Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I am a Dominican friar of the

province of St Joseph. I teach at the Dominican House of Studies and I work for the

Tomistic Institute and this is Pines for the Aquinas. So in this episode I would like to talk about whether

rich people can go to heaven, which I suppose on the one hand sounds a little bit

silly because all people can go to heaven. We read in 1st Timothy 2.4, God desires that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.

So God is giving us each a grace sufficient to salvation. But the question is whether

riches poses a peculiar particular obstacle to that.

Because you know on the other hand our lord has some stern words reserved for the rich or some stern

admonitions I suppose reserved for the rich.

And we shouldn't get in the habit of explaining away

the sacred page, because that'll often

put us in a strange situation.

So let's take the question seriously

and see what we can derive from it. Here we go.

Okay so there are any number of representative passage passages in the

sacred scriptures concerning riches and concerning the

disposition of those who have riches but I thought I'd just pick one from

the gospel of Matthew specifically from chapter 19 verses 23 through 26 which read and Jesus said to his disciples truly I say to you it

will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven again I tell you it is

easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished saying who then can be saved.

But Jesus looked at them and said to them, with man this is

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