⭐️ Donate $5 to help keep these videos FREE for everyone!
Pay it forward for the next viewer: https://go.thomisticinstitute.org/donate-youtube-a101
"Could it be that my longing is not just for something beautiful, but for beauty itself — for the infinite and original beauty of which the beautiful things of this world are but reflections? That was St. Augustine's answer. That was St. Thomas Aquinas' answer.
Augustine views beautiful things as wordless, poignant testimony, or witnesses, and he asks who made these who made these beautiful and transitory things which cannot completely satisfy you lest it be the unchanging beauty.
And he says the same about every good in life: all created goods are a reflection of the unchanging good.
'Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following night with its shining rays, question the animals that move in the waters, that amble about on dry land, that fly in the air; their souls hidden, their bodies evident; the visible bodies needing to be controlled, the invisible souls controlling them; question all these things. They all answer you, 'Here we are, look ; we're beautiful.' Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable?' (St. Augustine, Sermons, 241, Easter: c.411 A.D.)" —Prof. J. Budziszewski
——————————
This lecture was given on February 10, 2022 at the University of South Carolina.
About the speaker:
J. Budziszewski (Ph.D. Yale, 1981) is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. His main area of research is the natural moral law, and he is most well known for his work on moral self-deception, “the revenge of conscience,” what happens when we tell ourselves that we don't know what we really do know. However, he has written about all sorts of things such as moral character, family and sexuality, religion and public life, toleration and liberty, and the unraveling of our common culture.
The most recent of his thirteen books are Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law and Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Virtue Ethics, both from Cambridge University Press, as well as On the Meaning of Sex, from Intercollegiate Studies Institute. His book for students, How to Stay Christian in College has sold several hundred thousand copies. He also maintains a personal website and blog, The Underground Thomist.
Married for more than 45 years, Dr. Budziszewski has several children and a clutch of grandchildren.
——————————
Subscribe to our channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheThomisticInstitute?sub_confirmation=1
Stay connected on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/ThomisticInstitute
https://www.instagram.com/thomisticinstitute
https://twitter.com/thomisticInst
Visit us at: https://thomisticinstitute.org/
