Pints With Aquinas - You Are Not Data (Christopher West) on AI and the Soul | Ep. 595

Starting point is 00:00:00 What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today. The pressing question of the day is what does it mean to be human? If the machine seems to be intelligent and we've reduced our humanity to intelligence, we're in trouble. Being bodies causes a hell of a lot of suffering. The voice of the enemy gets in there.

Starting point is 00:00:49 I'll save you from that suffering. Salvation from the body. What's held out by Christ is salvation and the body. AI is not itself the problem. Pope Leo is very clear on this, nor is AI a neutral technology. We should be very, very cautious of how AI is programmed

Starting point is 00:01:15 to want us to personify it. What's the point? The point! Now what do I need to be on the lookout for? I'm going to confess that I got frustrated with you here in this conversation. I got frustrated with you too. Do you want to tell me why or do you want me to start? Okay, let's just pretend we're going.

Starting point is 00:01:39 And they'll walk in and stop us if we're not. It's nice to have you back on. It's good to be with you, Matt, as always. Does it feel awkward like we might not be recording? So how much do you want to put into this opening bit? No, I'm, it's a good way to ease in because if I don't know we're recording, then we're just having a conversation. So, and then if the cameras are rolling, that's great.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Pretty sure they are. That's the stopwatch right there. This is riveting context. So it's happening. See, 52 seconds in. It is happening. Do you drink coffee? I have become more of a coffee drinker, but caffeine makes me jittery.

Starting point is 00:02:14 Yeah. And I have a funny story that really made me feel insecure. I was in your home country in January teaching one of my TOB courses. And somebody was put in charge of just taking care of my day-to-day needs. And if I needed a coffee runner, whether he's the first day, he says, I'm going to the coffee shop. What do you want? and I said, I'll take a, what did I say, uh, iced decaf latte.

Starting point is 00:02:44 And he just went, really? In my face. And I was like, he says, and then he says, that is the girliest coffee drink I've ever heard of. Why would, what's even the point? Why don't, you don't want the caffeine? You don't want the, and I said, no, caffeine makes me jittery.

Starting point is 00:03:02 He said, well, why do you drink coffee? And I said, because I like the taste. And he, every morning he would give it to me, but he would give it to me with a little look. And I don't know, it made me feel a little insecure about my coffee choice. But who cares? That seems kind of rude? It was a little, it was, it was, I don't. He was trying to be playful.

Starting point is 00:03:24 No, he was not trying to be playful. Australians are the worst. He was, he thought it was the stupidest coffee drink that anyone would ever ask for. I mean, you can get some pretty girly drinks today at Starbucks. like honey crunch swirl of the raspberry whatever. No, I've always liked the taste of coffee, but I've never been a, I need caffeine. In fact, I don't like the feel of caffeine.

Starting point is 00:03:47 In fact, this morning, when we had breakfast, I ordered a dirty chai and I forgot to say decaf. And I couldn't, I didn't drink the whole thing because I started to feel that. So people often, I'm hard left turn here. People often remember, right, you ask them like, where were you in September 11 or where were you? such a such a date. Do you remember when you realized what AI could do? Do you remember? What AI was for the first? Uh, yes, I do. I was again in your country. I was, uh, sitting with some friends, uh, Byron and Francine Parola in their living room. And it was 20,

Starting point is 00:04:25 22 or three. Yeah. And he was telling me about, uh, chat GPT for the first time and what it was doing and it it messed with me i was like oh my gosh i mean i had heard the term artificial intelligence for a number of years but i had never heard how it could be applied and what what they were doing and um like he was writing reports with chat gpt uh and that was that was news to me and oh oh yeah and he said watch this i'll just tell it to do this image and he he he he he he he he typed in, come up with such and such an image of, you know, whatever, John Paul II riding on a horse. And there it was. And I was like, oh, this is, this is going to change, this is going to change the world. I didn't, I didn't know how rapidly it would happen.

Starting point is 00:05:21 And I didn't know that it would take up a lot of my own future work. But the pressing question of the day, and AI is bringing this to the fore. is what does it mean to be human? And I'm glad that AI is pressing this question. What is a person? What's the difference between a person and a machine? If the machine seems to be intelligent and we've reduced our humanity to intelligence,

Starting point is 00:05:56 that's it. We're in trouble. Because we were all okay with machines taking over the laborious tasks that we would rather not do. And then we even kind of, we even kind of poo-pooed the manual labor, right? And the, if you're a plumber, like people would look down on that. Now plumber is a making bank, right? But we were okay with that and you're right.

Starting point is 00:06:18 It's like we kind of retreated to our head. If you hadn't been to university, like, oh, that's like a mark of shame. It's all about the intellect. And now it's like, well, now we have this thing that does for the intellectual life, allegedly, what machines did to the laborious tasks. And now we're like, well, where do we go? Yeah. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Starting point is 00:06:38 Yeah, I'm, I'm, what I'm saying is we have a concept of the human person as disembodied intelligence or or intelligence trapped in a body. And it goes back to Renee Descartes. I think therefore I am. If that's our concept of what a person is, just thought, what I think. what's to distinguish a thinking thing housed in flesh from a thinking thing housed in a computer and what's interest me so much because of my work promoting John Paul II's theology of the body is this question of embodiment like the this phrase that you said you liked in my book

Starting point is 00:07:30 thingifying persons and personifying things. Just how do we give us an example of yeah, how do we see that? So thingifying a person and personifying a thing is only possible when we've ruptured personhood from the body.

Starting point is 00:07:49 When we think of the body as something rather than as someone, well then it's just a thing that I can use. I can evaluate it based on whether or not I find utility in it. And I have taken a person, an embodied person, I'm treating that person as a thing, which I evaluate based on utility.

Starting point is 00:08:14 I'll use that thing, which is really a person. So now I'm using a person instead of loving a person. I'll use you as long as you bring me what I want out of you, as you don't bring me what I want out of you. I discard you. So that's the thingifying, of persons when we reduce the body to some thing rather than someone but the flip side of the thingifying of persons is the personifying of things i'll give you just one example uh and i mean we could

Starting point is 00:08:49 we we know where this is going where people are taking their deep existential needs for love advice therapy to machines, right, to chatbots. A few weeks ago, I was in the midst of writing my book. What does it mean to be human in the age of AI? I'm writing my book and I had to do some research. So this is the first book I've ever written where I had AI as a tool for research. And it was brilliant. I mean, what would have taken me three or four days of research

Starting point is 00:09:27 in my own personal library or at the, the local, you know, public library or theological library, university library. I typed in a prompt and what would have taken me a few days of reading and research is there in three or four seconds, very well organized. It's amazing from a time-saving point of view. Real quick, it's like AI makes the old web browser make the way, it makes it look like how the web browser made the library look. Correct. It feels like it's that much of the job. It's like a road. boat or a speedboat, right? The web browser is rowboat. Chat GPT or Claude or wherever you're going is like a speedboat. So years ago, a husband and a wife in Lithuania sent me one of their

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Starting point is 00:11:00 dot com slash shop before the next batch is gone. That's dailywire.com slash shop. And so I went on to do a little research and Claude shows up and says, Hi, Christopher, how are you doing today or something like that? Some personal greeting. And I had just had a wrinkle in a family relationship that I was down. And so I go on to the computer in a kind of down place type in, you know, Hi, Christopher, how you doing today? And it was like, oh, a little perk. Oh, Claude is happy to see me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Timeout, timeout. A computer cannot be happy to see me.

Starting point is 00:11:38 I caught myself like that. But there are people who are so desperately in need of a greeting, a kind word, a word of affirmation, a tender word. And it turns out that imitation words of affirmation are much more soothing than words of rejection from actual people. So I'm willing to accept when I've been so wounded in real personal relationships, I'm, I find myself comforted by imitation relationships with a machine. It's really close to pornography and a sexual sense. Yes, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's. It's their siblings. Right. Yeah, they're very, it's a very close relative.

Starting point is 00:12:31 Yeah, well, you want rejection? Yeah, exactly. Where you'll never be rejected. That's right. It's the same thing. And in as much as we are made for love, and in a world where we're not receiving that, don't know how to show it or give it or receive it, a computer, a machine is much easier and less complicated.

Starting point is 00:12:57 And yeah, just like porn, right? I'm not going to be rejected. There's no complication. It's not messy. It's not complicated. I get what I want so I think, but it's not really what I want. And it's the same with the chat bot. You know, words of affirmation from a chat bot gives me a little,

Starting point is 00:13:15 just like I experienced that day when I had that, ouch, you know, a painful wrinkle in a human relationship. I get this imitation word of affirmation from a computer. I'm like, oh, I like that. This is interesting. It almost feels like one step above social media likes. Yes. You know, so people of my generation, maybe.

Starting point is 00:13:33 Yeah. You get a like, you get a retweet, you feel good about yourself. Do you think the next generation, what they're going to have to deal with is something more nefarious in a sense? It's not just a heart that shows up. It's someone who's actually engaging with you. Yes. And it's, well, right, right. It's not someone who's engaging with you.

Starting point is 00:13:53 It's something. There it goes. Just the fact that I slip into that. Yeah, it's very easy. It's not someone engaging with you. It's something. And that's what I mean by the danger of personifying things. And just like the porn addict says, well, what's the bloody difference?

Starting point is 00:14:10 It gets the job done. Yeah. So I wonder if people of the next generation or maybe even our generation go, who cares, Christopher? It doesn't matter if it's a something or someone. What matters is the result? That's the danger right there. And it gets the job done. Well, what is the job or what is the thing that we want to be done?

Starting point is 00:14:29 If we think what we want to be done, let's take pornography for an example, if we think what we want to be done is simply the achievement of a sexual or climax orgasm, tingly sensations in my genitals, is that what I want to be done? I mean, if I'm just living from my most base animal instincts, maybe that's what I want to be done. But this takes us immediately into the realm of personhood. What is the difference between animal sexuality and human sexuality? What is the difference between dogs copulating?

Starting point is 00:15:21 and human beings making love, right? That's what we call it. Are we making love? If we're not making love and we're just copulating like animals do, we'll have our tingly sensations, but it will never, ever take us to that much more naked place, which is not tangible.

Starting point is 00:15:54 We're talking about the touch point here between the spiritual and the physical. And the physical reality of sexuality is meant to take us as human beings because we are persons. We're not just things. We are animals, but we're not merely animals. Animals don't look up at the stars and wonder what's out there. They don't cry when they hear a piece of music. They don't, I mean, in a loose sense of the word, we can say, my dog wants to be loved, right?

Starting point is 00:16:35 Well, what it wants is attention and affection and to be fed and to have kindness. Sure, there's some level. But love in the richest sense of the word is only desired by, persons. In a way, you might say that the atheistic materialist would have to call this the curse of humanity. And what I mean by that is, I understand that you would like to live in a world where you're satisfied with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:06 But the curse of humanity is you actually cannot be satisfied with it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. There's no way you can be. Yeah. It reminds me of, I think it was Chester's line who said cows chew contentedly in the meadows while men smoke discontentedly in the bars. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Well, can we kill that? Can we kill that? No, we cannot. And that's always that's the good news.

Starting point is 00:17:32 We cannot kill it. We're made for something so much more. JP2 says it this way. He says, no matter how oppressed the person is, the sacredness of the person will show itself. It keeps coming back again and again. It cannot be stifled. The sacredness.

Starting point is 00:17:55 Like a living sacrifice that keeps crawling off the altar. Yeah. It can't be suppressed. Wow. I tell the story in the conclusion of this book of something that really, really horrified me. Okay. My sister-in-law was in town. And she said, what are you up to these days?

Starting point is 00:18:19 I said, oh, I'm writing a book. about what it means to be human in the age of AI. And she said, oh, interesting. I just hadn't experienced the other day. I want your take on it. And I'm not sure. She said I was sharing with a friend that my daughter, my wife's brother's daughter,

Starting point is 00:18:42 what's that for me? My niece. I don't know. Nice-in-law? Too tired. I don't know. Yeah. My brain's not working either.

Starting point is 00:18:49 Anyway, she's going to, music school, she just finished high school and she's going to study to be a music teacher. And so... Your wife's brother's daughter, your niece. Yes, my niece. My wife's niece. My niece-in-law. Whatever.

Starting point is 00:19:06 She's going to school to study to be a music teacher. And the friend of my wife's brother's wife says, oh, what's the point? When AI makes all the music, we're not going to need to learn how to play instrument. instruments and I was horrified on multiple levels. And I'm glad you are as well. Yeah. But I want to hear your horror first because I want to... Well, I'm horrified because the idea that human expression no longer needs to be expressed.

Starting point is 00:19:43 Yes, yes. That, yeah, that's horrible. The other thing that's horrifying is I get what he means. Yeah. That he's right. That he's not that he's not, he's right in the sense that, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Like in about five minutes, that's probably all we're going to be listening to.

Starting point is 00:20:00 I, have you listened to this AI music and you cannot believe that it's AI? Yes, I've heard some songs that almost had me fooled. But here's the thing. Because the sacredness of the human person cannot be snuffed out, nor can our need to make music. be entirely snuffed out. It can be dulled. It can be stifled to a certain extent,

Starting point is 00:20:34 but it will show itself again and again and again. There will always be a need for music teachers because there will always be a need to make music, to make it with agency. And where I was horrified was number one, that a world where we have surrendered artistry to artifice is horrifying to me. Number two, I was horrified because I was so saddened

Starting point is 00:21:12 by the fact that this man's humanity has already been robbed from him that he could imagine a world where the sacredness of the person is gone. And how quickly? Yeah. How quickly he would succumb to that. that despair. His wings have already been clipped in a sense that he, that he could even imagine a world. I mean, even in, it reminds me of this woman who said to my wife and I trying to justify why it was okay that her daughter was fornicating, eh? I don't know how we got into this conversation.

Starting point is 00:21:44 We weren't being combative. She was just talking about why sex wasn't a big deal. And she said, it's just a massage, basically. So just like sex is now just a massage. Yeah, music is. can be reduced to robots. Yeah, you're exactly right here, Matt. It's the same eye, it's related because music and erotic longing come from the same, when we're living from the depths, from the same depths of the sacredness of the person. Right. What do we have smack dab in the middle of the scriptures?

Starting point is 00:22:23 We have the song of all. songs, which is erotic love poetry, sacred erotic love poetry. So there you have it. Sacred, right? The sacrum, the sacredness of the person. Eros, a cry for a love that is stronger than death, right? The lovers in the song of songs cry out for a love strong as death. that's the cry of eros for something infinite if erotic longing was just a cry for tingly sensations in my genitals then what that person said to you and Cameron was right it's just a massage it's just feels good physically it's just a biochemical reaction that is tingly and feels good but the reason that will never, ever satisfy the human heart is because we are made for an infinite joy.

Starting point is 00:23:32 We're made for an infinite love. We're not made for merely tingly sensations that come and go. It was Nietzsche actually who said, joy wills eternity. Nietzsche was wrong about so many things, but he got that right. Joy longs to go on. And the fact that joy does not go on in this life, joy comes and it goes, is one of the great sadnesses of life. And the cry of the heart, the longing of the heart.

Starting point is 00:24:12 And this is why we all, beneath whatever we do to comfort ourselves about death, way, way down in there, way down in there, is this agony that we feel about death because we're not made for it. We're made for something that lasts forever. You called it in your book a cosmic obscenity. What did I call a cosmic? Deaths. Oh, yes, yes, it is a cosmic obscenity because we're made for a life that lasts forever.

Starting point is 00:24:51 and the cosmic obscenity is precisely, what is the definition of death? The rupture of the body and the soul. That very definition of death is to rupture body and soul. And a culture of death is precisely a culture that ruptures the body and the soul. And that, in my mind, is the gravest danger of AI, is that, if it is embraced uncritically. AI is not the enemy, but an uncritical embrace of AI will lead us,

Starting point is 00:25:32 will almost cement us in this rupture of body and soul. And there is, the title of the book is the truth and the lie, what it means to be human in the age of AI. And the truth and the lie is exactly around embodied. Let's face it, being bodies causes a hell of a lot of suffering, ending in death. We want to be, and rightly so, saved from that suffering. But it's right here in the midst of that suffering that the voice of the enemy gets in there. I'll save you from that suffering.

Starting point is 00:26:21 But it becomes what's held out from that. enemy is salvation from the body. What's held out by Christ, what's held out by Christianity, what's held out by the gospel, is salvation of the body. That's the truth, salvation of the body. What's the lie? Salvation from the body. In the modern world, since Descartes, actually, since the reference, The Reformation, God bless Martin Luther, he got 87 out of his 95 theses correct, right? And he's battened a much better average than most Catholics in terms of what he gets right. But the church lost when Luther left. And when Luther left, his very action was a rupture from the body of Christ.

Starting point is 00:27:25 That's what the church is. The church is the body of Christ. His very action was to rupture his spirituality from the body of Christ. That, if I had to pinpoint, where did this modern rupture of the spiritual and the material happen? I mean, it happened the whole way back with the original sin when death entered the world. And what is death? the rupture of the body and the soul. But the modern expression of this ancient error of rupture,

Starting point is 00:28:04 if I had to pinpoint it, it's the Reformation. Then it's solidified by Descartes, I think, therefore I am. And now it's because of these movements. If you stay on that rupture train that Luther jumped on, Stay on the rupture train for 500 years. Add a couple revolutions in there, industrial, the Enlightenment, industrial revolution, and now the information revolution. We have the danger we are in now, which is an entire elitist movement.

Starting point is 00:28:41 Some are calling them the tech radicals who are not hiding at all what their end game is. All right. Tell us about that. Their end game is immortality, not through redemption of the body or salvation of the body, resurrection of the body, resurrection of the body. But their idea of immortality is now salvation from the body where we can, so they imagine, it's a utopian dream that's just impossible, but they're so diluted in their understanding of what a person is and what kind of happening. they want and what salvation they want. But let me rewind again and just be in a place of utter compassion where what they're wrestling with

Starting point is 00:29:29 is the pain and experience of suffering in being a body. Being a body is wrought with suffering and it ends with the horror of death. We have been prone, and this goes the whole way back to Plato. Plato wrestled with this question of being tied to the earth bodily,

Starting point is 00:29:56 knowing his body's going to return to dust, and yet recognizing within himself this noble eros, it's where we get the word, it's a Greek word, it's from Plato. What is Plato's noble eros?

Starting point is 00:30:12 It's this yearning for the eternal, good, true, and beautiful. but he couldn't reconcile that with the body. And so Plato conceived of eternity and ultimate happiness as being liberate, the soul is my true self, Plato taught, and the body is a prison from which I must be liberated. That's salvation from the body. This Plato, of course, lived 300 years before Christ. He had no concept of resurrection or incontinent.

Starting point is 00:30:48 of the divine. And then Aristotle, you have Plato, you have Aristotle. I am grossly oversimplifying all this for the sake of trying to make it communicable in this format. But Aristotle was a biologist. He studied animal biology and then human biology. And he was much more rooted in the body. And he said, he didn't believe that the body was a prison from which to escape.

Starting point is 00:31:16 but he also couldn't quite reconcile all that with this idea of eternity because the body goes back to the grave again before the resurrection aristotle and plato thomas aquinas takes the best of plato's yearning for the eternal takes the best of aristotle's integration of body and soul and recognizes at death yes or the soul separates from the body, but not in a form of liberation from a prison, but in a state of hope awaiting the reunion, the reunion of body and soul in this unprecedented idea witness to in the resurrection of Christ, that the body itself will share in the infinite, true good and beautiful. This is the good news of the gospel that your body and my body is not just destined by death to return to dust, but your body and my body, yes, it will return to dust through death, but it is destined for divinization. Where miracle of miracles at the end of time,

Starting point is 00:32:43 just as it happened at the beginning of time, God will gather the dust and mysteriously breathe his life into it. And your body and my body, if we say yes, will participate in the divine ecstasy forever, salvation of the body. So the tech radicals, if I can just loop back to that and tie that up,

Starting point is 00:33:09 the tech radicals are holding out a promise of immortality, not through a salvation of the body, but salvation from the body. How? By uploading consciousness to the cloud. And anyone who resists their agenda are guilty of a new prejudice called... Flashism. See, I read your book. You read my book.

Starting point is 00:33:37 We'll link to your book below, by the way. People can click it. Do they get 20%? off or something? You can get 20% off by typing in pints. Fleshism. So I love my morning coffee. That's not true, actually. I love my three morning coffees. That's usually what it takes to get me up and running. And it's important to me that the coffee's good if I'm going to have it every day anyway. And so the point is this. If you're going to buy coffee anyway, you might as well buy really good coffee from a company doing something genuinely good with the money. And that's seven weeks coffee. Coffee is an everyday purchase. You're already.

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Starting point is 00:34:49 Use promo code pints for an extra 10% off your first order. Seven weeks coffee.com slash pints. So let me ask you a uncomfortable question, but you know, you don't have to answer in the comment section. When's the last time you went a full week without watching pornography? What about a full month? we often get advice that makes it seem like overcoming pornography is merely a matter of willpower. And that can be unhelpful because porn addiction often isn't really about sex at all.

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Starting point is 00:36:03 You need to address what's underneath it. and you shouldn't have to do that alone. Go to joinrelay.com slash pints to learn more. That's joinrelay.com slash pints to learn more. I really can't recommend this highly enough. Please go check it out. Yeah, it is funny. I was in Lithuania recently,

Starting point is 00:36:22 and people were telling me stories of when the Soviets came in. And it made me, and this comes back to the idea of how we're incarnate and use our bodies, but it's almost like modern feminism would be impossible without the body becoming slowly and slowly less and less necessary. Yes, yes, yes. Because like back in the day, men are clearly stronger than women, and so it could clearly fulfill a role that women couldn't fulfill.

Starting point is 00:36:50 Yes. Women have their own genius of mothering and nurturing life, but as work has, like, what do I do? I'm sitting at a table talking to you. That's my job. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah. Like a woman can do this.

Starting point is 00:37:02 Yes, yes. And so we kind of became interchangeable. in that sense, which created so much disruption to the family unit and what we believed about men and women and children. But it just feels like this, again, is another ginormous leap that's taking place that's making the body itself less and less necessary. I mean, you think So we think. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Let me, yeah, less and less necessary with our day-to-day, yeah, okay, so we think still. But with our day-to-day duties, we don't even kind of take into account the body. Yeah. Unless it's just about pleasing it.

Starting point is 00:37:35 But I don't know even if we, yeah, I guess we talk about resting it and having our coffee. We like to think that we don't need our bodies. We like to think that we could do away with them. But to do so is by definition death. And this needs to be said again and again and again because we just don't believe it. What? that our bodies, your body and my body, are destined for resurrection.

Starting point is 00:38:12 Yes, we don't believe that. We don't believe it. In fact, I believe it, but I believe it in the same way I believe that the sun is, you know, however many times bigger than the sun. Yeah. You know, I don't, I don't, and that's the shame. I'm sure most Christians are much better than me. Matt, Matt, let me, no, no, let me tell you about most Christians. And I don't say this with a wagging finger because I was one of them.

Starting point is 00:38:41 And I was blessed to be spared these heretical ideas by encountering good philosophy and theology and given my life to it. But when I became a, when I came back to my faith in my early 20s, I was raised in the church, fell away in my teenage years all because of sex. I wanted sex and church said I couldn't have it and I said, well, I wanted anyway. And it was really the contraception thing that caused me to, like, that's just ridiculous. I'm out of here. And guess what brought me back?

Starting point is 00:39:21 Controception thing. We can cover that later. Because it is related. The contraception question is one of the most concrete embraces in the modern world of disembodity. We can cover that later. But in my own journey, when I had an encounter with Christ when I was almost 21. I had a painful breakup.

Starting point is 00:39:48 This girl was my whole life. I thought I was going to marry her. She broke up with me. And my older brother was a beautiful witness to me and said, you need to give your life to Christ. And I did. And I said, okay, Lord, I'm done running from me. you, I want you in my life.

Starting point is 00:40:07 And that was the beginning of a, that was in the summer of 1990. And I've, I've been on that journey of, of trying to surrender more and more to Christ, because there's always more to surrender for what year are we in, 2026? Mm-hmm. That was, uh, 36 years ago. Um, but I remember that summer, the summer of 1990, I was really into a band called World party. And there was this song. And I remember sing along to the lyrics thinking, yeah, this is Christianity. And the lyrics were like, I don't need nobody. A body's nobody to me. It's just a shell.

Starting point is 00:40:52 I'll use it well. But I'll be set free if you give me the key. Like to him, death was the key out of this shell. And I remember just singing along to those lyrics, just thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's spirituality. And clearly, I was not paying attention to the creed, right? I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting amen. That's the Apostles Creed. And in the Nicene, I believe in the resurrection of the dead.

Starting point is 00:41:27 well the very word resurrection has to do with that which dies resurrection of the dead the soul is immortal the soul does not die there are those who want to say oh resurrection just means your spirit is lifted up to a higher plane no that is projecting platonic heretical thinking onto deeply Christian words like resurrection always, always, full stop, always refers to the body. What needs to be resurrected? That which dies. The soul does not die.

Starting point is 00:42:10 The soul is immortal. It's the body that is in need of resurrection. So I'm saying this because I have great compassion on those who go to Mass every Sunday and still think that death is when I'm liberated from the prison of my body. And I've done plenty of priest's convocations over the years. And I love asking priests this question. I say, you tell me, what percentage of your parishioners believe that heaven is where we're finally liberated, our souls are liberated from the prison of the body? And the numbers I get back are typically between 80 and 90%.

Starting point is 00:42:52 What does it matter? So what does it matter if we get our bodies back? What matters, Matt, is... It feels like, I don't know, it feels like, I think for a lot of people that, okay, whether I get my body back or not, I still have to die and I can still believe in heaven and I'll still see God in some spiritual vision. So it almost doesn't matter to us. That's the problem.

Starting point is 00:43:19 Because we don't know what a human person is. What is a human person? The marriage of body and soul. That's what a human person is. Okay. Back one step. What's a person? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:43:36 Let's talk about that word person. I love this word. It's often said, I think I got this from George Weigel in his biography of JP2. It's often said that a philosopher will spend his entire, life speaking one word. And for Carol Voitia, JP2, that one word is person. What is the person? And just to put that in context, why was that his word? Because he lived through the hell of the Nazi occupation in Poland. He lived with the stench of the burning bodies from nearby Auschwitz and then the communists come and take over Poland after the Nazis. He lived under

Starting point is 00:44:23 that degradation and while many of his contemporaries concluded life was absurd, there's no meaning to anything. This young man, Carol Voitia, pressed in, wanted to understand we have these aspirations to the heavens but then we can stoop to these depths of these horrible horrible and horrific evils. So he pressed in. And he said, the crisis of our times is the degradation of the sacredness of the person.

Starting point is 00:44:59 Which is what? What's supposed to person? I love etymology. So you look at the roots of words. We have the Latin persona and personae. The persona was a mask worn by Roman actors, persona. and, you know, it would have an expression on it so you could know if the character was happy or sad.

Starting point is 00:45:22 And it also served to amplify the voice on stage. Personare. Think of sonar, right? Sound. So sound through. Personare means to sound through. Persons are those who communicate with words. That's one way of looking at it.

Starting point is 00:45:45 persona. Persona, this mask came to indicate the face. And there's, there's a related word here in the Greek, prosopon. I don't know if I'm pronouncing these correctly because I'm not a language scholar. But prosopan in Greek has interesting etymological roots. Pros and ops. So opse, I, or face, Prost means towards And we can piece together here That to be a person Is to have a face Facing another person

Starting point is 00:46:23 I want to see you As I'm seeing you right now Eye to eye Right When two dogs eye each other up They're not seeing A person They're not selves

Starting point is 00:46:38 Seeing another self If you put a dog in front of a mirror, it will bark because it thinks it sees another dog. It doesn't know of itself as a self because it's not a self, right? There are some experiments that have been done with guerrillas that you know, there may have some sense that they're different from another gorilla, but nonetheless, persons are the kind of beings who have a sense of themselves as a self made to be in relationship with other persons, prosopon, to see another eye to eye.

Starting point is 00:47:18 And interestingly enough, a slave, the term for slave in Greek was a prosopon, which means a faceless one. Right? To enslave someone, you have to convince yourself that it's not a person. It's not a horror

Starting point is 00:47:40 if you see me walking my daughter, dog on a leash, right? But if you saw me walking a person on a leash, you know, you would be rightly shocked. Shocked. Yeah. Why? Because persons are also the kind of creatures who have self-determination. Yeah, that's really good. Like, unless you were joking. Right. I would be horrified. And even if the person on the leash said, no, I like it. I enjoy it. I'd still be horrified. This is how I wish to live. I'd be horrified. Yeah. And why? Why? Can you, can you?

Starting point is 00:48:14 Isn't that great? I mean, I, I, I, I. Why? Before I press in, I want you to just try to answer that. Why would I be horrified? Because you're, you're pretending to be satisfied with being less than you are or something like. Yes, yes. You are being treated less than you are. You're being treated like a thing and even more horrible than that you wish to be.

Starting point is 00:48:37 Yes. You know, that's why when, that's why when people say so long as it's consensual. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I agree that rape is. really, really bad. But consensual fornication is also really, really bad when two people willingly degrade themselves. Yes. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:50 Yeah. Yeah. So the language that JP2 puts to what you just described, he says the person is incommunicable. Yeah. Which means you have your own will. I cannot will or want for you. Mm-hmm. I may want you to want what I want.

Starting point is 00:49:10 but if I compel you to want what I want A violence has been committed. A violence And I feel it. Yes. A violence against your person. Yeah. If we get to that place where you feel if I impose my will on you, I have violated your personhood. Now we're at, we're approaching the essence of what a person is. Now there are certain limits to this because you can't say as a father,

Starting point is 00:49:41 oh, I was respecting the will of my four-year-old when he walked out on the street and got hit by a truck. I didn't want to impose my will, right? We have a right as parents to assert will over those in our charge when reason dictates that we do so. The state has a right

Starting point is 00:50:00 to put people in prison against their will for the common good. So there are limits to what we're talking about here, But we know, here's an example often point to, I thought this was brilliant in the movie Titanic. So we're just getting to know the characters. And Cal is the fiancé of Rose in Titanic. Okay.

Starting point is 00:50:23 And the way the movie maker wanted us to know that he's a total ass, a bad egg, is they're at the table for dinner, and she lit up a cigarette, and he grabs it and pulls it out of her mouth, and then orders her dinner for her without consulting her. And unsinkable Molly Brown, the character says, you're going to cut her meat for her too, Cal? And she's just noticing that he is dominating her will.

Starting point is 00:50:55 Yeah. Right? He is not respecting what JP2 would call Rose's incommunicability, that she has a will and desire of her own. again this this takes us to the the essence of why you're horrified at the thought of seeing a person on a leash but you're not horrified at the thought of seeing a dog on a leash we might say in a loose use of terms the dog has a will of its own but that's a loose use of terms the dog does not have a will of its own has instincts of its own and it might want to run after something and you yank it back

Starting point is 00:51:35 But to assert your will over that dog is not a violation of the dignity of that dog because that dog is not a person. Can you tie all this is excellent. Thank you. Can you tie all this back into what you're seeing in the very beginning stages of this AI revolution right now? And again, just to say it again, AI itself isn't evil. Yes, AI is not the enemy. Right. We can use it as you did in research for your book, as you said.

Starting point is 00:52:03 But what are some things in your research have you have you learned that people are dealing with or struggling with already as AI starts to take off? Yeah. Again, I and then also, sorry to cut you off, but and also I just thought when we blend AI and sex robots, I think, come on, which will be in five minutes. Yeah, it's already happening. Okay. It's already happening, which those who think this is a. a good idea. Okay, there are those in it just for profit and greed and lust. There are others who believe and will argue that this is a good idea because it will solve the problem of loneliness.

Starting point is 00:52:53 No, it will not. Why will it not? Because loneliness is not solved by an animalistic, selfish indulgence of lust. It's like unless you understand the human person as someone made for communion, you won't understand him. Correct. And we can't have communion with machines. Correct. The very thought, the very thought that a machine could solve my loneliness already demonstrates

Starting point is 00:53:28 that I don't know who or what I am. And here we could say this. The word person, the word body, the word sex, the word love. Person, body, sex, love. They all stand or fall together. And this is why the only way out of the all-out crisis of the person which we are involved in today. And I'm so glad that Pope Leo framed the whole question of AI with the title of his encyclical, magnificent humanity. Magnifica humanitas, magnificent

Starting point is 00:54:21 humanity. It is magnificent to be a human person. And human person, again, the very word person in our minds, we immediately go to, oh, it's because there's something spiritual about us. Yes. But the spiritual aspect of our nature is manifested and lived in the physical aspect of our nature because we are the marriage of the material and the spiritual. Person, body, sex, love, they all stand or fall together. As soon as we rupture the person, from the body, we no longer know what sex is, and we no longer know what love is. Because everything becomes ruptured from the concrete. We live in a world right now that is trying to identify everybody without identifying

Starting point is 00:55:21 any body. What happens when you try to identify somebody without identifying anybody? body without identifying his or her body. You identify quite literally no body. All this talk about identity in the modern world is ruptured identity. The truth is this, the phrase identity in the modern world, ruptured from the body, is actually making us a culture of no bodies. I want to just ask again, what are some, like, rather than starting with kind of like the truth that we need to know, what's going on, sure. I kind of want to know, like, what's going on. I have a very limited advantage point. I understand that I've heard that people will use AI for therapists or, I don't know what

Starting point is 00:56:14 people are doing. I don't know if I, I use it. Sometimes I'll write an article and I'll say, say this better or how could I phrase this better? Or I'll put in something into AI, have it read it to me. or I'll put something to AI and say, have I, is there any unnecessary, you know, superfluous language here, superfluous points that I'm making? But, but how are people using AI that you look at it and go, oh, this is, this is ring, this is ring alarm bells. Yeah, there was a headline two months ago I saw. Japanese woman marries her chat bot partner. So many of stuff going on in Japan. Like people renting grandchildren.

Starting point is 00:56:55 Yeah. Hicicamori. Have you heard of Hikikimori? No, no, no. Individuals that live alone intentionally. Oh, yes. I didn't know the term. For years. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:04 And now they're talking. I also quote this in the book, a story about a conference, I believe was in California, where. I'm sorry, I blew past the point you just made. A woman in Japan married a chatbot, quote unquote. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there was an official ceremony. in which she got dressed up in her wedding dress

Starting point is 00:57:28 and had her smartphone next to her in which the chat bot exchanged vows with this woman in a wedding dress. God bless her. And of course, thank you that that's your initial reaction is pity and compassion. She, you know, there were all these online wars about this is wonderful, good for her.

Starting point is 00:57:54 And then all the people who were, she's insane. She's wounded. She's desperate for love, for words of kindness, for words of tenderness, which she gets from a chatbot. It's better than the Sheila in San Francisco who married a train station. We can talk about that later. She wanted to save it. And so she married the train.

Starting point is 00:58:19 Yeah. I'm almost certain that's what I was. Okay. So, yes. I remember 15 years ago, I wrote a column about a woman who claimed to, you know, marry her dolphin. Yeah, good. Yeah, so again. So that's one example. Chatbot, woman married and a woman marries her chap. And then, of course, you go to the next step. We can never lose the pattern of our humanity. We just settle for imitations. We sometimes talk about freedom in an unhelpful way, right?

Starting point is 00:58:45 We think of freedom and we think, well, that just means being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. But the fact is, you can have everything available to you and then you still realize that certain things have far more control over your life than you would like them to. Things like distractions, being addicted to distractions or your phone or food or work or comfort. This is really what Exodus 90 is about. And I want to be clear about this because some people misunderstand what Exodus is. It's not Catholic CrossFit. It's not proving how tough you are because you took a cold shower. The cold showers, fasting exercise, giving things up. All of these are means. They're not the point. The point is an encounter with the love of God the Father and discovering

Starting point is 00:59:24 more deeply what it means to be a beloved son of his. And you don't do it alone. Exodus 90 is designed as a shared adventure with a local fraternity of four to six men who are walking through it together. The book of Exodus is ultimately a story about being led out of slavery and into freedom. And all of us have our own pharaohs and idols that hold us back from becoming the men, husbands, fathers that Christ is calling us to be. So I want to tell you about Holy Speech with Father Gregory Pine, which is going to begin October 1st on the Exodus 90 app. Maybe a freer way of living really is possible. Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-day free trial or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt to learn more. That's Exodus 90.com slash Matt.

Starting point is 01:00:09 So the pattern of our humanity is love, marriage, children. Ah. Right? That's the pattern. and it's written in the body, right? Why do I have genitals? I have genitals for genital union in order to generate the next generation.

Starting point is 01:00:30 And that's where we get the word, surprise, surprise, gender, right? But I cannot erase that pattern. I will just settle for imitations. So I still want love. I'm not getting it from other embodied persons. I'm getting pain and rejection from other embodied persons, but from this chat bot, I'm getting things that make me feel good.

Starting point is 01:00:54 So I've already reduced love to things that make me feel good, right? So I'll get it from the robot, but now what do I want? I want children. So there was a conference in California. I quote the story in my book of a gathering of the highest, so-called, experts in AI and now general AI and the whole new realm of artificial intelligence. And the conversation took a quick turn during a dinner break. And then it became the conversation in the whole conference about chatbot children where your children now will simply be

Starting point is 01:01:39 manufactured in like these AI avatars. So you get to design the offspring you want in an AI avatar. And they believe that they can design this consciousness. It'll be housed for a time in a computer. But then once we have life-like robots with rubbery flesh, right, silicone flesh and blinking eyes and then we can put the AI offspring that we've generated avatar into these robots and you see what we're doing here we want embodiment if we can control it and we want it to look like us without aging and wrinkles and i want it to be a designer

Starting point is 01:02:34 silicone robot that has an artificial intelligence embedded in it. So the imitation, that's, that's, I can't. It's funny, we're not just rebelling against sex and the body by not having it and not desiring it and never wanting children, although there are people who do that and by 20 cats and mother them. Right. But it's, we, we want what, the pattern of humanity. You can't escape, you can't escape the pattern.

Starting point is 01:03:02 You'd just settle for an imitation. Now, we want, is it just the body or control? That's what you said. We, and I mean we, because I'm including myself. And I'll try to make myself appropriately vulnerable here. I want to be in control. Why? My body is a constant reminder.

Starting point is 01:03:32 My embodied humanity is a constant reminder to me. that I am in control of nothing. I am... That's right. Utterly... And this scares the beep out of me. Out of me. It scares me.

Starting point is 01:03:49 If I am honest and I look at what is really going on at the depths of my humanity, I hate that I am dependent and I want to be in control. and I hate that I am dependent and I want to be in control because I have believed a lie I have believed a lie that to be dependent is to be dominated and controlled by something else, by someone else.

Starting point is 01:04:36 If the paradigm of the universe is domination, then I have to be in control. or I will be controlled. It's control or be controlled. And this is why we desperately need to hear again and again and again that at the source of everything. And even as I say it to you, Matt, I need to hear it. And I'm saying it because I need to hear it. The things that keep me up at night, the things that I wrestle with in my journal every day, all come. back to this, is it really love that's behind everything? Because if it's not, we're, and this is why the gospel, and even as I say the word

Starting point is 01:05:40 the gospel, I know in so many of our minds, my own included, the very word gospel's been connected to piety and do this and don't do that, and it is blasphemous to reduce the gospel message to moralism. Jesus was not, let me put it this way, the second person of the Trinity, the divine person, the logos, the word. This divine person was not humanized so we could be moralized. This divine person was humanized so we could be divinized. Morality is an integral aspect of the Christian life, but it is always only if it is true Christian morality. It is always only a response to the love we have received. This is love.

Starting point is 01:06:47 We could even say this. This is morality. Because morality is nothing but love, learning how to love. This is morality. This is love. Not that we first love God, but that he first loved us. And so my fundamental posture, and this is what scares the beep out of me, my fundamental posture is need.

Starting point is 01:07:16 Yeah. I think this is why we're so terrified of getting married, having a child, having multiple children. Yes, yes, yes. Why some people are horrified when people will have, children or more than one child, because the more out of control you are in a way. Yes. Like if you get married to someone, you're out of control. Yes.

Starting point is 01:07:34 Now, bound yourself to another person who's no more in control than you are. Yes. And then you're choosing to have more children that you can't have any more control over. But irony of ironies, I mean, you meet large families and you go, why are they joyful? Mm-hmm. And you don't understand, the world doesn't understand the joy of Christians, especially these poor souls who want to have children created by AI. and then downloaded into robots.

Starting point is 01:07:58 They must have no clue why they're sad. And I know Christians, we're all going through the veil of tears. None of us are not suffering, but there is a real joy. Yes. Those who give themselves over to the adventure of life. Yes. Trusting in a loving father.

Starting point is 01:08:11 Yeah, that's the key. Yeah, but I love that point too because, you know, like it's easy to go about our day when everything's going well and to just tell ourselves, no, I totally trust that God loves me and everything. But then when the shit hits the fan, then you've got to ask that very fundamental question that you and I may have asked at the very beginning of our conversion and with the same level of

Starting point is 01:08:30 sincerity, namely, is it actually true? Yeah. Like, actually, I need to know now. I just had a friend call me recently. He bumped his head and went to the hospital and found out he's got several brain tumors. And I was on the phone with him and it broke my heart and it's not good. And it's not, I don't think it's going to end. He's going, things aren't looking good.

Starting point is 01:08:52 I'll just put it that way. And it's like at that point, the kind of. question that must emerge from his heart, this faithful man who's been good to his wife and children, who loves Jesus Christ, loves the church, reads the scriptures daily. He's such a kind sage fella. But at this point, is it still true? Or is Christianity a hobby? Like, I don't know, other people have hobbies that keep them above water and keep their life just ordered enough so that the chaos doesn't consume them, but it's not really real, real. It reminds me of Therese of Lysier, 24 years old on her deathbed, having the deepest darkest doubts of atheism, she said, were plaguing her soul.

Starting point is 01:09:33 Yes. And her language was so stark, as you know, that the first editions, I believe, that part of it was removed because it was considered so scandalous. But like, that's why I love her. That's why I love her, because she was wrestling. and we must, must wrestle with our fear of death. One of my go-to lines in the New Testament, and I say go-to, because I have to go to it all the time, is Christ came to save us from enslavement to the fear of death.

Starting point is 01:10:11 Yeah, lovely. We are, we are enslaved. This is what the whole AI thing is. This is why we're pursuing uploading, consciousness to the cloud. They're not even hiding the agenda. They want immortality. But they, how do you upload? You don't. You can't. It's impossible. So what do they mean then? Do you know? They believe there will be this. I would think you'd be more, it'd be probably easier to turn yourself into a robot, namely you would have to die first, but there would have to

Starting point is 01:10:39 be this sort of, I don't know. Yeah, I don't even, I can't even conceive of what they think they mean by this, but it already demonstrates they don't know what a person is. This is Descartes, I think, therefore I am. And Descartes' dictum in the modern world has become, I think, therefore I am, whatever I think I am. Right. And that is only possible to determine what you, I get to determine what I am. I think, therefore I am, whatever I think I am, right? There are people today who identify as I'm a cat. And public schools are now saying we have to put kitty litter in the restroom for these students. It's actually happening.

Starting point is 01:11:23 Yeah. That happened at a school in Steubenville. I know. I know. Sounds so criss. I know. But how did we get there? We got there by rupturing the person from the body.

Starting point is 01:11:35 Yeah, making the body the enemy. Yeah. When we rupture the person from the body, the person no longer has a definition. I am whatever I think I am. Yeah. And if I am only what I think I am, then I can somehow conceive of this idea that I get to upload my consciousness to the cloud. Whatever that means, I don't even know. But it demonstrates the total blurring of things and persons.

Starting point is 01:12:06 And let's talk about those two words, artificial intelligence. And do they even belong together? What is intelligence? Yeah, intelligence comes from in... I should look this up because I don't want to get it wrong. I have it in my book. Hold on. Because I certainly know that Aquinas would say that animals are not intelligent,

Starting point is 01:12:27 cannot be intelligent. And I, you know, one of the reasons we can see that is you don't see birds building double-story nests or... Yeah, here we go. Here we go. Forgive me, I'll just read this. The word artificial applies to things that do not occur naturally. Right. It comes from ours, skill or craft, and fakere to make.

Starting point is 01:12:48 The word intelligence comes from inter between and legere to choose, pick out, discern. Yeah. Intelligence then is the art of discerning meaningfully between this and that. That's why I don't know if you caught that. But I remember studying Thomas and the lecturer talking about this. Like you don't see birds building double story nests or in like coming up with a new way to do things that they do what they do by they do. They do what they do. Right. Right. Right.

Starting point is 01:13:22 . And isn't interesting. Some birds will make a nest this way. Other birds make it with clay and that's it. And that's it. And that's that's innovation. Right. The one who makes it with clay is not going to innovate to make it with straw or whatever. But see, artificial and intelligence. Yeah. We have to ask if these words. even belong together. Do they belong together? No. Why? Because all that, what these machines are doing are mimicking intelligence.

Starting point is 01:13:55 Uh-huh. But you, intelligence is not something that is artificial. Intelligence is something that is personal. And I think Leo, Leo gets this right. Can I, can I read a passage here from Leo? This is really, really insightful. This is from magnificent humanity. He says, it is not possible to provide a single comprehensive definition of AI.

Starting point is 01:14:23 What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of, he puts it in quotes, intelligence. I'm very glad he puts it in quotes. We must avoid, must avoid the misconception of equating this type of intelligence with that of human beings. beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. Very well said. That's what these machines are doing. They are imitating only certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence. How? In speed and computational capacity. Right? Very important. What he's saying here, what it, what it is and what it is not. So obviously, with my intelligence, I said a little

Starting point is 01:15:19 while ago, it would have taken me three days of research in the library to find what I was looking for. I type it into chat GPT and in three seconds, it's there. So it is imitating certain functions of human intelligence, research and reading, and it surpasses my intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. I just saved myself three days of hard labor. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences. I love how careful he is with his words here.

Starting point is 01:16:06 He's saying, we call it that, but it's not really intelligent, right? So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences. Do not possess a body. Do not feel joy or pain. Do not mature through relationships. And do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean. All right, so I could imagine someone listening to that and going, yeah, okay, fine. So what?

Starting point is 01:16:45 Who cares? Seriously. Like, what's the point? The point? Like, we could just, we can all agree intellectually that AI isn't intelligent. So there you go. I've admitted that. Now what do I need to be on the lookout for?

Starting point is 01:16:58 Yeah, we need to be on the lookout for how immersing ourselves in this world. Yeah. It's going to change how we view ourselves. Exactly. It's going to change how the way we view ourselves and how will we come to view ourselves? Well, guess what? We already view ourselves this way, what way, as disembodied intelligence, as intelligence housed in flesh. I remember, I forget, I don't know if it was Naomi Wolf or someone had this really excellent quote about pornography. She said for most of human history, pornography has been such and such. The final line was today, real women are just bad porn. Yes, yes, yes. Real women are just bad porn.

Starting point is 01:17:44 And I think that that's kind of how we're going to begin to view ourselves. Like if we're merely intelligence with our bodies, then we're just bad AI. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And this is where we end up normalizing the imitation. Yeah. And then evaluating ourselves in light of the imitation.

Starting point is 01:18:03 Oh, for sure. And the fact that we even go down that path to begin with demonstrates, We've already lost sight of who we are. It's like, and I may be recalling that I brought up this example on another interview with you years ago. I'll let you know. But it's like the spice that I once saw in a grocery store that said genuine food court flavor. What is that?

Starting point is 01:18:34 So the food court at the mall, right, is the imitation. of mom's home cooking, right? It used to be like genuine mom's home cooking flavor or spice or whatever, but now the imitation has replaced mom's home cooking. And what we want now is genuine food court flavor, right? The imitation of home cooking has now become the norm, right? And you said maybe 20 minutes ago,

Starting point is 01:19:05 well, why do we even care if I have my body for eternity? What does it even matter? The very phrasing of that question, as you did, already demonstrates the rupture. Right? That's like, why do I want to be human for eternity? And that is exactly what we are rejecting our humanity. Why? We're rejecting our humanity because it causes us so much pain.

Starting point is 01:19:31 What we really want, what we really want is liberation from the pain. and we think the liberation from the pain is going to come by liberation from the body. And what we have as Christians. So this is all big picture stuff. Yes. What about like the day-to-day individual? Can I, can I, I want to get there. But to get there without the big picture stuff is to miss the big picture and not to know what's at stake in the little day to day.

Starting point is 01:20:07 So can I stay for a moment on the big picture? The big picture solution to the pain, right? We are in pain to be a human. What was the quote from Princess Bride? Life is pain, highness. Those who say otherwise are selling you something, right? There's so much pain in the human experience. And we rightly want to be liberated from it.

Starting point is 01:20:35 And if I can stay in the big picture, I'm going to go here. We are fighting a battle between good and evil. We're not fighting flesh and blood, as St. Paul says. We are fighting principalities and powers of a spiritual nature. The angelic realm is real. And it's where the great war in the heavenly places is being fought between good and evil. there is a

Starting point is 01:21:11 everything God made is good right we got to go way back here and I'm not forgetting we got to come to the very practical but we're not going to understand the very practical unless we get the big picture and the big picture is the battle between good and evil which is the battle between life and death

Starting point is 01:21:28 which is the battle between love and all that is opposed to love the reason I want to go to the little though is that I think that there are a lot of Christians who fully buy into that no I don't think they know what's going on No, I agree. Surely. The majority of Christians don't realize we're in a spiritual war. But my point is, I think, are many people who watch this show do. What I'm interested in is how adapting ourselves to AI is going to then reshape how we do. I can't talk about that unless I talk about this big picture. And I am utterly convinced Matt, traveling the world for the last 30 years, people don't know this picture. They know there's a battle between good and evil, but they don't know it's being fought over the body.

Starting point is 01:22:06 They don't know it's being fought over our gender. They don't know it's being fought over human sexuality. They, oh yes, sex is messed up in the world, and they think the solution is, I'm just going to go over here and live a spiritual life. You've fallen right into the trap. You have fallen right into the trap, and I'm so zealous about it

Starting point is 01:22:26 because it is a matter of life and death. And the devil doesn't give a flying beep whether he gets you through an animalistic indulgence of sex, or an angelistic rejection of it. Either way, he's got you. I just don't know who's doing the angelistic. That's why I have to paint this picture. I'm zealous about it because we, 80 to 90 percent,

Starting point is 01:22:54 this is what the priests themselves are telling me. 80 to 90 percent of the people who come to Mass believe a heresy, meaning what do they believe? They believe at the end of life my soul is finally liberated from the prison of the body. That is a heresy

Starting point is 01:23:12 that attacks our faith at its deepest foundations. It's an attack against the incarnation and those who cling to that belief and never let it go and never let themselves be purified of it the end goal of all heresies is what? Hell.

Starting point is 01:23:33 Hell! to get us to go in the wrong direction. Now there are plenty people who are innocent of it from a place of culpability. But make no mistake, the enemy is the one who ruptures the body and the soul to get us to go to hell. That's why I have to paint this picture

Starting point is 01:23:57 to then talk about the very practical things, the very specific day-to-day things, and we'll get there. Will you indulge me? I don't want to indulge you for too long. Okay. I want you to get to the particular. I'm going to push back and say, why, why are you afraid of the big picture?

Starting point is 01:24:15 I'm not afraid of the big picture. I'm just getting bored by it. But, okay, pause right there. To be bored by it is not to understand it. Because to see it rightly is to realize this is why we love Lord of the Rings. This is why we love the, you know, and superhero movies. Because of this whole battle between good and evil. If we want to win the war, we have to know what the war is.

Starting point is 01:24:38 We have to know what the enemy is fighting for. We have to know what he's after. And I don't think people know what he's after. Because we've given it to him. We've given him our bodies. Go ahead, take the body. I'm just going to live a spiritual life. You are in the enemy's clutches.

Starting point is 01:24:58 If you think Christianity is living a spiritual life divorce from the body, If you think you can have this spirituality over here and never deal with your body and your sexuality and your genitals and not realize what that has to do with eternal life, you think you can, you think you can, we have to understand what the enemy is after and what he's after is your body. Why?

Starting point is 01:25:26 Because Lucifer fell out of envy. What does he envy? What do we have that the angels don't have? Yep. The body. Bodies. And what do we get to do that angels never get to do? It feels like a stretch.

Starting point is 01:25:50 What do we get to do that angels never get to do? There's many things. Poo. Have sex. But what is sex? We get to participate with God. the Father, in doing through our bodies what the Trinity has been doing for eternity. The angels never get to do that.

Starting point is 01:26:16 And what is the Trinity doing for eternity? The Father for all eternity is generating the Son, not sexually. God is not sexual. But from all eternity, in a purely spiritual, purely divine mystery, the Father is generating the Son to share with the Son the ecstasy of the love that is the Holy Spirit. In Genesis, JP2 says,

Starting point is 01:26:52 it's as if the Trinity is having a conversation amongst themselves. And they say, let's make a creature that can do bodily what we do. male and female he created them and he blessed them and he said be fruitful i feel i think what it is is i'm asking you to tell me how i i i am affecting how we view our humanity and i'm wanting you to go from that end and you're starting from the other end i think that's why i'm and i think it's also because i've heard you say all this before and i think it's very important and i'm i'm fully

Starting point is 01:27:28 prepared to acknowledge that you're seeing something that i'm not seeing but what i'm finding what i find really fascinating is how our use of technology changes what we believe about ourselves and other people. And it sounds like you're saying, well, if you just knew the truth, then you would understand what AI is doing? We can't understand what's going on at a ground level, like right here in the nitty-gritty day to day, unless we, unless we put it in the context of what scripture calls the great mystery, the plan of the mystery hidden in God from eternity, St. Paul says, it is my mission in life as an apostle to make plain to everyone the plan of the mystery hidden in God from all eternity. I've been traveling the world for 30 years talking to Christian audiences.

Starting point is 01:28:24 Nobody even knows what that means, the plan of the mystery hidden in God from all eternity. Mm-hmm. St. Paul said it's my mission in life to make it plain to everybody. And we've reduced Christianity to moralism and ex-carnate spirituality. And I'm saying this is why we are so susceptible on the ground in a day-to-day basis to the lies of AI. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm zealous about it because it's a matter of life and death. It's a matter of heaven and hell.

Starting point is 01:29:02 And we don't see it. We don't understand its implications. And maybe I'm not communicating it well enough, but to have you say, let's get past that. So we get to, this is the plan of the mystery hidden in God from eternity that we don't understand.

Starting point is 01:29:28 And it's got to be, It's got to be proclaimed again and again until it sinks in and our eyes are opened and we see it. And we can now, holy snaky. Now I can see what the danger of AI is. Now I can see what the danger of spiritualism is, which I'm probably living in my so-called Christianity, which is really ex-carnate spiritualism, which is not only unchristian mat. Give me an example of this spiritualism

Starting point is 01:30:04 that you've seen recently, a particular instance of someone who's lived this sort of... Yeah. Why are you always talking about the body, Christopher? It's just about the soul. I don't know who you're doing. I believe you. I've just never encountered anyone

Starting point is 01:30:21 who would ask that question. I run into it over and over and over and over again. I get it, yep. the rupture. There's a quote I have in my book from Bishop Barron in which he says, the mere mention of heaven among Christians, I fear is just going to go right away

Starting point is 01:30:44 into the platonic direction of liberation from the flesh. Salvation from the flesh. It's not salvation from the flesh. It's salvation of the flesh. What is Christianity? The very foundations of our faith, the very beginning of Christianity, the very root of Christianity, is a woman opening her body, opening her womb, opening her fertility, opening her holy noble eros, opening her sexuality, opening her sexuality, opening her. her womanhood, not to the seed of an earthly husband, but to the eternal, immortal, invisible seed of God, the Father. And what happens in her womb is what's been happening in the Trinity

Starting point is 01:31:52 for all eternity. The generation of the sun. Heaven has entered earth through the sexuality of a woman. Matt, why for years were you addicted to porn? Is it a rhetorical question? It's a direct question. There's a reason you were addicted to porn because you were looking for the incarnation, but you didn't believe Christianity had it to offer. You didn't believe Christianity was going to give you what you wanted,

Starting point is 01:32:32 but you believed the enemy would give you what you wanted. Sure. I didn't know what Christianity was. Didn't know, exactly. Exactly. And what I'm saying do you is that 80 to 90% of the people in the pews don't know what Christianity is either. Because they believe a heresy that attacks Christianity at its foundations. And until we understand the terms of that battle, what Lucifer is after, he's after your body, he's after your sexuality, is after your fertility. That's what he's after. What's the dragon after in the book of revelations?

Starting point is 01:33:12 The child. The child in the womb. Why? Because that's the revelation in the flesh of the mystery of the Trinity. Christianity is the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity in the flesh. Christianity is God taking flesh. to enter all of our sufferings from which we demand, and rightly so, liberation. We demand liberation from the sufferings we experience in the flesh, from that horror of death.

Starting point is 01:33:53 But we're Platonists. We've bought into this idea at some level that the solution is rupture from the body. That is not only unchristian, it's anti-Christian. Where do you actually get your news about the Catholic Church from? The Catholic landscape online can be a pretty wild place to find the truth about what's going on in the church. And you also probably don't want to be getting your news about the church from secular sources, because they often know next to nothing. If you're looking for something more serious, check out the Catholic Herald. This isn't some Catholic website that appeared five years ago.

Starting point is 01:34:29 The Catholic Herald has been covering the life of the church since 1888. G.K. Chesterton actually wrote for it. Evelyn Waugh wrote for it. Monsigno Ronald Knox wrote for it. Even J.R.R. Tolkien wrote letters to the editor, which is a fairly extraordinary history. And today, they're continuing that tradition with news, analysis, and commentary on the church and the world from a traditionally Catholic perspective. It's measured, it's faithful, it's intellectually serious.

Starting point is 01:34:58 Serious writing for serious. readers. Right now, you can try it for 30 days free. Go to the Catholic herald.com and use promo code frad at checkout. That's the catholicherald.com code frad for 30 days free. Let's talk about, you said earlier you wanted to circle back to this and I think this would fit well is what you had to say about contraception and how it relates to this, rejection of the body. Yes. I've noticed a lot more Protestants coming on board with the Catholic view of being against contraception, not because of the Catholic Church teaches, but maybe because of health reasons or other such things.

Starting point is 01:35:32 I quote Mary Harrington in the book, and she's very insightful. You know Mary Harrington? No. I think I've heard of it. She's a secular journalist, and she's very smart on these issues, and she's getting a lot of press lately. She and Jordan Peterson had a long conversation. Look her up.

Starting point is 01:35:51 Mary Harrington. Young British woman? Yes. Yeah. She's your age, I think. Yeah, well, okay, so not young. She's certainly, you're young enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:01 I know who you're talking about. And she says the pill is the first transhumanist technology. Why does she say that? Because the pill is the first technology that we embraced to change human nature. Yeah. Right? Yeah. To willingly deform ourselves.

Starting point is 01:36:21 To willingly deform ourselves, right? The purpose of medicine and technology is to help something that's not working properly, to work properly. If I'm blind and I can get an operation to give myself sight, great. But if I'm seeing and I get an operation to blind myself, I'm working in the wrong direction. Yeah. Right. I may have an ulterior motive to blind myself. You know, we could come up with some strange analogy, but let's just go to fertility.

Starting point is 01:36:51 if you were having sex and you got pregnant, it does not mean something went wrong. It means something went beautifully right. The pill is taken with the specific intention when it's taken for contraceptive purposes of rendering a healthy functioning aspect of the organism unable to function healthily. It's the first move in the direction

Starting point is 01:37:17 of asserting my will over nature to change nature according to my will. That's fascinating. I mean, I knew that that was the case, but I hadn't really thought it through that that was the first medicine, quote unquote, that did that. Is there anything comparable to that prior?

Starting point is 01:37:32 Not prior. Fascinating, eh? Yeah. And when the pill debuted in 1960, many doctors, men and women of integrity, refused to prescribe it because they rightly saw it as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. The only thing I could think

Starting point is 01:37:50 that may have preceded that is perhaps there was some sort of medicine people would take to make themselves vomit to be less fat. I mean, there are examples of this prior. This wouldn't necessarily be medicine where people would put a large feather down their throat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, the same mentality is at play. Yeah, working against myself so that the nutritional effects don't take effect. Right, right. I want the pleasure of eating, but I'm going to vomit up the results. Same, you know, I want the pleasure of sex, but I'm going to vomit up the results. I'm trying to think out of our appetites, I guess those are the two, because there's no other appetite where we want to receive the pleasure without the results. Is there?

Starting point is 01:38:29 I'd have to give it some more thought. Anyway, but that is just really interesting that we've. Yeah, the point here is when I view the world through pill-tinted glasses, the goal of my body is now different. The orientation of my body is now different. First, let's look at the world without pill-tinted glasses. Okay, ears are meant for hearing, eyes are meant for seeing, lungs are meant for breathing, genitals are meant for generating. That's why I have them.

Starting point is 01:39:06 That's why we call them genitals, because they're meant to generate. That's the function of that organ, just like eyes are meant for seeing. but when you render your genitals unable to generate and continue to use your genitals, you are activating the generative function but you're thwarting it at the same time. Yeah. That's interesting.

Starting point is 01:39:31 In calling contraception, what did she call it? Mary Harran? The first transhumanist technology. Fascinating. Is she a Catholic? No, not to my knowledge. I don't, I think she had a Christian upbringing, but I think she's exploring Christianity.

Starting point is 01:39:47 Wow. Yeah. I've talked to her. And you can't, you can't, I would say anyone who wants to explore the question of contraception. Yeah. And keeps going will become Catholic. Yeah. Because the Catholic Church is the only institution on the planet that has understood this.

Starting point is 01:40:06 Yeah. And I agree in a unified way. Yeah. You have pockets of Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, who will condemn it. But they're always, it never seems to be as. full-throatedly as Catholics do. On our drive up here, and this applies to that, we were talking about how Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 talked about Russia spreading her, its errors throughout the world.

Starting point is 01:40:28 And you had a particular take on that. Yeah, yeah, and it is related to contraception. And I do want to, I'll go there and then I'm going to come back to your particulars. Well, end with the particulars. That's good. So in 1917, our lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. And they were given three, what's been called the three secrets of Fatima. The first was a vision of hell.

Starting point is 01:41:04 And you're like, why would the blessed mother show three children the horrors of hell? But anyway, it was a vision of hell. The second was had to do with a prophecy of the war, World War I, and then another war that would come if men did not repent. It was a prophecy of World War II. And Mary said, Russia, unless men repent, Russia will spread her errors around the world. But in the end, she said, my immaculate heart will triumph. All of this is very interesting and very important for what I'm trying to communicate. The third secret was not known until the year 2000 when John Paul II made it public.

Starting point is 01:41:55 I'll get to that in a moment. The errors of Russia, we rightly think of the spread of communism. But Marxist philosophy, which is at the root of communism, is trying to respond to inequalities in the world, which are very real. And Marx recognized the injustice of these inequalities. But the medicine, he suggested, proved to be worse than the disease. The real solution to inequality is not the elimination of differences, but learning to love in our differences.

Starting point is 01:42:40 And Marx rightly recognized that the fundamental difference at the foundation of culture is the sexual difference for the propagation of children. And he believed to solve the problem of inequalities in the world, we need to eliminate the gender distinction. Whoa. And what is the purpose of the gender distinction? Procreation. How do you eliminate the gender distinction?

Starting point is 01:43:07 Controception. To render the genitals unable to generate. You put those glasses on, pill-tinted glasses or condom color. glasses and eventually the very meaning of gender evaporates because what is the meaning of gender look at the Greek root gen we see the same root in words like generous generate progeny genealogy genetics gen means to give birth to to produce to originate to give birth to what does gender mean etymologically, the manner in which you generate new life. That's your gender.

Starting point is 01:43:49 Yep. Right? The male genders, genitals generates the next generation with sperm. The female genders, genitals generates the next generation with Ova. We used to call that the facts of life. Insert contraception into that sexual equation. The goal of sex is no longer the generation. of the next generation. It's thrown back on pleasure. There's nothing wrong with pleasure in and of

Starting point is 01:44:20 itself. Pleasure is a good, but it's not the greatest good. It's not the end. And it's not the end. It's not the goal. It's a pleasant accompaniment to the act of generation. God made it that way. And we can and should rejoice in it so long as we are rejoicing in what God intended. The generative act, the act which is meant to generate new life. When we zoom in on the pleasure and make it the goal, other people become a means to our pleasure. And we become utilitarian. And we're back to the whole question of thingifying the person.

Starting point is 01:45:03 I will value another person if you give me pleasure. So we have thingified the person. In that whole view, we have a utilitarian mind. So Marx believed we have to eliminate the gender distinction to bring equality. The error of Russia, the outgrowth is communism, but the foundation is all the gender confusion we're seeing in the world today. The promise was, in the end, my immaculate heart will triumph. Well, what's the immaculate heart? The immaculate heart, Ratzinger tells us in his commentary on the third secret of Fatima,

Starting point is 01:45:41 the immaculate heart is the pure heart blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see god where will we see god the only way to see god is through the body this is what christianity is transendorism bring that in yeah

Starting point is 01:46:01 so the idea that my body does not determine who I am right I think therefore I am whatever I think I am. If I think I'm a woman trapped in a man's body, well, I am because I determine who I am. Yeah. So you think that the errors that Russia spread throughout the world to some degree at least, isn't, is it trans ideology per se or are you just saying that's an offshoot? That's an offshoot. That's an offshoot of the fundamental rupture of the spiritual and the physical.

Starting point is 01:46:40 right, claiming that identity is not rooted in my body, but is just rooted in my consciousness, right? As soon as I claim my identity is not rooted in my body, then I am nobody. And my body does not tell me anything about who I am. Only my conscious thoughts tell me who I am. And if my body does not conform to my conscious thoughts, well, I'm going to use technology to alter my mind.

Starting point is 01:47:10 body according to my conscious thoughts. And that's where Mary Harrington's insight is so pertinent that the pill was the first step in using medical technology to alter my body according to what I wish it was rather than accepting what it is. And Paul the sixth said in Humane Vite, if we embrace contraceptive technology, men will come to the point of believing he can do whatever he wills with his body with no limits and that's the world we live in today yeah yeah yeah the third secret of fatima which was revealed by john paul the second on may 13th 2000 and may 13th is a feast of fatima was a vision of a bishop dressed in white getting gunned down by a spray of bullets and arrows which happened to john paul the second on may 13th

Starting point is 01:48:17 nineteen eighty one feast of our lady of fatima now a lot of people know the connection between jp2 getting shot on the feast of our lady of fatima but what a lot of people do not know is that that day when john paul the second was being driven into st peter square may 13th 1988 he was there to announce the establishment of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, of which I am a proud graduate. That was to be his arm for spreading the theology of the body around the world. What is the theology of the body? It is the antidote to the errors of Russia. What do we learn in the theology of the body? We learn the path to purity of heart. In other words, we learned the path to the triumph of the Immaculate Heart.

Starting point is 01:49:13 There were forces, and this is why I said we have to back up, and we have to understand what Lucifer's after. Why did JP2 get gunned down on May 13, 1981, before he could announce the arm that was going to spread theology, the body around the world? Because there were forces in the heavenly realms that did not want his teaching to get spread around the world

Starting point is 01:49:38 because it's the antidote to the error of Russia. Interesting. When JP2 recovered from the assassination attempt, he put the John Paul II Institute under the protection of Our Lady of Fatima.

Starting point is 01:49:53 Wow, I didn't know that. Making the connection himself that Our Lady saved him in part to get this theology of the body around the world. Sadly, I... I don't understand it other than the enemy has been after that institute from day one.

Starting point is 01:50:12 And he finally got his grubby, ugly, diabolical hands on it in 2018 when the whole thing was reorganized. And every professor who was faithful to John Paul II got the boot. And dissenters from Humanevite were put in charge. Any word that that'll be set right with Leo? Leo made some gestures in that direction soon after he was elected, but it might have been because, I don't know, I don't want to speculate and I don't want to, but I do know this. The enemy, Lucifer himself, was after that institute from day one. And the president of the institute in the 80s wrote to Sister Lucia, who was one of the Fatima visionaries. and because he understood the connection between the Institute and Fatima.

Starting point is 01:51:07 And he just said, Sister Lucia, please pray for the John Paul II Institute in Rome. It's under violent attack from within and from without. And when was this? This was 1982. Wow. This is under the pontific. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:21 Oh, yeah. Early on. Do you know what he was referring to specifically? Yes. Yes. They're very powerful forces. Humane Vite is, Humane Vite, if those who don't know are watching, Pope Paul the sixth document from 1968 of human life is the English translation,

Starting point is 01:51:38 which reaffirmed the church's constant teaching about the integrity of the sexual act, and we have no right to activate our generative powers and thwart them at the same time. So what, yeah, I understand there's a lot of dissent and things like that. Were there any specific ways the Institute was being attacked? Is it just from theologians, like dissenting theologians? Descenting theologians and higher-ups in the church who were trying to shut it down from the start. Wow. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:07 And there has been that constant attack for 30, 40 years. Interesting. Yeah. And it's because the issue, the issue of the day is the battle over the body. What's the meaning of our bodies? how does the body and how does the sexual difference reveal the plan of the mystery hidden in God for all eternity? So do you think if it weren't for the grace of God that the AI revolution might be the final nail in the coffin that the sexual revolution starts? So I'm sorry, rewind my mind.

Starting point is 01:52:43 Do you think, yeah, if it weren't for the grace of God, do you think it would be possible that the AI revolution could put the final nail in the coffin as to how we understand our humanity that may. You could say started at the sexual revolution. Obviously, you can go before then. But just like the sexual revolution changed how we viewed ourselves and each other and communion and sex and children. Do you think there's a similar threat? Not that AI is intrinsically evil in the way that certain behaviors that were promoted back then and today are. Yes. The AI embraced uncritically and it is being embraced uncritically by many, many, many people.

Starting point is 01:53:22 Is the nail in the coffin. of the modern push towards excarnation, rupturing spirit and flesh. I love how you called it that in your book. Did you come up with that term? I mean, I understand. I mean, I don't know. I don't think I came up with it.

Starting point is 01:53:42 But, no, I don't think I came up with it. Incarnation, excarnation. How do we test the spirits, St. John says in his letter? He says, we must test the spirits. What are the Holy Spirits and what are the Unholy Spirit? He says the Holy Spirits, the good spirits are those that affirm the incarnation, Christ in the flesh. The unholy spirits are those who deny Christ come in the flesh. You say, you know, people are accepting this uncritically.

Starting point is 01:54:10 I think I'm accepting this uncritically. I don't know how you can't. Partly because it happens, I know it happened overnight in one sense, but it is kind of incremental in another sense. You know, like I think to myself now, given what I know about the smartphone when it came out, Would I have bought into it or would I have went? No, thank you. But it just sort of happened so gradually. Like the smartphone of 2008 or whatever is kind of stupid compared to the smartphone today.

Starting point is 01:54:36 And I presume that AI is going to look very different, obviously, in a couple of years as it will today. So I'm accepting it uncritically in that I use it. Yeah. I see the benefit of it. How do people use it? Yeah. Give me some advice. How should I be interacting with AI?

Starting point is 01:54:53 How are people interacting with it? that in a way that's maybe deforming how they view themselves and others. Yes, we should be very, very cautious of how AI is programmed to want us to personify it. Okay. Yeah. For example, I typed something into Google AI recently. And it, you know, it's calculating, but it says thinking, you know, thinking, dot, dot, dot, as it's trying to bring up.

Starting point is 01:55:27 No, it's not thinking. That is, that is some. A bastardizing language. That is bastardizing. Exactly. It is bastardizing language. Machines cannot think. They can calculate.

Starting point is 01:55:38 Yeah. And if, if I can be thoughtful about you and you would feel affirmed as a person. Yep. But if I were calculating in my relationship with you, yeah. You would feel violated. Yeah. Different connotation. Different connotation.

Starting point is 01:55:54 Different meaning. different word, different reality. Machines cannot think, right? They can calculate. And they can calculate with speed far beyond what we have. So that's one grave danger. Beware of how AI...

Starting point is 01:56:12 And then would you recommend to like Catholic companies that are kind of creating AI to... I heard a sort of debate recently between a fellow called Zach from Truthly and Mark Barnes. and one of his problems was the chat bot interacting with something. I saw that same conversation. What did you think of it?

Starting point is 01:56:31 I think Mark Barnes has some very important points he's making. Yeah. I think sometimes he has made them without proper distinctions, but I will give him credit because he recently came on another conversation I heard in which he admitted he had failed to make important distinctions. What he's really critical of is chatbots, which are programmed to get us to interact with them, as if they were persons.

Starting point is 01:56:56 And I share that. I share that strongly. Yep, yeah. And he, he is rightly saying that is not right. I agree, Mark. It's not. He has not properly made distinctions that there are other functions of AI that are not doing that. And it's made it sound, without some of those proper distinctions, it can make it sound

Starting point is 01:57:17 like AI itself is the problem. AI is not itself the problem. but nor, Pope Leo is very clear on this, nor is AI a neutral technology. Right. Because it's programmed, right? It's programmed to have what appears to be agency.

Starting point is 01:57:40 And so decisions are being made, decisions, right? We have to put all this in quotes. Decisions are being made by computers that take agency, out of human hands and gives it to machines. And so there are assumptions in the way that these machines are programmed that already have a faulty understanding of human being. And what's hard is we have rule no control over that.

Starting point is 01:58:10 That's something baked into the foundations of the particular AI user. We don't have control over it, but the programmers of AI do. Yes, yes. And here's the quote I start the book with. And I think this is a good summary of Leo's perspective. He says, let's not fear artificial intelligence, but constantly keep the question of the human in play. So important. So important.

Starting point is 01:58:38 Again, I love magnificent humanity as his frame. Yeah. What I had hoped, maybe it's even wrong to demand it out of a document. of this nature. But he said over and over again boldly, beautifully, powerfully that we are magnificent. He didn't unpack much why we're magnificent or what makes us magnificent.

Starting point is 01:59:06 And so that's my goal in my book. The truth and the lie, what it means to be human in the age of AI, is all about the magnificence of our humanity is precisely the call to a body Paterally participation. The other thing... In the divine ecstasy. The other thing I find a little dehumanizing is how you can't write an email today without

Starting point is 01:59:33 it telling you how to write it better. People are running all their email or writing them on... Well, if you use Gmail, for example, I don't have this feature, but it may, you can just click a button, it'll rewrite it for you. It'll show you how you didn't write it as efficiently as you could off, right? But you know, that sense where you're like, you know, it's like... You know, like suppose I did that to you, like, and I probably have done that to you. Like, let's say you text me and maybe it has an automated response, like, sounds good.

Starting point is 01:59:57 And I send that back to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're getting to the point where are people even writing emails, you know, like that's just. I am very cautious about that. And you'll get an email and go, is this from him? Yes. I have an example of that where I felt violated. I had asked a friend of mine who is much more versed in using AI.

Starting point is 02:00:20 than I am. I had raised some of these questions about the dangers of AI and where are we replacing persons? Where are we thingifying persons and where are we personifying things to return to that phrase? And guess how he answered my email?

Starting point is 02:00:38 Oh, wow. He typed all those questions into chat GPT and responded to me without telling me. What? Yeah, he, I mean, I don't know if he wanted wanted me to think he, that was, those were his own thoughts. So you asked him, how are we thingifying persons and personifying things? Just a simple question.

Starting point is 02:00:57 Yeah, simple question. And he wrote back and was just AI. It was just an AI response. And you could tell because it had no personality. Yeah, it didn't, it, and that's, that's, that's the danger. Remember earlier you were saying, and I thought it was really insightful how you put it, that, um, the danger of, of normalizing the imitation. Right. at this stage of things, people who grew up learning how to talk from other human beings

Starting point is 02:01:28 can spot AI chat, AI talk, you know, like, it's just something's off. Yeah. And what's off, we're off from what? We're off from the human. We're off from the way actual persons talk and communicate. Wow. But more and more, especially the younger generation, they're learning how to construct sentences and write paragraphs.

Starting point is 02:01:50 In fact, they're not learning how to write paragraphs because chap GTPT is doing it for them. That, the imitation then becomes the norm, and when the imitation of humanity becomes the norm of humanity, we've lost our humanity. And that's the direction we're going in. And I wrote, I was pretty angry about this conversation.

Starting point is 02:02:12 Did you pull him out? Yeah, I said, hey, this is not you. You this, I felt violated. Whoa. How did he receive that? He said, he said, you're right. I should have at least let you know that I, that's, those were not my original words. Yeah, that would be another thing.

Starting point is 02:02:31 And I said, I wanted to hear from you. I didn't want to hear what chat GPT thought. I wanted to know what you thought. Yeah. Uh, and the fact that you thought that your thoughts could be simply presented to me by a computer's thoughts, which are not thoughts, but it's just the calculation of what word should follow this word based on vast calculation of data. We are robbing our humanity of our humanity. I don't know where I'm going to go with this analogy. It could fall flat and be super awkward, but you can help me.

Starting point is 02:03:12 So back when pornography was like big production before the kind of crap and it's all crap, but the stuff that people upload today from their phones say, right, to these websites. But back in the 80s, 90s, you know, it was all lights and. But then there came a time where they saw why people might like it to appear as if this was rough and ready on the camera. So that was part of it. They wanted it to, they wanted it to be grainyer footage or less produced because it gave you the sense that this was more raw, more on or something like that. Okay, so here's the analogy.

Starting point is 02:03:47 I find sometimes when I write an article, I'm happy when it feels a bit sloppy. Yes. Does that make sense? I don't want to be too perfect because I have been accused. I wrote a book called Jesus Our Refuge and people said he wrote this with AI. And I really didn't. It was actually written. Now, there were a few paragraphs that I put in and said, how could I say this better?

Starting point is 02:04:05 I 100% the book is not written by AI. But yeah. It's like music. It's music today in which. Everything's on a grid and the producer goes in there and lines up every note on the grid. Oh. I want... This is why we want jazz.

Starting point is 02:04:21 Jazz will see a resurgence. Although you can do AI Jazz. So it's screwed there too. I want the drummer's tempo to oscillate. I want there to be even fluctuation in voice. I don't want a perfect pitch voice every note, right? Because that's human. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:04:38 That's why when we hear a... singer, mouthing her song? Yes. We're so offended. We're offended in the same way you were offended when you got that email. Exactly. Millie Vanilli. You remember Millie Vanilli were these, this duo from the late 80s and they were found out to be just lip syncing everything.

Starting point is 02:05:00 They couldn't sing, but they had the look that the producer wanted. So he taught them how to dance and sing along. And when that came out, they were on MTV or something and the tape recording. had a malfunction and they actually walked off stage because they couldn't recover. And it was this brutal. And they lost their awards and their Grammys. Yeah, of course you feel offended. If you don't feel offended by that, you've just been had, right?

Starting point is 02:05:31 Yeah, yeah. And that is the danger of imitation passing for reality. My hope is, and I've suggested this, that I imagine, prices for in-person events like sporting games or poetry recital is going to go through the roof as people just want to be with other humans again. Do you think there? Yes, yes. Do you think there's any hope there? Yes, I do.

Starting point is 02:05:56 Where do you see this is going? We can only take the disembodied approach so far. And when we realize and we will realize, it's an illusion. we will when we're when we're when we're pushed into that corner of disembodiment we will miss our senses we will miss the flavors of of life we will miss the fragrances of life we will miss the i i quote right i unpack a scene from the Barbie movie yeah in the book never watched it but i liked your take on it yeah i didn't I didn't realize that it started off by her realizing she would die or what was that line she says in the book. So Barbie, Barbie, you ever think about how you can. Yeah, Barbie land represents a utopia where nobody dies and everybody's body is perfect and no blemishes and no bad breath. And it's the illusion that we don't die.

Starting point is 02:06:57 We don't decay. We don't get old. We don't get gray hair. And they're at this party. Everybody's dancing, thinking everything's great. and Barbie says, do you ever think about death? Oh, that's amazing. And then there's this record screech like,

Starting point is 02:07:11 like, it sounds like something I would do at a party. It's a brilliant movie making. Yeah. Was it a good, did you like the movie? I liked aspects of the movie. There are aspects I didn't like, but there are aspects I really did like. And what I did like is the trajectory of the movie

Starting point is 02:07:29 is that Barbie has to leave Barbie land, idealized utopia nobody dies, nobody has bad breath she has to leave Barbie land and discover that people age and people suffer and she's sitting on this park bench

Starting point is 02:07:47 and who's the Margo whatever she's you know that Ozzy girl yeah in in Hollywood terms she's perfectly beautiful and she's sitting next to this aged rinkly old woman

Starting point is 02:08:00 and she'd never seen an old woman before because she just lived in Barbie land. And she's come to the real world. I don't have to put that in quotes. It is the real. She come to the real world and sees an aged woman for the first time. And she's able to recognize that she's beautiful. It's very poignant.

Starting point is 02:08:21 And the director, Greta Gerwig, I think is her name. She said, I had to fight to keep that scene in the movie. And she said, without that scene, I don't know what this is. movie is about. And that, that was very telling. The movie is about coming to terms with our true humanity that ages, that wrinkles, that goes gray, that gains weight, that dies. And that, you showed me that scene of Peter Craft, that interview that you had with him. Do you want to say something about that so people know what we're talking about here? Yeah, people may have seen it. It was, he was in studio two weeks after the death of his wife and he said that a couple of hours

Starting point is 02:09:02 after her death, he fell in love with her again. Here is this emaciated, you know, worn out body. And then he paused and teared up and said it was as beautiful as a crucifix. What a lion, huh? As beautiful as a crucifix. Yeah, my body given up for you. And there, there is the paradox. The other thing I liked about what he said is that he began with just the honest reality.

Starting point is 02:09:28 Like, let me hear, when you're, when you row old and you're, wife is fat and stupid and even nasty. Yeah. And I love that because I think that's also maybe a Hollywoodifying. The only way Hollywood would be at a reckon with what he said is by saying, you'll be just as beautiful physically and just as perfect as you were on the day you were married. Because again, it doesn't want to look at the fact that we actually get uglier as we get older. And why are we going to Botox and plastic surgery that, let's be honest, makes people look plastic.

Starting point is 02:10:02 I can tell you why it's called enslavement to the fear of death. Yeah. And what's hard, I think, is I personally don't have a moral objection necessarily, like in principle to women. I guess men do it as well, to women doing this. But I think what's got to be hard for women is more and more people do it around them. They're going to feel weird if they don't. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 02:10:29 I agree with you. My heart breaks. I remember I was giving a talk in Florida and this older lady came up to me with her husband and just had been, oh my gosh. So much, I don't know what it is, Botox or whatever. And my heart really broke for her because she was very ugly, but in a strange way.

Starting point is 02:10:49 Like this is the thing. I think like we have two options. We can be ugly and normal looking or ugly and strange looking. Those are your options. You choose. Yeah. I it's almost like because the body is breaking down and you're desperately trying to keep it together.

Starting point is 02:11:06 Yeah. But from that line from that excellent radio head song, which you haven't, if you haven't listened to you should, it's called fake plastic trees. I don't think I know that one. Oh, he used to do surgery for girls in the 80s, but gravity always wins and it wears him out. Oh. Come on. So what, what then is the alternative to Botox and Plotox? plastic surgery.

Starting point is 02:11:35 It's knowing who you are. This is what my wife would say, right? Because she hasn't got any of that stuff. And like I said, neither of us would judge. Like, I really am not, I don't want any woman who's watching this to feel judged by me. I have no judgment towards you. I understand it. But the reason my wife, who wouldn't judge you either, hasn't gotten it, is I think she just

Starting point is 02:11:56 knows who she is. So she's confident in who she is. So as her body ages, she doesn't feel less. of who she, this doesn't attack her dignity. I mean, she like myself and you and everyone else has to wrestle with our age. Yeah, there's, I think we have to have just a recognition that every human heart

Starting point is 02:12:18 is looking for love, looking to be loved. And when we believe the lie that I'm unlovable, if I don't look a certain way, then I'm going to spend my life trying to look a certain way to, to. We're very simple, aren't we? Assure myself that I'm lovable. We're very simple human beings.

Starting point is 02:12:36 We just want to love and to be loved. It's that simple. There's nothing more. In a way. Yeah. I saw an image of myself just recently as I'm looking at my own places in my life of prayer of where I don't believe I'm lovable. And I just saw myself in like this cement block, like frozen in this lie that I was told in so many ways by a, you know, growing up in a culture

Starting point is 02:13:05 that doesn't know what love is. The fundamental lie I was told was I'm not lovable. And I thought the solution to that was to spend my life winning the approval of the same people who were telling me I'm not lovable. Funny that, eh? Yeah, and it's going in the exact wrong direction. Like I'm just reinforcing the lie.

Starting point is 02:13:31 Like my, the heart. That's good. How are you reinforcing the lie? What does that mean? I'm reinforcing the lie by saying, I believe you that I'm not lovable as I am. So I have to change myself to be lovable. Right.

Starting point is 02:13:46 That's the lie. You're agreeing with the lie. I'm agreeing with the lie. Yeah. I'm agreeing with the lie. And then I, in agreeing with the lie, I set up these two categories of lovable, in this category and unlovable in that category.

Starting point is 02:14:04 And then I become the arbiter of who's in which category, right? That's what the cool kids and the nerds are all about. You know, the cool kids get to determine the nerds are unlovable. The smart kids or the jocks, all those clicks we have. I mean, it's all every bit of it. We're just looking for love. There's a song by John Bellion. I wouldn't even know who John Bellion is

Starting point is 02:14:28 if it weren't for my kids. Yeah. But John Bellion has a song called Stupid Deep. And stupid, I learned from my kids, means like really deep. Stupid deep means like really deep, profoundly deep. And he says, what if all the things I've done were just attempts at earning love because the whole inside my heart is stupid deep? There it is.

Starting point is 02:14:57 That's it. The well is deep. The well is deep. I have, I don't know if you're bringing this in for a landing, but I have a few final things I want to say before we bring it in for a landing. And again, the only reason we're going to bring it in for a landing is because of our other things that we're going to do. Yeah. I'm going to confess that I got frustrated with you here in this conversation, which you probably could tell because you're a good idea.

Starting point is 02:15:20 I got frustrated with you too. You want to tell me why or do you want me to start? You can start. I'll listen. I got frustrated because, and this isn't your fault. This is just how I felt. And I love you. So I love that we can be this honest.

Starting point is 02:15:33 Yeah. I was looking forward to hearing your thoughts on AI. And I feel like you came in with a lot of things that I've heard you say so many times before. And almost the exact same way you've said them before. And I was just trying to break you out of that. So I could hear some more raw thoughts and more on what I would feel to be more honest conversation back and forth. Yeah. I hear you, Matt.

Starting point is 02:15:56 And I receive that. And here's where I got frustrated with you. Because I don't think you were listening to me. Okay. And I, I, I, like, you were just like, I've heard that before, and kind of dismissing it. And, like, I have a burning, aching zeal. Like, it's... It's overwhelming sometimes.

Starting point is 02:16:31 I don't want to get melodramatic about it, but it is overwhelming to see something that JP2 spent five years of his pontificate trying to tell the world. And in 30 years of doing this work, it so often just gets dismissed, kind of pushed aside, like, nah, man. And I want to, like, I want to shh.

Starting point is 02:17:04 shake people until they listen, which itself would be a violation of the dignity of the person and incommunicability, as we were talking about earlier. But I am utterly convinced of some fundamentals as an evangelist as one who feels the suffering of the world deeply. And I feel like I mean, I remember when I first discovered JP2's teaching, and I knew I was holding in my hands the answer to the crisis of our day. And I had no clue what I was up against in sharing it. And I've run into just walls like, no, you're not listening. You're not hearing what I'm trying to say.

Starting point is 02:17:58 And I felt like I was fine in that a little bit in you today too. And maybe I'm not articulating it well, or maybe I'm not articulating it with freshness or maybe I've just said the same thing so many times I'm stuck in my rut and I accept your pushback and I even asked you to push me push back before the interview started

Starting point is 02:18:17 if you see me going in my rut and you probably did but I want to try to bring this in for a landing in a way that I this is what I want to tell the world this is what I have to say it is hard to be a human being is really flipping hard to be a human being. And so much of it has to do with the suffering we experience being incarnate creatures.

Starting point is 02:18:51 And the enemy's solution to that pain is a false solution. He basically says to us, you can have the happiness you want without the cross. You can have the happiness you want without dealing, with those bodily sufferings. And I've fallen for that. I've fallen for that illusion. And it's the promise of heaven,

Starting point is 02:19:22 but it ends in hell. What's the real solution? It's not salvation from our sufferings. Ultimately, it is. But the way we, ironically, or paradoxically, the way we get to the salvation from our sufferings is through them by passing right through them.

Starting point is 02:19:53 And we have a God who's seeing the plight of our bodily sufferings and they're not merely bodily. I want to say human sufferings are human sufferings, which are always a meeting point of spirit and matter, that's where the suffering is.

Starting point is 02:20:16 It's right there. Is it ever merely psychological or spiritual suffering? Is it ever merely physical suffering? Isn't it always a marriage of the two? You know, I've had some excruciating physical sufferings in my life. I broke my femur in a ski accident. And it was excruciating physically, but it's not just physical. Nothing is just physical because we are spiritual and physical creatures through and through.

Starting point is 02:20:53 And it is a false salvation to say you can escape that by just being a consciousness, just being spiritual. How does true salvation come by a God who looks at the point? plight of our human sufferings, which are always spiritual and physical, and says, I'm coming to be with you in them. I'm coming to be with you in them. I'm taking on flesh. I'm wedding myself to flesh forever. From this point on, God always has a body. And from this point on, God's body. And from this point on, God's body bears the marks

Starting point is 02:21:44 of having borne all of our sufferings all of them you were sharing some sufferings with me earlier today and I know they're deep and they're already contained

Starting point is 02:21:59 they're already redeemed in his body in his body and if we consist this is what I want to tell the world for whoever will listen if we really want salvation from our sufferings it is not by living a spiritual life divorced from our bodies if our approach to spirituality is is to divorce ourselves from our bodies we can make zero sense of a god who has wed

Starting point is 02:22:39 himself to our bodies. It goes in the other direction. Christianity is not the flight from the physical to reach the spiritual. It's the opening of the physical to let the spiritual in, to let the divine in. And I put on the table with you a little while ago in our conversation, why did you go to porn? Because you have a craving, as do I. for the beauty of a woman what are we really looking for we're looking for Jesus Christ and how does Jesus Christ come to us

Starting point is 02:23:24 through the beauty of a woman a woman's body that's Christianity it's God in the flesh Christianity is a theology of the body and that's what I'm trying to tell the world.

Starting point is 02:23:46 Why did you write this book? I mean, it sounds like the solution to this AI revolution that may cause us to misunderstand who we are and what we're for may have been answered in your other books because you're talking about what the person is and is for. So what's new in this? Yeah, I say... Is it just contextualizing that conversation in the...

Starting point is 02:24:10 In part, but I also in the very... process of contextualizing what I've said in many other books in the context of AI, which is a new endeavor for me, things started to open up. Things started to, I started to see things that I hadn't seen before. One of my favorite parts of the book is when I talk about the story that our belly buttons tell. Do you remember that section? I don't, I didn't read that part. You didn't read that part. But I think I get that. the point you can share it yeah yeah this this i watched a a documentary in my part of my research was watching the a i doc did you see that came out maybe six months ago it had a wide theatrical release secular movie and i was so taken by the fact that the writers i think they're jewish um and they're probably secular jews but they understood that at the root of this a i question is the

Starting point is 02:25:12 question of what it means to be human, and at the root of what it means to be human is man, woman, and child. Their whole approach to framing what AI is and the risk of it was to show home movies of their own marriage and their parents' marriage and their childhood and the excitement that their parents had when they found out they were going to have a baby. And it's this context of man, woman, and child. And at the end of the movie, the, the, the, producer, director, writer of the whole movie, says to his wife, I know how I'm going to end the movie, babies, because this is what it's all about. It's all about the dignity of life. And I was like, right on, dude, he gets it. And what is under attack in our world when we fail to understand

Starting point is 02:26:09 man, woman, child, and we think humanity is this disembodied intelligence, we are failing to see the miracle and mystery of your and my existence and how we got here. And the research I did was about the number of sexual unions in our family trees. It's always been, you know, you're not only the end result of your parents' sexual union, but of every. prior. And I've always talked about that and thought about that, but I never put numbers to it. And it's hard to put numbers to it. But I found this biologist who had done some research. And he says, it's not an exact science, but based on calculations, here's a rough estimate. Everyone alive today, he imagines, has about 10 million ancestors. That means five million

Starting point is 02:27:10 sexual unions that led to your coming into existence. And for every one of those five million sexual unions that is behind your being Matt Frad, it had to be that sperm and that egg in each and every sexual union. Or you wouldn't exist. And he says the odds of this, the odds of this is something like he's trying to he says the math is incomprehensible but he says let me try to put it in terms that might make some sense he says it's like

Starting point is 02:27:53 800 million people the population of Europe flipping a coin and every coin coming up heads those are the chances of your existence and I would add unless it's not just chance, but it's deliberate. And there's love.

Starting point is 02:28:16 Love guiding bodies because love wanted your body, your body person, to be. Our bodies tell that divine story. That's what I'm trying to tell the world. Our bodies tell a divine story. Well, thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for talking about this. And now, are you the head of the Theology of the Body Institute?

Starting point is 02:28:42 I am the president of the Theology of the Body Institute, yes, in the flesh. Tell people what they can, where they can go, how they can, are you still doing courses? Oh, yeah, yeah. We have a certification program. We have a master's degree program. We recently added a doctoral program. What? All in conjunction, we don't offer the degrees, but our courses count towards the degrees offered by Pontifex University.

Starting point is 02:29:07 Oh, yeah. But most people take our courses, which we offer in a five-day format, retreat format, or online. You can take at your leisure. You can find all out what we're doing out at TheologyThebody.com. Something I'll hold out to single people. This is a new endeavor we have. We have a program called Ignite Hope, where we are gathering young adult. I think we take up to like 35 or, I don't know exactly,

Starting point is 02:29:39 35 or 40 adults who are looking for serious dating relationships and we hold these singles coming together in an environment. Come on. Yeah. Has it been successful? We've done it once and we're doing it again in October. Is it like half men, half women? It has to be equal numbers of men and women.

Starting point is 02:30:00 And so I'm putting a call out to the men. How awkward must that be? Guess who responds jumps on it and guess who's slow to jump on it. The women jump right in and the men are like, I don't know, I don't know. So guys. Do you have certain age ranges or how do you? I don't, I'm not personally running it. I think it's, you know, early 20s to 40.

Starting point is 02:30:21 How long is the course? Oh, it's just a weekend. A weekend. Yeah, it's a weekend. A weekend of getting to know each other. Oh, my God. There are dances. There, you know, there's speed dating.

Starting point is 02:30:32 I'm so glad you're doing it. It's got to be done. It does have to be done. And we have, I think we have one marriage out of last year's event. Because speed dating is one thing. You show up, you're there for a couple hours. If it's humiliating, you go home. But I could not imagine what it must be like going to a retreat center and going, oh gosh.

Starting point is 02:30:53 We're all here for the same reason. I know, I know it's awkward on the one hand. Yeah. Does it get, I mean, you know what it's like to be a, you're a good communicator. You feel what people are feeling in the audience. Do you feel their awkwardness decrease over the weekend or not really? Yeah, it did. It did.

Starting point is 02:31:09 They come in on, I think, a Thursday night or Friday, and by Saturday, the nerves were gone. And there was initially there's like nervous conversation. And then by Saturday, people are having a good time. They're relaxing. They're dancing. What's the best thing you've seen other than this that's helping men and women get together today? Because here's my thought in a nutshell, right? Technology is the extension of human power.

Starting point is 02:31:39 The further the extension, right, it's not just a shovel we're talking about. We're talking about all sorts of things today. The further that extension has become, the more isolated we've become, since we don't need each other the way we used to need each other. We don't even need to bump into each other to ask directions or anything like that. Goodness gracious, if you go to Walmart, you're not going to ask somebody where something is. You already know they don't know. Yeah. Because they don't need to know and they don't care.

Starting point is 02:32:03 They don't care. So you just look it up. Yeah. Anyway, so human communities have become fractured, I think. Yes, yes, yes. So just humans in general are fractured. So to layer on top of that romantic community. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:32:17 It's just doubly as difficult, I think. I think that's what it is. It's brutal. You're, I think you, you. Because I was given, my wife and I were given, like, dating advice when people would ask us. And I remember, I remember the podcast where I could tell it wasn't working anymore. because I was a different creature to the young people who were listening. I'm like, oh, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Starting point is 02:32:37 I don't, yeah. They were like, they had to tell me, you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm like, cool, I'll shut up then. I look back at the dating that I did in the 80s and 90s, and thank God, thank God, I'm not in that situation today. I don't, it's so brutally difficult and painful. And the fracture is, as you do. described it, I think, is a major culprit. In addition to this course, that people can go, what's it called, by the way?

Starting point is 02:33:07 It's called Ignite Hope. Oh, yeah, you said that, sorry. Ignite hope. In addition to that, are you seeing other? Well, we've had a lot of marriages, actually, over the years of people who met at our courses. Bobby and Jackie Angel met at a T-O-B course. That's right. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:33:20 We almost have to trick people to come to conferences. Like, trick them into the Ignite Hope, but just so they feel less awkward. Catholic Match seems to be pretty great. Whenever I talk about Catholic match, people in the comments will tell me that they met on that. And I don't like the idea, nor does anybody, I think, really like the idea of having to find people on an app that feels so gross. Yeah. But what's the alternative? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:33:43 I think there are lots of people who have had great marriages meeting online. But I think the danger of these sites is the commodification of love where, you know, it's like you go on looking for a product description. Yeah. When we commodify the person, and it's not, it can be avoided, but you have to be very intentional in avoiding the commodity. If you're doing this, doesn't that kill you? I don't like your nose swipe. And we all know what it's like. When you see someone, like many of us have had the experience of falling in love with people that didn't initially blow us off our feet.

Starting point is 02:34:32 Yeah. sweep us off our feet, but their personality shown through and then you saw who they were. In other words, like their body looked different before you knew them. Yes, yes. In my own marriage, Wendy and I were friends for three years, and I hadn't thought to ask her out because I was interested in somebody else. And we were getting to know each other. She moved away to New Jersey.

Starting point is 02:34:55 I was living in Maryland, and we had these beautiful phone conversations in which I was getting to know her. And I was like, why have I never thought to ask her out? And when I finally did ask her out, there, there was a very specific moment where scales fell off my eyes. And I saw her for the first time. And I wish I could proclaim to the world that that was the last time I needed integration. It was not.

Starting point is 02:35:25 But it gave me, I could weep at the thought, of having not sought that integration and passed up the love of my life and I see people doing this all the time like oh she's not my type I'm not even going to consider her he's not my type I'm not even to consider her what is that what is that what are you looking for

Starting point is 02:35:52 what do you mean type I mean I get it if it's like this person is not a faithful Catholic or like core values I get it I'm not attractive to me, I think it's what they mean. Yeah, but what does it mean to be attracted to a person? And Peter Craf's interview or that little clip you showed me, he said, your question was, what would you say to young people about getting married? And he said, if you cannot imagine loving this person when, and he's speaking from the male

Starting point is 02:36:25 perspective, when she's old and wrinkly and fat and nasty, don't marry her. now. I mean, there's, yeah, I mean, I agree, obviously, I agree with them, but I think that you can't know that in the initial stages of getting to know each other. It would be weird if you wanted to date someone you weren't initially attracted to. That's kind of weird. Do you have, of course, but, but are we only accepting a paradigm of attraction that is skin deep? Yeah. Are we looking for an integral attraction of body and soul or are we merely? looking for the external. I think you do merely look for the external in the beginning, don't you just naturally? Well, JP2 calls it the raw material, like sensuality,

Starting point is 02:37:11 attraction to one's appearance. Of course. Of course that plays a huge role. Of course. But he says, it's only the raw material that is meant to lead you to a more mature love of the entire body, soul person. So perhaps the problem is if we're not, interacting with other human beings in communal settings. We never have time for a personality to come through, to shine through. Which is why I said, if this is your approach, oh, I don't like your nose, swipe. What can you possibly know about that person? All you are doing is an initial evaluation of outer appearance. Nope, don't like it, don't like it, don't like it. And if I, if I had been that person and I lived in a time of apps and Wendy had had had, had, had,

Starting point is 02:38:01 I probably would have swiped. I don't even know how to choose a show on like... Let me like... I just have to say this. So the whole world hears me. Not because she is not physically attractive. But she wasn't my... Yeah, type until you got to know her.

Starting point is 02:38:15 Until I got to know her. Whatever type. See, I don't even know what that means anymore because I so love my wife. I don't even know what the hell I was thinking now because I so love her. I love her. The whole her.

Starting point is 02:38:27 The whole her. And that's what Peter Crafe was saying. If you don't love the whole... person. Right? Love has to reach the person. If it doesn't reach the person, your love has a shelf date.

Starting point is 02:38:42 There's a shelf life on your love if it hasn't reached the person. And that's what Peter Crafe was saying, because the externals are going to become wrinkly and gray and old. Sorry, we got to wrap up. Final thoughts? Final thoughts. Yeah, we live in a world

Starting point is 02:38:59 that is promoting a vision of our humanity antithetical to our humanity. And unless we are consistent and persistent in being resistant to that vision, we're going to buy into it. We have to have an authentic vision of our humanity in order to recognize the counterfeits. And that's the purpose of this book I wrote, to recognize the authentic vision of what a human being is so we can recognize the counterfeits and not got swept away by them.

Starting point is 02:39:31 And I think we're more swept away by them than we realize. And we need to beg God for the grace that our eyes will be open so we can see the true magnificence of our humanity. Thank you. Thank you, Matt.

Pints With Aquinas - You Are Not Data (Christopher West) on AI and the Soul | Ep. 595

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