CONTENTS
CONTENTS
3. Saints compared with theologians
5. The (a) reality and (b) inadequacy of our innate knowledge of God
7. God’s necessity: “His essence is existence”
11. Seeing God everywhere: the presence of God in all things
13. Reason’s power to know God
15. We, not God, are the analogy
17. Human science = the knowledge of God’s art
19. Predestination and free will
21. Why God loves all the different things in the universe and why we should too
23. Do men or angels rank higher in God’s love?
24. Reconciling justice and mercy
25. How we can aid predestination
27. Pain or sin: Which is worse?
29. Why good must be stronger than evil
30. Do angels know the future?
31. How is the human heart known by God, men, angels, and demons?
32. The ultimate reason for patience
34. Do creatures withdraw us from God?
35. Why is it important that we have only one soul, not many?
37. Why practicing the presence of God is the key to sanctity
39. Proof that we have free will
40. Free will is based on reason
41. Human freedom and divine grace
42. Do we know objective truth?
43. Human equality and inequality
44. The goodness of human authority
46. The connection between monotheism and peace
47. How our free choices share in God’s sovereign government
48. God’s action and presence in all things
49. How God is in His creatures
52. Why evil spirits assault us
53. How “everything has a purpose” changes the meaning of life
54. Why life must have some single ultimate purpose or end
55. How even trivia are related to our union with God
56. Why wealth can’t make you happy
57. Why human honors can’t make you happy
58. Why being famous can’t make you happy
59. Why power can’t make you happy
60. Why a perfect body in perfect health can’t make you happy
61. Why pleasure can’t make you happy
62. Why even moral virtue alone can’t make you happy
63. Why nothing but God can possibly ever make you completely happy
64. What role our bodily senses play in our happiness
65. Happiness is the “Beatific Vision”
66. How we can get there from here
68. Don’t expect perfect happiness in this life
70. Happiness is unattainable by human power
71. The importance of knowledge
72. Why God can’t force us to will the good
73. Is there such a thing as partial freedom and responsibility?
76. Does God move my will or do I?
79. Being as such is good; all being is good
81. How much of life does ethics cover?
82. Listening to reason is listening to God
83. The sacredness of conscience
84. Holy subjective intentions or holy objective deeds?
86. “My love is my gravity” (Augustine)
88. Loving God more than knowing God
92. St. Thomas the “soft-hearted”
96. The danger of unnatural desires
99. Is pleasure helpful or harmful?
100. The pleasures of contemplation
102. Three evils: sorrow (misery) is worse than pain, and sin is worse than sorrow (misery)
103. The worst thing about physical pain
104. The importance of well-disposed emotions
105. The importance of reason in morality
106. The proper role of feelings in a good man’s life
107. Why there are four cardinal virtues
108. The need for supernatural virtues
112. “The greatest of these is love”
113. The reason there must be a “natural law” morality
114. The three dimensions of ethics
115. Spiritual vs. carnal sins
116. Evil and ignorance one more time
117. Passion and responsibility
118. Why God doesn’t give us enough grace to overcome sin
119. “The Devil made me do it”?
120. Why there is always hope for conversion even of the worst sinner
121. Evidence in our experience for Original Sin
122. The purpose of law, and why not to obey bad laws
123. The sacredness of the natural moral law
124. What the natural law is and how obvious it is
125. Why you must go beyond legal goodness to be good
126. Our obligation to secular human laws is not just secular but sacred
127. When may we and when should we disobey unjust laws?
128. The spirit vs. the letter of the law
129. The ultimate purpose of morality
130. The different levels of moral instruction
131. Why we need “organized religion”
133. The heart of the gospel is not its creeds or codes
134. “Progress”: Will there be a “third testament”?
135. The difficulty in being a Christian
136. Spirit and letter, internal and external
137. Going beyond the commandments
138. God’s presence in ordinary knowledge
140. Nature and natural virtue
141. Can we know that we are in the state of grace?
143. How salvation “works” and why faith alone is not enough
144. The greatest, most dramatic event of all time
145. The main qualification for religion teachers
150. The good done by unbelievers; and “implicit faith”
155. Is love in us from God or from our own active choice?
159. Loving sinners, hating sins
162. Love’s two dimensions, objective and subjective
163. Love of parents compared with love of children
164. Love of spouse compared with love of self
165. Order and hierarchy of loves in Heaven
166. Loving enemies vs. loving friends
175. When it’s right to correct your clergyman
178. Hating sins without hating sinners
179. “Hate crimes” vs. adultery: which is worse?
181. When sloth becomes a mortal sin
182. Sloth as the origin of lust
183. Why the military is an honorable occupation
184. Sinning a little sin to avoid a big scandal?
185. Actual vs. habitual charity
187. Why God does not give you grace to overcome lust
189. Women’s punishment for the Fall
194. How play and jokes go bad
197. The truths in false prophets
201. Beauty, lust, and contemplation
202. How nature aids contemplation
204. Active vs. contemplative lives
205. Comparing the merit (worth) in the two lives, contemplative vs. active
206. Are the active and contemplative lives opposed?
207. The limits of perfection in this life
208. Perfection = charity beyond measure
209. How the Incarnation completes the purpose of the creation
210. The necessity of the Incarnation
211. A good but unanswerable question
213. Adoration of an image of Christ
216. The Immaculate Conception
221. The meaning of Christ’s Baptism
224. Why Christ offended people
225. Why Socrates was the greatest philosopher
227. What Christ’s miracles taught
229. Why Christ had to die on the Cross
230. Christ suffered everything
233. Why Christ died in Jerusalem
234. Why Christ died between two thieves
235. How God could have suffered and died
236. How Christ’s death was martyrdom, not suicide
237. Christ’s death as obedience
238. How Christ’s death opened Heaven
240. Why Christ rose the third day
241. Why Christ’s Resurrection body had scars
242. Christ’s presence before and after His Ascension
243. What the Eucharist signifies
244. Why sacraments are visible
245. The place of sacraments in our historical story
247. How the sacraments get their power
248. How sacraments make us Christlike
249. Why there are seven sacraments
252. Baptists vs. Catholics on immersion
254. How God’s grace is not confined to His physical sacraments
257. The need for the parents’ will in infant Baptism
258. Why the Eucharist is greater than Baptism
259. The Eucharist as the end and purpose of Baptism
260. Three meanings of the Eucharist
263. Real Presence: “Body and Blood, soul and divinity”
264. Bread without wine = the whole Christ
265. How Christ is “here” in the Eucharist
266. When Christ’s Presence departs from the sacrament
267. Why Christ’s Presence is invisible
268. Eucharistic appearances of bread and wine without their realities
269. How complete is Christ’s disguise in the Eucharist?
270. We hear Christ’s words, not the priest’s
271. The greatest sentence ever spoken
272. Drinking Christ’s own Blood from His own wounds
273. The Eucharist and our future Heavenly glory
274. The Eucharist and forgiveness
275. The Eucharist and Purgatory
276. How the Eucharist keeps us from sin
277. How the Eucharist helps your friends
278. Venial sins vs. the Eucharist
279. Can forgotten or unconscious sins impede the Eucharist?
280. Denying Communion to public sinners
281. Eucharist for the mentally disabled?
283. Bread alone vs. bread and wine
285. How the Church deals with problems during the Mass
288. Repentance is not essentially a feeling
291. Why forgiveness requires repentance
292. How to distinguish true repentance from its counterfeit
293. We don’t get off scot-free
294. How can we repay an infinite debt to God?
295. Exchange: bearing one another’s burdens
300. Matrimony: natural or supernatural?
303. Married sex as sacramental
305. Immediate judgment after death
306. How souls in Heaven can be present on earth
307. Heaven is pure good but Hell is not pure evil
308. The experience of the soul separated from the body
309. The extent of the power of the communion of saints
313. Are we being watched as we pray?
314. Why it is good to pray to saints
315. The time of Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world
317. The resurrection of the body
318. The personal identity of the resurrection body
319. The organs in the resurrection body
323. Animal activities—eating and copulating—in Heaven?
324. The agility of the resurrection body
325. Wounds in the resurrection body
326. The concreteness of the resurrection body
327. The clarity, or light, of the resurrection body
328. The “impassibility” of the resurrection body
329. Remembering sins in Heaven
330. The need for two judgments
331. The time of the end of the world
332. Three categories of persons at the judgment
335. The role of the bodily eye in seeing God
336. The communion of saints in Heaven
337. What the resurrection body adds to Heavenly happiness
339. The blessed’s attitude toward the damned
340. Can Hell make Heaven happy?
345. What the damned want; and why suicide can never work
349. How can God refuse the prayers of the saints for mercy to the damned?
351. More on the eternity of Hell
352. Limbo: reasons for its existence
353. What they experience in Limbo
356. The amount of time you spend in Purgatory
357. The existence of Purgatory
358. Purgatory and Hell compared