Aquinas and Beyond at 100

Let's celebrate!

Depending on how you count, Aquinas and Beyond has reached over 100 published posts. Does that number feel crazy to you? It feels crazy to me.

10 months ago, almost to the day, I launched Aquinas and Beyond by launching my Substack page and posting it to my Facebook friends. I had already posted three articles, was working on more, and I was really excited to share what I had learned from my Master’s degree in philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

11 people subscribed.

Honestly, though, I was pretty happy with that. I did not have a big social media following (I have never been a public persona), nor did I have friends who could promote me to their own following. I read somewhere that a reasonable goal was one subscriber a day for the first year, so I started posting on Notes and aimed for 365 by the end of my first year.

My goals, and the trajectory of my Substack, changed drastically when Matt Fradd gave me a shout out. In hindsight, I certainly did not go viral; my post was still only read by about 1,000 people. But I did grow significantly, quadrupling my subscriber count in about 48 hours. Then, a note that I wrote in 5 minutes did go semi-viral, and I started adding 25 free subscribers a day or more, a rate that has only abated a little bit since then.

The growth has been mind-blowing, but one of the nice things about becoming big (for Substack, anyways) through a few viral moments is that it is easy not to feel like it is my fault. It has been, by and large, an incredible gift.

This is especially fitting because I began Aquinas and Beyond primarily as an opportunity to pass along a gift I had myself received first. As I have described before, I am only Catholic now because my Mom got into Catholic apologetics during a crisis of faith over 20 years ago. Being a bookish sort of kid, I paid attention and started reading the same kind of things that my Mom was reading at the time, until I started taking an independent interest in the philosophical tradition of the Church. I received that tradition from numerous writers, but most especially from my teachers at Franciscan University of Steubenville. From the awesome professors there, I learned to think deeply about the Faith I had received, and learned to place myself in a larger tradition that spanned millennia.

Aquinas and Beyond was founded because, when I got back from college, I realized that most people did not feel they were a part of that larger tradition. And if they did feel like a part of a tradition, they certainly did not understand it.

The tragedy and dilemma of this problem is that the Catholic tradition is both broad and deep; there are very few areas of thought it has not addressed (and none that are older than a few decades), and the seriousness with which the Church considers them has made it intellectually serious in every age.

I cannot explain every aspect of the Catholic intellectual tradition. But I can help you understand the Church’s philosophy. In the Catholic Church, philosophy is not merely an esoteric, arguing-about-the-existence-chairs enterprise. If anything, it is especially helpful for the average person, because the goal of philosophy is wisdom, which is available to help every person live their lives more happily and more fully. Moreover, God Himself is wisdom most properly. By doing philosophy, we are not just looking for life hacks; we are looking for God.

The growth of Aquinas and Beyond has been super exciting, and I would like to expand my reach and offerings significantly. Unfortunately, with a young family and a separate full-time job, my resources and time are severely limited.

That is where you come in.

The more premium subscribers I have, the more time I can justify giving to this blog, up to and including eventual full-time work. So I am looking to expand my premium subscribers in the coming weeks. Here is how.

First, the really good news: in celebration of hitting this milestone, I am giving a paid subscription discount of 20% for the next week. If you have been thinking about becoming a paid subscriber, but feel like 8 dollars a month is just a bit too much to invest right now, you are going to want to grab this deal:

Second, what you are getting:

• Substack recently made it possible to add text that only paid subscribers can see. This makes it much, much easier than in the past to offer bonus content to paid subscribers while maintaining the readability and commenting ability of free subscribers. So I am going to start inserting premium content in many of my free posts, like additional thoughts, reading lists, articles I found helpful while writing my own articles, and other things that should be helpful for better understanding the scholarly and traditional context of my writing. For example, at the bottom of this post, I am going to share a few books and posts that I have found especially helpful in thinking through the Church’s relationship to modern science. But you cannot see them unless you become a paid subscriber!

• Up to this point, my Friday post has always been completely free. Moving forward, I will occasionally publish a paid article on Fridays, primarily on the philosophy of religion (God, the problem of evil, etc). There will still be enough in the preview to be worth reading by everybody, but I am, unfortunately, not able to add another post to my weekly schedule and so will use that slot for paid articles every once in a while. But, of course, most of my Friday pieces will remain free.

• It has been a while since I have been able to publish a reader’s guide, but I still plan on doing so, especially as the reward for my founding members, who get to request a specific reader’s guide. Founding members also get my reading plan for becoming an amateur Catholic philosopher in a year.

• Finally, of course, my guided tour of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae will continue for all paid subscribers. Family obligations prevented me from publishing the twenty-third question on Predestination, but that should be going up next week.

Right now, only about 1% of my free subscribers become paid subscribers. If you are looking to more deeply understand how to think like a Catholic, come along with me as we continue to explore the Catholic philosophical tradition. Plus, get 20% off if you subscribe this week:

Finally, thank you to everybody. If you are reading this, you have contributed to the growth Aquinas and Beyond. I have found it to be incredibly rewarding, and I sincerely hope that it has helped you grow closer to Christ.

Here is to another 100!

Alex

This is where my promised reading list of a few things I’ve been reading on Church teaching and science lately would be, if you were a paid subscriber. Upgrade with a 20% discount to see it!