How the Incarnation Ties Disciplines Together | John Boyle

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by John Boyle, professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas. They discuss the influence of St. Thomas Aquinas and John’s newest book, Aquinas on Scripture: A Primer. John also talks about St. Thomas’ curriculum and how the incarnation holds everything together. They also discuss their Catholic Studies program, including its structure, benefits, and presence at a larger, private university. 

Transcript

Jeremy Tate (00:02.358)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, folks. We're here today with Dr. John Boyle, professor at St. Thomas University in Minnesota. Dr. Boyle is an expert in the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas More, and has a new book out as of last year. So we'll be talking about that just a bit today. John has been leading at the Catholic Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas.

a program now that has been imitated, mimicked at more than 50 other colleges and universities as well. Dr. Boyle, thanks so much for being on the podcast.

John Boyle (00:40.503)
a joy to be with you, Jeremy. Thanks for inviting me.

Jeremy Tate (00:43.766)
So excited to dig in here and you've been at the University of St. Thomas for some time now. Minnesota native, John.

John Boyle (00:52.652)
No, it's a secret between all of us. I'm a Californian by birth. I'm a fifth generation Californian, but I've lived here in Minnesota longer than anywhere. This is home. I actually think I was swapped at birth. I think I actually am a Minnesotan, but this is the great corner of the world. It's thoroughly home.

Jeremy Tate (00:57.738)
No kidding, okay.

Jeremy Tate (01:21.004)
Love that. then tell us about school growing up, Catholic schools, public schools. There weren't many folks homeschooling at that time. What kind of education did you receive?

John Boyle (01:27.372)
No, I didn't go to kind of schools. I went to a private school and college prep. And it was a wonderful experience. It was a wonderful experience. have wonderful teachers who, many of whom really instilled in me a sense of delight and wonder at literature, even at math, which I was terrible at. But I...

Jeremy Tate (01:48.449)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (01:55.168)
Religious private school or secular private? OK.

John Boyle (01:57.258)
Nope, nope, secular, totally secular. was not in a religiously affiliated school until I went to graduate school.

Jeremy Tate (02:07.626)
Okay, and then growing up, were you coming from a devoutly Christian Catholic family? What was that like?

John Boyle (02:13.384)
I was from a serious Episcopalian family. And yeah, we cared and I was raised in the faith, absolutely.

Jeremy Tate (02:16.971)
Okay.

Jeremy Tate (02:23.97)
Okay, fantastic. Okay, so at a private school, secular school, even thinking back, I mean, you had a love for learning. They were fostering your curiosity, your imagination. When did you begin to consider the idea of life in academia as a professor?

John Boyle (02:44.623)
Well, Jeremy, think I realized early in life, I'm Johnny OneNote, I can do one thing. And I realized early on was teaching. And almost any level I was studying, I thought this would be fun to teach. And when I hit college, I thought, this is it. This is totally it. And at that point, I thought, if I can do this for the rest of my life, I will. And

Jeremy Tate (02:50.217)
Ahahaha.

Jeremy Tate (02:57.697)
Hmm.

John Boyle (03:11.85)
I can tell you that since the, I think the age of three, I have started school every fall of my life. I have never been anywhere other than school. And I don't want to be anywhere other than school. It is still one of the most exciting places to be a school, be in a place of education on either side, a student or as teacher.

Jeremy Tate (03:20.001)
Wow.

Jeremy Tate (03:38.784)
And so undergrad, Oberlin College, is that right?

John Boyle (03:41.684)
Overland College, yes.

Jeremy Tate (03:43.786)
Okay, and then your PhD in medieval studies at University of Toronto, what drew you to medieval studies?

John Boyle (03:51.43)
Yeah, teachers, the power of teachers. did not go to Oberlin. I was interested in history. I did not go to Oberlin thinking I would do the Middle Ages, in part because I figured, everybody knew everything about the Middle Ages, didn't need to do that. And I had two teachers, one in religion, one in history, both world -class scholars of the Middle Ages. And I discovered the Middle Ages and I thought, this is so cool. In part because, I mean, Oberlin at that point,

You know, you to be careful bit about religion. You know, you had to be careful. And what I discovered was this world where the faith was alive and interesting and intellectually serious and intellectually thought about in ways that I'd never heard, never seen, and I thought is just too interesting. I got to keep doing this. And so I did.

Jeremy Tate (04:37.612)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (04:44.258)
It's beautiful. Middle ages. And again, I'm not an academic. Don't don't pretend to be. think 800 ish to like 1300. Is that the ballpark?

John Boyle (04:53.07)
I'd start a little earlier. I'd aim more like about 600 and I'd go to 1500. But as I tell students in our graduate program, I do Catholic thought and culture one and I do which is early middle ages. I like big round numbers and I say the only thing special about these numbers is they're round. It's true in the Middle Ages. The only thing special about it is it's round. There's stuff important. yeah, it's great. I love it.

Jeremy Tate (05:02.763)
Okay.

Jeremy Tate (05:18.582)
So, and then this term, the dark ages, where does this term come from?

John Boyle (05:23.134)
It comes from the Enlightenment, which makes sense. Once human beings figured out that they had privileged access to reason and could shake off superstition and religion, and they did it thinking they were studying the pagans well. They thought, well, there's the Greeks. They were really incredible. There's us. We're really incredible. I was in the middle. It was dark. And it's in middle, the Middle Ages.

Jeremy Tate (05:26.572)
Hahaha

Jeremy Tate (05:48.96)
Wow, wow, and that, yeah. I can't think of a term that has been more powerful in in this guiding an understanding of a historical period. Can you?

John Boyle (05:52.958)
It's.

John Boyle (06:02.615)
no, it's, in a way, it's sort of wonderful. mean, at first, you know, as a baby medievalist, thought, these are terrible terms. I sort of like them now because they capture a certain modern view. Now, having said that, of course, there's so much interest in the Middle Ages, and it's only growing in part because it has a kind of it's got problems because it's got human beings, but there's a kind of intellectual and religious depth to it.

Jeremy Tate (06:15.703)
Mm.

John Boyle (06:32.14)
that if you got a religious resonance in your soul, you can't help but think there is something really interesting here. In spite of the huge human mess. mean, having said that, I don't want to live them. I am happy to be in modernity. I just like like running water.

Jeremy Tate (06:44.864)
Yeah.

Let's talk St. Thomas and then we'll talk Catholic Studies program at St. Thomas University and what this is and what you do. But St. Thomas Aquinas, does he have rivals in the church? Is he without equal the influence of St. Thomas? And Dr. Boepp, many of our listeners are not Catholic, but I think Aquinas' influence goes far beyond, I think, the boundaries of Catholicism as well.

John Boyle (07:14.958)
No, in fact, shameless promotion moment, my new book on Thomas, St. Thomas on Scripture of Primer, designed to be read by anybody. One of the things that makes me very happy, the blurbs, three of them are from prominent evangelical Protestants. Thomas is, Thomas is for everybody. Most important, I don't know what that even means.

Jeremy Tate (07:40.246)
Mm -hmm.

John Boyle (07:44.706)
hugely influential. I think in the Latin tradition, there are two, to my mind, two towering figures, Augustine and St. Thomas. Part of the reason St. Thomas is so towering is he was a very careful reader of Augustine. And part of what makes Thomas great is that he comes up with new things, although he does some of that. He's got this amazing clarity of mind. So what I do with my little scripture book, for example,

Jeremy Tate (07:54.689)
Done.

John Boyle (08:13.518)
It's about the principles, the way he reads scripture. There is nothing new in St. Thomas. It's the way the entire tradition had read it, way the fathers read it, the way St. Augustine read it, the way Origen read it. They all read it this way. What St. Thomas does is to articulate the principles with such clarity. go, that's what they're doing. St. Thomas does that over and over and over again. That's what I love about St. Thomas. Here's reality. It's messy. We're not going to impose our thoughts on reality.

Jeremy Tate (08:24.609)
Hmm.

John Boyle (08:41.58)
but we can apply intelligence to it and use the greats who've been before us and try and get reality better. That's what every great thinker does. That's what Socrates does. That's what Augustine does. That's what St. Thomas does. They all do it.

Jeremy Tate (08:48.588)
Mm.

Jeremy Tate (08:58.528)
I love that. read last year Chesterton's book on, I think it's just called Aquinas or Thomas St. Thomas. Great. Okay. You'd recommend it. He gets him.

John Boyle (09:03.754)
great book. great. Cheshden. Cheshden is one of those men who gets gets everything and is a guide to reality. No, that's a wonderful book. And it's sort of sweet because Maisie Ward, his publisher, when heard that he was going to Aquinas thought, what does he possibly know? I how does he I mean, you know, they trusted him was like, there he goes again. And he delivered a classic, as he pretty much

Jeremy Tate (09:09.846)
Yes.

Okay.

Jeremy Tate (09:29.045)
huh.

Wow.

John Boyle (09:33.056)
always did.

Jeremy Tate (09:36.14)
So as a teacher, as a deep lover of St. Thomas, where do you begin with students?

John Boyle (09:46.733)
I like to think I begin with reality. And I can give you a short example. So I'm reading my Theo 100. I also teach theology at St. Thomas. I started this year, I always do with the Samaritan woman at the well, John Ford. And we spent a lot of time talking about water. What is water? And I figured if I get across anything to them,

Jeremy Tate (09:50.922)
Ha

Jeremy Tate (10:02.272)
Hmm.

John Boyle (10:12.18)
It's great just thinking about water. Water is wet. Before we go anywhere, water is wet because if we don't get that clear, we're going to have a really hard time figuring out what Jesus is talking about because, in fact, he's talking about water. So I like texts. I like to take time in text. I like to take the words and savor the words and think about the words. What's the reality of the words point to?

Jeremy Tate (10:17.015)
Mm.

John Boyle (10:40.448)
Water is actually a remarkable experience, reality. You can spend a lot of time, and I do, just asking students, tell me about water. Tell me about water. And then we can get to the water that gushes inside us to eternal life.

Jeremy Tate (10:43.35)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (10:50.07)
So.

Jeremy Tate (10:54.358)
Hmm, love that, love that. So Catholic Study Center at St. Thomas University, and this is the original, and now there are many, many Catholic study centers cropping up all over the country. Duquesne University, they're everywhere now, but you were the first one.

John Boyle (10:58.668)
Yeah.

John Boyle (11:11.334)
We are.

Jeremy Tate (11:12.834)
And it was for me, it was probably 2019. I was on campus at St. Thomas. I'm there for the ICLE event, Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, Michael Van Ecke, Andrew Seeley, Beth Sullivan, great friends. And I hear Dr. Naughton speak. And it was completely disorienting to me because I was like, where am I? Am I at TAC? Am I at Franciscan? Am I at Ave Maria? I'm at St. Thomas University of Minnesota. And he delivers an absolute home run.

John Boyle (11:29.954)
the

Jeremy Tate (11:42.846)
And then I discover, okay, he's part of this thing called the Catholic Studies Program. And in some ways, I think of it as kind of like a college within a college. It is distinct, it is a course of study, but there's a distinct cultural ethos, where it may not be normal for the typical kid at St. Thomas to go to daily mass or something. It's very normal within the Catholic Studies Program. So I'm wondering, for folks who have never heard of this, Dr. Boyle,

John Boyle (11:51.588)
Thank

Jeremy Tate (12:10.796)
How would you describe it? What is it Catholic Studies program at St. Thomas or any of these other colleges or universities?

John Boyle (12:15.925)
There's a lot of forms of it, Jeremy. So I can surely speak to our form. And 31 years now, we've got a pretty good idea of what we're Let's start negatively, bad pedagogy. What we're not, we're not philosophy, we're not theology. We're a different beast. And I think one of the ways to describe it, we study the impact of the incarnation.

on human thought and culture. And the reality is the incarnation impacts all of human culture. So we're interested in everything in Catholic studies. We're interested in the pagans. We're interested in business. Almost all our majors are double majors. We like double majors. Double majors in business. Double majors in journalism, communications, digital media, neuroscience, and philosophy, and history, and English.

Jeremy Tate (12:45.633)
Hmm.

John Boyle (13:13.088)
you name it. And here's the thing that I think is at the heart of what we do. If you actually think the incarnation affects everything, then when you think about how education works, and what the way it often works, now it's different for some of the schools you work with. But early on, it's about disciplines. So the classic high school, kind of high school I went to, first period English, second period math, third period Latin,

Jeremy Tate (13:22.252)
Mm.

Jeremy Tate (13:36.96)
Mm -hmm.

John Boyle (13:43.68)
And you take your books out, you do it, put it back in your bag and move on. You go to university. That's what a university is. That's what the modern university is. You have a major. Everybody's worried about that. Here's my question. Where in the modern university do you learn to put it together? Where there's a place that intentionally says we're going to help you think about all these things you're learning and bring them together so you can think about how do I integrate my business study, my biology?

Jeremy Tate (13:49.761)
Mm.

Jeremy Tate (13:58.977)
Hmm.

John Boyle (14:13.686)
my faith, my theology course, my philosophy course, how do I bring these together? And here's how we do it. I'm gonna cut you off from engineering. And this I think is very precise to the kind of studies at St. Thomas. Most of the studies programs, most programs like this are interdisciplinary on the program level, take a philosophy course, take a theology course. Ours are different. We're interdisciplinary on the course level. So things that students are used to being in different courses, we jumbled them together.

Jeremy Tate (14:17.366)
The... Yeah.

John Boyle (14:43.18)
So the students have to think, they have to think the way their mind is made to think as they learn things, how do you pull them together? So our first course, search for happiness. It's about happiness. No discipline owns happiness. You can approach it philosophically, you see, you can read a novel, you can read a pagan. I read Homer. I read the Odyssey. Because in one way, anything

is an avenue to thinking about happiness. Now, all the way the Course wants to think about happiness and incarnation.

There you go. That's what we do. Thanks for giving me the time to say that, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tate (15:23.778)
I love this so much. I think for many college students, the work they're doing, it can feel very arbitrary, very random. You've got to satisfy a certain number of these requirements, but it's not clear why or what they would possibly have to do to one another. So Caltech studies at St. Thomas, I is this a major? Should we think of it more like an honors college?

John Boyle (15:44.398)
Okay.

John Boyle (15:53.054)
We are not an honors college, although we have lots of those students. There is a major, there is a minor, and we've designed them to be very, very flexible so students can major in something else. If you do engineering, you're to be a minor. We're on the four -year plan. We're not going to keep anybody longer. So there's a clear academic program. There is also a social program. You've been in our building. We have the most beautiful building.

At Saint Thomas, which is a very beautiful campus. We have the most beautiful building. We do lots of things. We have dinners. We take students to plays. We bring speakers in and we sit in the common room of our building and talk to them. We want to build up that idea of friendship and community. Our freshmen and sophomores, we have floors in the dorms.

for students interested in Catholic studies, even if they don't want to major or minor, they just like those people. Great. Welcome. We're happy to have you. We'd love to have you major and minor. But again, the idea is we even the major. We don't want a cluster. know, it's all Catholic studies. No, of course. So there you're doing your math and your major and your history, trying to get to mass. And then you got the Catholic studies thing, which is always inviting you. How do I pull it together? How do I pull it together?

How do I think about what I'm studying in this class and this class? not, as you said, they feel disconnected and random. How do I help? Because the only place that integration takes place is in the mind of the student. can't do the integration. I can invite them to a way of thinking. I can model a way of thinking. I can give them opportunities to think that way so they can do it. that each, mean, the beauty is each student has this unique integration that is their own life experience.

Jeremy Tate (17:31.042)
Mm -hmm.

John Boyle (17:48.696)
high school, their friends, their outside reading, their inside reading, all of it, hopefully, produces a different kind of professional.

Jeremy Tate (17:59.874)
Now, speaking of professionals, you may know the name Jennifer Kraska. She currently oversees the Maryland Catholic Conference. one of your students, she has such a heart for what she received at St. Thomas in the Catholic Studies program. And just getting to know her, I feel like, and I feel like this is all the case with a place like Thomas Aquinas College or Christendom, is the main

John Boyle (18:05.121)
I do.

Yes. one of my students. Lover.

John Boyle (18:16.654)
Mm

Jeremy Tate (18:28.706)
The fruit of the work, of the teaching, of the program is just the integrity, the quality of the people who come out of it. They're passionate about the right things. They're doing wonderful work in the world. It's a whole person kind of formation that's happening there. But I do want to ask this question. It's great, the Catholic Studies programs.

John Boyle (18:50.753)
If you're right.

Jeremy Tate (18:56.32)
are now popping up and they're following St. Thomas as the leader. But it's still in the context of kind of a sad, broader story about Catholic higher ed. And where we have seen many, many Catholic colleges got their core curriculum, even sometimes take down crucifixes, Catholic identity has in many ways suffered. And I think it kind of your most passionately

John Boyle (19:21.452)
Yes.

Jeremy Tate (19:25.346)
Catholic, kind of Newman Guide schools, your University of Dallas and your Benedictine and your TAC, they would look at a Catholic Studies firm and they'd say, we don't have one because we're all, the whole thing is Catholic Studies, it's the whole thing. But Catholic Studies at St. Thomas allows families who otherwise may be looking at UD and Benedictine and you Mary and Ave Maria to say, you know what, St. Thomas is 10 ,000 students.

They've got a whole bunch of programs that my son's really interested in, my daughter's really interested in, and they can get the same kind of formation that would attract us to some of these smaller Newman Guide colleges. Is that a fair way to understand it?

John Boyle (20:04.974)
Yes, I mean, 5000 undergrad, 5000 grads. So the undergrad population is 5000. Yes, no, I think you're exactly right, Jeremy. When I tell parents, I tell students when they come visit us. Every school you've named, I love them all. And my boys went to Dallas. I love Dallas. What I would say is, obviously, the student has to know himself and the parents have to know the student.

Jeremy Tate (20:19.297)
Ha ha ha.

John Boyle (20:34.572)
the same time is not is not

a bubble. have very dear friend who is a Dallas who describes Dallas as the Shire. It's a wonderful description. St. Thomas is not the Shire. a student who's going to thrive, can I say who's going to thrive? St. Thomas, we have lots of them. They have to take control of their education. They have to say, I will seek advice on the classes that I will take. I have to seek out my friends.

Jeremy Tate (20:47.906)
Yeah.

John Boyle (21:09.114)
I have to be intentional about what I'm doing. If they'll do that, then it's wonderful. And the great thing about St. Thomas is if you will learn to deal in charity with people who disagree with you, because you will meet them, you will not get through four years at St. Thomas and not meet people who don't share your values, who live contrary to your values, who think the world is a different kind of place than you do.

Jeremy Tate (21:15.97)
No.

Jeremy Tate (21:33.879)
Hmm.

John Boyle (21:38.814)
And the fact is, as a Christian, I'm called to love them. And how do you do that? How do do that in this world? And I think what many of our students discover is, yes, this person deeply disagrees with me. But you know, I like him, because there's something good there, right? There's something deep and profound and human, often there's something yearning there that I could actually help him get if I'm not obnoxious about it.

Jeremy Tate (21:59.072)
Yes.

John Boyle (22:07.854)
And we spend time helping our undergraduates learn not to be obnoxious as 18 year olds often can be. And frankly, that can help them if they're going to transform professional life in America. I'm telling you, transform business in America, transform medicine in America. I want to transform it all. I want my students to do it. If they're going to do it, they have to have big hearts. They have to be professionally really good at what they do. They need to not just deal with people.

actually care. And I think for the young person who's ready to spread his wings and take that under, we will give you faculty who can advise you, we will give you friends who can help you. And we will give you every day an opportunity to live your faith vigorously, I would say, as the early Christians did. In a world that is yearning for you and doesn't even know it.

Jeremy Tate (23:05.292)
Yeah. You know, one thing I really love about this, and we just did the whole college process with Grace. She's a James Madison, is my oldest of six. And she's there. She's running track. And I had concerns about going to a big public, you know, secular university. And I heard this from some parents of saying, you know, actually, could, you know, kind of force your daughter to think about who she is and what she's about and what she believes.

And so now she's going to mass, she's got great relationships, she's doing Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It's made it a much more intentional activity for her. And I think there could be maybe something similar with being at a program that's so intentional like this, at a university that some may describe as not that Catholic besides the Catholic Studies Program.

John Boyle (23:41.806)
Yes.

John Boyle (23:56.442)
We've got lots of other Catholic resources here. Let's be, we've got a vigorous college seminary of terrific young men. We've got a great philosophy department, the major seminaries here also. There's a lot of good things at St. Thomas and some wonderful faculty, but it's a mixed bag. I think for many a young person. But to your point, Jeremy, the fact is, you know grace. You might very well have had a child, may have a child coming in the other five where you would say, I'm sorry, I cannot support you going to a big public place.

Jeremy Tate (24:20.791)
you

John Boyle (24:26.466)
You're just not ready.

Jeremy Tate (24:26.638)
Yep, We love to talk books. Again, you just wrote one. this the primer on St. Thomas? Is this for young students eager to dig in to St. Thomas for the first time? Is this a good book?

John Boyle (24:32.832)
Yes.

John Boyle (24:44.204)
Yep, you could could you could dive. It's St. Thomas on scripture. That's the great thing. So everybody cares about scripture. Anybody can read you don't need to know anything about St. Thomas. I introduce you to the essentials you need. And I hope I've been told now in good plain English, non technical. yes, did. Undergrads can read it. I have friends without college education who care about your faith, you've read it and gotten things out of it.

And then I have colleagues who do Aquinas who've gotten things out of it. I don't know how I pulled it off, but well, it's 40 years of hard work and 20 years of writing it. That's what pulled it off.

Jeremy Tate (25:20.662)
No.

Jeremy Tate (25:25.664)
Wow. Okay, so this is a culmination of your life's work.

John Boyle (25:29.15)
This is a combination of work I've been doing.

Jeremy Tate (25:33.826)
Okay, okay. So the question we always ask our guests is the book that has been most impactful for you. Well, maybe one that you reread or reteach every year.

John Boyle (25:46.027)
Yeah, as I said, you warned me you're going to ask me this Jeremy and I said that's an idiotic question. Students say my favorite book is always what I'm teaching now. But I could say St. Thomas and that there will be some truth to that. But I think in some ways it has to be the city of God, which I first read as an undergrad with the great Gilbert Mylander. And I now teach and I

Jeremy Tate (26:04.395)
No.

John Boyle (26:15.871)
There is no book in the tradition like it. There's no book with its influence, with its vision, its beauty. It shaped me when I first read it and didn't understand it. It's still shaping me and I still don't understand it.

Jeremy Tate (26:35.586)
And timely, right? mean, this is kind of the collapse of the Roman Empire.

John Boyle (26:40.648)
It is as timely as it gets. it's about the impact of incarnation. It's about how the Christian thing is a complete reordering of your worldview. It's not about Christianity doesn't tinker. Christianity, the incarnation, reorients everything. It's not just as Gordini would like to say, Jesus is not just one more ethical figure in a long line. He is God incarnate and that changes everything.

Jeremy Tate (26:52.108)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (27:06.667)
Mm.

John Boyle (27:10.05)
and Augustine articulates it as perfectly as anybody ever did. In the context of culture and civilization.

Jeremy Tate (27:16.482)
-huh. I read City of God on the New York subway going to work in 2004, my first year as a teacher. I was in seminary taking the ancient church and we had it on the reading list, City of God. And I remember there's a number of kind of rabbit holes or almost random things, like page after page where he's talking about twins. Yeah.

John Boyle (27:24.201)
I love it.

John Boyle (27:40.302)
Yeah. and they all they seem like that. They never are. But they seem like yeah, he's he I mean, he is leisurely. And that's partly being Roman. And we can learn that too. I do that with students when I teach it. Don't be in a hurry. I mean, you're in a hurry because you got 1200 pages to get through in a semester. But he wants you to feel it to savor the reality of it. And then we can think about and how does man get that wrong? And how does Christ help us get it right?

Jeremy Tate (27:50.028)
Nah.

Jeremy Tate (27:58.59)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (28:10.21)
A great note to end on, a great note to end on. City of God, a great recommendation. And again, we're here with Dr. John Boyle, a professor at St. Thomas University in Minnesota. And the program is the Catholic Studies Program, which I'm a big, big fan of. I love the work that y 'all are doing. So students, parents, check out the Catholic Studies Program and the other ones as well, colleges and universities. Many, many, many are out there today. Dr. Boyle, thank you so much for being with us.

John Boyle (28:39.845)
thank you for having Jeremy. Always a treat to talk to you.