Kind: captions
Language: en
when we're beyond good and evil you know
and all that's left is the will to power
then why are we surprised that the
powerful rise and that they use the
power less for their purposes
when we forget ideas like equality and
rights which are grounded in god why are
we surprised that
death camps follow
the following is a conversation with
bishop robert barron founder of ward on
fire and one of the greatest educators
in the world on the beauty and wisdom
within catholicism christianity and
religious faith in general
this is the lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's bishop robert baron
let's start with the big question
who is god
according to christianity according to
catholicism who's god i'll give you
thomas aquinas definition uh god is
ipsum essay subsistence god is the
subsistent act of to be itself
another way to state that in aquinas is
god is that reality unique absolutely
unique
in which essence and existence coincide
to be god is to be to be those are all
ways of talking about what we mean by
god they are kind of gnomic and that's
on purpose there's almost a zen koan
kind of quality about the way we talk
about god
i'm saying something that's substantive
but it's more in like a via negative
mode it's more like what god is not
because there's nothing in the world
that would correspond to those
descriptions
so anything in the world would be a
being of some type or an event of some
type some particular mode of existence
and god is not an entity
in the world in fact i would say that's
the fundamental mistake that atheists
old and new make all the time is they
think of god
as a big being
when aquinas says that god is not in any
genus
even the genus of being it's one of the
strangest remarks in the whole tradition
but it's really interesting so you say
well at the very least god must be a
being right and aquinas's answer is no
he's not in the genus of being so we
talk about god being beyond being and so
on
to say in god essence and existence
coincide is to say god's very nature is
to be and that can't be true of any
contingent thing in the world
so what i'm doing there is i'm i'm
gesturing the way the tradition does
toward god using language that's at the
same time
philosophically precise and gnomic you
know it's both accurate it's true god
essence and existence coincide what god
is is the same as god's uh active to be
but now what does that mean i'm not
quite sure because nothing in our
ordinary experience corresponds to that
everything in our experience is is a
being of some type so it's
existence received according to the mode
of some essence
that's not true of god
which is why you can't be found in the
world and and that's as i say
the fundamental mistake is uh well i
guess theists are those that believe
there's this being alongside the other
beings in the universe and then atheists
say oh no there is no such being um and
that's precisely wrong that's just a
category error
dawkins i think cites bertrand russell
to the effect that proving the
non-existence of god is a bit like
proving the non-existence of a china
teapot orbiting between earth and mars
no that's precisely what god is not some
entity that's sort of hidden among the
other entities of the universe
god is the reason why there's a
contingent realm at all this is the way
to put it
in more theological language god's the
creator of all things
so if god is outside of our world is it
possible
for us to visualize to comprehend to
know god not utterly of course and i
would say our knowledge begins always in
this world begins in ordinary experience
but i think we can through metaphysical
analysis through philosophical reasoning
can come to some knowledge
of a reality which is transcendent to
our experience so we gesture toward it
i always like aquinas who says the
language about god that we use is
analogical
so it's not it's not univocal meaning
what i say about that you know can or
about this bottle i can say about god no
that makes god an entity at the same
time it's not simply equivocal so if i
say well that thing is and god is i mean
totally different things no no i mean
something analogous so to be god is to
be to be so the real meaning of being is
the being of god the being of that thing
or this thing or the being of galaxies
or subatomic particles would be
analogous to god's manner of being so on
that basis i can make some statements i
can
i can theorize and even at the limit as
you suggest i can visualize
so we have metaphors for god and
the bible is replete with those rights
god is a rock uh you know god's like a
lion god's like this and that or the
bible will sometimes imagine god as a as
a human being walking around you know
now only the crude fundamentalism would
say well that's a
universal accurate
description of god it's an image that's
catching something of god's manner of
being
then
what does it mean
to
believe in god
so there's a word
and we have to limit ourselves to human
interpretable words today
there's a word called faith
what does faith mean so if
we can't really directly know god
you kind of sneak up
to the idea of god with metaphors
better he sneaks up on us because i like
the language of grace god's action comes
first
so if i stay
perfectly within the realm of i'm
seeking with my kind of eagle eyes and
my inquiring mind
i'm not going to find god that way i i
might find a path
that opens up but i would say finally
god finds me and i think then the
language of faith begins to make more
sense
i'm with paul tillich though the
protestant theologian said the most
misunderstood word in the religious
vocabulary's faith
because he said the way we take it
usually is something sub-rational
you know i have i have uh proof of this
i i really know this and i only kind of
believe that like that's just a personal
opinion or impression
but that's to identify
faith with the kind of infrarational and
and that's not it i mean i don't want
something in for irrational i don't want
superstition or or childish credulity so
authentic faith
is is the darkness beyond reason and on
the far side of reason it's it's super
irrational not infrarational
and that's a very important move
at the limit of what i can know at the
limit of my striving and my vision
there's this horizon that opens up and i
think that's true even in ordinary ways
of knowing there's a kind of a horizon
that lures us beyond what i've got
faith has to do more with that kind of
darkness rather than a darkness prior to
reason
the darkness beyond the horizon
prior to reason
first of all the poetry language is
incredible to be to be
you have a million questions yeah go
ahead
i do too
uh so first of all let me just jump
around uh you mentioned to be to be a
few times yeah what does that mean
well to be me is to be a human being
right to be this to be a table this
would be a microphone so it's
i'll use aquinas's language it's the act
of being
poured if you want into the receptacle
of some essential principle so it's got
a ontological structure it's it's an
existent it's a thing that exists
but it's it's existing in a limited way
according to an essential principle
uh
god said well who what's god what's
god's name what kind of being is he
we'll go back to moses now um when the
israelites ask me you know what's your
name what shall i tell them and he says
you know famously i am who i am
but see aquinas reads that as a very
accurate remark so moses is wondering
okay there's a lot of gods and there's a
lot of things a lot of entities which
one are you you got to be one of them so
tell me your name
in philosophical language give me the
essence that receives your act of
existing right
and god's answer blows the mind of moses
and the whole tradition i am who i am to
be god is to be
so i'm not this or that i'm not up or
down i'm not here or there god is that
whose center is everywhere and whose
circumference is nowhere as as the
mystics put it now can i get a clear and
distinct idea of that no and in a way
that's the whole point if i could i'd be
talking about a being of some kind
so to be god is to be to be is to and
that's you know moses take off your
sandals you're on holy ground
so i'm going to go over confidently and
find out what this thing is this burning
bush i'm going to find out
no no
take off your shoes you're on holy
ground because you're not in charge here
you're not in command because if you've
got shoes on
you can walk wherever you want you can
walk with confidence but you take your
shoes off you're much more vulnerable
and that's appropriate when you're
talking about god you know
here's another interesting thing i
didn't think about the burning bush in
this connection before but
it's a bush that's on fire but not
consumed
is beings are competitive with each
other and so i these can't be in the
same place at the same time these two
beings they're mutually exclusive if you
want
but as god comes close to a creature
he doesn't destroy it or consume it
but the creature becomes more beautiful
and more radiant right but and see
compare it to the to the classical gods
and goddesses when when they come
bursting into
life and experience things are
incinerated and people give way and
they're overwhelmed
then there's this biblical idea of god
comes close and sets things on fire but
doesn't burn them up
and that's because he's not a
competitive being in the world if he
were a big being then he'd be in this
he'd be competing
for space so to speak on the same
ontological grid
but he's not like that
so god can come close
and we come more fully alive
now we're starting to gesture toward the
incarnation i mean the central christian
doctrine that god can actually become
a human
without overwhelming the human he
becomes right so i mean that's that's
kind of the next step but the basic idea
of god is non-competitively
transcendent to the world that's another
way to get at it
non-competitively transcendent to the
world so it's beyond being as the source
of being right
let me make it maybe more more um
imagistic i think a really good analogy
would be author to book
right so
uh like tolkien or someone that writes
one of these big sprawling
novels and tolkien is good too because
he creates a whole world he creates a
new nature a new language new history
all that think of you know the thousands
of characters and the plots and subplots
and all of it
tolkien is utterly responsible for every
bit of that story right every character
every plot every subplot every
description he's completely responsible
he's involved in every nook and cranny
of it
but he's not in the story he's not in
the book you're not going to find him as
a character in the book so that's the
category mistake of the atheist in a way
is i'm looking for god he's a character
in this story somewhere no he's the
author of the story
mysteriously present to every aspect of
the story but not a character in it
right
he is deeply in the story somehow he's
present but he's not
um
even if he is a character he's not
really the full embodiment is not a
character
and people inside
the book can't really know about the
author
right
no right well see augustine says god is
simultaneously in timier intima mayo at
superior sumo mayo he's
closer to me than i am to myself
and he's higher than anything i could
possibly imagine at the same time
because he once you get the the insight
that god is is the sheer active to be
well of course that's true so
right now
god is sustaining us in existence true
aquinas says god is in all things by
essence presence and power and most
intimately so
and
and he's nowhere in this room okay
where's god
he's nowhere in this room he's totally
terribly terror we say he's totally
other
same time but once you crack that code
though i think you see it of like why
that would be true i see now i'm getting
from more philosophical language to more
mystical language because all the
mystics talk that way in these high
paradoxes about god's availability and
unavailability
i i've often thought in the bible story
after story god can neither be grasped
nor hidden from
so the first sinful instinct is to grasp
at god's i've got him i've i understand
him i can i can manipulate him no no no
story after story is told you can't do
that well then the other extreme of the
sinner all right then i'm gonna i'm
gonna run from god i'm gonna avoid god
jonah and the whale you know so he he
has the call from god
and he said no no i'm gonna refuse that
i'm gonna run as far away i'm gonna go
to tarshish which meant like timbuktu
for them at the end of the world
god's got that whale swallow them up and
brings them right back where god wants
them it's a you know poetic way of
saying you can't escape the press of god
at the same time tower of babel i'm
going to build a tower up to god i'm
going to i'm going to grab hold of god
no no you can't do either
so live in the space in between those
two things which would be the space of
friendship with god uh
falling in love with god is neither
grasping nor hiding from god
you mentioned
again a lot of beautiful poetic things
you mentioned grace yeah you mentioned
sin
you mentioned reincarnation
is there a philosophical pragmatic way
to start talking about the pillars of
christianity what are the defining
things that make christianity to you
and and broadly speaking uh to those
that follow the religion
you know in a way what we're doing so
far is is a necessary proper duty
because we're talking about god
um what makes christianity distinctive
of course is the claim of the
incarnation so we come up out of judaism
we come up out of this great
monotheistic tradition and you know the
bible itself and all the great
commentators within judaism i think
would agree with this basic theistic
stuff that i've been talking about
taking moses maimonides for example
now what makes christianity distinct
this
supremely weird claim
that god
becomes one of us god becomes a creature
but without ceasing to be god and
without overwhelming the integrity of
the creature he becomes
what we see in the burning bush that
principle which obtains across the board
so the closer god comes to me the more
radiant i become right
but take that now to the nth degree
would be what we mean by the incarnation
the incarnation of the son of god
becoming a creature
in such a way as to make humanity
radiant and beautiful
that's the pillar of christianity it's
the incarnation you know um
and what follows from that is the
redemption of of all of reality so not
just of human beings but in becoming
a creature god
divinizes the world
you know the greek fathers always said
god became human that humans might
become god
and that's a good way to sum up i think
the essence of christianity
why is this such an important thing so
it's a distinctive thing yeah but why is
it so important philosophically
to what it means to be a christian like
what impact did that have on our world
on human civilization on human nature on
our morals of why live
what to live for the meaning of it all
like why is incarnation so important
well i think it's it's massively
important because it's it's the
divinization principle that god wants to
demonize his creation and and sort of in
this concentrated point of jesus of
nazareth but then we talk about the
mystical body of jesus so that goes
right back to paul
as we're grafted on to christ we talk
about that as the church we become
like cells and molecules in an organism
that's the church it's not an
organization that's a that's a
deformation of ecclesiology the church
is this organism that begins with jesus
and then he's drawing
all of humanity but ultimately all of
nature all of all of creation to himself
when the son of man is lifted up he will
draw all things to himself that idea of
the gathering in of a of a scattered
creation so in that way it's at the
heart of it then there's all kinds of
things if god becomes human that means
there's a dignity to humanity which goes
beyond anything any humanist of any
stripe has ever said right ancient
medieval modern contemporary
christianity is the greatest humanism
imaginable
god became one of us in order to
demonize us
the the goal of my life is not just to
be a good person not just to be
you know materially successful not just
to be um a member of society the goal of
my life is to become a participant in
the divine nature and so there i don't
think there is a humanism greater than
that even conceivably so that's where i
think humanism
is profoundly influenced by the
incarnation
uh and just our notion of god as
non-competitive to us that's so
important because i think it's so many
systems from mythology onward you have
these competitive understandings of god
when jesus says to his disciples the
night before he dies i no longer call
you servants but friends it's an
extraordinary moment because every god
right who's ever been served well that's
that's the best we can hope for is the
servant of god
you know i i try to obey you lord i'll
try to do what you want but when jesus
says i no longer call you servants or
slaves you would have said in the greek
there you know
um but friends
i don't know
i can't imagine anything greater than
that becoming god's friend that's a call
to become
one with with god it's possible to
become uh become one with god now i
should mention
you're one of the greatest religious
communicators i've ever experienced a
lot of a huge number of people are fans
of yours you've done
a lot of great conversations you've done
reddit amas which is a very unique
bold
brave thing
and uh on one of them somebody asked um
what's the most challenging of the seven
deadly sins so first what
are the seven deadly sins what do they
have to do with christianity how
essential how crucial they are to uh the
religion and what's the most challenging
in our modern day
yeah to name them uh pride
envy anger
sloth avarice gluttony and lust are the
seven deadly sins
or quote capital sin sometimes uh from
couplet they're the head sins from which
things tend to flow
the most fundamental is pride
uh
probably most people today if you talk
about like vice or you talk about you
know deadly sin they would think about
lust but the classical authors including
dante who does this pictorially
there that's the least of the deadly
sense is lust because it's the one
that's most sort of
dependent upon the body and it's and
it's passions and so on
the most important is pride pride is the
deadliest of deadly sins and it's very
simple to see why
pride is the augustine calls it
incravats and say i'm caved in around
myself
like a black hole right to get into the
scientific
but the black hole to me is a great
symbol you know that
it it's so heavy that draws everything
including light nothing can escape from
it
see that's the center this we're all
sinners uh we're like black holes that
we draw everything into ourselves
so
as a sinner and you know i'll confess
i'm a sinner um the temptation is okay
this is the bishop baron moment and i'm
gonna i'm drawing you now into my you
know world and so on
what that does is it kills us off and it
make it it darkens life
and it makes it small and and heavy and
awful right
it's like
but see compared to the to the
contrasting thing is when you're lost in
a moment
you're not concerned about the
impression i'm making you're not
concerned about drawing the world into
yourself you're not concerned about this
monkey on my back that's always telling
me you know look good and sound right
but you're you're lost in something
you're just you're just talking you know
to a friend and the two of you together
are discovering something true or or
beautiful or you're lost in a movie or
you're lost in a book those are the best
moments in life those are the best
because the least prideful moments right
that's when i the light comes out
i i become radiant because i i'm
overcoming this tendency to fall in on
myself um
dante is so good because the way he
pictures um satan in divine comedy and
you know he's at the center of the earth
so like a black hole that way like he's
at the center of gravity he's at the
heaviest place
and he there's not fire where he is but
ice it's a much much better image that
you're frozen in place and you're stuck
and he's got wings
right and they used to be angel wings
because he's an angel but now they're
like bat wings for dante and they're
flapping
and all they're doing is making the
world around him colder because he's ice
he's stuck in his own iciness and then
he's he's beating his wings over the ice
and making everyone else colder it's a
great image
and then he has this is cool too he has
three faces uh satan
because he's a simulacrum of the trinity
so every sinner thinks he's god so i
pretend i'm god so he's got the three
faces and from all six eyes he weeps
also from all three mouths he's chewing
a sinner he's got cassius
brutus and judas in the three miles you
know the three traitors
but
i thought it it's just a great image of
all of us sinners is we're stuck
it's heavy it's cold we're chewing on
our past resentments we're weeping in
our sadness and we're making the world
around us colder it's beautiful it's a
great so that's pride see that's an
image of pride because satan that's his
great sin pride which is why he needed
michael right mikael who's like god so
that the great challenge to him which we
need all the time is someone to say wait
a minute wait a minute you're not god
but the minute we say i'm god
black hole i now cave in on myself i
suck everything into myself and i turn
into dante satan
so that's a great image that's pride
that's the most fundamental
that's the uber capital sin it's all the
other ones flow from that in a way so in
general empathy humility compassion love
thy neighbor always the way to fight
this the sin of pride right which is why
the masters tend to say this was bernard
saint bernard was asked what are the
three most important virtues and he said
humility tasks humility tests and
humility
because it's the opposite of pride yeah
so
but you know they're bringing aquinas in
again uh because we think i'm humility
i'm no good that's not what it means at
all it means what i was describing
before when you're you're just lost in
something you're just lost in it um my
image i live out in santa barbara and uh
i like to walk on the beach out there
and there's a section of the beach where
they let the dogs you know run free
without leashes
and uh
when you see a dog and
he's well cared for and his master's
right there and and the master's
throwing the tennis ball out and the
surf and the dog goes galloping out into
the surf and he gets it with a big smile
and comes running back
that's that's humility that's an image
of heaven because he's just lost in that
moment he doesn't care about impressing
anybody don't care about
what people think of him he's just lost
in it
that's it that's heaven right
and those moments in our life when we
when we get that it's a little hint of
of paradise but but the trouble is most
of us live frankly most of the time in
various levels of hell
you know and we're and we're dealing
with these deadly sins like envy flows
from pride because if i'm prideful i'm a
black hole i'm in curvature sensei i'm
collapsed in what am i really going to
be concerned about that guy's got more
attention than i am that guy's richer
than i am
that that lady she's got a bigger
reputation than i do and why why don't i
have that right so envy is a very close
daughter of pride
um
anger flows from
why do i get angry the dog isn't getting
angry on the beach when he's running
after the tennis ball but i get angry
all the time sputter with anger when
things aren't going my way and and
you're insulting me and you're not doing
what i want and i'm being hurt my
reputation so anger flows from pride you
know
all of them do all the deadly sins do so
you said i'm a sinner
so we're all sinners yeah
um
you mentioned satan where's the so
there's
heaven and hell
there's god and satan
where's the line
between what it means to be good
and uh
not good enough
or i i hesitate to use the word sort of
uh evil but uh yeah maybe
overwhelmingly sinful
where's the line between hell and heaven
think of them as limit concepts maybe
they're like heuristic devices yes so
heaven would name
this ultimate friendship with god so
think of the dog on the beach who is
just he's fallen in love
with his environment with his master
with the serf he's just lost in it right
he's forgotten himself he's transcended
himself and is now lost in the wonder of
the beauty of that place
now
imagine the limit of that is the is the
friendship with god that we talked about
that i become the friend of god i become
so
forgetful of myself
so lost in the beauty and truth and
goodness of god that i'm
i've i found beatitude right i found
joy the beatific vision we call it uh
that's the limit case that's that's
where we're tending that's where god
wants us to go think of hell as the
limit case in the opposite direction
that's curvature sensei that's the black
hole and we're all sinners meaning we're
somewhere on that spectrum you know we
we have good days and bad days and we
have good moments and bad moments and i
can be drawn toward
sin
what's god's purpose and christianity's
reading is to bring us out of that you
know now where did he go he went all the
way into it to get us out of it it's
like
pulling the sock back out socks inside
out you have to go all the way in and
pull it back out and so
god had to go all the way down
you know and there there's the
trajectory of the incarnation
though he was in the form of god and
this is saint paul jesus did not deem
equality with god a thing to be grasped
that but rather emptied himself and took
the form of a slave being born in the
likeness of men but then
he was known to be of human estate
and he accepted even death
death on a cross and so paul imagines
that the incarnation is this downward
journey
in order to get all of us right all of
us who were stuck
were stuck in our sin
and so again paul says he became sin on
the cross it's a really really powerful
idea he wasn't a sinner because then
he'd need to be saved too he's not a
sinner but he entered into our
dysfunction in order to pull us back out
of it
so
that's a really powerful message
an embodiment
uh uh sort of educating the world about
sin
that said day to day
there's like uh
oscillations in terms of how much
um each human sends and there's a
struggle against that
so
you know that dog that loses himself
on the beach
may have had a lot of sex with other
dogs leading up to that that was uh
maybe not the best dog he could be
leading up to that so how you know if
it's a math equation
what does the final
calculation look like in terms of ending
up in heaven what does it mean to live a
good
life in the end is it
um
the average modest thing you do is is
low can you are you allowed to make
mistakes
yeah uh you know the the the metric is
love
right and love is not a feeling it's an
act of the will
to will the good of the other that's
aquinas again to will the good of the
other as other and see that's the
anti-black hole principle
when i i don't wield the good of the
other as others because if i'm willing
you're good because it's good for me so
uh again you know it's good for you that
i'm on this program i guess i'm willing
you're good but that's cause it's gonna
be down to my benefit right that's just
an indirect egotism
that's why i see love is really rare and
strange that i
really want
what's good for you as other
so not connected to the black hole
tendency of my own prideful ego when
i've broken that
i've forgotten self and i've moved into
the space of your own good that's what
love is now god wants us to be you know
by this they will know that you're my
disciples that you love one another
jesus says so that's it
now i mean life is
ups and downs and back and forth and
we're better or worse at that
the point of the church is to graft us
onto christ that we might become more
and more conformed to love but you know
the final calculus i'll leave that to
god i mean like but but use love as the
metric at the end of the day when you
examine your conscience
did i will the good of the other today
how how effective was i at that
and be just like ignatia loyola be
brutally honest
or was i just willing someone's good
because it was good for me
uh what where where were those moments
where i was like the dog on the beach
yeah see see and and see play at the
what not so much god the lawgiver
surveying and you did you know three of
those and four it's god wants us to be
fully alive
saint irenaeus is one of my great heroes
ancient you know patristic figure and
his famous line is gloria day homo
vivens right the glory of god is a human
being fully alive
see and that gets us over this sort of
obsession with illegalism and did i do
enough and is that that's a big enough
sin and
god wants us fully alive the key to that
is willing the good of the other he he
died
that we might come to a richer
appropriation of that so to be fully
alive
is to be in love with the world or to
love the world
deeply and what love means is the other
is get out of yourself right it's it's
it's the humility yeah getting out of
yourself
that's somehow is not
uh that's not even selfless because uh
the word selfless requires her to be a
self
uh it's it's almost like just letting go
yeah it might talk about like a gift of
self that you you're self aware but you
you give a gift of yourself
yourself becomes not a magnet drawing
things into itself but it becomes a
radiant source of life for others like
mother teresa would have had a keen
sense of herself it seems to me but it
was um
to light other people uh up so that they
might be uh radiant
you know that's the game so i think you
probably articulate it that way too
yeah
i love love it's such an interesting
thing but we have to be hard-nosed about
it like you know your friend dostoevsky
love is a harsh and dreadful thing yeah
right it's not a feeling and our culture
is so sentimentalized love that it's
having warm feelings or doing what
people want and that's not it at all
love is always correlated to the order
of the good because if i'm willing the
good of the other i have to know what
that good is right yeah so a parent that
says oh give the kid whatever she wants
well that's not love that's that's
indulgence or that's sentimentality
but i have to know what the goods really
are if i'm going to will them for you
right yeah i in some sense you're you're
absolutely right a component of love
is the struggle to know the other right
it's to struggle to understand i mean
that's um that's what i mean by empathy
it's the yeah it's not it's yeah it's
not valentine's day romantic gifts it's
uh it's a struggle it's like uh
trying to understand trying to perturb
your own mind and that of another human
being to try to figure out who they are
what they want
what makes them uh
happy what are they afraid of what are
they hoping for and it's like a dance
right dance of conversation a dance of
uh just
shared experiences and all that kind of
stuff and all of that requires for you
to be
i guess um
yeah empathize
and imagine
yourself in their place
and then love that person when you're
living inside that person yeah
several minutes ago about the pillars of
christianity so we talked about god talk
about incarnation but you're getting now
to a third key one
namely the trinity
because
we're monotheists right but we don't
think god is monolithically one we think
god is a play of persons
and the father from from
all eternity
uh by a great mental act
forms his interior word as aquinas puts
it
and that's the law gauss right that's
the verb that's the word by which the
father knows himself and we call that
the sun so the imago it's the image of
the father but then see the great thing
is that imago is not like just a dead
image on a mirror or a dead image in a
pond or something it's
it's a full
reflection of the father's being
he's one in being with the father
therefore the son has everything the
father has except being the father but
that means that the two of them look at
each other
and they're just crazy in love with each
other because
the father is the fullness of being the
son is the fullness of being and they're
so crazy in love with each other that
they this is um
fulton she put it this way that there's
this
they just they love each other with this
sigh and we call that the spiritual
sanctus that's the holy breath right the
holy
sigh of love between the father and the
son
and that's there's one being one essence
we say of god but in these three persons
but all your language about like dance
and play and community
the greek fathers talked about perry
coraces which means god the three
persons kind of sit in a choir together
so they they um they sing together you
know
and and that's why see
christianity is unique in this claim
that god is love so every religion will
say god loves you know in some way love
is an attribute of god god is or love is
a thing that god does sometimes but
christianity is unique in all the
religions in saying that god is love and
somehow
the holy trinity embodies that idea i
mean that yes philosophically has always
been confusing to me
what it means to be
three things
and at the same time be
one god the father son and the holy
spirit
what what is this dance between these
three what what exactly like how how do
you visualize how do you understand this
yeah this this very this very
fascinating essential thing for
christianity the first thing i'd say is
what we already have been sort of
talking about is if you say god is love
and most people probably say yeah i like
that it's a good idea god is love but
it's very peculiar because if he is love
there has to be in his unity
a lover
a beloved and the love that they share
otherwise he isn't loved by his very
essence he would love
it would be an attribute of god
or an action of god but if it's his very
nature there has to be lover beloved and
love shared and the tradition eventually
came to see that
the image i was using before of of the
father his imago the son
well that's born of god's infinite mind
so of of course god has an image of
himself heck i've got an image of myself
that's something i can pull off as a as
a puny little creature god
in his infinity has a perfect image of
himself
and they have to fall in love with each
other what else can they do
because they're in the presence of
infinite good and so
it has to follow that you then have the
shared love that connects them
and that's how we generate if you want
this idea of the three persons in god
let me ask you about the church yeah one
of the defining characteristics of
catholicism
is the catholic church yeah
what is the catholic church
i would say it's the mystical body of
jesus so as i said before it's not an
organization if we do it that way we're
going to miss it it's got organizational
elements to it you know so i'm a bishop
i'm a i'm a office holder within the
church but the church is an organism not
a not an organization so it's a organism
of interconnected cells as i said namely
all of the baptized gathered around
christ missed in a mystical union
that's the church but there's buildings
yeah there's titles sure
uh because it manifests itself
institutionally then but so are the sort
of
heavy things about that all have to do
with pride
yeah sure whatever sexiness of the
buildings yeah no whatever is corrupt in
the church of course it comes from pride
from sin and one thing i like about you
know the new testament is so clear on
that i mean paul is in his little tiny
communities so before there was a
vatican or dioceses or anything
apologies little tiny communities of
christians like in corinth and ephesus
you know
what's the one thing we know about them
is they fought with each other
because paul's always upgrading them and
you know telling them come on would you
people get it together and you know
who's bewitched you and so from the
beginning we've been fighting with each
other because we're made up of sinners
and uh
you know so but one thing we do in in
catholic ecclesiology is the official
name for the study of the church is to
talk about the treasure and earthen
vessels
paul's language again the treasure is
christ the treasure is is
is the love he's bequeathed to the world
that's the treasure that we have but
it's always held in these really fragile
vessels namely us
and so it's gonna be marked by
corruption and stupidity and pride and
everything else
well nevertheless there's a hierarchy
there's titles and so on
if we remove pride from the picture so
the best possible interpretation
of the hierarchy that makes up this one
organism this living organism
what's the
what's the role of the pope for example
what is the role
of uh a bishop for example like what is
the role of the hierarchy in terms of
the broader vision of
christianity catholicism as a religion
i'm a devotee of this guy named johan
adam mueller who was a theologian early
part of the 19th century and he was part
of the kind of romantic movement
and he said the purpose of the pope
is to symbolize and embody and draw
together the unity of the entire church
so he's the personal symbol of the unity
of the church
who's a bishop the bishop is the
personal symbol of the unity of a
diocese
who's a pastor of a parish he's the
personal symbol of the unity of that
parish so he understood it not so much
organizationally as organically again it
was like
what
that around which the pattern organizes
itself and if you don't have that that
unifying figure the community will kind
of facilitate and you see that all the
time without headship we would say
so it's more symbolic and organic than
it is um organizational so symbols for
community but there's such
uh fascinating peculiarities to each
individual symbol
see there's different characteristics
that make up the different people they
have different
ways of communicating they have
different hopes and fears and all that
kind of stuff
what uh
if if they're all symbols
what's the role of the
different peculiarities of those symbols
of being an inspiring uniter versus
maybe a stronger type of
um
more judgmental kind of communicator all
that kind of stuff i mean
can you maybe speak to the human part
of this
of these symbols yeah well i i might
just shift to another image um of
shepherd so that's a classic biblical
image and as a bishop i walk around with
this thing called the crosier which is a
shepherd's staff right so it's the
symbol of the bishop's office
and the crusher though is a kind of um
it's a kind of in-your-face thing in a
way because it's got the
the end of it was meant to hold off
wild animals and then the the crook part
of it was meant to bring sheep back to
the fold right so i walk in with that oh
this is nice look at the bishop coming
in but that's a kind of in-your-face
symbol that i'm here to defend the
church against predators and i'm also
here to draw people in who are wandering
too far away
so that's okay and that's part of of the
role of the hierarchy and the pope and
bishops and and pastors pastor just
means shepherd right then the shepherd
of a parish so that's okay it's not like
just all you know sunshine and light and
what a pretty image uh the the one who
embodies the unity of the community is
also the shepherd
okay but again leaning on the human
thing yeah
the church is an institution
and i don't know if you've heard
but there is an element to power that
corrupts yeah and absolute power
corrupts absolutely as the old saying
goes
um
let me ask you something else that came
up on the reddit uh ama yeah mega
churches and the prosperity gospel and
yeah you've mentioned
that you may not be a fan
what are your views on this and what are
your views in general of money and power
corrupting the heads of these
institutions
uh i don't like the prosperity gospel
because uh the gospel is about
jesus journey into
radical self-forgetfulness on the cross
and he never makes a promise of earthly
well-being can you explain what the
prosperity gospel is yeah the view that
you know if i follow jesus and i follow
god with great trust that i will be
rewarded with
wealth and and position and status in
this world
it might be god's will but i got that
but you know aquinas said this that
let's say i look at a very sinful person
i said kind of he's got a great house
and he's richer than i am and all that
aquinas says yeah but what maybe that's
a punishment because maybe all that is
leading him away from god and actually
that's god's way of punishing him and
the fact that you don't have wealth in a
big house is actually a great gift to
you because now it frees you for doing
god's will so we we can't read
you know god's favor in worldly terms
i would say god's favor is am i
awakened to deeper love then i know that
i'm finding god's favor now god might
decide sure i want you to have this and
that i want i want to provide this to
you fine then i say thank you lord how
can i use it as an instrument of love
see
all the masters talk about detachment
and that's another reason i don't like
the prosperity gospel is though i'm i'm
getting attached now to all these
material advantages
and i'm even seeing them as a sign of
god's favor
let go of all that you let go of it and
use it as a vehicle of love so if you're
rich the right question is okay lord why
did you allow me to become rich so that
what can i do how can my riches be an
expression of love if i'm popular if i'm
healthy
okay why am i popular why am i healthy
how can i use that for your good i'm
sick in bed i'm suffering
okay
lord how can i use that as an expression
of love
so i'd rather measure it that way than
through worldly success that's why i'm
against the prosperity gospel
okay
so there's uh
don't seek worldly possessions but
whatever happens to you
good or bad
seek how that could be used
to increase the amount of love in the
world right the image i i love for this
is the wheel of fortune which is a
device on a lot of the gothic cathedrals
and it's it's this great circle right
this wheel and the top of his is a king
and then it turns this way and the king
has lost his crown and the bottom is a
pauper and then over here is a king he's
a guy climbing up to power right
and then in the middle is a depiction of
christ
and the idea is very simple but very
profound that the wheel is life you know
it's sometimes you're up sometimes
you're down sometimes you have power and
popularity and prestige other times
you're losing it you're going down other
times you've got none of it other times
you're coming back up okay don't live on
the rim of the wheel it'll make you
crazy every point on the rim of the
wheel is a point of anxiety where you
should live is the center of the wheel
where christ is right because that's the
link now to the eternity of god that's
the point of of love
where love can flow through you to the
world and then you can look at the wheel
you're a beatles fan right i think i
discovered that i love the beatles
and the song that always comes to my
mind when i when i think of that image
is john lennon at the end of his life
so a guy that i mean rode the wheel of
fortune like crazy you know he was at
the top of the world in every way
and then beatles break up and he kind of
loses it and then he's at the lost
weekend in the 70s it's the very bottom
when he died he was just kind of coming
back up again but
the song i always think of is watching
the wheels right i'm just sitting here
watching the wheels go round around i
really love to watch them roll because
i'm no longer riding on the
merry-go-round that's right out of the
medieval mystics that he's not riding on
the on the wheel he's just watching it
go round and round that's the point of
uh the greece called apathea and the
latins called it uh uh in indifference
you know
not like i'm blase it just means i'm i'm
detached
from success failure
less success more success i'm detached
from that i'm sitting here watching the
wheels go round and round
because i'm not writing on it anymore
the mystics have always made that
transition
let me ask you a difficult question
about the darker side of human nature of
human power
of
institutions what's your view on the
long history and widespread reports of
sexual abuse of children
by a catholic priest so this is a a
difficult topic but may be an important
one to shine a light on yeah it's awful
you know and it's it's been a problem go
back to peter damien back in the 11th
century was talking about it so it's
been a problem and whenever really
sinful human beings have been in close
proximity to children we've we find this
issue has it been around the church yes
um
has it surfaced in a kind of sickening
way in the last 30 years absolutely
um
i'm glad the church has made important
strides and it has
back in 2002 there was a thing called
the dallas accords where the bishops of
america
put a lot of these protocols in place
that really have been effective
at ameliorating this problem
the numbers spiked in the 70s and 80s
and that's been demonstrated over and
over again and then they fell
dramatically after that so
that's not to excuse anything but to say
i think progress has been made with it
what's the impulse to secrecy
yeah well to protect institutions you
know that's always that's a sinful
instinct uh i'm not all together i mean
sure an institution is worth protecting
but if it reaches the point where you're
indifferent to people's uh
well-being then you're in trouble
so institutions role
should be transparent and honest with
the sins of its members and as itself
sure yeah
so maybe you can speak to the fact
uh as a priest the bishop
as part of catholicism
you're not allowed to marry
you're not allowed to have sex
uh you're
you're sworn to celibacy
what is what is behind that idea
what is the sort of we talked about some
broad stroke yeah
ideas of love
you know what's behind the idea of
celibacy and that's a good way to get at
it it's a path of love so it the church
is always in favor of inculcating love
marriage is a path of love but so is
celibacy
um saint paul talks about someone who is
preoccupied with the things of of this
world and family and those who are free
from that are free or for doing the work
of god so that's kind of a pragmatic
justification for celibacy and we still
i think take that seriously
look at my own life i mean celibacy has
enabled me to do all kinds of things and
go places and and
and
minister in a way that i could not if i
had been married so i get it i get the
pragmatic side but i i'm more
interested in the sort of mystical side
of it um
remember jesus was challenged about the
person who had a whole series of
husbands and and then they all died and
so in heaven which one will will uh you
know which which husband will the wife
have and his answers is in heaven people
don't marry and they're not given in
marriage there's a there's a higher way
of love it's a more radical way of love
it's not tied to a particular but i
think through god is tied to everybody
the celibate and this has been to the
beginning of the church
not as a law but there were there were
celibates from the very beginning of the
church including jesus of course and
paul
um
they sense something that that way of
living
mystically anticipates the way we'll
love in heaven it's a sign even now
within this world of how we will all
love in heaven
so
in that way it's a bit like pacifists um
i'm glad there are pacifists in the
church and i i've known some you know
some very powerful witnesses to pacifism
i'm glad they're pacifists because they
witness even now to how we will be in
heaven when every tear is wiped away and
we beat our swords into plowshares and
you know
heaven's a place of radical peace that
some people even now live it at the same
time i'm glad not everyone's a pacifist
because i i would hold with the church
to just war theory that there's
sometimes all we can do in this finite
world is to is to fight you know uh
manifest wickedness so and just in the
same way there's just sex
well no right i'm glad there are
celibates but i'm glad not everyone's a
celebrity i wouldn't want that i mean
because because uh married love is a
marvelous expression of the divine love
so that's why it's good there are some
and it's always been a small number the
actual experience of it would you
uh the spiritual nature of it is it
similar to fasting so i've been enjoying
fasting uh recently so not eating yeah
uh for several days that kind of stuff
and that somehow brings you
even deeper i'm in general in love with
everything and with nature and
everything i see the beauty in the world
but there's a greater intensity to that
when you're fasting for example
yeah i i might use the language of you
know sublimation or redirection of
energy and all that um
i i think that's true there's a certain
sublimation of energies into um
prayer into
mysticism into ministry
um a redirection of energies
so it's meant to be life enhancing the
same way fasting is it's meant
ultimately to be life enhancing and make
you healthier and happier
so celibacy is a is a path of love and i
think it does involve you a certain
redirection of energies i'd say that
don't you think
do you think
it's a heavy burden
for some humans to bear
some priests to bear is that sure is
that the thing given this
the
the the sexual abuse scandal
um
is that the thing that breaks
no i i wouldn't tie that to celibacy and
that's been uh demonstrated over and
over again there's a priest named andrew
greeley who was a priest from my home
diocese of chicago and
andy did a lot of research sociologists
of religion did a lot of research into
that very question and there really is
not a correlation between celibacy per
se
and the sexual abuse of children or of
anybody so i wouldn't make that
correlation so bad people sinful peo