Beyond the books
Listen, watch and history
Not everyone learns best from a page. Here are podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, videos and films worth your time, and the histories that explain how each question came to be asked. Each names the questions it helps with.
To listen to
Podcasts, recorded lectures and free audiobooks: for the commute, the walk, the dishes.
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Ancient Faith Ministries · many Orthodox podcasts · Orthodox Christian podcasts on prayer, the Fathers, icons and the spiritual life: the Eastern tradition from within.
Helps with: What is salvation for?; The way of prayer; How should we speak of God?; Icons and images; God's essence and His energies
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Peter Adamson, 2010 · hundreds of 20-minute episodes · The whole history of philosophy, a short episode at a time, including the late antique, Byzantine, Islamic and medieval thinkers other surveys skip.
Helps with: Do natures and essences really exist?; Is 'being' said of God and of creatures in the same sense?; God's essence and His energies; Why is the good good?; Where does knowledge begin?; Faith and reason: who has the last word?; What makes you this one and no other?; Is there a spiritual soul?
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Matt Fradd, 2016 · weekly episodes and long interviews · Conversations and debates on God, morality and the Church, starting from St. Thomas. Also on video.
Helps with: Can reason know that God exists?; What is happiness?; Marriage, sex and the body's meaning; Rules or character?
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Peter Kreeft · many talks, most under an hour · A Boston College philosopher on God, suffering, heaven and happiness: clear, funny, and easy to listen to on a walk.
Helps with: Can reason know that God exists?; What is suffering for?; What is happiness?; Is truth objective?; What is heaven's happiness, at its heart?
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Bishop Robert Barron · weekly episodes, about 30 to 45 minutes · Bishop Barron on faith and culture, answering listeners' questions on God, the Church and the arts.
Helps with: Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?; Faith and reason: who has the last word?; Can reason know that God exists?
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The Thomistic Institute · hundreds of recorded lectures, about an hour each · Lectures given by Dominicans and Catholic scholars on university campuses, on God, the soul, ethics and grace in the tradition of St. Thomas.
Helps with: Can reason know that God exists?; Is morality objective and knowable?; Is there a spiritual soul?; Are you free?; How does grace move the will?; Faith and reason: who has the last word?; What is happiness?