So here's my understanding of something he says. And I'd love you to correct me or just if not correct me expand upon it. Because I found this idea fascinating. The idea is that sin has bent man over on himself. So he's kind of like a cripple, as it were, who's unable to see himself rightly, nature rightly, other people perhaps. And that what's needed is the word of God to untwist him so that he can see reality rightly.

And

I like that. Is that basically right? I want you to expand on it a second, but I want to say something else. I really like that idea, you know, because in the book of Romans, and I think it's in wisdom and elsewhere, it makes the claim that like God's existence is manifest and that it's our sinfulness that prevents us from seeing what really couldn't be clearer. Yeah. And so I like that. And then I thought of an analogy because I used to do a lot of work with people who were immersed in pornography. And you might say that pornography bends man over on himself in a way so that he's unable to see the goodness of his wife's body. Like she is good. She is beautiful. Makes you blind. She could be as beautiful as you want, but pornography will make you blind to that beauty. And what you need is something to untwist you so that you can see reality are right.

But please expand upon that idea because that's a beautiful idea. And I think that's the right way to see it. And I don't know if Thomas would deny that idea, but I think it has a special emphasis again in the Franciscan school because the Franciscan school back to the major differences is there's an emphasis put on love. And so there's an emphasis put on will, right? It's not will to power. It's not aakum, right? It's not Nietzsche. It's not anything. It's not love, right? The desiring part, right? That is supposed to love God for God's sake. That's the emphasis for the Franciscan schools on that part of man, right? And so for example, philosophy itself, reason itself, there is a method that's philosophy, right? It has an end, right? Of course, that end is the love of divine wisdom. That's what the word philosophy means, right? Philosopher, right? And so loving divine wisdom, that's the end. But what Bonaventure says is that can never get to the end. You will never get to its own end without the faith, right? So we need faith to strengthen, right? And to motivate and to keep on track for philosophy, for reason to even do its job, right? And so what he says in the beginning of the journey of the mind to God, and I wish I had it right here with all my friends over here, my books. I should have brought that one too, is that he talks about it's only the man of desires that can make this journey. The first thing you do is get on your knees, right? You pray that you can become holy. You pray that God removes your ignorance. You pray that God removes your concubescent desires. And that's how you start the journey of the mind of God. That's literally the prologue. You can't do any of this stuff appropriately because your mind is broken. It's bent, right? Now we can see even when we correct ourselves by holy desire, we still only see through a glass darkly. We still only see in the mirror, which is the created order. It's like a mirror. You look down and it reflects on God. If you know it's a mirror, then you can see it's reflecting God, but it's dim, right? It's obscure because of our sin, even if we're living holy. And so that is absolutely

where we have to start.