Saint Thomas Aquinas's Ordered Loves in Kirk's Immigration Debate

Showing 12 Saint Thomas Aquinas videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Saint Thomas Aquinas's specific concept of ordered loves gave Charlie Kirk a direct theological answer to one of his most recurring campus challenges, a student asking whether Republicans would turn away Jesus if he arrived as a modern refugee, with Kirk countering that loving one's neighbor scripturally requires first caring for fellow citizens rather than treating obligation as infinite and undifferentiated. That framework let Kirk distinguish biblical compassion from what he considered a category error, treating open borders as the necessary conclusion of Christian love rather than one possible policy among several compatible with it, and he extended the argument through Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Nehemiah to build a fuller scriptural case for national borders.

Aquinas's broader presence in Kirk's circle ran through Michael Knowles, a Catholic convert who recommended reciting Aquinas's prayer for illumination before writing or speaking, treating two thousand years of accumulated Catholic thought as a resource younger Christians shouldn't feel obligated to reinvent. That pairing, a specific medieval philosophical concept doing real argumentative work in a contemporary immigration debate alongside broader Catholic devotional practice recommended to Kirk's own audience, reflected how thoroughly patristic and scholastic theology served as live intellectual tools within Kirk's circle rather than historical background alone.