How to Think Like Aquinas

by Kevin Vost

  My own training and research into aging and cognition was completed with the aid of elderly Dominican, Franciscan, and Ursuline sisters who had volunteered for a study through the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. (I narrowly missed the chance to test my fourth-grade teacher, who once gave me a D in conduct, but that’s another story.) Many of the sisters remained very sharp well into their ninth decade. (The first person to repeat back to me a list of fifteen words in their exact order after several trials was a retired Ursuline teacher in her late eighties!) Other groups of religious sisters throughout the United States have volunteered and helped us learn more about brain functioning and dementia.

  Dr. Ratey tells the interesting story of a Sister Bernadette of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mankato, Minnesota. Right up until the time she died of a heart attack in the 1990s, she scored in the top 10 percent of her age group in tests of cognitive abilities such as memory, language, and visual-spatial abilities. She donated her brain to science, and most surprisingly, after death, her hippocampus was found to be full of the plaques and tangles characteristic of the damage wrought by Alzheimer’s disease, despite the fact that her cognitive capacities had remained superb! Researchers speculated that because she stayed so mentally active, she developed cognitive reserve capacity in response to the damage. Healthy brain tissue was likely recruited to help maintain cognitive function through different routes, which sounds to me quite akin to the phenomenon of “collateral circulation” protecting the heart, wherein minor blood vessels enlarge to enhance circulation to compensate for damage to large vessels, a process that may be aided by physical exercise.

  So, what is the bottom line for those who would like to maximize the health of their bodies and brains to keep thinking more like Aquinas? Dr. Ratey recommends that every healthy person120 exercise regularly and that anyone over sixty should exercise almost every day. He recommends two strength-training sessions and four mild to moderate aerobic sessions (walking, jogging, biking, cardio machines, and so forth) every week.

  Exercise can be powerful medicine even in small doses. A minimal, but effective regimen could entail as little as one brief (twenty- to thirty-minute) strength workout (free weights, machines, or body weight exercises) and three brief (twenty- to thirty-minute) aerobic workouts (walking, running, swimming, and so forth) or vigorous sessions of normal house and yard work.121

  Practice Intellectual Humility, but Not Pusillanimity!

  In encouraging Brother John (and all of us) not to seek things too high for us, Thomas endorses intellectual humility. The word “humility” comes from the Latin humus, for “ground, earth, or soil.” When we are humble, we remember that we are indeed “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday and at funeral services (see Gen. 3:19). Which one of us gave ourselves our own existence? As Christ proclaimed to St. Catherine of Siena in a mystical ecstasy:

  “Do you know, daughter, who you are, and who I am? If you know these two things, you will be blessed. You are she who is not; whereas I am He who is.”122

  In practicing intellectual humility, we always remember the limits of our human powers of understanding. All of our human knowledge begins with the things of this earth, and what our senses reveal to us about them. God has graced us with intellectual powers, but great mysteries of the Faith, such as the Holy Trinity, will always exceed our powers to grasp them fully. Nonetheless, we should never confuse the lofty virtue of humility with the lowly vice of pusillanimity.

  “Pusillanimity” derives from the Latin word pusillus, meaning “very little, petty, or paltry.” In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas:

  Pusillanimity makes a man fall short of what is proportionate to his power. . . . Hence it is that the servant who buried in the earth the money that he received from his master, and did not trade with it through fainthearted fear, was punished by his master.123

  The second half of the word “-animity” refers to the anima — Latin for “soul.” To be pusillanimous, then, is to be “small souled,” and this is not what God wants of us. Recalling the parable of the talents, which Thomas cited (Matt. 25:14–30), God, our most generous Master, is most pleased when we take whatever talents He gives us and multiply them to the utmost of our abilities for His honor and glory.

  God calls us to be humble in remembering our lowly origins and limited abilities, but He does not call us to the vice of pusillanimity. Rather, He invites us to build and share its direct opposite, the virtue of magnanimity — true magna (greatness) of soul. While humility rightly recognizes the limits of our innate humanity, magnanimity recalls that we can do all things “through Christ who strengthens us” (see Phil. 4:13).

  St. Thomas masterfully dispels the paradox of a conflict between magnanimity and humility by calling to our attention both the divine and the natural elements of our humanity. We are given great and powerful gifts from God, such as the intellectual powers this book is all about! We also have a sinful, fallen human nature. Magnanimity reflects our consideration of that divine spark within us, the recognition that we are greatly blessed by God and should use our powers for the greatest works of good within our capacities. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” said Jesus (Matt. 5:48).

  Magnanimity reflects this striving for perfection. Humility reflects the recognition of that weaker, sinful side of our nature. It recognizes that, although we must always strive to do great things and to make ourselves perfect, we never fully achieve that state in this life. Further, when we express the virtue of humility, we recognize the greatness of soul that God has also provided in our neighbor. The truly magnanimous person, then, strives for great and honorable things and also wishes the same for his neighbor. He strives for truths within reach, recognizes the limits of that reach, and tries to stretch it with God’s grace and to help his neighbor reach yet higher too.

  Doctor’s Orders ✍

  Prescription for Knowing Your Limits (and Stretching Them)

  Reflect

  Might you take a few minutes to consider what habits of diet, exercise, rest, prayer, or study either help or hinder your abilities to make the most of your God-given powers of thought, and then make prudent efforts to weed out the bad dispositions and tendencies and replace them with virtuous ones? Have you reflected on how you might grow both in the humility that grounds us and the magnanimity that raises us?

  Read

  In his Summa, Thomas writes about humility in the context of its relationship to the virtue of temperance124 and writes about magnanimity and pusillanimity in the context of their relationship to the virtue of fortitude.125 For more information on both the scientific research on the positive effects of exercise on thinking capacities, and practical recommendations on what kind and how much exercise to do, see Dr. John Ratey’s Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain and the amazingly vigorous octogenarian fitness expert Clarence Bass’s Take Charge: Fitness at the Edge of Science.126 The book that best explains the many benefits of proper strength training and the briefest and safest ways to obtain them is Body by Science, by emergency-room physician Doug McGuff, M.D.127 Father Sertillanges’s recommendations on exercise for the intellectual can be found in his Intellectual Life, chapter 2 on “The Virtues of a Catholic Intellectual,” section 4, on “The Discipline of the Body.” My own look at the relationship between fitness and virtue can be found in Fit for Eternal Life: A Christian Approach to Working Out, Eating Right, and Building the Virtues of Fitness in Your Soul and in my devotional with co-authors Peggy Bowes and Shane Kapler, Tending the Temple: 365 Days of Spiritual and Physical Devotions.128

  Remember

  Have you internalized the gist of all ten precepts now? If not, take another mental walk around the first nine places in our mnemonic foyer. Are they stored safe and sound in your treasure chest of memory? In part 2 you’ll come to know like the back of your hand the rest of this house and its intrigu
ing contents, all designed to help you think more like Aquinas.

  111Sir. 3:21: “Seek not what is too difficult for you” in the RSVCE.

  112Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 55, art. 2.

  113Cited in Sertillanges and Ryan, The Intellectual Life, 33.

  114And Thomas was not alone in this. St. Albert the Great and St. Bonaventure were among others who gave Aristotle that title.

  115See Kevin Vost, Fit for Eternal Life: A Christian Approach to Working Out, Eating Right, and Building the Virtues of Fitness in Your Soul (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 2007).

  116Thank you, Dr. Dan Donnelly!

  117John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (New York: Little, Brown, 2008).

  118Marie Snider, “Miracle-Gro for Brains,” Exercise Revolution (blog), March 2008, http://johnratey.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/miracle-gro-for.html.

  119HGH production has been found to be stimulated most strongly by intense exercises using the body’s biggest muscles, so that, for example, short intense sprints stimulate more than walking or jogging. To my pleasant surprise — though, it really should not have been surprising — Dr. Ratey notes that the greatest HGH response has been found in response to intense barbell squats (weighted deep-knee bends) that involve several of the body’s biggest and strongest muscles in unison. Strength trainers have been aware for many decades that exercises such as squats best stimulate overall muscle growth and size, but did not know the chemical mechanisms behind it.

  120Anyone starting or significantly changing an exercise program should consult his physician first to rule out any existing conditions that could make exercise dangerous.

  121The manner in which strength training is performed is very important, especially for its safe and effective performance by the elderly. There is a chapter on their needs in Fit for Eternal Life.

  122Blessed Raymond of Capua, The Life of St. Catherine of Siena (Charlotte, NC: St. Benedict Press, 2006), 62. Cf. Exod. 3:14.

  123Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 133, art. 1.

  124Summa Theologica, II-II. Q. 161.

  125Ibid., II-II, Q. 129 and 133.

  126Clarence Bass and Carol Bass, Take Charge: Fitness at the Edge of Science (Albuquerque, NM: Clarence Bass’ Ripped Enterprises, 2013).

  127Doug McGuff and John R. Little, Body by Science: A Research Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009).

  128Kevin Vost, Shane Kapler, and Peggy Bowes, Tending the Temple (Waterford, MI: Bezalel Books, 2011).

  Conclusion to Part 1

  Follow in the footsteps of blessed Dominic, who brought forth useful and wonderful leaves, flowers, and fruits in the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts for as long as life was his fellow traveler. If you shall have followed these steps, you will be able to attain whatever you desire. Farewell!

  Following the Founder’s Footsteps in the Vineyard of the Lord

  Thomas ends by advising Brother John to follow in the footsteps of St. Dominic de Guzman (1170–1221), the founder of their Order of Preachers. Although this is the only direct reference to Dominic in Thomas’s extant writings, Dominic’s impact on Thomas’s thought and life was clearly immense. Dominic founded their order to bring the truth of Christ’s gospel to the Cathars in Southern France who had been taken in by the Albigensian heresy, a variation of age-old Manichean ideas that saw the material world (including the body) as evil, and only the realm of the spirit as good.129 Dominic knew well the Church’s position that all of God’s creation was good (see Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). He knew that to convert the Cathars, and later the whole world, to the truth, his preachers needed to know the truth, so Veritas (Truth) became one of his religious order’s early mottos. For this reason, study itself became a hallmark and one of the “four pillars” of the Dominican Order.130

  Further, in keeping with Thomas’s advice to Brother John on study as a “way of life,” Dominic knew that sinners and heretics would be converted not merely by abstract truths but through the example of those who preached to them. He knew that where rich and powerful bishops and abbots, with all their fine vestments, horses, and retinues, had failed to reach the heretics who believed they were true to Christ’s humble example, his friars and brothers who embraced poverty, chastity, and obedience would help win their hearts as well as their minds. To be a Dominican was to follow and to proclaim Christ, the “way, the truth, and the life.” Thomas reminds Brother John, then, of his calling as a Dominican, and yet one need not be a professed Dominican to share in their bountiful lessons.

  Christ told us that He is the vine, and we are the branches, and that we should bear abiding fruit (see John 15:5, 16). Dominic was a branch who so followed Christ that his leaves, flowers, and fruits still abide and nourish us in our world today. Thomas tells Brother John (and us as well) the good news that if we follow Dominic’s example, as he followed Christ’s, paying heed to all the precepts in this little study guide, we will acquire quidquid affectus — whatever we desire!131 This is possible when our study is founded in prayer and grounded in Christ, for Christ told us “with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

  Unleashing All Your Intellectual Powers

  As we come to the end of part 1, I get my last chance to drive some thoughts home. So, let’s buckle up and begin.

  First of all, I hope you have come to see, through the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas, how your capacities to think, study, and make prudent decisions in your life are truly wonderful intellectual powers, given to you by God. God has given each one of us a potentially powerful intellect and it is up to us whether we choose to open up the throttle of its sundry powers or just sit there idling. God is not pleased with the inaction of the lukewarm (Rev. 3:16), with those who would bury their talents under the ground (Matt. 25:24–30) or hide their lights under a bushel basket (Matt. 5:15).132 Indeed, He calls us to be perfect (Matt. 5:48), making the most of all the gifts He has given us, showing our gratitude to Him, and sharing the fruits of our powers with others.

  Virtues such as docility, studiousness, prudence, and magnanimity are the oars with which we row into ever broader streams of knowledge. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, are the powerful winds behind us, if we but unfurl our sails!

  Hopefully, Thomas has enlightened us with a greater understanding of the intellectual powers that we may not have realized we have, and inflamed our hearts with zeal to practice and perfect our powers of thinking, and to improve our lives and the lives of our neighbors as we and they grow in happiness and in holiness.

  From Half-Truths to Wholes

  Thomas wrote at great length about justice, and he always strove after the same thing sought out by our courts of law: “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Hopefully, that will be another unforgettable message from these pages. The world as a whole does not think like Aquinas and threatens to smother us with half-digested half-truths. Our culture often asks us to choose either faith or reason, science or religion, cherished principles or tolerance, tradition or progress, pleasure or virtue, and to respond to many more false either-or dichotomies. Thomas answers that we are made to seek both in their right measure, using the powers of our minds to look at all sides of important issues, ferreting out little truths wherever they may be found, so that we may attain the fullness of truth within our capacities to know it.

  St. Thomas can help us transcend yet another crucial false dichotomy of our day, one that says we must choose to guide our lives by the cool reasoning of the rational mind or the warm fires of heartfelt emotion. Thomas chose both the head and the heart, both warm wisdom and loving, burning charity. Reginald of Piperno, Thomas’
s confessor and closest friend of his last years of life, noted that “very often, during Mass, he burst into tears. Sometimes the congregation witnessed it.” Those who would think like Aquinas will strive to love like him, too, seeking to know God better, so as to love Him more deeply.

  St. Thomas was the world’s greatest synthesizer and integrator of truths. He should inspire us to try to do likewise, within the limits of our powers, as he reminds us in his last precept.

  From Thoughts to Deeds

  We need to train ourselves, then, to think like Aquinas in seeking the fullness of truth so that we may better act like him too, executing the kind of prudent actions in our lives that will help us attain the ultimate end of the goodness of God. St. Thomas knew well that “faith, by itself, if it has not works, is dead” (James 2:17). Let thinking like Aquinas strengthen in us a faith that works!

  Through Him, with Him, and in Him

  At the beginning of his academic career, young Thomas chose to give his first lecture at the University of Paris in 1256, expounding on this scriptural verse: “From your heights you water the mountains; the earth is filled with the fruits of your works” (Ps. 103:13, Douay-Rheims). Water comes to the mountains from the heavens above, forming rivers that flow down to the earth, giving it life and making it fertile. “Similarly, the minds of teachers, symbolized by the mountains, are watered by the things that are above in the wisdom of God, and by their ministry the light of divine wisdom flows down into the minds of students.”133