weeks after that we hope to have our 24/7 stream up and running.

Simple NEW Lofi Song
December 01, 2022
Day 5 of Advent

THE ERROR OF ARIUS ABOUT THE INCARNATION

In their eagerness to proclaim the unity of God and man in Christ, some heretics went to the opposite extreme and taught that not only was there one person, but also a single nature, in God and man. This error took its rise from Arius. To defend his position that those scriptural passages where Christ is represented as being inferior to the Father, must refer to the Son of God Himself, regarded in His assuming nature, Arius taught that in Christ there is no other soul than the Word of God who, he maintained, took the place of the soul in Christ’s body. Thus when Christ says, in John 14:28, “The Father is greater than I,” or when He is introduced as praying or as being sad, such matters are to be referred to the very nature of the Son of God. If this were so, the union of God’s Son with man would be effected not only in the person, but also in the nature. For, as we know, the unity of human nature arises from the union of soul and body.

The...

Day 5 of Advent
November 27, 2022
Day 1 of Advent

RESTORATION OF MAN BY GOD THROUGH THE INCARNATION

We indicated above that the reparation of human nature could not be effected either by Adam or by any other purely human being. For no individual man ever occupied a position of pre-eminence over the whole of nature; nor can any mere man be the cause of grace. The same reasoning shows that not even an angel could be the author of man’s restoration. An angel cannot be the cause of grace, just as he cannot be man’s recompense with regard to the ultimate perfection of beatitude, to which man was to be recalled. In this matter of beatitude angels and men are on a footing of equality. Nothing remains, therefore, but that such restoration could be effected by God alone.

But if God had decided to restore man solely by an act of His will and power, the order of divine justice would not have been observed. justice demands satisfaction for sin. But God cannot render satisfaction, just as He cannot merit. Such a service pertains to one who ...

Day 1 of Advent
I want to share an image with you

I want to share an image with you—an image that I think sheds light on how the pleasures the world offers pale in comparison to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I was about eighteen, out on the town with friends in Adelaide. We’d spent the whole night partying—too much to drink, too much noise, chasing the kind of thrill we all assumed would make us happy. As dawn approached, we wandered through the quiet streets of the city, still laughing, still buzzing from the night.

That’s when I noticed it. The sun was beginning to rise over the skyline. Its light spread slowly, steadily, illuminating everything with a kind of quiet majesty. And as it did, the neon signs that had lit up the night—those glowing blues and reds advertising clubs and bars—started to fade. Started to lose their charm. Against the brilliance of the sunrise, they looked weak, sad, almost embarrassed to still be shining. Their glow couldn’t compete with the sun.

That image has stayed with me. Because what ...

Let’s all pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis.

Not a Catholic but can I still pray for Pope Francis or is that offensive? (Also could someone explain the process of the new Pope, like you were explaining it to a 10 year old? Like can Bishop Barron be Pope? Again apologies if the questions are offensive.)

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The Pope is Dead

I got a text from my sister this morning: “The pope died.” I stood there for a moment just staring at the words. I then went to the internet, thinking maybe it was a rumor or a mistake.

But it wasn’t.

Pope Francis died this morning at the age of 88. He passed away in the Casa Santa Marta, the residence inside the Vatican where he had lived since his election in 2013. He had been suffering from a number of health issues in recent years, including a recent case of pneumonia.

His death marks the end of a 12-year papacy, and now the Church enters the period known as sede vacante—the seat of Peter is vacant. Cardinals from around the world will soon gather in Rome for a conclave to elect the next pope. No one knows who it will be, but we should be praying: that the Holy Spirit guide their decision, and that the next pope be a faithful shepherd for the Church in these difficult times.

Pray this prayer with me for the soul of Pope Francis:

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

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7 Terrible Arguments For Atheism

I’ve heard plenty of arguments for atheism over the years—some thoughtful, some clever, and some… well, let’s just say I used to rattle off the worst of them back when I was an angsty 17-year-old agnostic.

Today I want to look at 7 terrible arguments for atheism—the kind that sound good at first but fall apart when you give them more than five seconds of thought.

1. "Who created God?"

This question misunderstands what Christians (and classical theists) mean by “God.” God, by definition, is uncaused—the necessary, self-existent being who causes everything else. Asking “Who created God?” is like asking “What’s north of the North Pole?” or “If your brother is a bachelor, what’s his wife’s name?” It’s a category mistake. The question only makes sense if God were a contingent being—just one more thing in the universe that needed a cause. But He isn’t. He’s the reason anything exists at all.

2. "I just believe in one less god than you."

This is clever-sounding but logically shallow. The difference between atheism and theism isn’t about the number of gods one believes in—it’s about the kind of being we’re talking about. Christians reject all finite, tribal, man-made gods too. The Christian claim is not that God is just one more being among many, but that God is Being Itself—the necessary, uncaused source of all reality. Saying, “I just believe in one less god than you,” is like saying, “I contend we’re both bachelors—I just have one less wife.” The difference between one and none isn’t minor—it’s everything. Atheism isn’t a slight variation on theism; it’s a rejection of the entire foundation of existence.

3. "Science has disproven God."

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Schopenhauer Got Evil Backwards—Here’s Why Aquinas Was Right

I’m currently reading an advanced copy of Adrew Klavan’s new book The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness (I'll be interviewin him about it in a few months).

So far, it’s excellent.

Early on, Klavan takes up the difficult question of how to define evil—what it is and how we should understand it. In doing so, he engages with various thinkers, including Schopenhauer, who wrote: “the concept of right contains merely the negation of wrong.” In other words, Schopenhauer suggests that what we call “right” isn’t something real or positive in itself—it’s simply the absence of wrong.

Klavan ultimately rejects this view, and in this article, I’d like to explain why he’s right to do so. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it’s not wrongness that comes first, but rightness. Good is primary. Evil is always a privation—a lack of the good that ought to be there.


In the Summa Theologiae I, Q.48, A.1, Aquinas asks: “Whether evil is a nature?” He considers the objection that evil must be a nature, because the Philosopher (Aristotle) says, “good and evil are not in a genus, but are genera of other things.” (Which basically means that good and evil aren’t categories of things themselves, but ways of describing things in other categories—like actions, qualities, or beings). But Aquinas replies:

“Evil is not a being, but the absence of being. And hence evil is neither a genus nor a species, but rather a kind of non-being.”

At this point you might be tempted to misunderstand him. Aquinas is not saying that evil isn’t real. It is. But its reality is parasitic on the good—like rot in wood or a hole in the carpet. A hole is “real,” but it doesn’t have existence in itself. It’s the lack of what ought to be there.

He writes:

“Evil is the privation of good… and thus evil is not an essence or nature but a defect.”
(ST I, Q.48, A.1, ad 1)

Aquinas illustrates this with examples from physical defects. Blindness, for instance, is a kind of evil—but it’s not a “thing.” It’s the absence of sight in a creature that ought to have it.

Physical Evil vs. Moral Evil

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