Lead Us Not Into Temptation | Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Religion &Amp; Spirituality, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Joining the Dominicans of the Western Province in 1960, Fr. Cole was ordained to the priesthood in 1966. He finished his theological studies at Le Saulchoir in Etiolles, France earning the lectorate and licentiate degrees in 1968. He later received the doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the Angelicum). After teaching theology and philosophy at Pilarica College for the Notre Dame Sisters (1968-69), Fr. Cole was elected prior of St. Dominic’s in San Francisco, where he also served as parish priest, a member of the provincial council and lecturer at various institutions (1970-1975). Elected prior of Daniel Murphy High School community in Los Angeles he became a member of the Western Dominican preaching band and preached throughout the American West. Fr. Cole was an invited professor at the Angelicum from 1985-97, and has taught moral, spiritual and dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies since 1997. Fr. Cole has authored: Music and Morals, Alba House, Staten Island, New York, 1993; co-authored with Paul Connor, O.P.; Christian Totality: Theology of Consecrated Life, published by St. Paul’s editions in Bombay, India 1990, revised in 1997 Alba House, Staten Island, New York. He has written for The Priest, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Faith and Reason, and Angelicum. He has also been a long time collaborator for Germain Grisez’s four volume series of moral theology, The Way of the Lord Jesus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This talk is brought to you by the Thomistic Institute. For more talks like this, visit us at
0:05.9	tamistic institute.org. At first blush, it would seem wrong to even suggest that God would
0:16.3	tempt people to sin. St. Thomas took careful pains to show that God doesn't cause sin, nor does he prompt
0:24.2	anybody to commit sin. If it were true that God is the author of sin in any way, shape, or form,
0:30.8	that would mean God is also a morally evil-efficient cause. You don't want to go there. Whereas intellectual creatures are the primary
0:40.3	causes of sin, and God simply permits fallen human beings to do moral evil. So there seems to be
0:49.3	a contemporary problem with the phrase of the Our Father, namely, lead us not into temptation. What does it mean?
0:58.0	The Greek suggests there are two substantially distinct meanings of the word temptation in Greek,
1:04.7	periamos, one being a difficult trial, but not a per se sin, and the other being a force coming from within us,
1:13.6	or something coming from outside of us, encouraging the commission of sin, namely the evil one.
1:21.6	And so that's, you know, it can refer then to testing, in the sense of determining a person's character because when you resist, you grow in virtue.
1:35.4	And so the word tempting doesn't quite mean in these contexts the sense of enticing to sin.
1:45.8	It's clear in sacred scripture, 1 Corinthians 1013, St. Paul, insists that God does not allow one to be tempted beyond one's
1:52.0	strength, and also provides a way to escape. So how on the heavens could he tempt us for him?
1:58.5	It's also taught in James 113 that God doesn't tempt. God cannot be, and also God
2:04.6	can't be tempted with evil, nor does he tempt anyone. Enticement to sin comes from one's own desires.
2:14.9	Many of the church fathers give us a kind of an interpretation of the verse when they teach,
2:20.3	like my beloved St. Basil, it does not, however, become us to seek by our prayers bodily afflictions.
2:29.0	Christ has universally commanded us, so we're everywhere to pray that we enter not into temptation.
2:35.3	But when one has already entered, it's fitting to ask from the Lord the power of enduring,
2:40.6	that we may have fulfilled in us those works. He doesn't, he that endures to the end shall be saved.
2:48.8	Deed, it's impossible for the soul of man not to be tempted.
	...

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