Pints With Aquinas - An Intro to Philosophy w/ Dr. Alex Plato

Episode Date: December 18, 2021

Matt sits down with Jacob Imam and Dr. Alex Plato to discuss philosophy. Think of this as an introduction to the introduction to philosophy. You're welcome. 🍻 Support Pints Directly (THANK YOU!): https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd 💪 Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt/ 🙏 Hallow: http://Hallow.com/mattfradd 

Hey, Matt Fradd here, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. If this show has been a blessing to you, please consider supporting us directly at pintswithaquinas.com slash give or at patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Any dollar amount would be a blessing to us. Thank you so much for considering. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Today we're going to be doing a crash course in philosophy with dr. Alex Plato Yes, that is his last name before we get to that though

I want to say thank you to Exodus 90 for sponsoring this episode Exodus 90 is an ascetical program for men That is really terrific go to Exodus nine zero dot com slash Matt to learn more starting January 17th There will be I don't hundreds, maybe even over a thousand men from around the world for 90 days, so up until Easter, which is where it starts on January 17th, they're going to be fasting from things like sweets and alcohol and warm showers and praying an hour a day and it's really pretty good. Have you ever done Exodus 90? Have you ever done Exodus 90? I probably asked you that last time. So feel free to go check it out I did it last year You do it with a small group of men and over the course of 90 days you read through the book of Exodus together

You pray more it's it's pretty awesome. Someone said this I thought it would simply be one more men's program I was wrong someone else said for men who want something more than the advertised Christian life Click the link in the description below Exodus90.com slash Matt. Hello. Hi. Hello. How we doing today? How tired are you of people being like Plato? Oh my gosh and you're a philosopher. I never get tired of it. I grew up in a really small town where I didn't even know that my last name was the name of philosopher until probably I don't know high school maybe. High school? Yeah. Really? Didn't even know that. Did you? I made fun of her, it sounded like play dough.

Yeah. You know, P-L-A-Y dash D-O-H. Mm-hmm. So I love it. I love the association. I get to make lots of jokes after that. Like, you know, I can only fail in life because who can fill those shoes?

Yeah. So I don't have to wonder about whether I'm gonna fail or succeed because I already know. Do you have standard responses then? Standard responses. So what's another one? That's one of them.

My love can only be platonic. That's good. My wife doesn't like that. So. Did your dad know that there's a connection to ancient philosophy? I'm sure he did. Okay.

Yeah. What did you do when you found out? Do you remember when you found out? I don't remember. Yeah. Am I right in thinking your twin brother is also a philosopher? Yes, my twin brother.

My twin brother Nick, yeah, he's a teacher of a Chesterton Academy, a founder and a headmaster as well. And he teaches philosophy and theology and everything. And yeah, he's not a professional philosopher. And that's actually a sign probably that you're maybe even a philosopher, that you're not a professional. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, I had to think about that for a second Well, we can talk about it because I mean the whole point was for Plato is that if you're getting paid to do this You're you're definitionally a sophist. Aren't you? Peter craved is funny. I emailed him and asked him to come on the show and he wrote back and said something like I am an intellectual And he wrote back and said something like, I am an intellectual prostitute. His point was, you need to pay me.

And I wrote back and I said, I'm happy to be your intellectual John. Let's try to deal. That's interesting. I have a similar phrase that I have with my brother. He calls me up every once in a while. And he wants to talk philosophy. So I have a similar idea of like an intellectual,

what'd you call it? Well, he said prostitute. Intellectual prostitute, yeah. With choice language, but same idea. Now, did you guys all have this experience when you were teenagers maybe, asking those questions that were just profound? Oh yeah, the questions of the universe.

That's what I call them. No, I've, at one point when I was in college, during summers, I did camps camp ministry and I had third graders asking me to explain to them why I think God exists really yeah third graders So kids everybody asked those questions naturally. I mean, that's I remember laying in bed and wondering if space came to an end Yeah, I think most interesting people think that yeah, and I remember thinking if I had a rocket ship unlimited fuel and went all the way up And I remember thinking if I had a rocket ship, unlimited fuel and went all the way up, where would I go?

Is space spherical like the earth? Maybe I just show back up here. Do I hit a block, some kind of wall? And if I do, what's behind that? Yeah, no, it's funny that the point about space and time, we can ask like, we can get into puzzles really quick about space and time. And when I teach philosophy, I often teach that,

there's these natural mysteries. So, yes, we have like the Trinity incarnation, these sort of mysteries, but there's natural mysteries too. And so time and space are some of those. I think physicality itself, matter itself, like the materialist worldview sort of assumes that that's sort of understood, and then we can kind of build everything up from that. We understand everything

if we just reduce it down to that. I'm like, well, what is that? I remember one of my teachers told me, like, well, what is that? Okay. I remember one of my teachers told me like, nobody knows how to define what's physical. If you go onto the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, you look up physical or physicalism. There is no standard definition. Nobody understands what that really is.

It's like the elephant in the room. Like, what is physicality? That itself is a mystery. So I think that concept of a mystery is crucial to the nature of philosophy. I think that mystery is what limits our reason, right? It's something that we see, we can see that there is something, but we can't understand it, right? And that's where there's room for divine revelation. We know there's a God, but we don't know much about Him. We don't know the details of His nature, His plan, or anything like that. But we know there's more. And that to me, it's always

stunned me, that thought that reason can see more than it can see, if that makes sense. It's like a paradox. It knows there's more to know than it can know, right? It's like we already, our mind is already transcending itself, right? Which is the mark in classical thought of, in classical Christian philosophy of spirituality, right? We have this access to the transcendental realm of truth, right, goodness, beauty, being itself.

We'd say metaphysics, right? We can study metaphysics, the science of being qua being, because our mind is already made for that. And so the mystery to me as a way in, not just there's theological mysteries, but these natural mysteries. Yeah. And so I think that's a really important concept.

So do you think materialism, or just kind of boiling everything down is a way of sort of short-circuiting that journey? Maybe it's just sort of impatience with the mystery. I think it's the death of philosophy. It's the death of philosophy. If you think everything's comprehensible, where you've just cut yourself off

from all of the most beautiful, wonderful, transcendent things. I think this problem is the heart of, right, the problems in philosophy for the last, I'd say, roughly 500 years, the whole modern era I would characterize as this kind of knowledge crisis. Like, with that mankind isn't such that he can know these transcendent truths anymore. Right? And there's lots of moments along that journey, but if you look at kind of philosophy historically, that's a major trend. And in our day and age, we might call that different things, like scientism, positivism, radical empiricism, right?

Technopoly, right? We might use these different names for, we have knowledge, but it's only limited to this level. It's the transcendent is not there. That's not stuff you can know. That's stuff you can have feelings and emotions about, like believe in God, morality, these things, right? Relativism and postmodernism are just the flip side of that.

So if we limit knowledge of sort of the physical, if you will, I can say it that way, then everything that's not that has to be mere opinion, feeling, prejudice, whatever. It can't be something that we can know. It's impossible to know. Let's back up a step. What is philosophy and how did it originate? Yeah, that's a really good question.

I think philosophy is something innate, right? To man, we ask those questions, like you said, so it's something natural in one way. I think I like to look at the word itself, but the word means the love of wisdom. And the kind of story, the story about the origin is Pythagoras when he had these followers and his followers, one of his followers came up and said, oh Pythagoras, you're such a wise man. He said, oh no, no, no, no, no No, don't call me a wise man. He said the wisdom I want is divine wisdom, the mind of God. I want that. I don't have that. Don't call me a wise man. I don't have what I want. You can call me a lover of wisdom though. Right? And maybe when after I'm dead, I'll get that. call me a wise man. I don't have what I want. You can call me a lover of wisdom though.

And maybe when after I'm dead, I'll get that. And so the idea of a philosopher is somebody who really, really wants that most deep, profound wisdom. I think one way to define wisdom, I go with Augustine's definition, I really like his definition. He says, wisdom is the truth in which we discern and acquire our highest good. That's what we all want. Human beings want that desperately. One of my favorite essays I have students read is The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis. And so he talks about that deepest desire we have

that we can't expunge that desire. And the problem in our lives is we're too easily satisfied. We're satisfied with making mud pies, he says, instead of when we're offered this vacation at the sea and we're like, oh, let's just make mud pies on the beach. Right? So we have this deep desire and we need to like stoke that desire. And that desire is for this something that transcends what we can acquire here.

I think that is the origin of philosophy, the idea of it begins with wonder, wonder at what's beyond us, the marvelous. Right? And so philosophy is always seeking, It's the lover seeking his beloved. He doesn't have the beloved yet. And so there's a journey idea to philosophy. There's a way of life idea to philosophy in the real sense. Philosophy is not a professional discipline.

Philosophy is not a branch of science. Philosophy is not a group of knowledge, right? Some set of beliefs you should have. No, philosophy is a way of life. It's an attitude. And that takes a lot of epistemic humility. Yeah. And when you contrast that with being in academia, I can see how those two might conflict. They totally conflict. Yeah. I think I often tell my students if you want to

really pursue philosophy, then professional philosophy might not be the place to go. Interesting. There's a lot of, like you said, sophists. It is. It's endemic, even though it's a joke. I mean, it's totally true. true. I mean, academia is full of sophistry. If you read Plato, right, the Gorgias is all about sophistry. Right, if you read, yeah, Peeper has a great reflection on sophistry called the abuse of language, the abuse of power.

Right, and he talks about the only way we can get sophistry is by getting expertise with words. I think even Descartes made the point you're making. He said something to the effect of like, there are no thoughts or ideas so insane that some philosopher somewhere hasn't thought it up. And his point was for sort of material good, not for the love of wisdom.

Yeah, and I think that's like ratcheting down the dome right above us so we can't pierce through and to the transcendent beyond is that idea that- What a beautiful analogy. Yeah, just perfectly- so we can't pierce through into the transcendent beyond is that idea that- What a beautiful analogy. Yeah, just perfectly good. Like we're suffocating here in our little tent. Exactly.

The self-imposed tent. Exactly. It's interesting, the other day, there was kind of a debate in our household between my, or among my wife, our friend Will, who's living with us right now, and myself about how Thomas categorizes wisdom, because some of them were saying,

I can't remember who was on which side. One was saying that it's an intellectual virtue. And I think I was saying, well, actually, I think he categorizes it as a gift. And we kind of looked it up and it's like, sure enough, it's kind of in the section in the Secundus, Secundi, as gift, but within the question on wisdom, he also calls it an intellectual virtue.

Yeah, there's lots of different levels to that. Which is, I think, an amazing thing about wisdom, because it's something that we can begin to discern, but ultimately at its height, it has to be given to us by God. And so, maybe I'm going too far with this, but the, you know, just as we're approaching Christmas and Epiphany, and this is always seen in the Magi, the wise men, where they get so close, they get all the way to Jerusalem following the star, but they need the scribes to be able to tell them where exactly the king of the Jews was to be born, who reveals to them in Bethlehem.

You have like right, the marriage between wisdom as an intellectual virtue, something that they've discerned and put the pieces of the universe together, but they just can't get all the way there without, you know, revelation, you know? That dome hit the top of the dome. I think that's brilliant because wisdom,

think about Socrates, like he was, when he went on trial, right, they said, you know, you're a student, a teacher of the things, you know, above the heavens and below the earth, like you're this sort of theologian, basically. He said, I don't know stuff about that. I don't have that, right?

If I have any, that's, I don't have that. He called that divine wisdom. I don't have divine wisdom. I don't know the stuff about ultimate reality, right? And so of course he's famous for saying, I don't know that, but he doesn't know nothing. Right. He doesn't know that he disclaims that. But then he says, maybe if you think I have wisdom, it's that it's just the recognition that I don't have that. Right.

So I have human wisdom, right? So human wisdom, I think recognizes, again, like I said, reason understands it can transcend itself. Human wisdom recognizes there's more wisdom that we can't, that we, that's available to us that we can't ourselves get. And I think that in one of Pieper's texts, I use Pieper in a lot of my classes. I really like his book, A Leisure, The Basis of Culture. Um, and, uh, and he, when he talks about, um,

one of the major transitions in the history of philosophy is with Kant. So the way he puts it is, Kant thinks of the nature of the mind, um, as having only one function, whereas it used to have kind of two aspects and in Latin those were called intellectus and ratio. So ratio is kind of like the problem solving the like, you know,

steam coming out of yours, like working through problems, like coming up with models, like sort of hypothesizing more like science. Right. Whereas intellect is just like the insight that you receive, right, when you're sitting there contemplating, let's say a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, right, where you're just out walking in nature and something to curse you. It's given to you, it's the muses inspire you.

And that kind of gift, as you said, that is a different function of the mind that Pieper, following the tradition, right, calls intellect-us. And Kant writes in a way that there is no such thing as intellectus. We don't, philosophy has to be something that we achieve by effort, by work, right? And so the only real values coming out of that kind of philosophy of the human person is, right, our achievements in

work. So what does contemplation look like for Kant? Exactly, the contemplation, as we understand it, is entirely different. It's not that valuable, right? Yeah. It's not the way we think of it. It's like the height of value is contemplating the truth. Yeah. Contemplation. When you're in a state of receptivity. Yes. And that, back to my knowledge crisis thing, that is the knowledge crisis. There is no contemplation. Everything's work. Everything's achieve. Everything's get results, right? Everything's put your sweat into it

if it's gonna be valuable. We produce the value. Yeah, it's like the labor theory of value for intellectual insight. What? That's crazy. That's never how it's worked. That's never how poetry, literature,

any inspirations ever worked. And we get so much wisdom from that part of our tradition. So is this part of, would you say this is part of the basis then of why some people in the tradition have called Mary the kind of the the great Philosopher par excellence. Absolutely. Is she's perfectly can contemplate as she was, you know conceived without original sin She didn't have any actual since she had her mind her mirror you might say is totally cleaned Right. She's seeing right as much as a human being, right, can on this earth see. Right now, of course, that's not ever complete either. Even Adam and

Eve when they were created, they weren't, they didn't see God completely. They still had a journey even before they sinned to make, right? So, it's not like Mary sees perfectly everything. I mean, that doesn't happen until we're, right, perfected in heaven This this desire that all men have for truth I suppose it can be suppressed and I want to talk about that but yeah, I forget who said this it's a great quote Cows chew contentedly in the meadows while men smoke discontented Lee in the bars And that is I think Is another way of talking about you know when animals have their needs met they, when animals have their needs met, they sleep. When men have their needs met, they ask questions.

They become agitated in a sense if that need isn't met. But yeah, I mean, today, do you see a lot of people trying to, or maybe they're not trying to, but that desire for knowledge and truth is just being suffocated by what? No, I think that is a major crisis going on. And one way I try to get into that at the kind of civilizational level,

if I can put it that way, so all of Western civilization, is I look at the nature of technology. And I read this book by Postman called Technopoly, or the surrender of culture to technology. What does he mean by that? And so what he that's a good question. I think what he means by culture, we need to get clear first.

When we hear culture, sometimes we think, oh, there's a culture over there that we just discovered and we're studying it like a culture means like a social group. That's not what he means. I think the idea of culture comes think of like in a science lab, right? You're going to make a culture. You put bacteria in this Petri dish and what happens to the bacteria, right? It grows and flourishes and multiplies because it's cultured. So culture for a human being, I think of as like the food for the soul.

So when we have culture, we have art, we have beauty, we have tradition, we have music, we have those are, that's food for our soul. That's culture. Right? And so when we surrender culture to technology, what does technology want with all that? That stuff's not useful That's that's contemplation not contemplation is not useful. What does that produce? What does that do? How does that enter into economy? How does that help us with our what I say our physical health and how does that make us more efficient and economical? So when we surrender technology when we surrender surrender to technology, he calls, Postman calls that state technopoly. And the way I would put it is technopoly, you know, there's a long history to it that he tells in this book. And it starts, we could, I would, I would start somewhere

probably with Descartes, Bacon, right? I mean, there's, anytime you pick something in history, there's stuff before you can go back more. But I think that's a kind of major turning point where Descartes teaches in the discourse, I forget which, I think, part four, I can't remember exactly, but he teaches in the discourse that the old speculative philosophies, he calls it,

speculative is the scholastic word for like contemplative philosophy, right? Like that aspect of our human nature contrasts with practical or like doing things, producing things. And he says that let's get rid of that old speculative philosophy because that doesn't really help us. Let's completely disregard that and let's make a new practical philosophy. And so that way we can understand nature, we can understand like how atoms work, we

can take them apart, we can understand everything all the way down the button if we do that then we can make gizmos Right and machine so that we can have like we can extend our life We can be really healthy like yeah, we can master and conquer nature wasn't daycar. They're responding to a sort of disillusionment of endless Back and forths between philosophers that didn't really, maybe there was a legitimate sense in which he was. Yes. And I think also with the stunning success of modern science coming about, right, here's the way we're going to get insights, here's the way we're going to get knowledge, let's put all of our, you know, let's put all of our chips over there. Let's lay them all on

that table. And I think, yes, there's an overreaction. I mean, the same thing has happened multiple times. I mean, ancient Greek philosophy began in a period of multiculturalism, right, where everybody said, well, whatever's good to me is good to me, whatever's right to me is right to me. They were like relativists back then, and that's why the Greeks invented moral philosophy. Wow. So relativism is outdated. Yes, totally. It's always been.

And so they said, well, is there some way to make judgments about these radically different cultures as one being better than the other? Well, there'd have to be some standard by which we compare them, and that's what the Greeks called thesus or nature, right? And so that's like, think of Aristotle and like, the human nature is what we're trying to compare or use as a judge for societies,

which ones make human nature flourish more. We can rightly compare those. So now we have a trans culturalcultural standard, right, as it were. But then, like you're right, in the end of the scholastic period, things started to get, you know, really complicated debates, disagreements, right? Kind of, we're in the scholastic term as a term of abuse, right? Like splitting hairs, logic chopping. I don't know whoever actually brought up the how many angels can dance on the head of the pen. That may have just been a way of describing

the futile back and forth between philosophers. Exactly, that's right. I think that's kind of a story that explains that. But yeah, so that happened in Descartes, so I'm trying to agree with you. I agree with you that there was a problem there, but I think he threw out the baby with the bathwater because he took the heart of philosophy,

which is to contemplate the truth and to wonder, right, at these divine mysteries, ultimately, and throw that out and say, let's do philosophy in a way that allows us to conquer and control nature. I mean, he's following, and it's right in line with Bacon. Yeah. And I mean, Bacon uses analogies that are stunningly grotesque about the way we should relate to nature.

We should steal nature's virtue, like nature's a woman that we should dominate. Yeah. And I think that view of philosophy, right, is the ruination. It's the destruction of philosophy. And what's the problem of destroying philosophy if If you get something out of it. Yeah. So I think, I think the problem is, is we utterly distort and destroy ourselves, our human nature. So Lewis's book abolition of man, I think shows you this, the,

the ultimate results of this way of thinking, right? Is the ultimate results is the abolition of man. We, we get rid of ourselves because he says every time we conquer nature, it's not like we're actually making an advance on over nature Really what happens is we're just giving some men power over other men So like contraception gives some men now power over men in the future the airplane the radio those are examples They get power of for some men give power to some men over other men So in the end if we follow this out we get, I'd say, transhumanism, right?

If you're familiar with that idea. Yes, explain it though. Yeah. So transhumanism is a philosophical, cultural movement, I'd say probably started in the 70s. It's the earliest I can think of. I mean, there's ideas like this going all the way back, right? But it's the idea that we're going gonna transcend our human nature by technologies and machines.

We're gonna enhance ourselves where ultimately what we can get is immortality. And this is what certain French enlightenment thinkers wanted, they didn't call it transhumanism or understand that. So the ideas are old, but the transhumanist movement starts using modern technologies like nanotechnologies. Right, you can think of Elon Musk,

and I'll just take out a chunk of your skull and like, you know, stick this interface in so we can have like computers interacting with our brains like a fleshed, flesh interface with. What do you think of the metaverse? Yeah, that's because I mean, this is what we're talking about with Facebook changing its name to meta. Yes. And I don't know, I feel like a lot of people are looking at this being like, all right,

this just seems a little too much. Even people who aren't Christian think that this is a little too close to the matrix for comfort. No, I think that's a great example is one of the points I think that Postman makes in that book, Technopolis, it's really important is that technologies are not neutral. And so it's not that they're waiting for how we use them to be good or bad.

That's the way we think about technology. We think they're useful. Yeah. So if we use them for good, they're good. If we use them for bad, they're bad. Right? That's a result of what he calls technocracy, which is the thing that Bacon and Descartes created.

Right? That philosophy exists for the sake of gizmos and inventions to help us on Earth, right? Achieve as many earthly goods as we can, keep health, whatever, be more efficient, blah, blah. There's no transcendent goods that philosophy's about. So what Postman encourages us to think is that

when you introduce a new technology, no matter how you use it, that changes your culture and your society, right? So he says it introduces an ecological change. Like if you took a caterpillar and put it into an environment that's never had that particular caterpillar, you don't have just that ecosystem plus a caterpillar. You have a new ecosystem. It changes all the interrelationships of everything. And so to me, meta, maybe some people can

find some good uses of it. But to me, the way it changes the human ecology is significantly powerful, such that we should be very, very skeptical because there's gonna be results that happen that we can't expect. That's every major technological innovation that's introduced creates effects that we can't predict. So maybe just to give an example, I'll try at least. And something I don't want mean to be too much of a Luddite in saying this,

or I'm not trying to put a moral filter through this, but just think about how much cars just de facto have changed the order of a city. Everybody used to live near one another. As a result, communities were able to interact with more with one another. As a result, communities were able to interact with more with one another. The actual shape of city, I mean, you go to like Europe, you see a whole bunch of houses clumped together and then a whole bunch of fields around and then more houses, you know, but cars completely changed the landscape and you can never really identify the beginning or the end of one city anymore. So you can make an argument that that's good or bad, but de

facto that new technology has created a new social order. Yeah. And I think with media, right? So the radio and ultimately, you know, television and computers and internet, like, what, think, go back 150 years, I mean, how did people think about popes? It's very different than the way we think about popes, because now everything the pope says or does is like everybody sees it all at once. Like, that wasn't the case before. Mm-hmm. Right? So, I'm not saying it changes the office of the pope or anything, but it changes the way we interact with it.

Right? The meaning of the papacy and the pope is different now, because of that. And so, yeah, you're right. Those are good examples of ecological change that a technology introduces to a society or a culture. And so we're trying to explain the idea of surrender of culture to technology. So when we look to technology to solve our problems, right, it basically means we're looking for information. What we want is information.

Information solves our problem. If you have a problem, we don't have enough information, let's get more information. Let's get it faster, let's get it more, let's store it longer, let's store it more accurately, let's get it everything. The technopolis, the solution to everything is information. In the information age, you could go trace that for at least a hundred years, the telegraph, the phonograph, et cetera,

like I was just saying. But the problem is now that we have so much information, we don't know how to filter it. And so what we're losing, what we've lost, right, is wisdom, right, is we, that's how you filter the information. We want the truth about our highest good and how to acquire it.

That's wisdom. Information doesn't necessarily tell you that. Most information is garbage, right? It's just this like chaos of garbage information. And so society used to have ways to filter that information. Now we let Google's algorithm do that. So that's the surrender part. So now it's not that the family, right, and religion, right, things like law courts or other institutions filter information. They still kind of do, but those defenses as postmen say are

broken defenses. So now technopoly tries to solve its own problem of information glut by giving us bureaucracies, right, which are forms of tyranny, right? It gives us experts, because that's how information has to be filtered, and it gives us more machines, Google algorithm. Well, I think this is a great point because you talked at the beginning of going to the summer camps and having a third grader ask you questions about the meaning of the universe. Like everybody can be a philosopher starting, you know, third grade or earlier. We can't avoid being philosophical. But in this case,

if philosophy is just something that's technological, then you need an expert. I have no idea how to build an algorithm of anything. I don't hardly even know what that word means. I mean, you know what you were reading some of the questions, right? And it's like people, because I'm a philosopher, people think of me as an expert. It's like I've got all this knowledge now I can give you. I've got this information for you. Right? And what I try to do in my classes is I try to get away from that. Right? Yeah, I might have some information because I've read more, but that's pretty much the only difference. You're probably more intelligent than I am. The thing is,

is this desire we're talking about, this desire for the transcendent good needs to be stoked and you need to pursue it. You need to commit to that for the rest of your life. And one of my goals in my classes is that students become practitioners of philosophy. They want to do it themselves. I don't have to tell them to read this, so they should just want to read whatever, whether it's War and Peace, whether it's the poetry of Wordsworth. I don't really care as long as they're pursuing that deepest desire and they're not giving in to this sort of technopolistic, materialistic, I think really atheistic mentality. What I meant when I said we no longer need to philosophize is that we have YouTube. Because

I remember as a kid before the time of the incident, my mates and I, after a few warm What I meant when I said we no longer need to philosophize is that we have YouTube. Right. Because I remember as a kid before the time of the incident, my mates and I, after a few warm beers that we stole from our father's shed, would lay out on a quiet one-way, sort of dead-end road and look up at this. This is actually something we did. This is something humans did. I presume some of them still do. We would lay on the ground and look up at the stars and have what we called glue conversations,

which stood for God, life, the universe and everything. And my friends and I didn't go to church and we didn't ascribe to a particular religion, but we asked questions. My point now in saying we no longer need to do that is I wonder how that would go today. Okay, so we're laying on the road and we want to know like, does God exist? Like, is there an explanation that is not itself explained? Well, let's look it up. And now we're down a YouTube rabbit hole

where we don't even have to do the thinking because someone else has the thinking for us. That happens in those profound areas of God's existence and the meaning of life. It also happens in trivial areas like who won the last Olympics? And we no longer have the joy of thinking about it together. It's like, well, hang on, let me look it up.

Here's the information. And we've just short-circuited the lovely conversation we could have had. I agree, and I think there's something really profound in what you said is that I feel like more and more today, people can't think for themselves. The thoughts that occur to people, myself, I would include sometimes, is not, they're not my thoughts.

Think of where the words that express your thoughts come from. That's what your thought is. It's the expression of this sort of function going on, thinking, right? So you can't have a thought without having it expressed, right? Terms and concepts. Yeah, terms and concepts. So they come in, well, who gave you those terms and concepts? Like, here's an example, is you're having a conversation and somebody says, and they said,

well, what's wrong with two people that love each other? I mean, that isn't a phrase that that person made up. That's a cliche. Love is love. Yeah, love is love. Or somebody that I was recently having a conversation with somebody that were talking about one of their relatives or something's daughter

wants to get a sex change. And she said, well, I'm a boy trapped in a girl's body. I mean, what does she mean by boy in that sentence? What does she mean by girl in that sentence? What I'm saying is that sentence is nonsense. It's a string of words that's put together to accomplish something. It's like my children, they say certain phrases and words,

not because they're denoting reality or expressing assertions of reality, but because they want to react to me to do something. Right? So people say, well, what's wrong with two people to love each other? They're not asserting something about the nature of love. They're not asserting a truth. What they're saying is stop conversing. They're trying to get you to stop. It's a conversation stopping move. That's what I'm saying is the strings of words that we have that occur in our minds come from somewhere else and then we parrot it, so we're not actually thinking.

Somebody else is thinking. Right? That's crazy. And who's thinking is whoever's in control of where those phrases come from, which in our society is largely the internet, right? And this sort of these social media phrases are coming all over the place, and we're just repeating those. So our discourse, right, is broken down and in a certain way prevents individual people actually thinking their own thoughts.

But haven't you met these people where they say phrases that you're not used to hearing, and they're like, they're the thinkers. They're the original people. They say things in a way, Mark Barnes is a great example. He says things in ways, Andrew Jones, he says things in a way that like, people don't use those phrases.

It's the first time you saw those words put together. You're like, oh, that guy's thinking. It's not the way somebody else put them together. So if we can, I mean, one test of truth is synonymy, right? Can you say this sentence in completely different words? If you can't, then you probably don't know what truth you're asserting. It's the test, right? It's so simple. It's just language, right? So, we began earlier before we got on the air with like that prayer about the liberal sciences. And to me, when I teach philosophy,

do you want to see it? Do you want to see it? Do you want to read it? Sure. Okay. So, I often begin class with this prayer. And I love this prayer. It says, Here are prayers, O Lord Jesu, the everlasting wisdom of the Father, who give us unto us in the days of our youth, aptness to learn. Add, we pray thee, the furtherance of thy grace, so to learn knowledge and the liberal sciences, that by their help we may attain to the fuller knowing of thee, whom to know is the height of blessedness, and by the example of thy boyhood may duly increase in age, wisdom, and favor with God

and man." So the idea of the liberal sciences is, right, the trivium and the quadrivium. So I teach at Franciscan and we are a liberal arts university, which means we have a set of core classes to teach the liberal arts. Well, the liberal arts traditionally were the trivium and the quadrivium. It doesn't matter exactly what those things are, but it is instructive to look.

So if we say the trivium, that would be grammar, logic or dialectic and rhetoric. And so grammar is about expressing thoughts, right? Dialectic is about having a conversation to pursue the truth. Rhetoric is once you've got truths, how to express them to certain audiences so that they can receive them.

What's the theme there? Truth, accuracy, language. It's all about language. Like literally a good education is somebody who knows how to use words really well. They have a good vocabulary, they can express things clearly, right? They can modify the way they say

in response to some audience. And our way of using words is being broken down. That's my point. Language itself is being broken down. And then the logical functions and logical words have a negative connotation, right? Think of logic and argument. Argument means quarrel. Argument doesn't mean trying to pursue a truth by premises that lead by rules that are absolutely reliable, right, to more truth. Like, argument should be exciting,

because now we go from one truth to more truth. And so those words that are about truth are denigrated, right, or not appreciated anymore. Right, there's a stigma against that. There's an anti-rational stigma. So my point is that the nature of words and language to me cannot be overestimated. This is an interesting point. You find, of course, within ancient philosophy, I'm thinking of like Aristotle's metaphysics, that the nature of something is ultimately revealed. I mean, revealed through its end, like what it is and what it does, or what it does is what it is, excuse me. But that's something that is received from us and not manipulated, because as soon as we can change what the thing is doing,

then we've imposed our own idea onto it. And there's room for that, no doubt. But it really, I mean, of course, it just sounds like, like what I hear you talking about, sounds like Psalm 2, you know, when it's the kings of this earth are raging against God and his anointed saying, let us break our bonds asunder. Like the way that God actually created the world. Objective reality, break it. Yeah, let's actually, there's a real form that we need to be receptive to.

And those are the things that you study within the liberal arts. They liberate us as soon as we actually know. And this is how Thomas also talks about wisdom, is like knowing the order of the cosmos that God created. Once we know that, then we're liberated. We know how to be freed. But what you're talking about, as soon as we think as soon as we think of, in terms of enacting instead of receiving, then we've harmed our own nature, but then as a result we've started to harm everybody else's nature. We've started to enslave them too. Lewis, you know, as you brought up Lewis, we start to abolish man in our own selves, but then we also start to enslave our neighbor. It's like literally like anti-gospel.

Yeah, I want to jump back into what you said because that reminded me of a question from before and it perfectly segues about Mary being the perfect exemplar of a seeker of wisdom, a philosopher in some way. And that has to do with what you said, receptivity. So, let's think about the Holy Spirit for a minute. Like, if we think about inner Trinitarian dynamics, one way to try to understand the Trinity from our natural human point of view is to see that we're an image of God. So our human soul is memory, intellect, and will,

relating to each other. In this we're one being, but we have these three powers that are inseparable. So memory maybe is a confusing term. I like to use the term consciousness. And so Augustine started this analogy, right? And he said the Father is is like consciousness and the Son is like intellect and the Holy Spirit is like will and So well in what way will because when humans when we think about well, we think of like choices and creating things

Mm-hmm. Well, the Holy Spirit's not doing that for all eternity like not creating things outside of himself, right? Well, the Holy Spirit's not doing that for all eternity, like, not creating things outside of Himself, right? So the way will works there is the Holy Spirit is accepting, the Holy Spirit is God's accepting God's identity, right? So accepting Himself. So the Son is God thinking, right? The Godhead thinking of itself, right? And the Spirit is the Godhead, accepting, voluntarily accepting and loving himself. There's no creation of things. There's no choice there. And so Mary, my point is to compare that, the Holy Spirit's, that's Bonaventure calls that, voluntas acceptans, the accepting will, right? Not the productive will. And so- It's no wonder she's the spouse of the Holy Spirit.

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. So she perfectly says, God says, I'm gonna, I've chosen you. And she says, right, the fiat of Mary, right, I accept this. I accept what you've chosen for me, and she's blessed for all generations. So she is the perfect exemplar of this receptivity. And I like to joke around with my students a little bit by saying, I'm a sexist, I just admit that. And I say, I think women are superior. Because Mary, in a certain way, represents that the fundamental powers of a human being. Of the human soul.

She's a, yeah. Women being more naturally receptive in that way, intellectually, are to me more human. So like women in a certain way, weirdly, are like more human than men. So I think that the idea of Mary being this perfect example of wisdom has to do with that receptivity, that contemplative attitude and default directionality.

I wonder if we could talk about the causes and consequences of the pessimism that epistemological relativism brings about. like it's a way of short-cutting the conversation. It seems pessimistic too that we can no longer know truth Where does this come from and and and what's it leading to? That's kind of what we're talking about. Isn't it? We're not receiving reality as it is. No, we're sort of trying to dictate Yes, the terms of reality the technopoly thing. I think it's the Practical philosophy getting rid of speculative philosophy Cartesian Baconian project It also is a way to sound smart like I remember as a kid

14 15 saying things like well, what is truth and can we know truth if this was a new idea, right? Well, what is truth and can we know truth as if this was a new idea, right? Yeah, I think that I think that One way to look at it's historically and socially your question about the causes like if we look at it historically and socially So I think that in the you know The scholastic era going into the humanist phase right and then we have the Reformation and that's a major breaking point And a lot of things happen after that. Yeah. So I see that that has philosophy is a,

is a social enterprise, right? It's sustained by schools, reading teachers, right? It's not just something you trust. Yes. Trust between humans. Exactly. I quite a jumble the second talked about that in Fides et Razzio, right? Yeah. It's not something you can just sort of individually get some information on that philosophy. Right?

And so when those social institutions are all being challenged in a certain way by the breakup of European society, of civilization, that starts affecting philosophy and theology and everything. Right? So I think of modern science as an example of modern science is not intrinsically bad, but I think there was a kind of context that it was to exist in, right, with respect to the church and theology and higher truths in a Christian Catholic society. And when you remove that check, then it goes a direction that it's no longer checked. And so then it starts heading in the kind

of scientistic transhumanism direction, right, until we check it and make it properly ordered like theology being the queen of the sciences idea Right, so that's what everything's pointed to from Revelation We know that but even from a natural philosophical point of view as I said, right We want this divine was empathagoras wanted that right Plato wanted that These people are obviously hundreds of years before Christian revelation. So we're set up that way. And so when we remove the kind of authority, trust in the Catholic worldview, the Catholic institution, the Church, then knowledge starts to go a certain direction. It gets, what do I say, divorced. Faith starts to break away from reason, is what I'm trying to say. In history that started happening. That is fascinating.

And so to me, I get to Kant. And to me, Kant is the, and this is, he died in 1800. So he, to me, was the officiant of the divorce of faith and reason. But what's interesting about Kant is he's trying to save science from Hume. And he's trying to save faith. He said, the reason why, right, I've made this break and I say you can't prove that God exists, you can't disprove that God exists, right, you can't prove the immortality of the soul, you can't disprove the immortality of the soul. The reason I separated faith and put it here is to protect it. Gotcha. Right, so he's trying to preserve faith in a certain way by making

it totally immune to rational scrutiny. And this, look at these two, these is like rationalism and fideism, right? And human reason now gets, gets degraded. Human reason can't be as powerful. Like Belloc writes, human reason is so powerful because it's been in this Catholic milieu and related to faith. I mean, not just divine faith, meaning revelation from God and we trust His Word, but think about human faith, right? We just talked about tradition, history, language. We don't learn any of this except by trusting other people's words. That is human, what used to be called human faith. So, knowledge itself, and this is in Fides et Ratio,

knowledge itself is based in a large respect on testimonial beliefs. Absolutely. What is the shape of America? Is the atom a thing? Yes. All of this. All this is based on testimony, faith.

And so reason needs that to get going. And then we add, so I think of my picture of the relationship of faith and reason, it's like a kind of, kind of, there's faith at the bottom, human faith, right? And also in a certain way, like faith in the reliability of our own faculties, right? And so there's this like basic trust in the world, in each other, right? And then we start reasoning in science and philosophy and all these disciplines are kind of developing it based on that. Yeah.

And then we have divine revelation. And divine revelation doesn't set a cap on reason, it goes down into reason and pulls it up even higher. Think for example of transubstantiation. So this gives human concepts, philosophy concepts that it didn't have before. So we think, well, how can Christ be in this one space? Well, he can't be in this place space? Well, he can't be in this place in the way anything else is in a place.

So there has to be more than one way of being in a place. So we wouldn't have thought of that if we wouldn't have had this doctrine to try to explain the real presence. I've heard it said that faith is to reason what a telescope is to the natural eye. That's good, that's good. It doesn't usurp the sight.

No, it extends the power. So reason is extended in its power by faith, by divine faith. And so when we divorce them, reason gets attacked, right? So even though Kant didn't want that, that is a result. I mean, what happens after Kant in the history of philosophy is we get Hegel and all these crazy idealists, right? And so then ultimately that's sort of like this weird rationalistic view of everything, right?

But it ends up being completely unrealistic because all the world is made by our kind of mind. Our mind kind of projects and constructs the world. And then it's whether through concepts or through ideas or through language ultimately. I mean, this in the end is what we call postmodernism in the bad sense, right? Or relativism, as you said. It's like we just create the world out of our concepts and thinking. We don't, we can't receive it. It's not able to be received.

That's not what a world is. A world is what we construct with our concepts in our language and however you run that story. And so my point is when you divorce faith and reason, reason ends up being destroyed in the end and so does faith of course. They only survive, they're meant to be married. Say, you just said it, but say it in a different way. Why does reason get destroyed when we get rid of faith? Because now think of this, what is the purpose of reasoning? Now, if it's not to go to this transcendent level,

like if it's not open to mystery and divine revelation, right, what's the point of it? The only point of it is... Survival. Yeah, it's the Cartesian Baconian thing. That's the point of it. But when everybody... Word off scarcity, gain more goods.

Yes, if you gain this whole world, but lose your soul, what's that for? Everybody recognizes that at some level. It's all worthless. People get all they want in the end and then they're up on the top and they have all the money and all the power, whatever else, and they realize there's nothing here. See, that's what I mean. It's their reason now. And even Kant talks about this, ironically, is people people become misologists, people that hate reason, right? Misology, right? I didn't know that

word, misology. Yeah, so he says people begin to hate reason because now they try to follow things out and it doesn't lead anywhere. What does that mean etymologically? Hate, hate and logos. Yeah, so they hate reason and he says and he's right that that is unleashed He didn't realize that he was part of this ultimate problem. He thought he was saving reason from superstition from see I See it looking back as a kind of Satanic ploy, right? It looks like he's preserving reason

It looks like he's the biggest fan of the enlightenment, of the power of reason, autonomy. All these things are going to make a world of peace. That sounds really great. I think Nietzsche's observation later was correct. All these people are doing disguised theology. They don't realize what they're actually doing is theology. They're trying to give you a kind of transcendentally important way of thinking and doing things on this earth without being transcendental. That's what technopoly does. It tries to replace moral thinking with science, with social science, social engineering, expertise.

That's where we get answers to life's questions. And so it advertises itself as sort of meeting this deep desire that Lewis talked about in the weight of glory. So it's doing, doesn't know that it's doing theology, but it is what theology does. So it tries to give us knowledge about God that we can kind of barely glimpse right now, but we want more of desperately. So you asked me about the causes of pessimism, right? That's where I was trying to get to in this. Yeah.

Now, I see how it leads to that. Yeah. And so I think the opposite is when people realize that reason's not going to get them the happiness they want, what do they do now? Now they become the silly optimist, right? Where whatever they think's great, right? Just be happy. Just be nice.

Just be happy and be nice. It's great. The world's wonderful. They're like bleary-eyed. They're disconnected from reality, but they desperately want the happiness that they see as offered, but they can't pursue it through knowledge. They can't pursue it through reason. So you have this deep, dark pessimism or this bleary-eyed optimism.

Other cliches of the bleary-eyed optimist. Everything happens for a reason or she's in a better place. How the hell do you know? Maybe she's in a terrible place. Maybe she doesn't exist at all. I love Chesterton's Orthodoxy. It's one of my favorite books and he brings up this pessimism optimism problem and his solution I don't know if you've heard this before. He has a chapter in that book called The Flag of the World. He says what we should do is we should approach this world like Robinson Crusoe approached the wreckage, right? This is your world. This is all you have, right? So you need to be a cosmic patriot. This is the best world, right? But we're part of to make it the best world. It might be pieces and parts,

but there's nothing else. So you need to be a patriot towards the cosmos, right? That's neither pessimism nor optimism. It recognizes what the pessimist says, and it recognizes what the optimist wants, right? But then it says, right, there's something about the world that's already there that we need to respect, we need to follow, we need to conform to. But there's also pieces that are broken because of us,

and we can help put those back together, and we can ask God for help to put those back together. This is our project, to live in this cosmos, right? Which I've had a conversation with you, that's the word we should be using as Catholics instead of space, right? Because it's a world order, right? And that's what the word cosmos means, world order. So, this is where God put us in a world order. And that's actually, jump back, I'm jumping all over the place, is the Trivium and the Quadrivrivium the quadrivium is all about learning the principles of that And the quadrivium is arithmetic geometry

Music and astronomy you're like that's weird. What how are those like unlocking the cosmos for us? Well in a certain way they're all about number But number not in the sense we think of number right like zero Like zero, one, two, three, four, not that, right? But number meaning proportion and order. So arithmetic is the study of number itself. How do we understand relationships, proportions, all that? Right, and geometry for the ancients is not, again, abstract. It is the study of what we call space, right?

So it's the study of that aspect of reality that you wondered about when you were a kid. So that's what geometry is. So it's number in space. Music is number in time. So the proportionality occurring through time, like the music of the spheres, the cosmos, is progressing. There's a dynamic development and path things

take towards an end. So that's number in time. And then astronomy is number in space and time. So they're all about number, meaning all about order, all about proportion. And so when you get the liberal sciences, those last four, the quadrivium, now you have the fundamental tools to think about the cosmos. And you do that, whether that's, you know, metaphysics, literature, poetry, whatever, whatever anything right, but you're trying to Find your place and understand your place in this world order and that is part of philosophy, too

In the people who get a good sales job after they've graduated from university Once you make money then you can get a house and then you can maybe get another car, right? And then maybe, then you can decide to have children, right? And then you can decide no. You can decide no or yes. And then once you have some children, as long as you can create a certain standard of living, right, in that kind of American dream, cul-de-sac,

then you're good to go. Then you've reached the end. That's the end of life. That's the goal. I mean, this all seems kind of dependent on the existence or non-existence of God, doesn't it, in some way? Because if God doesn't exist,

then it seems like Hume and Compton, Nietzsche are the best we've got. And so, yeah, I decide I'm a woman and I would like woman parts, then I can impose that upon me. And that would make sense in a senseless world. Well, to an extent, I mean, I might push back and say that the order that's only dependent upon whether or not you receive God to be there. What am I trying to say? Is that God did create the

world in a certain way. The universe is Christian, whether we like it or not. So, it's not dependent upon whether or not I think about the world being devoid of God, and therefore I can manipulate it however I'd like. Maybe you could even say it doesn't even matter whether or not God did invent it, there is a certain order, stability of the universe. That's the secularist argument against transgenderism. You know, there's still an argument against it whether or not God exists. It's still like there's a way things are,

and there's a way to flourish in this little life, and having your ball sack cut off and having a vagina implanted is, or vagina implanted, which is such an insult to women, can we just say, is not the way to go about your own flourishing. I mean, there's still an argument against it based on the order we perceive. Yeah. But, and I think that's pretty much, I mean, you can correct me on this, but I think that is pretty much Aristotle and Plato's project in a nutshell. Especially Aristotle

I was gonna say especially Aristotle because for him God is completely impersonal God himself He doesn't even have any choice. I know some Christian. He's not even he's not personal or impersonal. He's yeah He's just not a personal being at all. He's like a supercomputer for the cosmos. Mm-hmm Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to ask is all that you're saying makes so much sense today. And I can't believe we haven't had a beer sooner. I can't wait to do this over a beer. We should get one.

It's 1130. That's fine. It's not even noon yet. We haven't had a beer. Remember last time in our conversation, like Chesterton came up and Chesterton was arguing that the laws that were in parliament

being considered to be passed, or bills that were being considered to be passed in the law would have enforced pubs to remain closed until afternoon. So this is just unjust. Yeah, yeah, so we'll do it. We're gonna do it. You know, we'll do it. But like these fundamental questions

we're all concerned about have dogmatic answers if God doesn't exist. like these questions we ask about meaning But I want to jump in there about God's existence That's very that comes up every every course last I teach right every I mean every subject every semester not every individual session does that come up But obviously everything relates to that right everything relates to everything. That's the famous philosophy line. So if you're philosophical, everything's relating to everything. But what I wanted to say about that is,

I would want to challenge the person who thinks there's no God, right? To prove to me that there isn't at some level. In other words, they think there's a highest good, right? Well, that's God. They think there's a truth, right? That's God. They think there's beauty that transcends. That's God. So they might not describe it as a personal being yet. In other words, they might have like an inadequate description

of God. But those things are God. And so I would say, no, I think you do believe in God. You just haven't gone up the ladder far enough. I don't believe you that you don't believe in God. Right, if you think there's a truth in this conversation that we're having. But if I define God as the creator of the universe, I don't believe in that. Okay, so then we have to go back to what do you believe

and what level of God you might say or description you have, absolute truth, goodness. So I had a Chinese student, here's my example, came into a summer class, this 18 year old Chinese, sat in my class, one of my friends was a teacher at another university, said, hey, can this student sit in your summer class? I said, sure. And this was probably the smartest student I've ever had.

And she knew nothing about Catholicism from China, didn't even know what that was, right? But she believed in like an absolute justice, an absolute truth, an absolute goodness. He's transcendental. She believed that was an absolute justice, an absolute truth, an absolute goodness. He's transcendental. She believed that was part of the cosmos. She liked the idea of the Tao, right? The Lewis idea of the Tao.

Of course, her idea of her conception of that from whatever she got from her upbringing, which was not religious. And so I said, you do believe in God. And she said, okay, I see what you mean at that certain level, but I don't see how that's a person. And so that was the fundamental thing that I tried to argue with her. And to be honest, I didn't convince her, right? But to me, she's got that. And she realizes that, that being, right, with a capital B, she needs to respect, she needs to contemplate.

It's the source of value, right? She might not think it created this world out of nothing, but she still is worshiping it in a certain way. And that's the right beginning point. Because when you love something, you worship something, you want to know more and more about it. And I hope that if she continues with her will to love and respect and honor this, then she'll see the truth or the cogency of some of the arguments that

I or other people that she might have read come up with to say, wait, this truth, you know, this goodness, right, this whatever, is love, is… So, I mean, I have different avenues in to that, apologetically or philosophically, but I think that I would challenge the person who does believe in God and say, okay, now that you got that God, but you don't believe in my creator out of nothing or my judge of the afterlife in the end, well, how are you going to live your life now with respect to that God? Are you going to treat it like it doesn't matter?

Right? Like it just sort of like is out there like Aristotle's supercomputer. I mean, Aristotle didn't treat the supercomputer like, oh, okay, I came up with it, now I don't have to pay attention to it. He said we should worship it. Right? So he had the right attitude, right? Because that's the highest thing that there is in the universe.

Quick side note. In New York City, there is a Dominican church that has Aristotle in one of the stained glass windows with a green halo. Hmm. Wow. Maybe a throwback to Dante's. Maybe Dante. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, was Plato there too? I hope so. Yeah, I would hope. If you got. Well, was Plato there too? I hope so. Yeah, I would hope. If you got Aristotle, you got to have Plato. You got to have Plato. Yeah.

Plato has a terrific ability of unscrambling our confused brains. When you read him, you feel yourself becoming more sane, I think. Yeah. And I would encourage people who are out there who think, oh, I could never read Plato. Like, no, you kind of could. I completely agree with you. See, what do you think about this, I could never read Plato. Like, no, you kind of could. I completely agree with you. And see what you think about this guy. I keep saying this to people.

I find that like, anyone could kind of, I could read Plato to my kids. Like, I think I may have already, but I'd like to kind of maybe read the apology to my kids. And I think that they would get it. But he's almost like not infinitely gettable, but almost like it keeps going down. Aristotle, when you read Aristotle,

oftentimes it's like you're confused right away. Plato is like very clear and then you keep going in. Yeah, and what we have of those, their texts are so different, right? Because in Plato we have dialogues. That's right. Right, and so he's written those to invite people into the philosophical life.

That's the purpose. The purpose isn't to give it to somebody who's already at Plato's academy. What do you think of the idea of Socrates as the incarnation of philosophy? I think I teach him as the exemplar philosopher, like the first martyr of philosophy and the exemplar of a philosopher

as we see it in the history of philosophy. So his life, I break it down, and there's three kind of, from the Apology, right, there's three images that are really important there that to me represent the life of a philosopher, somebody living that way of life. So Socrates, of course. Godfrey.

Yeah, the Godfrey is one of them. The first one is know thyself, the Oracle of Delphi. He wasn't there, but one of his friends reports to him that somebody else was there, but didn't trust human testimony. And they said he's the wisest. And so he knew that it said know thyself. So he knew the truth. The truth is something that he has to be utterly committed to so that's the first I think philosophical

Mission right is to be utterly committed the truth has to do with knowing knowing yourself your place in the world Right the nature of the cosmos how you fit all that comes to bear there then the gadfly I think once you that's the next image right is that to be a philosophy you have to be a no jacked falsehood Right you have to be culture that be annoying you have to have to that's an accidental. Yeah, you know You can't disagree with everybody all the time you have to be able to win the right moments be skeptical or you have to say They're very infuriating question. What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? And and what he did is he directed those at the leaders of culture, those who are reputed to be wise, right?

So probably your viewers have, you know, repute wisdom to you. So what they should do is like challenge everything you think or say, right? And they probably do it to me too. So after, and you, whoever, right? Experts that come online, we kind of repute to be wise. Well, soccer students say, well, really are you? I mean, do you really know what you're talking about? Let's talk about it. He's not being aggressive, right? He really does want to

understand. And so, but in the end, what often happens is he's criticized some cultural pattern or habit. And so to me, the gadfly stands for criticizing culture, where culture has embodied a falsehood, something false about the nature of the person or the world. And it's taken it as axiomatic almost. It's taken it as axiomatic. So we need to expose falsehood, not just for ourselves, but yes, for ourselves, but for others, because we're prey to those falsehoods because none of us is an island. We learn and think and feel so many things more than we'd ever want to admit because

we are raised a certain way in a particular environment at a particular time Society doesn't utterly determine what we think but it certainly it certainly has a major influence more than we want to Want to accept so we need to criticize the culture from which we came not right because we want to get rid of it But because we want to get the truth out of it and get rid of it We want to discern truth and falsehood. Those are the two missions. The last one, right, is he talks about the voice, this voice he hears, right? And some people say it's conscience, it's maybe some sort of angelic messenger or whatever. There's all kinds of interpretations of this. A demon, even. I think that was...

Daemon is the word, but it doesn't mean what... Well, but I was thinking I was reading the death of Christian culture. And I'm pretty sure he called it a demon. Yeah. Not a demon, not the sense in which just a spirit. But like, anyway, we can. Well, it's I when I read it, I see it as a very good thing because it tells him to stop doing things which end up to be really unjust. Wrong, bad, false, whatever. Yeah. He always obeys. That's right.

It doesn't tell him what to do. It only tells him what not to do. I mean, think about most of the Ten Commandments. They tell you what not to do. Then we have to go, and of course what that means is go love God, but you can't do it these ways. Right. A starting base. That's why we need a law to direct us. Exactly. So that we can ultimately move into full virtue. And so to me that element is, he talks about, um, the doing everything he can to care for the soul. So soul care, right? And this voice helps him care for his soul. So I think of it as philosophical therapy, right?

We, we need philosophy to understand our struggles in life, right? It's a, it's a sort of an existential part of philosophy where the meaning of life, the idea of suffering, right, the problem of evil, these ramify out to abstract things, but also they connect to deep things like we were talking about death earlier. Like, we are gonna die. What do we think about death? I mean, are we afraid?

Why are we afraid? Like, what is the, where does that fear come from? Is that good fear? Is that bad fear? What's the nature? And it leads you quickly to try to take care of your soul and he and he like that prayer I read Socrates says the same things what I want to do is Give God what he deserves and give human beings what they deserve. That's what he said

I want to be pious give God what he deserves justice towards God and Give other people what they did they deserve be just towards other people and that's how you care for your soul is justice Well, you may not remember but what's the dialogue when Plato or Socrates his friends are in the prison and they're talking about getting him out Yeah, Crito Crito. I love Socrates's answer when they're basically talking about death and he's like well, I mean some people say yeah, you know you get to Converse with some of the brightest people and who did that sounds great, but if there's nothing, nothing would be like a dreamless sleep. And isn't that a pleasant thing?

Yeah. It's like, either way, I'm good. He's consoled himself in the face of face of death. Yeah. But I think a key element is that isn't just his arguments about that, because he thinks he will get to talk to those people if he's been living a life of justice. So if he's been following the law, like which Bonaventure says that the 10 commandments

just is the law of justice. The first table is the law of justice towards God and the second table is the law of justice. And it's also love your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbors yourself. So it's love and it's justice is one thing. So if Socrates is doing this as best as he can in his context Right then he feels because of that right maybe he'll have an afterlife with some yeah, not just pain

Not just I'm sure he whatever it is his yeah according to his religious metaphors Just embrace it just embrace that awkward Pause it's not awkward. It is on YouTube. I'm still thinking. You know how you have to not only let your mind give some time to accept something, but your soul. I feel like that was a ton. I kind of want my soul to just receive it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've talked about this all morning, but this particular concept, Matt, you can just punch me in the face if you don't want to go here, but you can reach from there. There's this term that you taught me, Alex, some years ago, the heteronomy of philosophy,

that it's not an autonomous science. And this is what we're talking about. What is heteronormative? I don't know that word. It's dependent upon another, like it's operative with another field, particularly in this way. It's a law of another. It's reasoning, it's thinking, it's directionality is dependent upon another. And that other is theology, obviously. And this is what you're talking about with faith being the undergird,

with divine revelation as being that which brings us further outside the, what did you call that, the artificial dome, you know, the limitation? That metaphor from Peeper, I didn't make that up, just so. Okay. Give him his due. All right, fair enough. One of my favorite Thomists. Well, but this is actually what I was wondering is that you are a self-proclaimed Franciscan. And I work in the Franciscan intellectual tradition.

Yeah, you use a Franciscan metaphysic. You love- Rather than a Thomistic one or- Right. Phenomenology or something else. And this point about the heteronomy of philosophy, I don't think it's in any way disagreeable from within a Thomistic framework, but why is it so particularly important to the Franciscans? Yeah, that's a really good question. So the idea is philosophy is an activity, a way of life, and like every activity or way of life, there's a purpose and there's an end as a goal for that.

And so the goal, obviously, of all of life is to love God, right? It's to love God as God deserves to be loved, right? To love God for His own sake, as we say. And that's what we're going to be able to perfectly do in heaven, right? And so that's the goal. So philosophy, like anything, is headed toward that. So can it get there of its own oomph? Of course, when you phrase it that way, we naturally think, no. Right? There's a love, there's a fire, there's a spark, right, to get us directed, but we can't ever get there. We need revelation, we need grace, we need God to meet us, right? And so that's the idea of philosophy depends on God. So theology in the sense of revealed theology, because obviously philosophy itself includes what we call natural theology, or what traditionally was part of metaphysics. So metaphysics is like Thomas says, like the divine science, well Aristotle says that. And so natural theology is part of metaphysics. So metaphysics is, like Thomas says, like the divine science. Well, Aristotle says that. And so natural theology is part of philosophy,

weirdly. I know that's confusing. But so then revealed theology is what we need to complete our journey as human beings towards God. I mean, even Adam would have needed that, right, without the fall. So he couldn't understand God or do what he needed. He would love God for God's sake, right, in the way that we can when we're perfected in heaven, without God, without God's grace, without God's direction. Yeah. So to me, the heteronomy contrasts with the autonomy,

which is philosophy has a goal that's inherent in itself, and it can achieve that goal. It makes it more like a kind of branch of knowledge that we can sort of complete or understand, right, from principles within it or even methods within it. Mm-hmm. So why is that particularly important to the Franciscans? Well, one distinction I like to think about with the Franciscans is the way the Franciscans and the Thomists

conceive of our ultimate state in heaven. So, the Franciscans like to think of it, again, following Bonaventure, who with Scotus, I would say, that's the heart of the figures that represent the kind of intellectual tradition of the Franciscans, is Bonaventure in Journey of the Mind of God. Yeah, it's amazing. Talks about through faith, hope and charity, we have renewed in us what he calls the spiritual senses. So we can smell God, we can taste God, we can, you know, all the senses, we can feel God. So these are restored through grace, through getting these virtues.

To that point, I believe he talks about the Word of God doing this, but it may have been grace about how the Word of God untwists man. So you can fill this in better than me, but it sounded like he was saying that man contaminated by sin is bent over on himself, unable to see himself, his neighbor or God, and that the Word of God unbends him so that he can stand upright and see reality as it is. And is he referring to the Word of God specifically the Scriptures or is it grace more generally? It is, I would say, it's very Christocentric. So Christ, the Word, right? That chapter in Journey of the Mind to God is like a pivot chapter, right? Chapter four,

where he's talking about how on the journey of the mind to God, mind maybe isn't the right translation, like human soul. The journey of the human soul to God is, this is kind of an idealized order. It doesn't mean like every person goes through this in chronological order, but it's a kind of idealized order. So first we kind of see God and created things. He calls them vestiges because since God is the creator, he's an artist.

This was made by him. And so it's his art. And so just as we can detect an artist in artwork, like you listen to the radio and you turn it on and you hear a couple bars, you're like, oh, that's Brahms. Or, oh, that's Beethoven. Or, you know, Metallica. Yeah, you can recognize the artist pretty quickly if you have any experience. And so we can detect God in all of his vestiges in creation. So that's one way to kind of see God. He kind of talks about there's kind of two different ways to do that.

And then he moves to talk about the human person as the image, not a vestige, but an image of God. And that's what I said before, like consciousness, intellect, and will are three powers that are inseparable in us that are the human soul. The human soul is those three powers. and that's an image of the Trinity. So in the first stage we've already seen that there is a God, so that's like natural theology stage if you will.

And now we're like, we want to know more, so we go, as he says, go into ourselves and we look at the mirror inside of ourselves, that when we look at us it reflects the image of God in a more direct way than these things are mirrors, he says, that reflect up on God kind of indirectly. And then that chapter four moment is the pivot, where he says human nature itself is, he says, hierarchized. Like, God takes the human soul and almost like pulls it up higher, so it's like going up into God himself, pulling it up into his life through the Word, through Christ, through grace, right, through faith, hope, and charity, right, pulling it up.

And it gets the spiritual senses. And so my point is that for the Franciscan, when the life of perfect charity, right, is a life of experiencing God, right, experiencing the incomprehensible, right, without being able to understand intellectually. So he says in the final chapter that it's a, following Pseudo-Deonisius, that it's a super-luminous darkness. So it's like when you look directly into a light, you can't see anything. So it's like that. So there's God, the source of all knowledge, the source of all light. You're there, you are flooded with so much your mind couldn't ever comprehend, right?

Of course, Thomas agrees. Everybody, because you can't comprehend God. But the Franciscan emphasizes that you're experiencing God in a way that transcends your mind's ability to understand. So it's like almost like ineffable knowledge, right? And so that's the emphasis of the Franciscan, the kind of experiencing of God in heaven. There's a similarity here between how Orthodox,

the Orthodox would talk about experiencing God, isn't there, the divine energies? Oh, absolutely. I think that, so one of my best friends, Jared Goff, right, he's a friend, works in the Franciscan intellectual tradition. Absolutely brilliant. And who is he? He is a, well, he's a friend of mine that I

met in college, but he writes in the Franciscan tradition, he has a book called Caritas at Primo, it's about the Trinity, Bonaventure's view of the Trinity. Mm-hmm. Where this is a fascinating story is the Bonaventure's text on the Trinity called on the disputed questions on the mystery of the Trinity, was lost the generation after Saint Bonaventure. So like from the 1300s, let's say, up until the 1800s, it was lost. Nobody had this text. And it was rediscovered in the 1800s.

And then this friend of mine, he's the first person to study that text as a whole since its rediscovery. And that text is where Bonaventure most completely interacts with Aristotle. So Thomas, of course, is famous for the synthesis with Aristotle when Aristotle's became part of the curriculum from that point forward.

So that, as Chesterton would say, was the Aristotelian revolution. Bonaventure was kind of on the older half, before that had completed, and now Bonaventure's, I mean, Aquinas is like the launching pad. Everybody's Aristotelian somehow after Aquinas. But this text is important because it's Bonaventure dealing with that. And so that's kind of his first major book. He's contributed a lot about Bonaventur. He's a Bonaventurian expert, scotistic expert, and

and he, his mentor was Peter Fellner, who's a, was a 20th century theologian, really well-known, eminent theologian, one of the most eminent 20th century theologians. And since he passed away, Jared, my friend, is the literary executive of all of his works. And so he's producing those, and those are going to be being printed. So that's kind of his area of work. But he's done a lot of... He's an Eastern Catholic. I see. He's a convert. He, he's an Eastern Catholic. I see. He's a convert. He didn't grow up Eastern Catholic, but he's done a lot of thinking on the relationship

between ancient Eastern Christianity, like coming up through the Orthodox strain, right, all the way up into history, and shows, I would say, in that book, Caritas at Prima, there's a fascinating kind of tangent in the middle where he talks about the Franciscans having this sort of proto-tradition in the Eastern Orthodox way of thinking. So the divine energies, right, the energies, essences distinction is parallel to a distinction SCOTUS makes. So SCOTUS defends a kind of, a view of divine simplicity, which is not the same as Aquinas'. And so that view of divine simplicity that SCOTUS defends

is parallel to the essence energy distinction. Now, I think the Franciscans do a great favor to the Orthodox because they don't have the kind of scholastic discipline. Right? They got up to Palamas, right? Who's kind of their kind of Aquinas. But I think that the Franciscans Bonaventure, Scotus, and going forward are the best way to make scholastic and analytical, right? More scientific theology of that Eastern tradition. And so I, as a Franciscan thinker, think I have a special regard, right,

for the way the Orthodox make some of those important distinctions, but then say, you know, I also have a favor to give you, right? So there's a kind of mutuality that I think. And he's talked about that a lot. He's been on Reason and Theology. I know you've had some of those guys on your show. So that's a great show.

And he's a great thinker and great friend. And I hope maybe someday you can have him and you can talk about that point. That's terrific. Yeah. I spoke to you about this before our interview, but it seems like whenever a Catholic wants to hold a fringe, more liberal, if you want, view within Catholicism, they often blame it on the Franciscans unfairly. So we were at a debate recently on the morality or the immorality of lying, and somebody got up and tried to justify why it was okay to lie sometimes because they grew up in more of a Franciscan environment. Speak to that. Right, so I would say that

just as that's a distortion of the Franciscan tradition, right, it's not traditional at all, right? It's some sort of moniker that means I like this. It's Franciscan, I like it. Yes. It's kind of like the word cool. What does the word cool mean? Right, it means I like it, basically.

Yeah. So if it's Franciscan, it means I like it. If it's cool, it means I like it. Well, I think Thomas do this too, right? Is they often say, well, that's Thomistic, right Thomistic right Thomas said that or Thomas would say that right as if that just a sort of immediate approval Yeah, those are really Tomers. Yeah, not Thomas Somebody that doesn't really know what they're talking about within the Thomistic school

Ideological Thomas yes, I remember there was a YouTube video that sort of picture was said, Aquinas equals Catholicism. And to me that's a tomer, that's a sure sign of a tomer being there. Right, it's like, no, Thomas wouldn't say that. Nobody says that who knows anything about theology. But there's a kind of knee-jerk move to Thomas

because he is the universal common doctor. He is a genius, he's an organizational teaching master. His summa is the paradigm summa, even though there were other summas written, that's the paradigm one. So he deserves respect in that position he has, like in Fides et Ratio and other places. But he certainly would never say, right? He would never say, yeah, you're right that my Summa was next to the Bible on the altar,

the high altar at the Council of Trent. Right? Is that apocryphal? Yeah, that's apocryphal, as far as I know. Yeah. And that you hear that kind of story sometimes. Like, well, no, Yeah, and that you hear that kind of story sometimes. Like, well, no, that wasn't the case. So I think that Tomers, to me, are examples of ideological Thomas. They might be well motivated. Can I bore you with a short, satirical article from Eye of the Tiber, which is sort of like the Catholic Babylon Bee. Okay.

It says, self-proclaimed Thomist, Thomas admits he knows nothing of Thomas. Spokane, Washington. It was reported this week that Gonzaga University grad and self-proclaimed Thomist Stephen Hillers knows virtually nothing about the works of Thomas Aquinas. Hillers, well known for beginning his sentences with the words, well, according to Thomas, came clean to friends late Tuesday night when he revealed that he did in fact know nothing about the Summa Theologiae and that he had never even heard of the Summa Contra Gentiles until that very night. We always knew he was full of it,

a friend of Hiller's said, but on Tuesday when Steve said that according to Thomas, the biggest human temptation was to settle for too little. That was too much. I called him out on it. Hillers has since apologized to his friends, saying that he never meant to mislead anyone. Really, I didn't. I never meant Thomas Aquinas. I meant Thomas as in a student of Thomas Merton. Ever heard of him? Hillers says he intends to begin reading Seven Story Mountain this fall. So shout out to the guys at iofthetiber.com. That's great.

Of course that would come out of Spokane. Yeah. So I think the same thing happens in a different way with the Franciscans. And same thing, it's like that person probably has never read Fond Adventure, probably has never read SCOTUS, probably didn't know that Maximilian Kolbe was in that tradition. Just ignorance. I mean, I find there's a kind of special ignorance of the Franciscan intellectual tradition that I care about exposing, my gadfly moments, because it's such a beautiful, glorious,

wonderful tradition, and it has been lost in such a way. It has. It has been in many ways lost. People think Dominican, they think university professor. People think Franciscan, they think hippie. Yes. So talk to us about that, Franciscan intellectual. An eco-feminist or something.

Yeah, no, I think that the intellectual tradition being rooted in Bonaventure and Scotus, right? So I think Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Scotus, those are the greatest medieval scholastic thinkers in my book. And so, Scotus is my example, is a lot of people will take Blessed Scotus and say, well, he's the kind of cause of all these problems we have, right?

And they'll tell some story, some narrative about Scotus. In the beginning of nominalism and from nominalism, we get all the way to the ideologies. To move during the Reformation and then the relativism of below us. It's all like SCOTUS' fault somehow. Well, usually it's awesome. Yeah. But then they say he got that from SCOTUS. Gotcha. See? And that's the move back to SCOTUS.

And you're like, well, wait a minute. If you know anything about this debate, SCOTUS is radically not a nominalist. Right. He's an ultra realist. If you want to take who's closer to nominalism, Aquinas or Scotus, right? It's Aquinas. Of course, he's not a nominalist in Occam sense, right? Even if some scholars call him a nominalist, right? He's a moderate kind, right? He's not a, not a, not a bad kind. And so they're radically opposite on that point of view,

or the people mix up nominalism in this story with volunteerism. So, Occam, right? For those at home, explain real quick, nominalism and volunteerism. So, nominalism is the idea that when we think about universal things like dogs in all places, all places and all times, like a universal dog, let's say.

But that's not really getting us to a feature of reality that's in common with all dogs. It's really just getting us to kind of a grammatical level of how we use the word. There's something about the word that's the same that unites all of our uses, but there's nothing transcendental about the nature of the world that we're getting in touch with, through these universals. And so, volunteerism is the idea that God's commands make things right. Yes, you often hear that about them. And there is a sense of truth about some commands God says make

them right, but an extreme volunteer says everything that's right is right because God commanded it to be right. Is that more of the Islamic view given that you used to be a Muslim? Yeah, that is the Islamic view. And actually, I've kind of looked at this a little bit. I need to write this one day, but Al Ghazali, who's kind of like the Saint Augustine of the Muslim world, he was actually on the curriculum for Oxford, Cambridge, Cambridge, Parish, can't even talk, Parish, Paris during the time of Occam. And, and I think I've been able to track a fair bit of his, his reference, actually not from the Christian tradition,

but instead from the Islamic one. So that extreme volunteerism, that sort of absolute power of God being, God can command you to hate him. Occam said that. Whereas SCOTUS said that's logically impossible. God, it's impossible logically for God to say, hate me. Whereas Occam said, it's all, it's possible.

God could say that. So now you have all the 10 commandments being things that God could have said the opposite of if he wanted to. Right, and so that extreme volunteerism obviously is a major problem. Yeah, right. So you do find that in SCOTUS but not in Occam. Yeah, you find, yeah, exactly, you find in Occam extreme nominalism, extreme volunteerism, not in SCOTUS. And that's really the problem with, to me, Occamus is that idea more than the nominalism. To me, nominalism is kind of this bugaboo

that's this demon in these Catholic narratives of causes of the Reformation and everything. I'm like, well, I'm not really sure that's the big problem. The big problem is extreme volunteerism. So look at that in Luther, right? I mean, like what Luther says about the Ten Commandments is crazy. What does he say? I mean, he says that God, when Christ came, right, he didn't just abolish the ceremonial prescripts and laws, like he abolished the natural law, the Ten Commandments, right? Now that's complicated

to say that, because you're like, well, and his followers felt that, and they say, well, what are we supposed to do with those? And he says, well, you should still follow that. And his followers felt that and they said, well, what are we supposed to do with those? And he says, well, you should still follow those. And they're like, but why? Well, because it conduces to social order. It's useful, it's practical, right? But those can't be binding on you because through grace, you are freed from the law.

It's almost like how Zwingli would talk about the sacraments. It's crazy. Or how some Protestants who follow Zwingli would talk about the sacraments. Well, why get baptized? Well, because he didants who follow this, follow Zwingli would talk about the sacraments. Why get baptized? Well, because he did say to do it and, but does it mean anything? Yeah. Well, it's a symbol of the salvation you've accepted. Okay. But if I've accepted, yeah.

No, that's, that's right. I mean, one of my, one of my, one of my new apologetical strategies is, um, with people that claim to be Protestants is to first make them convince me. I love this. So, so far in this episode, if if you claim to be an atheist here's how I'll school you All right, so if I'm a Protestant, how do you? Think we know yeah and my claim as a floster is maybe we don't know. Yeah, all right Maybe you don't know what so someone says I'm like my favorite bumper sticker says don't believe everything you think But then you'll see some that say question all authority including this

Yeah, so they know where all authority, including this. Yeah. So they know where you're about to go. Yeah. So I'd say you got to convince me that you're an actual Protestant in a real sense. So I give them examples of like what Luther thinks or Calvin thinks and say, I know you don't, I already know you, like you're my friend. You don't believe that, right? And they're like, no.

I'm like, well, okay. So, so far you're a pre-Catholic. That's what you are. Like you believe things that Catholics believe, and you just need to keep believing more things and more dogmas that the Catholic Church teaches, and you become fully Catholic. Right, plus you're baptized,

so you're already Catholic in a certain sense anyway. Right, and so I say, you need to convince me you're a Protestant. And they say, well, I don't believe in this Catholic doctrine because blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, what's the doctrine again? And they explain what it is, and it's something the Catholic Church doesn't teach.

Right? But this surely isn't all Protestants. I mean, Protestant reformers differ from each other as well. Absolutely. So you can be, I think it's sufficient to be a Protestant just to say that I protest the Catholic Church. Yeah. And then I wanna say, and then I wanna say why, why?

You need a reason for that. So then my next move is to say, instead of like taking yourself as a Christian now and going back in time and finding That you can believe more and more and more back imagine you began in the beginning. You're on a boat It's going forward in time. Now when you get off, that's the right response Jesus started a community with these Apostles Yeah, you're in that community now you've got to justify getting out of it not going back towards it And so imagine yourself in history going forward and so so to me, then you have to explain,

well, I'd go with this heretical group, or I'd go with that heretical group, or what the Catholics call heretic. Yes, yes, fair. And you've got to justify the move away from your community and your membership in the community. And that just takes me to Newman's advice, right? And those who are deep in history cease to be Protestant.

Like, I tried this strategy out recently. And one of the objections is, well Catholic Church and was invented with by Constantine when I Held that view when I was an under do you know I was an undergrad I thought that was about right and so we needed to do church like it was described in the New Testament like these Smaller churches house churches the Bible right some songs hymns But that's the model that the Bible teaches. So that's what we should, this other thing is totally different and foreign, and it's like these excrescences are attached on, right, these barnacles are on the boat now. And so I said, well, let's look at history.

Let's look at the most early records we have of people a generation after the Apostles and then a generation after that. They all believe in apostolic succession. They accept the real presence, right? They accept the authority of the Bishop of Rome. Prayers to saints. Yes, they all. Baptist regeneration. There's so many obvious Catholics, no, maybe the external forms now look different

because they're not being persecuted actively and they're not underground. But the argument is that when Constantine made Christianity legal, you've got all these pagans rushing into the church to make a buck and brought all their heritage Which is the exact opposite like Andrew Jones talks about like well when it became legal where did all those Christians come from? Right what the people that now are filling those church they were there before that too

So what did they just suddenly change beliefs when Constantine? He didn't say to believe anything wasn't promulgating doctrines. So those people were already believing these things, and they were just underground. Yeah, yeah. So to me, that's an example of kind of a... There's a myth that is an obstacle to a Protestant that can be removed. Now, I agree with you, it doesn't work for all Protestants, especially those who have thought very carefully

and have tried to justify right there Protestantism. There was one Protestant, I forget, he taught at Princeton, I forget his name, and he said, if you're a Protestant intellectual and you haven't wrestled with the intricacies and all the arguments for Catholic belief, then you don't deserve to be a Protestant intellectual. You've got to wrestle with all those intricate arguments and biblical interpretations and this whole system. Would you say the converse is true, that you can't say you're a Catholic intellectual unless you've wrestled with the intricacies of Protestant I don't think I think there's an asymmetry. All right. I think that again like you're on that boat. Yeah, right

And so there's no need I think there's a need it came after I think if you're an intellectual you should you should know Something about it, right? I don't think you're a bad Catholic for not right, right? Just like I don't need to understand Mormonism to reject it. Yeah. Yeah, you just need to know enough to be like, okay That's not Catholic. So I wanted to go back to your point. I wanted to say something about the Thomist Franciscan things. You're talking about the heteronomy of philosophy and the autonomy of philosophy. Now there's like a different view of the Franciscan.

What's distinctively Franciscan about that? I didn't quite finish that. Yeah. So like the Franciscan has this view that when we're in heaven, we have this experience of the incomprehensible. They emphasize that part. To me, the Thomists emphasize that now that we understand more of God than we could have before, and they emphasize that part. Right. See what I mean? Like, because they get the Lumen Gloria, this kind of like special concept that God gives us to sort of empower our intellect

beyond what it had by nature, right? And so now we can see God, of course that doesn't give you complete comprehension of God, that's impossible, but it gives you something you could have never had before that. And so the Thomas is interested in that element. So then the afterlife is about what you know,

like it's an emphasis on your intellect, right? And the Franciscan is an emphasis on your loving will, understanding of God, this experience of God. There's a will, intellect kind of emphasis difference. And so my point about the heteronomy of philosophy is that the Franciscan has a special interest in that because the end in a certain thematic way, in a special emphasis, is the love of God. The will in a Franciscan view is like a higher, if you will, faculty, or more important faculty or something, than the intellect. So that's why I think it's a special thing that's emphasized by Franciscans.

And again, a lot of the differences I find between the Thomists and Franciscans are not like, oh, they disagree with each other at some profound level. It's like a difference of emphasis and system. Yeah, this is, I think, an extremely important point. I mean, you could talk of, there's so many of these subjects, whether you're talking about the distinction of nature and grace, the intellect and will, univocity. I mean, I think that's actually an important one where there's just completely different concepts, but that's more of a systems break between the two schools. But this is, I think, one of the major reasons why it's so important that the Catholic Church does have multiple metaphysics,

multiple philosophical schools that you can use, is because that protects us in a real way from becoming an ideology, from just succumbing to, from just succumbing to, well, here are the facts that we need to memorize. Here's, it protects us from just memorizing the catechism and not actually being real philosophers to embrace that. And I think it emphasizes that heteronomy of philosophy. It's not going to be completed until we understand God as God understands God. Right.

So, it's not ever, for Franciscan, I would say, we will never cease learning about God. Right. John Henry Newman, actually, he talks about this in his book on Arianism, where he almost regrets that there had to be a declaration on the person of Christ. He said it's necessary, it was good, and we were right, you know. But what's so regrettable is because it is a mystery to be able to understand how he can be fully God and fully man. And as soon as we just put a name to that say oh that's the hypostatic union got it understood it shortcut it got it like we're talking

about with this yeah exactly cut the mystery by just yeah we don't have to reflect on it under edit I mean is this the is this the orthodox objection towards Catholicism in a certain Just that it seems like rationalist. Yeah. Sometimes it is. And sometimes it is. I'm not convinced it's deserved, but that is the complaint. Yeah, I don't think it's deserved either, clearly.

And it's also, I think, does neglect the fact that, you know, the fact that we declare the Holy Trinity, for instance, in Orthodox have done that just as equally. Just because it's been proven to be necessary that we define something doesn't mean that it's not warding off a greater threat. But to be able, and this is one that's really good, it's kind of like when you say, well the stars are just balls of gas. What the hell does that mean? You still don't know what that means. And it's kind of like that, Well, yeah God and man Okay, but we still don't know what that means totally differently Have these multiple metaphysics within within the the tradition different points of view of reflecting on the same truth and being able to articulate And check one another. All right, so why not view orthodoxy like that?

Why why not think that the schism has ended and orthodoxy is like another school within the Catholic Church that has different emphasis? What there was a I think it was a blog post by David Bentley Hart years ago, maybe a decade or more I can't remember it. It was about like the myth of the schism. Yeah, have you read that? You know, I've heard of it. Yeah, I mean it was fascinating about in history how the schism wasn't wasn't as clean of reality Yeah, yeah, totally like certain communities went on for, I don't, I want to say hundreds of years. Oh yeah. And they were like...

Didn't know... They would look at... Wait, what? Exactly, like, wait, what? I'm on this side, not this side. And so this point is like the schism isn't as real as everybody thinks it is a schism, right? It is real at some level, but there is a certain level where it's not real, because Orthodox churches are real churches with real sacraments, right?

So they really are, right, in the church in that sense. It's complicated, right? But I think I would be part of that kind of thinker that would want to say, look, this schism is less cut and dry than you really think. So Jacob wanted to become Orthodox. Would you try to stop him and why? I would try to stop him, because the way I think of the authority of the church in the orthodox view,

the authority of the church is sort of like on pause forever, right? Until it can accept the Catholic teaching on the papacy, right? It can't ever call an ecumenical council, so it can't ever authoritatively teach past the time it taught. So it's like kind of on pause, but the church needs to teach in every, needs to be able to teach authoritatively for the whole, you know, for the whole church body all over the world. And so it's kind of on pause. And that to me is the, that ultimately is the difference that matters. A lot of other things I think aren't as. Like, a lot of Orthodox will complain about the Catholic teaching on simplicity. But, like, that's just a Thomistic view

or Augustinian view. Like, well, there's more than one view, right? I mean, so back to your plurality of tradition, I think it's important to defend and understand. I mean, I, Anthony Kenny, right, the great philosopher, right, he was a priest in training for a while, then he left the faith, left the priesthood and left the faith. He's an agnostic. Kenny, right, the great philosopher, right, he was a priest in training for a while, then he left the faith, left the priesthood and left the faith. He's an agnostic. But he talks

about why he rejected the faith, and it was because he thought the teaching on transubstantiation was incoherent. But that was only Thomas's explanation of transubstantiation. The objections, as far as I can tell, wouldn't apply, Scodus's view. Or that which was defined? Yeah, or that which was defined. He was going with the theory of how place, the Aristotelian category of place, there were incoherences in using it as Thomas tried to use it and he couldn't overcome that. So I have to reject. So again, what we're defending isn't transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is related to the real presence. That's what it's about. It's about the real presence.

And transubstantiation is a kind of theory about the nature of the change that takes place when the real presence becomes real there. But it's amazing how little actually has been dogmatically declared actually on that matter. So there are these different views that are... Not just on that matter, but all sorts of matters relating to the Immaculate Conception. I mean, it's a very, I think sometimes we do Protestants a disservice by telling them, here's all you need to buy when the church hasn't said that.

Yeah, no, I think when it boils down to it, it's actually a little more difficult. I remember when I was contemplating and trying to work through Catholic teaching among convert from 2009. I'm on convert from 2009. I didn't realize that. Were you a Protestant prior? Yeah, I was an Anglican immediately before and then before that I was kind of like disenchanted wandering evangelical who barely survived with my faith intact from a Baptist school

where I tried to become an atheist. I, yeah. I want to ask about that. So, um, so what was I saying? Oh, you were converting, and this is when you had the whole list of things that you had to believe. Yeah, so I thought, okay, the church teaches the, you know, ineffectibility of the church, and so the church is infallible, has to be infallible in its teaching authority to be be ineffectible in its mission, right? And so does that infallibility extend to the papacy? Okay, if it does, then's these like dogmatic pronouncements

These like magisterial, you know Pronouncements that can be detected somehow and they said well is there any dogmatic pronouncement of the list of dogmatic pronouncements? Or if I look into the councils does any does any pronouncements tell me which propositions in right, you know In the the Nicene Council which propositions are the ones that are the authoritative ones, just the ones in the Crete, are there other things there? In every council, there's lots of things said, the Council of Trent.

And many of the things that are said are not universal matters of faith and morals, but even if you use that category, you have to apply the universal matters of faith and morals. You have to look in the propositions of the council to find those, because those are the authoritative ones at that level of authority. So, like, well, there isn't a single list, and that causes a lot of people... Wait, Densinger isn't that list? Yeah. It's like theology is... Revealed theology is our conversation, right, our understanding.

It's like going, God's telling us things, right? We're living it out, we're praying, and we're thinking about this thing, our life and the other things people have. It's like this conversation. And so, even transubstantiation, like that language, right? I mean, God approves of that language, but that language didn't come directly from God. That came from, like, Aristotelian philosophy. So we're thinking things out. And so when you get to theology at that level, it's a conversation. It's not a scientific production.

Where it's like, oh, here's a conclusion, here's a conclusion. Here's the 300 things Catholics believe. You have to be able to say the Creed, for example. You have to be able to affirm the statements that are obvious, right, that the authorities have made, like this, the Immaculate Conception, right? That's not an arguable one, right? So that caused me problems at first,

because I had, I think, ultimately a rationalist view of the faith I wanted. What was something you thought you had to believe that you perhaps had difficulty in believing and then realized you didn't have to? Well, to me, okay, but I didn't have to. So something that I, say it again. What is something you thought you had to believe,

which was an obstacle to becoming Catholic, that you later realized wasn't actually something you had to accept? I think the final obstacle was an example of that. The final obstacle was my view of faith itself. So I remember I got the old Tridentine profession of faith, and I went through every single proposition with Father Andrew Pinsett. This is my supervisor at Oxford.

God bless him. We love him. Yeah. And we're going to see him soon. But I took that to him one time, and he was at St. Louis University at that time. He had finished his business career and his astrophysics career and he was a priest and now he was doing philosophy. Right, amazing guy.

Anyway, so I took this to him and it had lots of statements like, I believe and affirm, right, that relics should be venerated or like, I accept or in these verbs, like I accept, I affirm, I believe. Yeah. And every single one of those

I thought I can't say that authentically I can't say that to myself But on every single one of I didn't think any of those claims were false. I Thought they might be true. I can't see that they're true. I can't prove that they're false I've tried to prove every one of these false as best as I can and all the arguments right have been blocked by by people like Jared prove every one of these false as best as I can and all the arguments have been blocked by people like Jared. And so then I said, I can't be a Catholic. I was there for two years in that position. I wanted to be Catholic, but I thought I can't authentically be Catholic.

And he said, oh, read Aquinas on faith. I was like, okay. And so I read Aquinas on faith, the scales dropped from my eyes. I was like, oh, you know, I realized that I thought I had to believe or accept the truth of transubstantiation before I had an act of faith in public, right? As opposed to, no, I think that could be true and I want it to be true and I want God to give it to me, but I don't think that right now. I don't think it's true. I don't have this supposition occurring in my mind saying, this is the way it is. But I could, it could be, and I want it to be. And so he said, Oh, you're ready. Oh, that's, that's very interesting.

He used this phrase that unlocked it to me. He said, are you willing to believe? And that's ambiguous. Willing doesn't mean ready. Willing means ready and willing means endeavoring. No, but I mean, when he says, are you willing to believe, it doesn't mean, are you ready to sign on the line now? Because presumably you would have said, what would it mean by willing? Like, but I mean, when he says, are you willing to believe it doesn't mean are you ready to sign on the line now? Yeah. Because presumably you would have said, what would it mean

by willing? Like, am I open to that? That's what I said. I in both senses, I said, I'm willing, meaning I'm ready to, but I can't because I'm not authentic. I'm ready to if I just can. Right. So I was, I was ready to be Catholic for two years. I wanted to be Catholic in that sense of ready. I wanted it. Right. But in this other sense of endeavoring, am I willing to believe I've that sense of ready. I wanted it, right? But in this other sense

of endeavoring, am I willing to believe? I've been endeavoring now for two years to get over this. So yeah, I'm willing to believe. He said, you're good to go. Now you just make your act of faith public. Because, I mean, it actually makes sense. My point was, sorry to interrupt, is that the last thing that I thought I had to believe is I thought I had to believe that these doctrines were true in order to have faith in them. As opposed to I have faith in them and then I see that they're true. Like God helps me to affirm them. Later on after I made my profession of faith at some point I couldn't tell you exactly when, right? I found myself saying those things and being authentic. Yeah, I believe in transubstantiation.

Yep, I believe that. I believe in the veneration relics. I believe in the, you know, communion of saints, right, the prayers for the dead and what, like all the things in the Tridentine profession. That might sound kind of strange or uncomfortable, I think, to some people, but I think there's two two kind of biblical things to keep in mind when hearing that. The first is, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. I think that's the perfect place to be where you are going to Christ and saying, I even avail myself completely to you. Well, obviously, if somebody is doing that, your place belongs in the church. But then the other thing to add to it is that faith is a theological gift.

I mean, it's something that only God gives us. And that's why we, as Catholics who are actually still in the church, need to constantly be going to confession, constantly be going to the Eucharist, because those are the places where God gives us the theological virtues, the thing, faith, open love, which only He gives and gives directly. I think I realized that I had been given that, and now I just had to make it public. How do you know when you've made the transition from just sort of a natural trust in arguments for God's existence in the Catholic Church? To this supernatural faith is it an experiential thing or is it I think I have a very clear answer

I've thought about that so divine faith We often have like I have faith in God like that he that he's there But I think faith in the traditional sense means you believe what God says on his authority. So he has to have said something, and then you believe what he said. So he promised eternal life if you believe in him. So then you believe what he says, now you have eternal life, right?

Glory to God. So you believe what he says, and so it's testimony that you believe, but the testimony's from God. I mean, in the modern profession of faith, it's's literally that's all you basically say. It's like I believe that what the church teaches is what God says and I believe it. Tridentine like took a long time right to say all that but um but yeah so I think that that last thing that fell was that rationalist view that I had to

already think these things were true. So I had to have it in your bones in a certain sense, rather than saying, I believe that this is the true authority that's telling me what's true. That's that was that was key for me to think about that idea of authority. Yeah. And I was hung up on that. Yeah. And so I realized, like, I have a really bad memory. And so oftentimes, like, I'll talk to my sister as an amazing memory and she'll tell me, like, conversations I have that I don't even remember I had. Right. And she has a really vivid memory.

So like if it's gonna come to some event where I was talking about something and I don't remember, right, I'm gonna trust my sister's memory, right? So now translate that to the doctrine of private judgment. So in that moment, is it my private judgment I'm trusting or is it my sister's memory? I'm trusting

What do you think your private judgment of your sister's memory? That's what that's what we want to say But my private judgment in that sense right is just means my judgment. I mean my judgments my judgment That's just a tautology that doesn't tell me anything interesting about the nature of authority Everybody has to make judgments, right? But what I'm trusting my sister's memory for is the content of the belief comes from her. Yes, I have to privately judge that I accept that, but I didn't come up with the content. Got you. Right? It's not from my judgments of the content. Right. So then I thought on all of these controversial issues that the church teaches,

right, say transubstantiation of the royal presence. And I've got like hundreds of years of theologians talking about it and debating it and coming up with things. And then there's like me that walks into this room with all these like, Doctors of the Church. Right? And I'm like, well, I think this, I mean, it just appears ridiculous. You know, I'm so, if I'm gonna, so what I realize is if I'm gonna trust somebody's opinion, right, on a theological disputed matter, which I don't think is false, who should I trust? My own impressions of this? Or like the church, this body of teachers

and doctors that have been having this conversation, and there's levels of authority that have been approved, who's more trustworthy? And that's the old school apologetic, right? Like the marks of credibility are here. If you want to know the content of divine revelation, this body is more trustworthy, just like my sister's memory of that event is more trustworthy. So I realized that- It's a great mercy of God, divine revelation. Like theology would be impossible without God's revelation. I mean, you could call it philosophical theology, but that's essentially just philosophy. But I was listening to a talk by Father Richard Rohr recently, speaking of Franciscans. Renegade Franciscans.

You know, I just want to first point out that I love him. You know, I actually went to his mail initiation rite of passage back in the day and he speaks with great authority and I think says many things that are very helpful. I also think he's a heretic. But one of the things he did recently, he was on a podcast in which somebody was talking about hell. And he doesn't deny the existence of hell. He does deny that anyone goes there. I see. So it's empty.

It's empty. And even how we can talk about that too. And he even talked, he even offers this apocryphal quote of Teresa of Avila, which I think is highly responsible. He says that somebody asked Teresa of Avila, you know, is there a hell? And she said, Oh yes, because she was afraid of the Roman church. This is Richard. And then apparently she has said to have whispered to whoever was next to her. It's just that nobody goes there. Now he admits that he doesn't have a footnote for this.

But it seems to me that if you're going to quote somebody, it ought to be in keeping with the rest of their work. Like it shouldn't be an aberration. Point is, when he was asked, well, what do you do with like, you know, Jesus in Matthew's gospel, for example, and his answer was Matthew must have had very punitive parents because this goats and sheep story ought to have been very inspirational, but it ends up. So he just throws out divine revelation or at least biblical inerrancy.

And so now I'm left with my own interpretation of things, where I'm apparently supposed to take Father Richard Rohr's interpretation than Matthew's, or Matthew's text. And then he says something like, you know, we find ourselves in this world, and gee, it's so terrifying, we've got to assess all this data. And it's like, well, but you don't, because Jesus revealed it to us. All you got to do is not throw that into question, except what Christ has revealed and what the church has to say. And then you're kind of done away with that difficulty. But anyway, I don't mean to attack Father Richard Wright. As I said, I have a great-

You said it very well. It's like he said a lot of really helpful things. I mean, I have some family members that love his writings, his Enneagram, all that. Like, it's really helpful. I mean, lots of heretics are really helpful. I mean, to say somebody's a heretic isn't to say they're a wicked, horrible person. It's just to say that when you have the dogma, right, they took something out that used to be part of the dogma. Right. And so that's what it means to call somebody heretic. It's a descriptive term. They broke from tradition.

And they broke from tradition in order to help you. Yes. That's why they're doing it It's a they the reason he's saying hell does you're not going to hell is so that you can have confidence in a loving God As opposed to saying you're wretched But his mercy is so much greater than your wretchedness look at that and trust in the salvation he won for you It's the same with with with the you know, the early Muslims and the Mormons. They had a very simplified understanding of God that appealed to normal people and it was simple that God loves them. They have a purpose, they have a plan, he's in control, right? And so, that's what I think a lot of

heretics in history have done, right? They rely on the simplicity of their message. They've simplified it now by taking things out. And if you look at the intricacies of Catholic dogma at the highest level, it is very intricate. Oh my gosh. Right? The doctrine of the Trinity, incarnation, inspiration of scripture, right? The real, like these things are difficult to explain,

but I think can be explained by philosophy. They can't be comprehended, right? But all the objections to say they're impossible don't work out in the end. Those have all failed so far. So my point is that, two points, is that saying someone is a heretic doesn't mean we're saying they're a wicked, horrible person. They might have really good motivations to say helpful things. It doesn't even mean they're going to hell.

No, it doesn't. Sometimes people have this idea that to be excommunicated means to go to hell when you're dead. It doesn't even mean that. Right. That's good. No, I think that's a really good... We've lost... That's one of the instances I talked about language has broken down. Like the word heresy used to be an important term to understand history, right? Because when you look at what's going on in Western European history, you can't understand

what happens unless you understand the nature of heresy, right? And you can't understand that unless you know the nature of dogma, right? These system of the system of beliefs that are believed by the people. And then somebody takes something out, right? And it creates a social division. I mean, we needed, we needed Athanasius contra mundum, right? Because the Arians, right? Were so plausible in what they were saying. I mean, they were appealing directly to scripture, right? And they had a simpler message.

They didn't have to have all this like Trinitarian crazy stuff. They don't need the incarnations we enter. It's very simple. I mean, that's often the appeal of Protestantism within the Christian world. It's like, this is just simpler. I mean, it's Lewis's line about Protestants looking at Catholics as an overrun jungle, and Catholics looking at Protestants as a barren desert. Where is everything? They're like, y'all have too much. But Lewis was also the guy that said, you can always identify what a schismatic heretical group is, as if it's simpler than the thing that it came from.

Interesting. It is, yeah. I was gonna propose a break, but. Yeah, why don't we do that? We'll have a two minute break and then we'll come back. Perfect, that all right? Sound good? Yeah, absolutely it is.

Alex, I was wondering Alex, I was wondering why you did not become Eastern Catholic, actually, because you, I mean, you say that so many of your objections were handled by your friend Jared, who became Eastern Catholic. Why didn't you go that direction? It's probably really simple, because that point, he wasn't technically an Eastern Catholic. Oh, okay. He was in a weird canonical situation, which he'd have to tell you about. I don't know the details, but.

Did he switch rights? Yeah, he was brought into the church in the Eastern right. But then when we were in St., we lived in St. Louis together. I lived with his family when we were both pursuing a PhD at St. Louis University. Although I knew him as an undergrad and we had stayed in touch and everything. But he had been going to a Latin right, a Roman right, and his wife was brought in in the Roman right. So then their

children were an issue. How that worked, I don't know the details. Gotcha. There was a point where he had to make a choice because the two different kind of Canonical or the liturgical situations. Yeah, like didn't specify what to do. So like he had a choice It was like a weird one-of situation. And so when I was becoming Catholic, he wasn't he wasn't an Eastern Catholic He wasn't going to an Eastern Catholic Church didn't have that kind of Theological Experience right? Okay. I got you that makes sense Catholic Church didn't have that kind of theological experience. Right, okay, I gotcha, that makes sense. He had been to an Eastern Catholic Church, the one he got baptized in, but he wasn't he wasn't pursuing Eastern Catholic theology, if I

could put it that way at that point. Yeah, no, that does. I mean, even if you were both at the time considering the Franciscan theological school. I mean, it's obviously a strong part of the Western Roman tradition, but it's certainly fallen away in recent years. I mean, I think, I mean, you... I'm just sharing a fact back that you shared with me for all those listening in, is that when John Henry Newman, after he converted, left the Anglican priesthood, and then was sent to seminary as a Roman seminarian, he went to Rome and couldn't find a Thomist.

Like everybody was a Franciscan. In the 200 years since, or the 100 and how many years, yeah, 180 years since, I mean, we've completely changed. And I know Leo XIII came in that time in his praise of Thomas and the tradition out of that. But I am kind of curious, why do you think there's such a transition? I think Leo XIII, I could be wrong, I think he was a third order Franciscan too. So he really loved the Franciscan tradition. And in Atty. Patrice, he doesn't just recommend St. Thomas, right? He recommends St. Bonaventure. But St. Thomas has a private place, obviously, and he deserves that in a certain way. But I think that the kind of sociological forces at play, again, I'm sort of playing amateur historian here, but that there was, I take it, there's a need for a response to modern biblical criticism to

German higher criticism that's like attacking Christian faith all over Europe. And so the evangelical response when I was evangelical was the people who wrote these many many huge volumes called the fundamentals, which is fundamentalism where that term comes from these like scholars, right these evangelical Protestant scholars. And then I think in the same way the Catholic Church says we need like the Marine Corps and that's like the Thomists Right the hardcore that the teaching that can be clear that can be quick and to be efficient that can be strong Right and so we need that and I think the problem is is we forgot that the war we're in

Right needs a multiple tactics and multiple divisions and multiple branches war we're in, right, needs a multiple tactics and multiple divisions and multiple branches. Right? So we need like the Air Force and we need the special ops and we need lots of different things but we don't just need a Marine Corps. Right. And I think that the Marine Corps kind of- Did you just make a sound when I brought this in? I totally did. Yeah. You guys want some diabetes? Yeah. How'd you know?

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do lexio, divina, all sorts of things. I was very impressed when I downloaded it. My wife and I have used it in the past and I'd really recommend it. hallo.com slash matfrad, that's h-a-l-l-o-w.com slash matfrad. They even have Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in The Chosen. Like read the book of Matthew in his cool Jesus accent. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, they're doing really good work. Because I think what happens is people want to meditate. They realize they're anxious and they download some New Age app.

Or something that doesn't seem New Age like Calm, C-A-L-M. I spelt it because of my accent. Calm. But you don't want that you want something that is a hundred percent Christian so go to hello.com slash Matt Fred hello.com slash Matt Friday click the link in the description to learn more how am I reading reading you like that good this really good I'm impressed did you get a cookie I did you know in Australia We call cookies biscuits. Yeah and biscuit. I like saying biscuit. I don't like saying cookie. I feel like a kid

Yeah, it's like saying my cheese. That's what my uncle calls a biscuit. Don't you say this from now on? Yeah done What kind of biscuit should I have? Let's swirly one looks kind of interesting. Have you had one yet? No, I have a green one Let's make sure we eat it directly into the microphone exactly because people want to hear us eat You know what our friend Mark Barnes? Hmm? He often on our podcast That's good eats eats. He eats disgusting. This is why you don't have as many followers as she should

Yes, that might be the case, but it's funny cuz like he's I think the only guy in the world You can get away with that. Yeah Told me Tell me that they like hearing mark eat. That is disgusting I think those people are perverted but you know, you can get away with it, you know This is what it should be. It should be a bonus Segment for new polity by the way for those who are watching We're talking about new polity podcast. So what's good? Yeah good money. Yeah new polity podcast current What is the politics of tyranny politics of tyranny?

So if you Alex is a new polity fellow for just all the you're surrounded So what you want to do though is you want to start that just for people who donate to you is just have like An hour of Mark eating a tray of cookies and not talking Brilliant of Mark eating a tray of cookies and not talking. That's brilliant. I'm definitely going to avoid that episode. One of my pet peeves is like hearing people chew. Yeah. Even when they keep their mouth closed, you're close to them and it's like sticky. People are the worst.

Yeah. Yeah, people. I hate people. Oh, talking about finding God and his creatures. No kidding. Espresso, muffins. Glory to God. I like your mug better than mine. I'm sorry. Thanks for the cute.

If I had have had one this size, I would have given it to you, but I didn't think you would like one that I drank out of. I don't care. Okay. I would like, I wouldn't mind. Yeah, let's just shoot the brazier a bit. Okay. Cause I actually, I'm kind of tired and I want to just kind of relax a little. And then I want to ask you about the mercy that is hell because you began telling me that the other night and I found it a fascinating interpretation but before that hey Gowan I'm all right what do you guys good going

off for the rest of the day yeah I'm gonna have another month wait I haven't eaten today I'm gonna probably yeah what do you guys up to today no no go back to the office try and work some things out, I'm desperately trying to finish this dissertation. I have the final draft. I'm just, or not the final draft, I have a draft. Working out all the edits. Ready to be done. Yeah.

It's tough. I like the topic a lot. I mean, really enjoy the topic, but it's just, you know. That's my, that was my experience. Just editing is like not the, it doesn't get your mind stimulated in the same way. Rearranging, coming out things, whatever, you know. Yeah. I feel your pain. I love the arguments and ideas in my dissertation and some of the things I've, that I've written down, but I haven't, getting it from that stage to a publishable journal article for me anyway, is just a monumental work. And

did you say you just published your first? I did. My first journal article just came out with ACPQ, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. It was, I got a co-author midway through. The paper had been through many versions and I got so tired that I couldn't finish. And the ACBQ editor said, I like this argument but you need to cut like four or five thousand words. I'm like, I don't know what.

So how long is it? I think it ended up being like maybe 13,000. But it was up to like, it was up to. See, you say article, I think I can read it in a bowel movement but. That would be bad. Hand in the rules. You gotta see this. Exactly.

So my co-author was a really good friend of mine, Jonathan Reevesman, still in touch with him. And I asked him, hey, just cut any 5,000 words you want, I don't care. And let's make this your article too. And so then he helped me get it to the finish line, helped me to the finish line. And so it's a me get it to the finish line help me to the finish line And so it's a co-author piece of me and Jonathan Reibsman. It's on my one of my heroes was

Elizabeth and Scone. So she was a British philosopher a Catholic in the Oxford Cambridge kind of a friend of my godfather Yeah, so yeah, I've got some a friend in front of you. What my godfather was friends with Elizabeth Yeah, there was an Oxford at the same time. She had a famous interaction with C.S. Lewis. You may have heard of. I have heard of it. This is the debate on gods, the argument from God from beauty perhaps?

No, it's so, Lewis tried to make an argument against naturalism based on the nature of reason. Oh. And basically saying if naturalism is true, then you can't have reasons that it's true. And she didn't disagree with the conclusion, but she thought the argument didn't work the way he had it because he didn't establish a good enough distinction between a reason and a cause.

So that's what it depended on. And she was, I believe, an undergrad at that time in the Socratic club. And he had been opposed by somebody who was formidable intellectually. They made undergrads differently back then. Yeah, she was definitely different. Yeah, they sure did. She was amazing. And then it led to all this like apocryphal stuff

about Lewis, like, oh, he got so dejected he only wrote fiction and blah-de-blah-blah. She just said, she reports, it was just a normal academic disagreement. I said what I thought, he revised his chapter and it was a chapter in miracles eventually. So the revised miracle has- Oh, what humility on Lewis's part.

Yeah, and Anscom wasn't satisfied with the revision, but it was better, she said, than the... So she wasn't ultimately satisfied. But so I studied her philosophy as in my doctoral work and so this article that we just published was about one of her, well I'd say her most famous paper, right, called Modern Moral Philosophy which she published in 1957. It's a really important article in Anglo- American philosophy and especially Anglo-American ethics. It sort of is

credited with reviving the virtue tradition of doing ethics, so kind of reviving interest in Aristotle's way of doing ethics. Right, in the sense you might say, it's certainly one of the most important articles of the 20th century. And I think it's probably fair enough to say a proper predecessor laying the groundwork for McIntyre.

Yeah, yeah, I think he would admit that to a degree. Yeah, but that was a catalyst or an inspiration in a special way. But then of course he went his own way and did different things, but much, much, much, much. They write so differently. Wow. I want to know more about Anne Scum,

which I guess is a dangerous thing to ask somebody who studied her. And did you do your dissertation? I did, yeah, it was always dangerous to ask people about the dissertation. But hey, that's the point. Well, she was a fascinating person. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. First, tell us the story about the cigars. Yes. So, well, the multiple stories about cigars. Well, I have a number because, you know, living, she didn't die that long ago. 2001. Yeah, 2001. And so a lot of folks, you know, my friends at Oxford had these stories about her or like professors. Let's do it. I would love to go over there and just collect them all someday.

And so they would have the funniest thing. I would just kind of like... Please, tell us about it. ...pay the way with some things that some folks over there took tutorials with her. But she was, you know, as a good Catholic, had a lot of kids. took tutorials with her, but she was, you know, as a good Catholic, had a lot of kids, seven kids, and, you know, didn't stop teaching through that time of having kids. And so, folks would come over and the way that an Oxford tutorial works, or worked in the past, more regularly, was somebody would have a topic that they would have a week to write an essay on. They would write it out and then they would go to their tutor in preparation with this essay in hand to read it out loud to them. Okay. And then they give you feedback and make you feel like a worthless human being and you know, all the rest of it. Well, she had her kids there and would literally be breastfeeding her child as the two teetering

apart there is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like this conclusion does not follow from premise to how on earth did you get there? You know, shut up, you know. Yeah. So that's just kind of lays a little bit of the framework of who she is. And that was also told that. And so Roger Teichmann is a philosopher. I know at St. Hilda's College right now, and his mother Jenny Teichmann was friends with Anscombe, and so he knew Anscombe as he grew up. And Geach, Peter Geach was Anscombe's husband, she didn't take his last name,

she was kind of a counter-cultural, eccentric person. So Geach and Anscombe, these seven children, he said that, I believe this is the story that it was his mother, Jenny, would go over there and oftentimes she'd be having students there. And like they'd walk in the house and like there'd be like dirty nappies like spread everywhere, right? Because they were not like neat people in their house, but they have people over all

the time. And here's a story I want to tell, a personal story about an Anscombe story. Not me and Anscombe personally, but so I went to Oxford in 2012 just for a month to present a paper at St. Hilda's College on double effect. And I went there and I didn't have any money, I didn't have any prospects of where I was gonna live, I didn't know what I was gonna do.

My friend's parents lived in Hemel Hempstead near there. And I thought, well, if worse comes to worst, I can just stay with them for free. And so I bused into Oxford and I had my big backpack on with everything, you know, my computer, all my clothes for a month. And I was like walking around and following all these Craigslist.

What's the equivalent Craigslist called there? A gumtree. Gumtree, yeah. So I was like looking on that for all these cheap places to stay. Yeah. And so I go to this I go to this one place. I've walked all the way out Outside of the University part in the Oxford that kind of normal houses part and

And I went into this house and the door open and I was like overwhelmed with curry smell And I walked in and it was like a disheveled place and this this Indian gentleman walks me upstairs And he says here's your room and it was like it was like an unkempt bed with like stuff everyone else like okay And I said well, where's where would be the bathroom? And so he said okay, and he came back downstairs We walked through the living room There's like kids toys and there's kids playing and stuff and we like go down to this kitchen that goes down a level and then Like we go through the kitchen. And we like go down to this kitchen that goes down a level. And then like we go through the kitchen, there's like a curtain right in this like,

I have to like duck under. And there's like a sink and a toilet like so close together. You can hardly be, yeah, just a curtain. And she said, that's your bathroom. And I was like, okay, thanks. And I said, well, how much would that be? And they said 80 pounds. I forgot what would that be a price for?

Like a week? I can't remember a day. I have no idea. Yeah that's a week price. A week and I was like okay I was looking for that was like among the cheapest I could find. I was like I don't know if I can do this. I don't even know if I can afford that. And so I was kind of dejected and I I found another one it was 70 pounds a week. I was like okay maybe I can do this. And so I go and it was behind Greyfriars where where SCOTUS was, right? And it was beautiful. And-

He was at Brasenose, I think, actually. Oh, but I mean the Greyfriars. Oh, yeah. The church was there. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what I mean, yeah. Okay. And so I went and it was like right behind that,

like that church. And I went to this place and this old woman called me up and I said, no, where are you at? I can't find your door. And her name was Sarah. Super kind, super nice. I run into her. She's older than I thought. She's probably, I want to say 70, maybe 75. And she says, oh, and she opens up her door and like everything's neat. And she takes me upstairs and like says, here's your, everything's perfectly clean. Like, wow, 70 pounds. This is cheaper than that.

What she said, oh, would you? This is cheaper than that? What? She said, oh, would you like some tea? She invites me into her kitchen. I'm sitting in her kitchen. She makes me tea. We have milk and everything. There's like a beautiful glass wall kind of outside of her kitchen.

It opens the door. It goes into like a beautiful English garden. I'm like, wow, this is, and she's like, yeah, here's my garden. And I'm like, is this real? I was like so excited. And then she said, oh, so why are you here in Oxford? And I said, oh, I'm presenting this paper on double effect

and Elizabeth Anscombe's view of it. And she's like, Elizabeth Anscombe? I said, yeah, and she said, horrible woman. I was like, oh, she had no idea what I thought about Anscombe. She's like, horrible woman. And she told this story about her daughter was dating one of Anscombe's sons. I forget which one, or maybe it was a son was dating one of Anscombe's sons. I forget which

one or maybe it was a son was dating a daughter. I don't know which way. One of her children was dating one of Anscombe's children and she said, yeah, my, let's say, son or my daughter. My daughter went to the Anscombe's house for, I don't know, some feast day and she wouldn't pray the Lord's Prayer and they kicked her out because she wouldn't pray the Lord's Prayer. And so I went to her office and I chewed her out, right? And she went on and on and on about how her view of Christianity, this woman Sarah, was literally exactly like the view that that that Lewis is always critiquing. Like it's sort of Anglicanism without doctrine with just morality. Yeah. That was her view of Christianity was just kind of morality without any doctrines. And I was like, I can't stay here.

She hates my hero. And so I was praying to God. I went to the church that Newman went to on St. Giles there, St. Aloysius, and there was a statue. That's where I was received into the church. Yeah. Wow. And so there's a statue of St. Anthony in the back and I was like every day, every day

like going there praying this, please help me find somewhere to live. So you're staying there for the, you were there for three months you said? I was there for one month. One month. Okay. So you would spend a couple of nights there trying to look for another place. Yes. And then I go back to Hemel Hempstead, then I come back again, right?

And I couldn't afford this bus thing so I didn't know what I was going to do. And so one time I'm praying there and I walk outside and I'm talking with the priest and some other younger people are there and I'm like, I'm really looking for a place. There's like, this person says they advertise a room, but it's like for when the term starts that I need something now.

And the young person right there said, oh, that's me. Oh, I was like, oh really? His name was Philip Council. Oh, Philip Council, yeah. And so Philip Council, like a weight-lifted guy, kind of traditionalist guy, yeah. Really nice guy. He says, oh, you can just stay at our house.

And Daniel Hitchens lived there too. Oh yeah, Dan. Yeah, Peter Hitchens. I love you to Peta. Peter Hitchens' son. Oh, interesting. Super nice guy. Amazing guy.

Yeah, successful now. I see him writing lots of things. And then there were two other people in that house. And he said, just stay with me while you're trying to find a place. I was like, OK. And so I went out and I stayed in this place. And it was very near to the church

Lewis went to, the Anglican Church. Yeah, Trinity. Yeah, it was right near. So I walked over there and I saw the Narnia window that people had made and everything. And that's the church that Roger Teichmann goes to. Oh, cool. Yeah. Anyway, so I go to that house and the next day I'm like

looking, I can't find anything. He said, well how long do you need to be here? I'm like, well I'm gonna be here for like another month. He said, whatever, just stay with us as long as you want. It was free. So how did you explain to the lady who didn't like Anscombe? I just said, no I'm not interested. It's okay. I didn't tell her anything about what I really believe. Even though you'd stayed there for a few nights? No, I didn't stay any nights. She was showing me the place for me to make a decision.

Ah, interesting. And I just couldn't do it. That's amazing. And so, at one point these gentlemen, Philip and his roommate, William, I believe his name is, they left to go to Romania because William's family was from there And he gave me like his bus pass and I was like bottling library like all this stuff for me to have access to Oxford

And so it was like Vending and scums on that in some sense. Yes, and it might not participate So that's my personal Interaction with somebody that knew and scum of all people I was looking for a woman Tell us about the cigar story. So one of them is that she, one of her kids I believe got sick, I don't know which one again, and she promised God that if my son becomes,

if you heal my son, then I'll stop smoking cigarettes. And so her son was healed and so she stopped smoking cigarettes and that's when she began smoking cigars. She had a very strict view about promise keeping her and her husband. So she said, and then another story about promise keeping, she said, if you do that one more time to one of her kids, I'm going to put you on a train to Edinburgh. Right? And he did it. And so she put him on a train to Edinburgh and back.

So she was a honest woman. Yeah. But one of the most famous stories about her that I can also defend her honor on this story but also display her eccentricity. I think she was in Chicago maybe. She came to America and did a lot of visiting stuff around here, traveled as well. And there was some restaurant and she wanted to go into this restaurant and she had pants, I believe at that point. Oh yeah. Yeah, and so they said like no women,

no pants for women or something, like on the door. Yeah, all skirts. All skirts, so she said, she was appalled and she said, fine, and she took off her pants. Now, the way we picture that is not the way that it actually is because she had like undergarments that were full clothing, but she did take off her pants.

And went in? And went in, yeah. And then I'm sure they probably kicked her out or whatever. Another story about pants is she used to go to St. Aloysius, I've heard that she was late often and often with kids crying in tow. And she'd go all the way to the very front and sit in the front row, right?

And she went up in the porter, stopped her and because she had pants on and and trousers, trousers, and so she said, oh, no problem. And she like pulled some string in her waist and like a skirt, like unrolled. My goodness. One more story about her attire. So she was giving a lecture one time at like high table or something. Yes. And she had these academic robes on and whatever. And she started talking about the beauty and glory of conventions and blah, blah, blah. And then she like goes under the pot and pulls out like a can of beans and opens up a can of beans

and starts eating it while she's talking about the beauty of conventions and blah, blah, blah. To prove her point. Yeah, to prove her point. Well, you said that you were there to give a talk on double effect. And one of the questions that we've gotten and blah, blah, blah. She was. To prove her point. To prove her point. Yeah. Well, you said that you were there to give a talk on double effect. And one of the questions that we've gotten

from one of our patrons here, just so everybody knows as well, every time we do an episode like this, we're gonna do a post-show wrap-up video just for our patrons. So be sure to check that out on patreon.com slash Matt Fred. So someone asks, how would Aquinas solve the trolley problem?

And I wanted to just read it for those who weren't aware and sort of get our response. There is a runway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two and only two options. Just for those who try to get out of this. One, do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people

on the main track. Two, pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the sidetrack where it will kill one person. Which is the more ethical option? Or more simply, what is the right thing to do? It's a great question. Do I do nothing, in which case it would seem in some sense that I'm not contributing to the death of those five people? Or do I actually physically will something that by my willing results in the death of one person? Do you know any of the people? No, they're all strange So I don't know what Aquinas would say but I'll tell you what Anscombe Said about similar things. She didn't haveinas would say, but I'll tell you what Anscombe said about similar things.

She didn't have that particular problem, but similar things. And Anscombe would, some people call her an analytical Thomist. Although I think there's some interesting Franciscan elements in her thought that are often missed, but she definitely loved Saint Thomas and often wrote from direct inspiration from interacting with him. But so the idea of the the principle of double effect, as it's called. So when she wrote about that, for one,

she wanted to change the name of it, because double effect can be confusing. So she said she would rather call it the principle of side effects. So you're doing something, and sometimes when you do the thing that you're trying to do to get an end, there's a side effect. And so the idea is, in some cases, the thing that's in the side effect that you cause is something that's so bad that if you would have done that on purpose, it would have been absolutely prohibited, like murder, right?

But then the question is, when it's in a side effect, is it ever permissible to do the action that creates that side effect? For example, when you build roads, people will die. Yes, exactly. So there's lots of circumstances where side effects, it's okay for them to be tolerated, even if doing them intentionally would be bad or wrong. Yeah.

Right, so the first thing about the principle of side effects that Anscombe emphasized, and this is all from Thomas, is the inventor of this principle or this idea, is that when it's in a side effect, it means it's not intentional. Right. Right. And so that means you're not, you're not. Intending that end.

You're not intending that end. So you're not caught by the absolute prohibition. So let's say it's death that you cause on a side effect. So you're not guilty of murder immediately. Right. Maybe you were, right, you didn't do your due diligence, so you really are still a murderer. But the point is if it's not intentional, that immediately excuses you from the prohibition that says no intentional killing of innocents.

Someone bursts in my home and tries to harm my family and I try to stop them and in so doing kill them. Yes, that's the original thing that Thomas discusses is in self-defense, right? You can kill in self-defense, right? Is you can kill in self-defense when it's not intentional, when you're pursuing the stopping the intruder or whatever with whatever the best means you have the necessary means you have. So that's actually different from what Matt just said. So Matt was saying, I'm trying to stop him. I don't mean to kill him, but it just so happens that in restraining him,

he, you know, might slip and fall, hit his head and he dies. I was trying to agree with that. Yeah So I'm saying like yeah, so suppose no, no, I'm trying to I'm trying to stop them from hurting my family and in so doing Kill them. Okay. Yeah, but it might be intention Yeah Use a shotgun right and to stop the meth head right right to knock him down on the ground to use a stupid example So you do that and you're not you're you're talking about. You're not using the weapon to kill him. Right.

And the weapon is not a lethal, right, you can get a shotgun blast and survive, right, it's not a lethal blow necessarily, right. So then you're... A little hard justifying that bazooka. I was going to bring that up, I was doing class. So you shoot the man, and you used whatever force you had that could stop him. And that was a good end to stop this intruder

to protect your family. And so the idea is that, given that's your intention and the means you're using as the shotgun, if death occurs, you didn't intend that. And so given the proportionality between the bad of the guy's death and the good of saving all those people, that it can be justifiable, that action. And so the bad effect can be excused, right?

You're excused of that bad effect, right? So if you were just doing it to like, get the kind of candy you want from the store, and you use the shotgun, right? Well, then that's not proportional. So even though you didn't intentionally kill him, you'd still be responsible for his death because there's no good enough reason to have risked his death as a side

effect. Right? Gotcha. So, so when you have, let's say there's a method running and he's like has brandishing weapons or whatever. Maybe there's a group of them. I have no idea. Maybe they're zombies. Maybe they're not. And they're coming up and you say, really? Yeah. Let's say you have like, you have weapons, you don't know where they are. And they're like, you need to make a decision right now or else you're all gonna die. And you just grab whatever weapon, it's the bazooka and you fire it.

Even though that is lethal, see the idea is you use whatever was necessary, that's why you used it, because it was the only necessary means you had. So even in that case, even though normally if you pick up a bazooka, if you would have said, I've got a shotgun, I've got this, I've got a bazooka,

I'll take the bazooka. Yes, yes. Then you're now guilty, see? If you would have said, I've got a shotgun, I've got this, I've got a bazooka, I'll take the bazooka. Then you're now guilty. See the difference? Yes, I do. Okay. So that's the principle of side effects. It's a side effect means you may be excusable depending on other analyses of the conditions. And so with the trolley problem, the question is when this route goes over here, when you turn the lever to save the five people, it goes off to this track and then runs over one person. Is that the original? Yeah.

Okay, there's like a million variations of the trolley problem. Yes, there is, yeah. And so the idea is, well, you were saving the five people, right, it was when you pulled the lever. And so that's what you were intending to do. You weren't intending to kill this one person. So that was a side effect.

And so then the question is, okay, let's just, for example, let's grant that it's a side effect. Maybe you don't wanna do that, right? Whether, meaning, granting it's a side effect means you think that when you pull the lever to save the five people, you're not intentionally killing that person, right? So that would be if they die now, it's a side effect, right?

Isn't that just a semantic distinction though? Like what's the difference between you know intending to defend yourself and You know someone You know Side effect having a side effect of that person dying versus you're killing someone to defend yourself Maybe that's a different conversation of ends and means but it seems like it just kind of it is a conversation You intended to aim the gun in that direction. So you intended for the person to die. It's like there was another intention that that was the means for.

It's still a partial intention along the way. Same for the trolley problem. Yeah, I think that the question is a question about ends and means and how do we identify the means and the ends, right? So we need to identify the ends in order to identify the means. And once you have the ends, whatever you've done, right, to attain that end is your means

and you've intended that, right? So for example, area bombing, this is an example Anne Skunk gives. When the allies or the Axis powers, like area bombed, right, they said, well, we're not intending to kill those civilians. We're like just wanting to hit all those targets

that are military and whatever, and we don't intend.'t intend and she said that's nonsense. You can't pretend to not intend the means to your chosen end. Your end is that bombing this area. Your target is the area, destroy the area. There's people in the area you can't say well I don't intend that because you just targeted the area with them in it. Part of bombing the area is destroying whatever's in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't, part of killing, part of bombing the area is destroying whatever's in it.

That's part of the means of bombing an area. Not to mention bombing an area that has civilians, such as what happened at Hiroshima. Exactly. Just speak about the intrinsic evil of America dropping the A-bomb. So actually she's famous for that. I find that Americans, we love our country

and we sometimes get things mixed up, and we put our patriotism or Americanism before truth. I would love to talk about that, yeah. I want to say one thing. She had a famous little saying that she made up about double effect, or the principle of side effects. The idea that, again, that some side effects, if you would have done them on purpose,

they'd be absolutely prohibited, no excuse, but if you don't intend them, maybe you can get an excuse depending on circumstances. Mm-hmm. And she said that the corruption of non-Catholic thought is the denial of double effect. So the denial of double effect is the corruption of non-Catholic moral thinking, people that deny double effect. People that the abuse of double effect is the corruption of Catholic moral thinking

So on on this idea of double effect hinges Corruption or non corruption of moral thinking for both Catholics and non Catholics according to and scope. This is one of the central Ideas in her moral philosophy this principle has to do with intention, right? What Neal's question about intention has to do with means and ends and how we do that, how we understand what that is. That's at the heart of some of the moral problems we're having today. It has to do with how do we describe actions. The thing that she was doing was trying to say, well, there's certain action descriptions that we use. So which descriptions are true?

Say I give you a video and there's a man with a shovel, right, and he's like putting it in dirt, right? And I play this game in my class, I said it's an action description game. What's he doing? You give me a description, Jacob. He's digging a tomb. He's digging a tomb?

Grave, yeah. Okay, so now you give me another description, but it has to be consistent with, has to be the same story, but a different description. I'll be honest. I was checking something on YouTube Could say he's exercising because his wife told him to exercise. Oh cool. Okay, so that could be true of the same thing He's doing yeah. Yeah, every time we do anything there's multiple descriptions Yeah, so the question is which descriptions are the relevant ones and that's the problem that JP to was concerned with and one of the greatest Encyclicals of the 20th century, which is Veritatis Splendors,

the identity of the moral object, that's what he called it. Anscombe just said it's the description under which you describe the action, right? And so how we choose that, so when you pick up the bazooka, right, and you fire in that one case, how do we describe that action from what we're trying to morally evaluate, right?

So do we describe that action from when we're trying to morally evaluate it? Right? So, do we describe it in such a way that the death is an accident or incidental, or do we describe it in such a way that the death is essential? Right? So, there's sometimes you can't do that. Say like, well, I assassinated that guy. Right? I sniper assassinated him, but I didn't mean to kill him. You can't say that because to assassinate involves essentially, right, the killing,

the intending to kill, right? But with the firing a gun for lots of reasons, you don't have to intend, right, the death of somebody when you aim and fire a gun at them. Right? You may not. And sometimes it's hard to tell in circumstances, but the point is there is a difference, okay?

Yeah. So Anscombe said this idea of intention is all about how do we find those descriptions, the proper descriptions. I just, you know, I was thinking just maybe for clarification or for people who don't actually believe that that's the case, that if you turn a gun on somebody that you don't really want to kill them. You don't have to want to kill them. You don't have to want to kill them.

Yeah. My really dear friend, my blazes godfather, my son's godfather, he always carries. He has a gun. He's, you know, former law enforcement. And he also always carries a tourniquet on him so that he has a chance of saving the people that he has, if that chance ever comes or if that sad moment ever comes... So that detail and circumstances shows you, that gives you a ground by which to say he didn't intend. Yeah. Right. So sometimes we have to know the circumstances and the person and what they thought in their history

and what they were gonna do and what they said to people to determine like in a law court, what were they intending? And... So with the trolley problem, I can maybe intend to save the five lives. Yes. And in so doing the consequences to kill five lives. Yes. And in so doing, the consequence is to kill the one. Yes.

But I could also intend not to kill that one life by making this action and these five deaths result. Yeah, by not doing anything. Yeah. And the five people get more. I think that's honestly probably what I would do. If I found myself in this weird situation

with the train going towards five people, I don't think I'd pull the lever. Yeah. And a lot of people. Because I would know that in so people, I don't think I'd pull the lever. Yeah, and a lot of people- Because I would know that in so doing, I'm committing- Did you notice the way that when you described the setup, it said, what is the right thing to do? And see, I think one of the things Anscombe points out

is that in our modern way of thinking, which she labeled and created the term consequentialism, there's always the right thing. Because the right thing is the thing that causes the optimistic balance of good and evil in the future. The consequences, that's what makes every action good or evil. It's objective, it's not subjective.

It's objective, if this action causes the best effects, right, optimistic, meaning minimizes the bad and maximizes the good and the right balance, the best balance, then that action's the right action and all the other ones are wrong. Well, in reality, that's not the way reality is. Reality, sometimes, there's not the right action. There's lots of things that you can do that are permissible. Gotcha.

Right? And so the way we should think about it as Catholics and as moral philosophers, right, who are classical and ancient and have that kind of, I think, better view, the virtue view, is that, you know, in any case, we say, is it obligatory, right? It's not obligatory to pull the lever, right? And so that means it's permissible.

So what makes it permissible now, right, doesn't mean you necessarily do it or not, because there might be more than one permissible thing to do, right? And so that's the categories we should be looking at. First of all, we're not obligated to do this, and we're obligated to not do this. That gets me to the A-bomb.

We are obligated to never intentionally kill innocent people. So let's take a clear case. Dropping an A-bomb on innocent people is intentionally killing innocent people. There's no getting around that. You can't abuse double effect and say, well, Truman didn't mean to kill all those people.

He just wanted them to surrender. Right? Well, and then I could ask, well, how did he want them to surrender? How was he gonna get them to surrender? Well, is he gonna drop a bomb? Well, how's dropping a bomb gonna make somebody surrender? Well, it's gonna land on this place.

Right? Notice how I'm messing with the descriptions. Well, how is landing on this place going to make them surrender? Well, this place has buildings and stuff. Well, how's blowing up buildings going to make... You're going to have to specify that it's dropping a bomb on these people and destroying lots of people. That is how he's going to get them down to their knees to surrender. So that's his means to the end.

You can't pretend not to intend the means to your chosen end. Right? So that's a clear case. And so in traditional moral thinking, that's, you can never do that. It's just off the table. Right? And here we get back to this consequentialism. What John Paul talked about in... Proportionalism. Veritatis Splendor? Yeah. Veritatis Splendor. Yeah. This idea that, cause this is the argument that I've heard people make for why the A-bomb was good. Well, if you hadn't dropped the A-bomb, then this would have resulted in thinking how much worse that was. But that's the very thing we're kind of forbidden to do and shouldn't do. Yeah, exactly. Whether we're forbidden or not. Exactly. Yeah, no, we have to assume the position of a martyr first,

before ever being the one who makes others be martyrs. Yeah, it's really difficult. On one hand, it's simple, right? For all of us normal people that are virtually never going to be in a situation like this, right? It's kind of just like an interesting thought experiment, right? But the lesson is, there are certain actions that are intrinsically unjust, and that is at the heart of the Hebrew Christian tradition. That there's certain actions that are intrinsically wrong, right? Sodomy, right? Blasphemy.

Blasphemy, treachery, right? These are, you can, those are always wrong no matter what circumstances you do that in. They're always unjust, right? And so then, there's more to the Hebrew Christian tradition than that, but that's the heart. And what Anscombe saw as consequentialism is just the denial of that. There are no such thing as intrinsically unjust actions. All actions can be made right

based on whatever consequences are produced by them in those circumstances. So it's a denial of the very traditional morality, the heart of it, that's what consequentialism is. And so it might be easy for us in our circumstances not thinking about like A-bombs and saving millions of people and whatever. But even so, the same reasoning has to apply for Truman.

And her point in that she gave a speech to all the Oxford Dons at that time who were gonna give Harry Truman in the 50s an honorary degree. And she with the other women philosophers gave a speech and said, no, we shouldn't give honorary degrees to mass murderers. That doesn't make sense. And part of her argument was that we demanded unconditional surrender, and that's against traditional just war criteria. And because we demanded unconditional surrender,

it led us to have to make this choice. So part of the blame she puts on us is we set up the conditions in which we had this fateful choice. Now, historians often debate, you know, what would we do if we didn't do unconditional? What were the conditions? How much, how many chances did we give the Japanese? Were they really legitimate? When they wanted to come sue for peace? What? I don't know all the history of that, but my point is, is Anne Schoen's argument, right, is we kind of got ourselves into that situation. So sometimes when we get ourselves into a situation where it seems like I'm screwed no matter what I do, it's because we already did something bad beforehand that set us up like that.

And if you start saying that it's okay to kill innocent people, that good results might come about, I mean, that's the abortion argument. Absolutely. This is at the heart of what St. Paul, right, wants us to know in ethics. He says, you may never do evil that good may come. That's the Pauline principle. That's at the heart of Hebrew-Christian morality. You can't do an evil thing for a good end. What's that?

Yeah, right at the beginning of Romans. Yeah, it's never permissible. And so, sometimes that position is called absolutism. I like to think of it as more like there's intrinsically unjust actions. There's actions that are unjust no matter what circumstances you do them in. Do you think that there can be... We shouldn't do injustice. Can there be intrinsically evil things? We began by talking about technopoly and we talked about certain devices that, when created, sort of changed culture in a negative way.

I think the answer is probably no. But is a television, can a television be intrinsically evil? Can pornography, per se, apart from people viewing it, be intrinsically evil? What do you mean by intrinsically evil? Yeah, so by intrinsically evil, I mean, cannot be justified by circumstance or intention. So things that are unjustified.

Because of what it is, regardless of how the thing is used. I understand that pornography is like that, but perhaps something else like television, computers, iPhones. I thought you were talking about like, is there a thing like an object? That is kind of what I'm talking about. And I think the answer is no, but I just wanted to bring it up. Actions, right, are things in a certain metaphysicalysical they are in a metaphysical category an action that have ends So those things obviously can be intrusively evil because they involve a perversion of the will

So maybe intrinsically evil is the wrong way of putting it, but can there be an artifact that is evil? Yeah, that's a great question. Think of a- Like an idol? Think of a pornographic, no, well, yeah, well, there you go, that's good, an idol. No, I don't think- There was an intention behind the creation of it. Yes. So, but we gotta get away from that and just ask,

is the artifact itself evil? Well, then we're gonna get into what is it to be that artifact. Yeah. Right, so if it's an idol, but for you, it's an example of what you kick over and say, this is dumb and mute and it's not a real God. And I need this, you know, case example. So you take a real idol and kick it on the ground and say, God's against that. Yeah.

Or is that, no, see, so, but it still is an idol. Suppose a computer, without us intending it to, becomes intelligent to the point that it creates an artifact which is pornographic. Yeah. Is that artifact evil? Well you know without anyone viewing it or promoting it or anything like that. Yeah I mean I don't mean to get lost in the clouds of metaphysics. No please do. But artifacts are intrinsically related to actions.

I mean there's no real disconnect from them. It's actually even a subcategory of action, is artifact, not only in its production, but in terms of its use. And contextually, something does have a moral flavor to it based upon its use as well. So take the instance of a computer. You know, I-

Because you were saying it's not morally neutral. Sorry, I don't know if it's quick. You know, you said said we always think these things are sort of amoral, amoral. Using for good, using for bad. But you're like, no, sometimes it can be negatively. So that's on a macro scale. I think you're speaking.

I mean, I would like go back up a bit and say when we're talking about good and bad, right? I like to use the word bad because like if say I cut off my arm, well, that's intrinsically bad for my body, right? But-hmm, right, but is it intrinsically evil meaning is that always unjust? No, it's not what if you were gonna save your life by doing Yeah, the guy that the rock climber that got stuck. Yeah, he had his own arm off to live Right or amputation. Yeah, right. So that is intrinsically bad for the body, but that doesn't mean it's morally bad What makes something morally bad has to do with the will. So the only thing that could be intrinsically morally or intrinsically

unjust is an act of the will. So I would say there's no objects that would be intrinsically evil in the moral sense. There might be ones that are bad because of their tendencies. So like a pornographic picture, well, that has a tendency. So even if nobody's ever seen it yet, it's something that can be seen now. Right. So it has a tendency or like the technologies might have tendencies that lead to mankind to make bad choices based on the temptations they provide. But like an artifact, you're right. It's intrinsically bound up with uses. But the thing is,

is that many artifacts can be used for many different things that the creators didn't intend. Right. And so that makes mean this could be a bed if I wanted it to be. Yep. Right? Could be a chair, could be whatever. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I would just say the only things that can be intrinsically evil in the moral sense or unjust are acts of will. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But it doesn't mean that something doesn't have the potential to. So in one case, a computer could be a phenomenal word processor, and that's like all that it's used for. You never even searched the internet for, you know, with it, and you can write a, you know, beautiful book. On the other case, it can become the near occasion of sin for anybody who's addicted to pornography and in that case

You know one should take you know, take out a sledgehammer and break it You know, that is something that is the conduit to your will being perverted So in the same way there's even actually something funny I was over at the rectory here visiting Father Huffman and Father Greer, and somebody left little demon statues outside the rectory. And so what did they do? They didn't just like put holy water on and be like, oh, these are nice, and put them on their mantle.

They crushed them. They took out a hammer and they did break the idols, you know, and I think they did toss holy water on it and then they discarded with them. There's some things in the one, those are two very different cases. In the case of the computer, that's an active occasion of sin for somebody. It's an artifact that is connected with the enticement of an action that perhaps was completely divorced from the intention of

the creator of the computer. And let's just say it is. On the other hand, there was no, like, probably the person dropping off the statues wanted to get rid of them because they were maybe, I think there was a note that was actually said that, like, the like, please get rid of them because they were maybe I think there was a note that was actually said that Like the like please get rid of these for me, you know, so it wasn't like somebody trying to you know But in that case there's something that was already invited into Yeah, the those those statues is actually beyond our control in a certain certain way as, it has a history you can't change. Exactly.

Yeah. So I think there are tendencies in physical objects. I was thinking of like, what about a mad scientist who like splices human genes to like frog genes or something and like makes this chimera? It actually lives and it's like a frog man or something. Right? I mean, I think that that person who made that chimera

is, has done something evil, right? Their will is, now mean I think that that person who made that chimera has done something evil. Right, their will is, now what about the object, the man, the chimera? Right, I can't say that he's evil just because this guy evil created him. Right, somehow the physical cosmos had things that could be put together that way and live. Right, I mean this person might have,

it might be a human being with a defective legs or something. I don't know. A really cool legs. It could be an immortal soul. God could have created an immortal soul in that organism. Right? So even if that to me is obviously something nobody should ever create, right? Cause the act of creating it is the evil.

The thing itself that's created is just part of like physical stuff you might say. Okay. Yeah. That's good. Neil, I've lost some of these super chats. Did you happen to have them? Could I say something about the the double effect thing? Yeah, so one thing that and scum I think is important is that ethics the way it's often taught in universities is Students are presented with these really difficult dilemmas, right? Like the Trolley case or like the atomic bomb, right?

Or these really difficult things where it seems like it's like evil or evil. It seems like those are the choices. So they're like tragic cases they're called sometimes. Or moral dilemmas or what the Catholic thinkers long ago used to call moral perplexity. These cases, and Anne Scum objected to teaching ethics this way. It's like we're presented with this hypothetical scenario that virtually none of us will ever be in, and we're like tempted to do something evil in this super tight corner, under pressure. And so she says what we're doing is we're habituating ourselves to think in a certain

way by considering these examples Right. She said and she one time she was presented with one of these examples Oh, if you do this, right then these babies that you know Ten babies might die and if you do this then like three babies might say die die Well, what'd you do? Right and when somebody post this thing she says I just jump up and just just jump on and kill all the babies But that was her response. It's like this is a stupid example, just shut up, dude. Right, like, this is not how we teach ethics.

And then she was often presented with one of the most famous cases about this, like when the Nazis come to your door, right? And she said, what we often think is, we're presented with these cases where they tell us, just like your example is, there's only two options and they make you, philosophers have so arranged it that there's only two options.

Jesus, but reality's not like that. Reality, there's always unforeseen things that you can't in advance predict. And so a wise person will always find some way out. And that's how the ancient Christian and Catholic philosophers thought about moral perplexity, that God will never put you in a situation, right, where you have to choose something that, where you have to sin or sin. Now, here's the thing that I think is important that Anne Schoen taught me from her essay, Modern Moral Philosophy at the end,

is that the reason why somebody knows that is because they believe in divine providence, not because like reality tells you that. is because they believe in divine providence, not because like reality tells you that. So the ancient Greeks had a tragic worldview where reality could put you in a situation where you sin or you sin. Right, so there's nothing like metaphysically impossible about that, but if you believe in a providential God,

then that is impossible. He'll never put you in a situation like that. There's always a way out. You might not know what it is ahead of time. Right, and so to me, that's a more useful teaching. And then when we get to dilemmas, right, the thing that should be disputed isn't whether we do something evil,

but on what grounds can we think that we're never presented with such choices? And we're in a cosmic theological discussion, not a discussion about ethics. Ethics is obvious, right? And it shouldn't be about these like crazy dilemmas. Okay, thanks. We able to find some of those questions or else I have one here? Right. And it shouldn't be about these like crazy dilemmas. Okay. Thanks.

We able to find some of those questions or else I have one here? Yeah. So we got a $50 super chat from John K. Whoa! Thank you. And he says, can you discuss the relationship between prayer and practicing philosophy? If truth is analogous with God or being, does prayer and philosophy have the same end? Are they only distinct conceptually and not in reality? So, what's the difference or how does prayer connect to practicing philosophy? And then he's saying, are they actually the same thing in

any way? Oh, I like that. What a great question. I think that's a good question. I mean, the quick answer I would say is that, you know, we're told to pray without ceasing. So, that kind of sense of prayer can't be like literally you're supplicating God, you're asking certain that, you know, we're told to pray without ceasing. So that kind of sense of prayer can't be like, literally, you're supplicating God, you're asking certain things, you're stating what you're grateful for, like, kind of that way we think of prayer, kind of in that direct kind of paradigmatic sense, right? But say, like, you're reading, you're studying something in a kind of contemplative way, right? And you're open to God speaking to you as you're reading Peeper's Leash of the Basis of Culture or Plato's Apology. Right? And so you've intended it to be part of loving God more. It is a prayerful activity now.

So we, Bonaventure talks about like, we should every day ask ourselves in our examination of conscience, have I intended life's true goal today? Like, is everything I've been doing for the sake of God, for loving Him for His sake? And of course, almost all of us every day could say, I didn't actually intentionally think about that. I kind of just went through my emotions. I didn't go against God. I didn't... So, my point is that we can habituate ourselves so that we begin the day in the middle of the day, the end of the day, we're like constantly reiterating our goal. And so, everything we're doing is with that goal in mind. So, I would say, yes, being a philosophical person, right, should be being a prayerful person.

Right. And so prayerful might be in this Christian sense where you're thinking about God and asking Him, inviting Him to help you see insights and lead you on to see where you're wrong and where you're right and to show you wisdom. Right. So, but also, I think for kind of in a pagan way, like somebody who's not necessarily a Christian, they could be studying philosophy, like wanting insights, like, God, I don't know if you exist, right, if you do, okay, show me stuff, or like, look, this is really important, I read these poems and I receive, right, a lot of consolation in my life,

and they're kind of doing it for life's goal, they don't understand how that's related to a personal God. So that would be powerful in a kind of pagan sense. So I think philosophy in the ancient sense, it is, right, it is religious. It is prayerful as it should be, right? So I think that, I mean, Pythagoras led a religious community.

I mean, the Plato's Academy wasn't just like, oh, this academic thing where eggheads met. It was about a way of life that had to do with their society from top to bottom. And so yes, I think it is about our ultimate end. It should be powerful if it's gonna be legit. That's cool. So I think it's in the catechism, I forget,

who said the prayer is the raising of one's mind to God. And when we're philosophizing, we are trying to get at things that connect to God because everything connects to God, including the trolley problem. But it's not the same thing when we're discussing the morality of the trolley problem. Exactly. But it's not the same thing when we're discussing the morality of the trolley problem than when I'm turning my mind to God. Yeah, that's true.

But you also find the connection. So what was, I loved Alex's move around the predicament of the objective to the subjective, because there is the question of ultimately, what is the right thing to do? Well, it is actually to do what is virtuous. Yeah. You know? So it's related to God in that sense, in the good life and morality. Yeah, but actually virtue is even closer than that because you find that what the real answer is, is if you're saying that the right answer is do what's virtuous, then it's actually a creative act. Like, we don't, I don't know what it is. Like, in a real sense,

like, there is an answer, but you, you know, Matt, or you, Alex, are the ones that are going to have to reveal what that is insofar as God is speaking to you directly in your conscience. Okay, so it's insofar as we are engaged in a growth in virtue, movement in virtue, you know, acceptance, willingness, prayer for virtue, that is what St. Paul calls like robing yourself with Christ. You know, that move to virtue is actually taking on the life of Christ. And so, even within that, it's a consideration of how will I be garbed with God himself? Yeah, I mean, I could take a couple ideas from St. Paul too to relate to the mission

of a philosopher as Socrates. I was kind of explaining Socrates. So, St. Paul said, right, we should transform our minds, right? We should not be conformed to the world, but transform our minds. And so, that's one of the tasks of a Christian philosopher. The other one he talks about is we should take every thought captive to Christ. And that would be, the first one would be to me like the truth is transforming us. The other one is we need to avoid falsehood, like those thoughts that are raised, the knowledge that's raised against Christ, we take that captive to Christ. That's a falsehood, right, against him. So we take it captive.

And so again, I think, you know, I'm agreeing with what you're saying, right? And I just wanted to add that bit about Paul. Yeah, that's true. Sort of Christian philosophy has direct inspiration from the words of scripture. We might go through some questions here. Quite a few, so maybe we'll try to answer these. There was another Super Chat, too.

Which was just saying, it's from Heisenberg 1964 says hello Dr. Plato I used to be your student in Franciscan. I didn't appreciate your class at the time and now I deeply love philosophy and attribute that in part to you. I can't thank you enough. Smiley face. Wow. Thank you so much. You're a smiley face. Reach out to me. I don't know who you are. That's wonderful. Patrick Jobs, who's a patron, says, why is phenomenology often categorized as Kantian? There are certainly Kantian phenomenologists,

late Husserl, but there are also realist phenomenologists, von Hildebrand, et cetera, and postmodern phenomenologists, Derrida, arguably Foucault. Yeah. That's a great question. Yeah. I think that because that word is a technical word, I believe that occurred in translations of Kant. I don't know if he used that word directly or not. I'm not really sure. But Hegel obviously used that word, you know. And so I think that phenomenology as a distinct philosophical method was developed

by Husserl, right, at the turn of the century. So early 1900s, he's developing this form of doing philosophy and, and, and that immediately his, his first generation of students included people like von Hildebrand, right? And so there was an early group that, that- Edith Stein. Yeah, that said, look, Husserl's early teachings about logic and the mind's relation to the world, those are correct and Husserl got that right. But then his later work, he started to go off track and we don't agree with his later work,

we agree with his early work because his early work is realist. So those were the realist phenomenologists. Which wouldn't you say that Husserl is a response to Kant? Yeah. I think also everybody after Kant, I saw when I teach contemporary philosophy, which is 1900s and 1800s, everything is a response to Kant in some way until we get to the beginning of the 20th century here, where I think now we've got a new thing going on. We've kind of escaped, I think, from, from the,

the Kantian circles. So we're still, he's set the dialogue. So he is to, I would say, modern philosophy, what Aquinas was to scholastic philosophy. Like, he set the discussion. He came, obviously there's Descartes before him, and Hobbes and Locke, etc. and Hume, but then he really, the discussion after, everything's related to him in some way. but I think we've escaped, right, at least in these two traditions of the realist phenomenologists, right? And I would say like a lot of the linguistic analytic philosophers have escaped, not all of them, right? Through a view of the nature of language that I think restores its proper place, right?

I started this out by saying how important language is, So I'm the heir of kind of this analytic linguistic philosophy that I think is so important. And that is it's all a return to realism, an escape from idealism. So the 1800s to me were like lots of idealisms of various sorts, right? Mixed in with other things, but then we get back to realism through phenomenology, the realist ones anyway, right? And then I think the later Wittgenstein in that kind of linguistic philosophy tries to get back. There's an earlier movement, right,

in Anglo-American philosophy where G.E. Moore tried through common sense, right, and Russell through like logical atomism or like through logic, basically. So logic and language became the way to find our way back to reality. And for Husserl, I think he tries to take Descartes' method and tries to make that. So we have this sort of like,

introspective ability to see all these like, structures of concepts and how our mind has different structures that relate to different objects in certain ways. And we can kind of create a science of that, which ultimately somehow will get us outside of our mind, if I can put it that way. I think he never... Most people would say he didn't succeed in that. He stuck with transcendental idealism, which is a Kantian phrase.

So he never got out of his head, if I can say it that way. Although maybe he thought he did. I know Dallas Willard, who I met him personally, he's the teacher of a lot of my teachers in my master's program at Talbot School of Theology. Amazing people, amazing man. One of my professors said before I met Dallas, this man reeks of Jesus. And when I met him, that was my experience. It was like he was a holy person. I've had so beautiful things with him, yeah.

But he was one of the few voices that said that Husserl never ceased being a realist and he was like a Husserl scholar So he would disagree with von Hildebrand who knew Husserl and said Husserl became an idealist in the end and lost his realism So I don't I don't know. I'm not a Husserl scholar. Yeah, but there's some very Authoritative opinions on the opposite side. Yeah, I don't have an I answer that there Any other super chats there? A $5 super chat from Parker Gilley but no. No he just wanted to give us money. We'll have to buy you guys something now. Well this has been bloody fantastic. I have just so thoroughly enjoyed this. I want to go back and listen to this

episode just so I can have that stuff repeated. Thank you for being here. It could go on forever. Yeah it will. I try to tell my students that like this episode just so I can have that stuff repeated. Thank you for being here. It could go on forever. Yeah. It will. I try to tell my students that, as I said, it's a way of life. Philosophy is a way of life, a way of approaching reality and attitude. It's a conversation. Every time I return to a book, I tell students this all the time because they come into university

and they think reading means looking at every word and understanding it completely. I'm like, that's crazy. at every word and like understanding it completely. I'm like that's crazy Yeah, the written word is inexhaustible. Yeah, every time you read it. You learn something new You will never I've been thinking that as I started to read war and peace. Take the pressure off You're not gonna get it. Yes, be okay not getting stuff You know, it's like you're going into this great conversation which already exists humanity is having this conversation Right as it's trying to move towards God And you're just conversing with Tolstoy. You're just kind of having a conversation with him as you're trying to get closer to God. And that's the way

life should be, these conversations. It's not a problem to say these don't end. That's a good thing. It means we're still, right, a lover of wisdom and we don't have it yet. So what we want to do now is wrap up this episode, but we're going to have another quick conversation about the mercy of hell. And that'll just be available to our patrons. So if you're not a patron yet, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fred. And when you give, we give you stuff in return like books and beer, Steins and stickers and things like that.

And that would really help us with the show and if you are already a patron look out for this video it'll it'll drop today patreon.com slash Matt Fred thanks so much awesome cool