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Redefining Toughness: How Ancient Philosophy and Scripture Shape the Male Soul · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian on Doctor James Spencer. I'm joined
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Speaker 1: by doctor Rashish Varma, and we're continuing our conversation about
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Speaker 1: biblical masculinity and really about what it means to become
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Speaker 1: a male disciple of Jesus. And so today we're going
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Speaker 1: to be discussing whether or not or how masculinity and
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Speaker 1: femininity were thought of in relation to the virtues in
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Speaker 1: the ancient world. And so this is very much a
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Speaker 1: discussion that I'm interested in, but on an expert on
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Speaker 1: and so it's great to have Ashi's here to talk
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Speaker 1: about it. So you just wanting to give a little
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Speaker 1: bit of your background on your intersection with the virtues
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Speaker 1: and theology, just so people have a context for what
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Speaker 1: this is and where you're coming from with it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a lot to say about virtues. It's
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Speaker 2: been a it's been a central focus of mind for
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Speaker 2: well over a decade, going back to my master's work.
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Speaker 2: When I first encountered it, it was specifically in the
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Speaker 2: context of conversations on epistemology, which is a fancy word
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Speaker 2: that means how do we how do we know that
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Speaker 2: we know? The late Jay Wood was a major player
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Speaker 2: in this, and he was a professor of mine of philosophy.
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Speaker 2: One of the key tenants is with virtue epistemology is
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Speaker 2: perhaps we're looking at things wrong in the modern age
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Speaker 2: when we when we keep asking the questions of knowledge
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Speaker 2: instead of it being a set of criteria of all
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Speaker 2: these things you need to fit together to say this
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Speaker 2: counts as knowledge right. So quick example would be I
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Speaker 2: did this once in class. I said to a student.
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Speaker 2: Let's say so and So's dad works on the railroad
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Speaker 2: and he comes home after a long day of work,
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Speaker 2: and he's tired. It was one hundred degree day, and
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Speaker 2: she knows after work he already likes to unwind. He
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Speaker 2: has the seat he likes to sit in and he relaxes.
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Speaker 2: Leave him alone for an hour while he recharges. On
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Speaker 2: this particular day, it's so hot that she thinks, yes,
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Speaker 2: I'm going to leave him alone, but I need to
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Speaker 2: leave him alone actively. I'm gonna go in there and
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Speaker 2: give him some lemonade help him recharge. She looks out
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Speaker 2: into the family room. She sees a head poking up
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Speaker 2: over the chair that he likes to sit in that
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Speaker 2: time of the day, and so she thinks, okay, he's home,
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Speaker 2: and she goes in there and it turns out it's
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Speaker 2: her uncle that's sitting in that chair. And then she
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Speaker 2: looks across the room and there's her dad. So her
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Speaker 2: dad was in the room, right, And the question of
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Speaker 2: epistemology is did she know that her dad was in
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Speaker 2: the room. And the answer is, for most epistemologists know
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Speaker 2: because there's a qualification that entails more than just being
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Speaker 2: right about something right. You certainly can't know something that
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Speaker 2: you're wrong about, but you don't Just being right doesn't
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Speaker 2: mean that you know right. She was right for the
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Speaker 2: wrong reason. So what are those reasons? Is the question
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Speaker 2: of epistemology. Now the added dynamic here, when I did
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Speaker 2: this with one of my students, was she was just dumbfounded,
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Speaker 2: and I was a little confused. I thought, this is
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Speaker 2: a lot of interesting stuff, but dumbfounded is a little
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Speaker 2: that much. She said, how did you know? My dad
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Speaker 2: works on the railroad? And I just chuck on and said,
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Speaker 2: are you serious? Yeah, yeah, Well it was a live
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Speaker 2: example within the example, right. I didn't know. I happened
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Speaker 2: to be right right, just like her in that fictive story.
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Speaker 2: I also happened to be right, but I did know,
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Speaker 2: so it served as a double example. Right. But what
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Speaker 2: Jay would in company Linda Zagzebsky is another major player
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Speaker 2: in this conversation, was maybe it's more than just trying
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Speaker 2: to figure out what those qualifications are for being right.
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Speaker 2: There's also a character element, and that's the virtue piece
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Speaker 2: that they were trying to draw into this. And that
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Speaker 2: was my first introduction to it, because at first it
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Speaker 2: seems odd I have to have strong character to be
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Speaker 2: counted as knowing now, we won't get into the depths
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Speaker 2: of that conversation other than to say, became increasingly compelling
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Speaker 2: to me to think character is a dynamic here, right,
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Speaker 2: Posturing yourself as a person who cares well and rightly
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Speaker 2: about knowing well is an important part. And in fact,
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Speaker 2: knowing well you don't just know because you have an
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Speaker 2: innate curiosity, but you have a desire to know things
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Speaker 2: on such an intricate level that the character of getting
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Speaker 2: people right matters. Right. I'm not going to just believe
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Speaker 2: someone comes to me with a story. I don't just
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Speaker 2: believe that story because they told me, or because I
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Speaker 2: like the person, or because what they said just sounds
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Speaker 2: outlandish enough that it must believe it. Right. What are
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Speaker 2: the characteristics that go into wanting to understand a situation
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Speaker 2: well enough? Right? So that got me into other conversations
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Speaker 2: that led me to someone named Dan Treyer, a late
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Speaker 2: theologian a Wheaton College, as well as Kevin Van Hooser,
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Speaker 2: who ended up being my doctoral supervisor. Where I wanted
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Speaker 2: to get into this more and more, and that led
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Speaker 2: into my dissertation, and for me, the question was historically
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Speaker 2: Christians do care about virtue right, which is virtue based ethics,
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Speaker 2: but they tended to be relegated to theological circles, especially
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Speaker 2: Catholic circles that Protestants tended to get nervous about. In fact,
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Speaker 2: they'd say that's a that's a Catholic issue. We don't
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Speaker 2: get into that. In fact, most Protestants in the modern
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Speaker 2: age tended to be drawn towards something called deontology on
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Speaker 2: one side, or utilitarianism on the other. The ontology is
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Speaker 2: a fantasy word that just basically says duty based ethics. Right,
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Speaker 2: you have a you have a larger sense of what's right,
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Speaker 2: is right, is always right, and that's what you do. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: And that tends to be the most common, especially among evangelicals.
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Speaker 2: Utilitarian ethics tends to be consequentialist ethics, which is just
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Speaker 2: a way of saying, we consider what the result will be,
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Speaker 2: and based upon the result, we make the right decision. Now,
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Speaker 2: a basic example, you're you're hiding a group of Jewish
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Speaker 2: people in the middle of the Holocaust. These Nazi soldiers
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Speaker 2: come to your door and they ask are you hiding
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Speaker 2: any Jewish people in your house? For the utilitarian, the
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Speaker 2: consequential based out like, the answer is really easy, right.
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Speaker 2: The consequence of me telling the truth is they're going
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Speaker 2: to take these Jewish people away and probably kill them,
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Speaker 2: if not kill them, put them in concentration camps. So
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Speaker 2: I lie, and that lie is not wrong because the
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Speaker 2: consequence is what matters. So there's an ethical dynamic tied
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Speaker 2: into the consequence. Yes, for the de ontologist, where it's
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Speaker 2: what's right is right, is always right? Right, these universal
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Speaker 2: imperatives categorical imperatives. Kant would say, it's a little bit
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Speaker 2: more complicated. I don't want to lie. Lying is wrong, yeah,
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Speaker 2: But if I don't lie, murder is going to happen. Right,
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Speaker 2: So Kant says, you find ways to truthfully be deceitful
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Speaker 2: because you can't lie. Yeah, So I think, well, the
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Speaker 2: question they asked my daughter, one of my daughters is
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Speaker 2: really good at this one. She picks on my words
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Speaker 2: all the time. If she wanted to be, she'd be
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Speaker 2: aontologists and training. But it's I think about the words.
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Speaker 2: Are you hiding a Jewish person in your house? Well,
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Speaker 2: it just so happens. I have a trapdoor in my
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Speaker 2: kitchen that leads under my house. So no, I don't
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Speaker 2: have Jewish people in my house. And I think all
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Speaker 2: this in my head. Obviously you don't say that out loud,
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Speaker 2: and so now I can, with a clean conscience tell
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Speaker 2: the truth. No, I do not have Jewish people in
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Speaker 2: my house. Everyone wins. I told the truth. Technically, the
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Speaker 2: people that I'm hiding are safe, and as long as
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Speaker 2: the soldiers believe me, they go away.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 2: The virtuoist and this is the more common historical Christian understanding,
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Speaker 2: but not a terribly prominent Protestant theory over the last
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Speaker 2: several centuries, says things are more complicated. Right. It's one
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Speaker 2: thing to speak of the Nazi situation and think of consequences.
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Speaker 2: It's another thing when you don't know what the consequence
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Speaker 2: will be. You don't know how things will turn out.
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Speaker 2: So let's take that Nazi example and let's move to
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Speaker 2: the Book of Joshua. So Joshua's sunspies into Jericho to
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Speaker 2: scope the place out, and now you've got Rahab. And
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Speaker 2: Rehab is in the same situation. She's hiding a couple
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Speaker 2: of these spies, and the soldiers come to her door.
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Speaker 2: We're looking for these spies? Are you hiding them? And
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Speaker 2: Rehab says no. Now she doesn't have the deontological situation
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Speaker 2: in hand where she can just say, well, I technically
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Speaker 2: didn't like the Rahab lies, right. But the interesting thing
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Speaker 2: about it is that she's commended as faithful and she's
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Speaker 2: the one who survives the destruction of Jericho right, her
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Speaker 2: and her family. So things seem a little bit more complicated.
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Speaker 2: Now from the consequentialist side, how could she possibly know
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Speaker 2: the consequence would be better for her to tell a lie.
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Speaker 2: As far as she knows, her protecting two people in
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Speaker 2: the face of these soldiers is stealing her own death warrant. Right,
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Speaker 2: as far as she's concerned, perhaps she's going to be
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Speaker 2: a martyr for this. She believes in the God of Israel,
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Speaker 2: she trusts that these people here for the right thing,
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Speaker 2: but it's not going to turn out well for her,
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Speaker 2: So she sort of fails. Both dynamics and the virtuous
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Speaker 2: would say, well, what matters here is character. In the
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Speaker 2: case of rehab, the reason she's saved is the character
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Speaker 2: of faith, the character of faithfulness, the character ultimately of
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Speaker 2: willing to place her life on the line to stand
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Speaker 2: up for what is right, even if the consequence is
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Speaker 2: the loss of her life and the life of those
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Speaker 2: she's standing.
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Speaker 3: Up for right.
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Speaker 2: And so this virtuous mentality is looking that way, and
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Speaker 2: that's to me, that was the most compelling ethical theory
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Speaker 2: and remains the most compelling ethical theory. Now, as we'll
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Speaker 2: talk a little bit about there's a sordid tale for virtue.
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Speaker 2: I don't want to overlook that. But my question was,
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Speaker 2: as I got into my doctoral work, what does it
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Speaker 2: mean to affirm the virtuous as a Protestant who stands
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Speaker 2: in a line of people who've generally been too scared
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Speaker 2: to think of virtue because it's quote that Catholic way
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Speaker 2: of thinking. So I wanted to try to make it,
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Speaker 2: make it theologically palatable for Protestants in general. So that's
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Speaker 2: kind of the background of how I got into it,
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Speaker 2: but also the issues that were at play that made
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Speaker 2: it more compelling to me because as I look at
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Speaker 2: the works of Jesus, the words of Jesus, the New Testament,
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Speaker 2: Corpus in general, really the Old Testament in general, character
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Speaker 2: seems to be what's on full display, right, whether it
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Speaker 2: be situations like Rahab or situations like where God gives
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Speaker 2: you this sacrificial system in the Old Testament and then
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Speaker 2: he says multiple times or either way right right, all
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Speaker 2: the way to the end of the Old Testament. With Malachi,
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Speaker 2: it's not really what I'm after after heart, right, It's
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Speaker 2: about the formation of these patterns of mercy, fat patterns
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Speaker 2: of justice. Right. So then the next question that comes
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Speaker 2: into virtue that I think especially makes it significant to
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Speaker 2: biblical theological ethics is that virtue cares about character. But
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Speaker 2: the formation of character is not just about a one
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Speaker 2: time does it all?
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Speaker 3: Right?
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Speaker 2: It's about the patterns or a word that you and
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Speaker 2: I both like in various context habits.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Right, So if we think about driving a car, when
12:46
Speaker 2: we first drove a car, at least for me, it
12:49
Speaker 2: was a terrifying thing. I was excited right up until
12:51
Speaker 2: I started driving it. Sure, But of course decades later
12:57
Speaker 2: we don't think about it. We often will end up
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Speaker 2: at our destination and realize we've been zoned out for
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Speaker 2: the last twenty minutes. Right, well, how does that happen?
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Speaker 2: We've built habits, hopefully of good driving, that allow us
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Speaker 2: to not have to agonize over every moment of driving
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Speaker 2: or every detail of driving, so that it becomes like
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Speaker 2: second nature and virtues wanting to say that ultimately these
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Speaker 2: decisions are not things that we can spend every moment
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Speaker 2: agonizing over, these ethical decisions. But for someone like rehab,
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Speaker 2: it's about building that ethical character over time or the habits,
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Speaker 2: so that when the moment arises, we habitually act in
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Speaker 2: a way that we ought to act in a way
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Speaker 2: that lifts up other people around us, whether or not
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Speaker 2: it means a consequence that's thriving for all of us. Right, So,
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Speaker 2: in the case of Rahab again, or the person hiding,
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Speaker 2: the Jewish soldier, or the Jewish refugees, it may turn
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Speaker 2: out really bad, oddly on paper for all of them.
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Speaker 2: They all die, but they did the right thing ostensibly
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Speaker 2: out of a sense of character that they'd formed through
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Speaker 2: right decisions over time.
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Speaker 1: Go ahead, No, I mean, I find it really interesting.
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Speaker 1: It feels like what it's moving toward is the deontological position,
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Speaker 1: and I don't know that that's correct. So there's a
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Speaker 1: part of me that so when we think about the
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Speaker 1: virtue aspect of this and the building of character across time,
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Speaker 1: that what we're always going to end up with is
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Speaker 1: some approximation of how we should act within a given moment,
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Speaker 1: because that moment is so strange and odd. And I
14:45
Speaker 1: still like the analogy of a baby mobile above a
14:49
Speaker 1: baby's crib, and you touch one side of it, and
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Speaker 1: the whole thing moves and not necessarily in ways that
14:59
Speaker 1: that you wantderstand how it's going to move, right.
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Speaker 3: And so with the virtue ethics.
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Speaker 1: As you're developing these patterns of integrity across time, patterns
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Speaker 1: of virtue across time, is that similarly what's happening like
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Speaker 1: in any given moment, you are trying to embody faithfulness,
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Speaker 1: You're trying to be you know, embody these virtues of charity, mercy, compassion,
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Speaker 1: what have you. But in any given situation, you may
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Speaker 1: find yourself unsure how to go about doing that because
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Speaker 1: the consequences seem so dire, and the the the right
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Speaker 1: thing seems like it's going to end up with the
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Speaker 1: wrong result.
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Speaker 3: Does that make sense? And so you're as you're on this.
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Speaker 1: Road, you're you're developing a consistent pattern, but not a concrete,
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Speaker 1: completely rigid understanding of what to do in any given situation.
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Speaker 2: That's right, That's right.
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Speaker 3: Okay.
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Speaker 2: So if we think about someone like the nineteenth century
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Speaker 2: Danish philosopher Kirkgard, he spent a lot of time really
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Speaker 2: dwelling upon the sacrifice or the potential or the near
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Speaker 2: sacrifice of Isaac Yes at the hands of Abraham, and
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Speaker 2: for him he wasn't a virtuous to per se. He
16:24
Speaker 2: came up with a whole another way of thinking that
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Speaker 2: I don't entirely buy, but I think his scenario is instructive.
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Speaker 3: For him.
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Speaker 2: He was critiquing, especially a day ontological understanding of these
16:37
Speaker 2: sort of static ethical codes that we just memorize, right,
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Speaker 2: the way that we tend to think of, I would say,
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Speaker 2: wrongly the Ten commandments, thou shalt not kill? Right. And
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Speaker 2: yet here's Abraham, before those codes obviously are given to him.
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Speaker 2: He's told, Hey, take Isaac up to that mountain and
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Speaker 2: offer him as a sacrifice.
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Speaker 3: Right now.
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Speaker 2: You and I have discussed when we were working through Genesis,
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Speaker 2: a series that I don't think will be out yet,
17:05
Speaker 2: but check it out, YEA, that there are other things
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Speaker 2: that play there for Abraham than just a simple, out
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Speaker 2: of nowhere, blank slate command, go kill your son Isaac. However,
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Speaker 2: he does have this moment that Kirkerguard wants to say,
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Speaker 2: where it's a there's something of an assault upon his
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Speaker 2: ethical code if he's thinking, don't kill because now the
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Speaker 2: God who he's supposed to obey, who is trusting, who
17:35
Speaker 2: has led him into this new land, who's made these
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Speaker 2: promises to him, wants him to kill not just anyone
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Speaker 2: but his own son, and not just any son, but
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Speaker 2: the only son that's supposed to be the avenue to
17:50
Speaker 2: the fulfillment of the promises made to him. Right, So,
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Speaker 2: for Kirkerguard, the answer is despair. You enter this moment
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Speaker 2: where your rigid categories of ethics will ultimately lead you,
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Speaker 2: in complicated situations to despair. Now, the question is what
18:09
Speaker 2: do you do with that despair? You wallow in that despair,
18:12
Speaker 2: in which case you're functionally a broken person, and maybe
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Speaker 2: you chuck everything and you say, I reject faith in
18:21
Speaker 2: Yahweh the covenant God, or I reject faith in Jesus
18:25
Speaker 2: because it's asked me now to do something I can't do.
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Speaker 2: Cure of God's answer is you graduate finally in that
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Speaker 2: ultimate despair into what's the true ethical and the true
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Speaker 2: ethicals obedience to God. I would break from him there
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Speaker 2: and say that the obedience has too much in the background,
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Speaker 2: right of how do you know this is the place
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Speaker 2: to show obedience or how do you know that the
18:51
Speaker 2: obedience will be paid forward in the case of Abraham
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Speaker 2: in the right way? Well, Kiderguard would say, well, you
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Speaker 2: don't know. You just do it because God said to
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Speaker 2: do it. The virtuous way would say, there's a sense
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Speaker 2: of character at play where you're you're trusting God. So
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Speaker 2: for the for the theological virtue tradition, faith or trusting
19:13
Speaker 2: God is itself an ethical reality. Your trusting God is
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Speaker 2: so formed in you because you trust God every day
19:20
Speaker 2: in the little things. Give us this day our daily bread. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: deliver me, Deliver me from evil? Right, forgive me my debts.
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Speaker 2: If you're doing this in the daily life, then when
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Speaker 2: this cataclysmic event that could cause you despair comes upon you,
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Speaker 2: you recognize there's more at play than meets the eye.
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Speaker 2: And so perhaps as as you've spoken about it before,
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Speaker 2: when Abraham encounters this seemingly awful command from God, he's
19:52
Speaker 2: recognizing there has to be more than meets the eye, right,
19:56
Speaker 2: because God has already given me this son in my
20:00
Speaker 2: age and in my wife's old age, in a way
20:05
Speaker 2: that God didn't have to do, but God did because
20:08
Speaker 2: God promised it. And I've already learned in the little
20:11
Speaker 2: things to trust God. So now the form of that,
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Speaker 2: the habit of mine, the habit of disposition to trust,
20:18
Speaker 2: is in place. And so the virtuous action is to say,
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Speaker 2: I don't actually perhaps believe that God intends to have
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Speaker 2: me kill Isaac, or that God will allow Isaac to
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Speaker 2: stay dead. I believe God, who has already shown me
20:33
Speaker 2: these steps, will do something about it. Right, So I
20:36
Speaker 2: think of I mentioned Dan Tryer once he told me
20:40
Speaker 2: sometimes God perhaps puts things in front of you to
20:43
Speaker 2: teach us to say no. You shouldn't assume every opportunity
20:47
Speaker 2: is a real opportunity that you should say yes to.
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Speaker 2: And I take that to heart, right, But how do
20:51
Speaker 2: you know those moments? Well, you don't know it in
20:55
Speaker 2: any sort of straightforward way. But if you have the
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Speaker 2: habit of disposition, and you're faithfully working forward to build
21:01
Speaker 2: those habits of trust, perhaps you know in a certain
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Speaker 2: moment there is a path that I could take, and
21:11
Speaker 2: take that path seems like it could get me the
21:13
Speaker 2: right result that I want. But I think that path,
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Speaker 2: based upon this habit of faith that I've been forming,
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Speaker 2: based on the habit of charity of justice that I've
21:23
Speaker 2: been forming, seems like the wrong path. It requires me
21:29
Speaker 2: to compromise in the wrong ways. So perhaps it's better
21:33
Speaker 2: to quote something else we've talked about, lose in the
21:37
Speaker 2: right way, and that's actually a win. Right. Yeah, So
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Speaker 2: there would be the disposition, the character the virtuous want
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Speaker 2: to talk about.
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Speaker 1: So let me give just one more example to make
21:48
Speaker 1: sure I think, because I think I understand this, and
21:50
Speaker 1: I'm kind of reading it through Pierre Bordio's habitists, Like
21:53
Speaker 1: it seems like it has a lot of connection there
21:55
Speaker 1: where you're kind of learning how to go about operating.
21:59
Speaker 1: Pierre Bordeo's has a little bit more impetus, I think
22:02
Speaker 1: on the reward structure, like the capital within a field,
22:06
Speaker 1: but I also don't think that's inconsequential to the virtue
22:11
Speaker 1: side of things.
22:12
Speaker 3: So but here's my here's my thought.
22:16
Speaker 1: Like I got a job offer to travel around and
22:20
Speaker 1: meet with CEOs, Christian CEOs of different companies, and I
22:26
Speaker 1: would sort of disciple, you know, ten or fifteen of
22:30
Speaker 1: these CEOs is the job, right, But it required an
22:33
Speaker 1: awful lot of travel. This is a couple of years ago.
22:37
Speaker 1: My daughters were fifteen at the time, my son would
22:40
Speaker 1: have been eighteen, just going off to college. You know,
22:42
Speaker 1: we were in the midst of adopting our youngest.
22:48
Speaker 3: And I'm just sitting there.
22:49
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a really cool job, like discipling
22:53
Speaker 1: these guys, and you know, like I had the right
22:56
Speaker 1: disposition for it. You know, I'd been in executive leadership positions.
22:59
Speaker 1: I'm not not overly confident, right, but I'm not I'm
23:03
Speaker 1: also not going to be a pushover, right, So there's
23:06
Speaker 1: not gonna be this ego trip between me and the CEOs, right.
23:10
Speaker 1: And and I was like, this would be a really
23:12
Speaker 1: cool job, right, really interesting, really compelling job, great opportunity
23:20
Speaker 1: that I ended up saying no to because in part
23:23
Speaker 1: I was like, I have to travel, I'd have to
23:27
Speaker 1: be gone most of the time, and that's not gonna work.
23:32
Speaker 1: It's not gonna It's not just that it's not gonna work,
23:34
Speaker 1: it's that I don't want to be an absentee father
23:37
Speaker 1: at this time in my kids' lives. Like this job
23:39
Speaker 1: would be perfect if it were seven years down the
23:42
Speaker 1: road or something like that.
23:43
Speaker 3: Right, you're really cool.
23:45
Speaker 1: I could travel, you know, kids would be out of
23:47
Speaker 1: the house mostly and like wouldn't be really missed. And
23:51
Speaker 1: it's one of those moments where I can remember just thinking, like, intuitively,
23:54
Speaker 1: you get this job offer, it's a great job offer.
23:57
Speaker 1: There's high potential there, and it was really easy for
24:00
Speaker 1: me to say no. And it had nothing to do
24:04
Speaker 1: with this is a bad job or I thought these
24:06
Speaker 1: people were untrustworthy, like there's no suspicion lying around the corners.
24:09
Speaker 1: It was just when you look out across your whole
24:12
Speaker 1: life and you're trying to figure out who you're going
24:13
Speaker 1: to be in the moment, that job didn't fit and
24:17
Speaker 1: I can tell right.
24:20
Speaker 3: Is that sort of the kind of.
24:23
Speaker 1: Logic that you're suggesting. Now, obviously it wasn't a positive decision,
24:27
Speaker 1: but that's sort of that, Dan Tryer. Sometimes we get
24:31
Speaker 1: opportunities we need to say no to right and it's like, Nope,
24:34
Speaker 1: that one was a no, not for any real good
24:37
Speaker 1: reason that I could point out other than I didn't
24:39
Speaker 1: want to be away from home all the time.
24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's precisely the sort of thing that virtue ethics
24:45
Speaker 2: is trying to get at. That there's no clear cut
24:49
Speaker 2: good at the end that you're trying to work towards right. Right,
24:53
Speaker 2: No one's going to say that the opportunity to do
24:56
Speaker 2: this work that was put before you was inherently a
24:59
Speaker 2: good or a bad right. If anything, it seems like
25:03
Speaker 2: a good it's work support your family financially, right, something
25:08
Speaker 2: you theoretically could have enjoyed. But the disposition, the character
25:14
Speaker 2: development is the ability for you to work through larger ramifications,
25:19
Speaker 2: not in a consequentialist way, right, Not in the sense
25:21
Speaker 2: of if I do X, then my daughters will resent
25:26
Speaker 2: me ten years down the line.
25:28
Speaker 3: Right.
25:28
Speaker 2: You can't know that, And that doesn't mean there's no
25:30
Speaker 2: way for you to negotiate it in a way that
25:32
Speaker 2: they wouldn't resent you. It's rather thinking dispositionally about what
25:37
Speaker 2: is it that is best in the moment and in
25:41
Speaker 2: the near future. Right. But it doesn't mean that in
25:45
Speaker 2: every situation your calculations in precisely the right way.
25:48
Speaker 3: Right.
25:48
Speaker 2: You're filtering it through other virtues. You're thinking about it
25:51
Speaker 2: in terms of fatherhood, You're thinking of it in terms
25:54
Speaker 2: of family, in generally, thinking about it in terms of
25:59
Speaker 2: the development of young people in this case who were
26:04
Speaker 2: your children, right, And all those things work together where
26:07
Speaker 2: you realize there is a higher good, and that's ultimately.
26:10
Speaker 2: Virtues are directed towards goods, and virtues want to want
26:17
Speaker 2: to rate goods of what is the better good, and
26:21
Speaker 2: especially theological virtuants to say the higher good, the highest
26:24
Speaker 2: good is ultimately that which promotes the love of God. Right,
26:29
Speaker 2: It recognizes God's love but also promotes the love of
26:32
Speaker 2: God and others. So in your case, you're thinking, even
26:35
Speaker 2: if not explicitly right, that the habit of formation is
26:39
Speaker 2: thinking about what promotes the highest good of my children
26:42
Speaker 2: growing as people who love God with all their hearts, soul,
26:46
Speaker 2: mind and strength, and love their neighbor as themselves. And
26:50
Speaker 2: that's how you make that decision.
26:52
Speaker 3: Right.
26:52
Speaker 2: But a virtuous could very well say there's no inherently
26:55
Speaker 2: bad decision in this case, or it might say they
26:58
Speaker 2: all might seem like bad decisions, but what is what
27:02
Speaker 2: is the greatest good? Theologically? It's to promote the love
27:05
Speaker 2: of God?
27:05
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, Yeah?
27:07
Speaker 1: And I don't I didn't think it through like I
27:10
Speaker 1: think that's good. Like I wasn't thinking my kids was
27:12
Speaker 1: to resent me. I was thinking more in terms of
27:17
Speaker 1: is this the person I want to be?
27:19
Speaker 2: Right?
27:20
Speaker 1: Is this who I've really like? You know, I left
27:22
Speaker 1: higher education. I came into this new nonprofit position so
27:25
Speaker 1: I could work from home, partially because I could work
27:28
Speaker 1: from home partially so I could slow my life down
27:30
Speaker 1: be a husband and a father. And so I've done that.
27:34
Speaker 1: Why would I now shift logic to go into this
27:37
Speaker 1: other realm, you know, range and like jump into this
27:41
Speaker 1: new position where I could no longer do that, and
27:45
Speaker 1: so it wasn't a it wasn't a consequentialist decision. It
27:48
Speaker 1: was more of a trajectory and personhood decision, right like,
27:53
Speaker 1: is this a is this the moment where you just
27:56
Speaker 1: shift gears and do something out of sheer ambition or
28:00
Speaker 1: interest or whatever and you know, forget everything else kind
28:05
Speaker 1: of like you did at the beginning of your career,
28:07
Speaker 1: or do you stay the course because you at one
28:12
Speaker 1: point in the past came to realize that this is
28:14
Speaker 1: where your life needed to go, right like, And so
28:18
Speaker 1: that that was very much the guiding paradigm for it. Yeah,
28:22
Speaker 1: but let me shift because we're we probably should get
28:26
Speaker 1: to masculinity and femininity at some point. So that last
28:30
Speaker 1: thing you said, that virtue is to lead to the
28:33
Speaker 1: highest good? Right if we just left it there and
28:35
Speaker 1: we take it out of a Christian context for a moment,
28:38
Speaker 1: and we just said virtue is to lead to the
28:39
Speaker 1: highest good. So there isn't now an overlay of covenant
28:44
Speaker 1: loyalty d yahweh and obedience to the Lord and you know,
28:49
Speaker 1: adherence to a triune sort of doctrinal statement or something
28:53
Speaker 1: like that. Like it's just the highest good. That's only
28:58
Speaker 1: almost sets the stage for or both really really amazing
29:02
Speaker 1: things and really really manipulative things.
29:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and so.
29:08
Speaker 1: You can see how it would lead to the good side.
29:11
Speaker 1: You can also see how it would lead to the
29:12
Speaker 1: dark side.
29:13
Speaker 3: Right.
29:13
Speaker 1: It's the force and depending on how you use it. Now,
29:16
Speaker 1: it's going to create good and bad things.
29:18
Speaker 3: In the world.
29:19
Speaker 1: So how does virtue go off the rails as it
29:23
Speaker 1: moves from let's aim for the highest good? What's the
29:26
Speaker 1: sort of dark side of virtue in relation to masculinity
29:29
Speaker 1: and femininity?
29:31
Speaker 2: Yes, great question. So sort of a sub question in
29:37
Speaker 2: this is does virtue entail some sort of gendered concept?
29:44
Speaker 2: And I think I should answer that with a brief sketch,
29:47
Speaker 2: not going to the details. We don't have time for that. Historically,
29:52
Speaker 2: I'll say, unfortunately it has. But I also want to
29:57
Speaker 2: say at its best shouldn't and at its best people
30:04
Speaker 2: have recognized that it shouldn't and doesn't. Right, So historically
30:09
Speaker 2: it has just some quick points. This is true in
30:13
Speaker 2: the Church's history. This is true outside of Christian thinking
30:16
Speaker 2: about virtue. Aristotle in the three hundred s BCS writes
30:21
Speaker 2: as nikomaky and Ethics, and he argues that true virtue
30:26
Speaker 2: is in fact a male phenomenon. Women can't achieve it,
30:32
Speaker 2: but he doesn't think it's inherent to just a generic masculinity.
30:36
Speaker 2: So he distinguishes between the kind of masculinity that he
30:40
Speaker 2: wants to affirm, which is thoughtful, which is detached in
30:44
Speaker 2: some ways from the passions that lead to the fluctuations
30:49
Speaker 2: in our material reality, and it's related instead to the
30:53
Speaker 2: lack of fluctuation that he sees in the permanence of intellect. Now,
30:58
Speaker 2: what he means by that is the thinking person, the
31:01
Speaker 2: person who dwells on mind over matter, intellect over emotion,
31:07
Speaker 2: reason over emotion. That's the path, and for him, that
31:11
Speaker 2: is a male tendency. But it is a tendency, interestingly enough,
31:17
Speaker 2: that's distinct from the other extreme, which is a machismo,
31:22
Speaker 2: a kind of masculinity that is about brute strength, that's
31:26
Speaker 2: about overpowering physically. I say interestingly because I think that
31:34
Speaker 2: sort of brute strength is where not just the Christian tradition,
31:41
Speaker 2: but the modern tendency tends to go to. Right, I
31:43
Speaker 2: don't think you have to look any further than the
31:45
Speaker 2: archetype of the superhero, which, by the way, I enjoy
31:48
Speaker 2: superhero things, but we should be honest about them as well. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 2: So on the one side you have the negative look,
31:56
Speaker 2: which is the feminine, and for him, the feminine is
31:59
Speaker 2: inherently tied to emotional ups and downs. Right, it's the
32:02
Speaker 2: stereotype that still exists. Right, Ah, you're too emotional. Right,
32:06
Speaker 2: you're thinking, you're thinking through your period. That's why you're thinking.
32:10
Speaker 2: All these terrible stereotypes that have often been laid upon
32:14
Speaker 2: the floor or at the feet of women. And on
32:17
Speaker 2: the other side there's the bad masculine, the machismo. History
32:26
Speaker 2: has shown us that while these things have shifted a bit,
32:30
Speaker 2: they haven't gone away. So if you look at, for instance,
32:33
Speaker 2: the giant colonial rush that leads us from the fourteen
32:37
Speaker 2: hundred to fifteen hundred and sixt through the eighteen hundreds, right,
32:41
Speaker 2: virtue is an important part of that conversation, unfortunately, because
32:44
Speaker 2: it becomes the justification. Right, we see these peoples, and
32:49
Speaker 2: these peoples, whether they be in Africa, whether they be
32:53
Speaker 2: in India, whether it be in the Americas as we
32:55
Speaker 2: know them today, the common thing to varying degrees, and
32:59
Speaker 2: the varying degrees was important because the varying degrees determined
33:01
Speaker 2: what you do now in the colonial bush. So the
33:04
Speaker 2: African person was seen to be the most barbaric and
33:08
Speaker 2: so they must be enslaved. The Indian person was seen
33:13
Speaker 2: as having glimmers of hope, so you just colonize, don't enslave.
33:19
Speaker 2: The person who was in the Americas was seen as barbaric,
33:25
Speaker 2: but also useless because they were seen as not strong
33:29
Speaker 2: like black bodies of Africa, and therefore they should be
33:34
Speaker 2: forced into submission and worst case scenario exterminated. Interestingly, the
33:42
Speaker 2: common thread was that in each of these situations, the
33:46
Speaker 2: reason you have the scenarios and play that would enable
33:52
Speaker 2: people being seen as barbaric was because the colonizers thought
33:58
Speaker 2: they're too effeminate. So looking at the first nations peoples,
34:05
Speaker 2: the men don't act in a masculine enough way, well,
34:08
Speaker 2: what is a masculine enough way? They didn't do the
34:12
Speaker 2: sorts of things across, They didn't draw the lines between
34:15
Speaker 2: male and female roles in their society the way that
34:18
Speaker 2: the English or the French, or the Spanish, or the
34:20
Speaker 2: Dutch or the Germans did right or the Portuguese whoever
34:23
Speaker 2: was doing the colonizing, and as a result, this was
34:26
Speaker 2: a sign that their nature had been warped, and therefore
34:34
Speaker 2: good Christian virtue requires that we suppressed them in order
34:40
Speaker 2: to destroy their way of being. A common phrase was
34:44
Speaker 2: killed the Indians save the person in order to then
34:47
Speaker 2: lift them up civilly into a better way of being,
34:51
Speaker 2: so that they can now enter into the path, a
34:54
Speaker 2: virtue which can culminate in the reception of grace. Similar
35:01
Speaker 2: things were said centuries later, for instance, during World War Two.
35:05
Speaker 2: You know, Winston Churchill is a beloved figure in the
35:07
Speaker 2: Western world, much more complicated figure in the Indian world.
35:12
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill his actions that ostensibly were important for the
35:19
Speaker 2: Allied forces in freeing the enslaved Jewish peoples that had
35:24
Speaker 2: already been killed. Some estimates say in the range of
35:27
Speaker 2: six million people. His actions deliberately right. There's plenty of
35:33
Speaker 2: actual physical evidence writing correspondence, deliberately led to the starvation
35:38
Speaker 2: of tens of millions of people in India for the
35:42
Speaker 2: greater good, right utilitarian, for the greater good in his mind,
35:46
Speaker 2: of feeding English people and creating a stockhold of food
35:52
Speaker 2: resources so that English people wouldn't be worried about where
35:55
Speaker 2: their next bite was coming from, so that morale would
35:58
Speaker 2: be high, so that they could then fight the Nazis, right,
36:01
Speaker 2: so to save the six million, tens of millions of
36:03
Speaker 2: people starved to death in India. When people like Mahatma
36:07
Speaker 2: Gandhi stood up against this, the criticism was, we can
36:12
Speaker 2: see the inherent racial inferiority of the Indian people, which
36:16
Speaker 2: allows for us to be able to say the greater
36:19
Speaker 2: good is to feed the English and to keep English
36:23
Speaker 2: morale high overfeeding Indian people. And we see the moral
36:29
Speaker 2: and natural inferiority of the Indian people in someone like
36:33
Speaker 2: Mahatma Gandhi. The person who stands up for them is
36:36
Speaker 2: not masculine enough, he's too effeminate, and that shows their
36:39
Speaker 2: racial inferiority. Right. The logic is hopefully sounds insane, but
36:44
Speaker 2: that was the logic. You have similar sorts of logic
36:47
Speaker 2: in Africa, right, that lead to the enslavement of African peoples.
36:53
Speaker 2: That the idea is this virtue sat in the middle.
36:56
Speaker 1: Of that, right, and counter yeah, well, I just want
37:02
Speaker 1: to yes, virtue sat in the middle of it.
37:05
Speaker 3: But it's.
37:09
Speaker 1: It's a constructed virtue. Right, So this is one of
37:14
Speaker 1: the things, like a DC Schindler writes on this fair amount,
37:18
Speaker 1: he's a Catholic philosopher, and so one of the things
37:21
Speaker 1: he talks about is the good, the true, and the beautiful,
37:23
Speaker 1: the transcendentals, and his emphasis is on something like, because
37:30
Speaker 1: we don't determine the good, the true, and the beautiful,
37:33
Speaker 1: we only recognize them. These are my words, not his,
37:36
Speaker 1: but this is the sense of what he's saying. So
37:37
Speaker 1: we recognize the truth, the good, and the beautiful, or
37:40
Speaker 1: we don't, right, But either way, we don't determine them.
37:46
Speaker 3: They are what they are. There is a good, there
37:48
Speaker 3: is a true, there is a beautiful.
37:52
Speaker 1: And in a in sort of an extrapolated way, then
37:55
Speaker 1: they have a claim on our lives. They have a
37:59
Speaker 1: sort of quasi authority over us. If we want to
38:02
Speaker 1: be good, we have to then align with the good.
38:04
Speaker 1: If we want to be true, we have to align
38:06
Speaker 1: with the truth. If we want to be beautiful, we
38:07
Speaker 1: have to align with the beautiful. That kind of idea, right,
38:11
Speaker 1: And we have to recognize not just in the sense
38:13
Speaker 1: of identifying them this is good, this is true, this
38:16
Speaker 1: is beautiful, but recognized in the sense of accepting the
38:20
Speaker 1: claim that they have and subjecting ourselves to that. And
38:24
Speaker 1: so our actions begin to when I say a line,
38:27
Speaker 1: they begin to settle underneath the good, settle underneath the truth,
38:30
Speaker 1: settle underneath the beautiful. And so when you say virtues
38:34
Speaker 1: in the middle of that, what I think it Maybe
38:38
Speaker 1: you'll agree with this, But what I would say is
38:40
Speaker 1: what's happening is it's a manipulated virtue. It's something that
38:44
Speaker 1: has been taken and instead of just recognizing it and
38:49
Speaker 1: subjecting oneself to it, it's been reshaped and molded to
38:54
Speaker 1: fit human agenda and then weaponized to justify whatever it
39:01
Speaker 1: is that anybody wanted to do. There is no real
39:04
Speaker 1: sitting beneath it. There's only a manipulation of it.
39:09
Speaker 2: Is that a fair Yes, I agree, and I think
39:12
Speaker 2: it's for it. I don't think I know. For that reason,
39:16
Speaker 2: I have felt inclined to say that the way to
39:20
Speaker 2: react is not to throw out this category of virtue right,
39:25
Speaker 2: but rather to recover it right, and to recover it
39:28
Speaker 2: not merely in a classical way, because the classical way,
39:30
Speaker 2: as I've already said, has its gendered problems. But if
39:35
Speaker 2: we can recover in a theological way that really attends
39:39
Speaker 2: to the central question. Even as Aquinas asked it right
39:42
Speaker 2: not to say that the use of Aquinas was all
39:44
Speaker 2: that great. The use of Aquinas was deeply problematic. But
39:47
Speaker 2: the way that he asked the question was what is
39:50
Speaker 2: that central good? It's the love of God and the
39:54
Speaker 2: love of neighbor its self. And of course we can
39:57
Speaker 2: think think to the way that this is presented to
40:01
Speaker 2: us in the Gospel of Luke right where the Jewish
40:05
Speaker 2: person asks Jesus, so, who's our neighbor? Right, because of
40:10
Speaker 2: course he got that. The implication at play there was
40:14
Speaker 2: you're asking us to love people that don't have our
40:17
Speaker 2: best in mind. And Jesus' response is the story of
40:21
Speaker 2: what we think of as the good Samaritan. Yes, And
40:23
Speaker 2: the good Samaritan Jesus is trying to show them is yeah,
40:26
Speaker 2: that's precisely the person that you think it's okay to
40:29
Speaker 2: not love. In other words, the neighbor is everyone. It
40:34
Speaker 2: crosses our boundaries, It crosses our cultural, our social geography
40:41
Speaker 2: boundaries that we make. And had these people who were
40:46
Speaker 2: ostensibly acting in the name of Jesus and using virtue
40:49
Speaker 2: to colonize in pretty oppressive ways, to allow people to
40:53
Speaker 2: starve to death in oppressive ways, had they really considered
40:59
Speaker 2: the depths and hearts of what Jesus was saying, and
41:02
Speaker 2: the way that at its best the tradition wanted to
41:05
Speaker 2: grab a hold of that. Yeah, I think the answer
41:11
Speaker 2: would have been the cultivation of a kind of understanding
41:14
Speaker 2: of virtue that broke both these masculinity femininity divides and
41:19
Speaker 2: these racial divides that they were used to unfortunately cement.
41:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I would say, even as we have talked
41:28
Speaker 1: through all the different views of masculinity, and we could
41:31
Speaker 1: go back through Driscoll and Partridge and even Piper, right,
41:35
Speaker 1: all three of those are doing something. And I would
41:38
Speaker 1: just in the most generous possible way that I could,
41:40
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to do something good, Like I
41:43
Speaker 1: don't think they're trying to be detrimental to anyone in
41:49
Speaker 1: any way, and don't see them as a disrespector of women,
41:51
Speaker 1: And I don't see them as trying to, you know,
41:54
Speaker 1: create some sort of a screen where men don't see Christ.
41:58
Speaker 1: I think that's an effect of what they're doing to
42:01
Speaker 1: some degree, but I don't think that's their intention. I
42:05
Speaker 1: think what's happening is that there is this again, a
42:08
Speaker 1: sort of a malformation of virtue right where we move
42:12
Speaker 1: quickly from love God, love neighbor Okay, now how does
42:17
Speaker 1: that look. Well, it looks like this, and if you
42:20
Speaker 1: don't look like this, now you're a problem.
42:22
Speaker 3: Right.
42:23
Speaker 1: It's this black sheet effect in social identity theory, right
42:27
Speaker 1: where you know, you have sort of a prototypical person
42:30
Speaker 1: and this is what you're supposed to be, and this
42:32
Speaker 1: is how you're supposed to look, and this is how
42:33
Speaker 1: you're supposed to act. And if you don't look and
42:35
Speaker 1: act like that, if you're not actually that person, then
42:38
Speaker 1: and the more you deviate, the more deviant you are,
42:42
Speaker 1: and you become more and more suspicious within the community,
42:46
Speaker 1: Whereas the more you align, you can get away with
42:49
Speaker 1: a lot more stuff.
42:50
Speaker 3: And so it creates.
42:51
Speaker 1: These weird dynamics within a community where, oddly enough, the
42:55
Speaker 1: more prototypically whatever, the more prototypically masculine person can get
43:01
Speaker 1: away with doing things that they shouldn't be doing they
43:04
Speaker 1: can versus the less masculine person is always viewed with suspension,
43:10
Speaker 1: always more under more scrutiny, always subject to more oversight
43:16
Speaker 1: than someone who is viewed as in this case like
43:19
Speaker 1: prototypically masculine. And so it's a very interesting and odd
43:24
Speaker 1: sort of I don't know, reinforcing the loop when we
43:29
Speaker 1: get this wrong when we start to say masculine equals
43:33
Speaker 1: virtue and then we define what masculine is. We're not
43:38
Speaker 1: actually subjecting ourselves to virtue. We're taking it over. We're
43:45
Speaker 1: doing something equivalent to Again, you referenced our Old Testament stuff.
43:48
Speaker 3: This will be out.
43:49
Speaker 1: It's actually on Patreon, so we'll have it on Patreon
43:52
Speaker 1: for you, but if you wanted to listen to it.
43:54
Speaker 1: When we talk about the sin in the garden, right,
43:58
Speaker 1: there's a desire or for self determination. I don't want
44:02
Speaker 1: God to determine what is or what is not good.
44:04
Speaker 1: I want to decide what is good for myself. And
44:08
Speaker 1: so we see that in Genesis three, we see it
44:11
Speaker 1: in Genesis six. It's sort of an ongoing theme in scripture.
44:14
Speaker 3: Right.
44:15
Speaker 1: We want to do things on our own terms, as
44:17
Speaker 1: opposed to subjecting ourselves to God His law, goodness, truth, beauty,
44:22
Speaker 1: any of these things that God determines. That's what it
44:27
Speaker 1: feels like. Is happening with regard to virtue as well.
44:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. And even as we see a changing landscape
44:40
Speaker 2: over the course of twenty three hundred years, let's say
44:42
Speaker 2: from Aristotle's description, where a particular kind of masculinity over
44:47
Speaker 2: and against another kind of masculinity on one side and
44:51
Speaker 2: blanket femininity on the other side. Right, even if that
44:55
Speaker 2: way of describing things isn't identical with how we prescribe
44:58
Speaker 2: things today, the core reality of it, unfortunately is the same. Right,
45:05
Speaker 2: So that what we end up doing here is we
45:07
Speaker 2: create a sense of robust masculinity, a robust sense of
45:13
Speaker 2: character within that. Right, you're a poor man if you
45:17
Speaker 2: don't live into this. Yes, that does sit over and
45:20
Speaker 2: against on the one side women, which begs the question
45:25
Speaker 2: that we've asked in earlier episodes of so does that
45:29
Speaker 2: allow for anything for women? Well, the answer is that yes,
45:32
Speaker 2: they have a nicely scripted answer for this is what
45:35
Speaker 2: female virtue looks like. That really is about keeping them
45:41
Speaker 2: within a place that we could say is encircled around
45:45
Speaker 2: the right kind of masculine body. Right, So it's a
45:49
Speaker 2: sort of subservience. But it also does great disservice to
45:56
Speaker 2: the men who can't live into that, just for simple
45:59
Speaker 2: reason of that's not how they're wired, whether it be
46:02
Speaker 2: because their frames can't can't allow them to build muscle
46:06
Speaker 2: in the way to make you think, well, that's a
46:08
Speaker 2: man right in the superhero way, or because they have
46:11
Speaker 2: a greater interest in other things, right, they gravitate towards
46:14
Speaker 2: the arts, for instance. So I don't think it's a
46:17
Speaker 2: surprise that you tend to have certain notions of intunedness
46:22
Speaker 2: with the arts tied when men are interested in it,
46:26
Speaker 2: tied to certain lifestyles that are a push against that
46:28
Speaker 2: notion of masculinity, right. And to me, that's a travesty
46:32
Speaker 2: because it's such an it's a powerful, but such an
46:37
Speaker 2: arbitrary distinction as to what kinds of people are even
46:41
Speaker 2: able to live into it, so that now you have
46:43
Speaker 2: people that feel forced into socially created models of alternatives
46:50
Speaker 2: that should have been places should have been places that
46:53
Speaker 2: were welcomed into the body of Christ, welcome to the
46:57
Speaker 2: very body of Christ, as people who had something unique
47:00
Speaker 2: to offer in their very dispositions and their ways, in
47:05
Speaker 2: their strengths intellectually emotionally to offer to the rest of creation,
47:13
Speaker 2: right in the name of Jesus. And what I want
47:16
Speaker 2: to say why I don't think virtues should be chucked
47:19
Speaker 2: out with these problems is because again, if we're capturing
47:23
Speaker 2: who Jesus was, and the very words of Jesus and
47:27
Speaker 2: the ways that his disciples at their best tried to
47:31
Speaker 2: to bring that to different settings. Right, whether in Antioch,
47:35
Speaker 2: or in Jerusalem, or in Rome or in Ephesus, is
47:40
Speaker 2: a kind of understanding that was attentive to the great
47:44
Speaker 2: variety that there is. Right love requires that attentiveness. To
47:47
Speaker 2: love neighbor as self is to understand who is this neighbor.
47:51
Speaker 2: And I don't think we have to look any further
47:52
Speaker 2: than our children. Right. I have a son who loves sports.
48:00
Speaker 2: That part of his personality is really easy for me.
48:04
Speaker 2: I love sports. I don't have to work hard in
48:06
Speaker 2: that sense to know how to cultivate that in a
48:11
Speaker 2: good way.
48:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a.
48:13
Speaker 2: Daughter who hates sports, and on some basic level, I
48:21
Speaker 2: could say that that's really hard for me, but honestly
48:24
Speaker 2: isn't because I love her and I get it. I
48:26
Speaker 2: get what makes her tick. And my job is not
48:29
Speaker 2: to get her to sit in front of a TV
48:31
Speaker 2: with me and watch a basketball game. I can be
48:35
Speaker 2: okay with the fact that I'll do this with my
48:38
Speaker 2: oldest son. I won't do this with my oldest daughter, right,
48:41
Speaker 2: But I know what I do need to do with
48:43
Speaker 2: my daughter, and some of those things are things that
48:44
Speaker 2: I'm just not good at things that have never really
48:46
Speaker 2: interested me. That's okay. The goal here is to cultivate
48:51
Speaker 2: a sense in her that the things that really make
48:54
Speaker 2: you tick are parallel in some sort of way to
48:58
Speaker 2: the things that make me tick. Right, be different things,
49:01
Speaker 2: but I know that cultivating that ultimately for the greatest
49:05
Speaker 2: good of the love of God is what matters. Yeah,
49:08
Speaker 2: And that's what virtue at is best as attentive to. Yeah,
49:12
Speaker 2: and can break actually the sorts of boundaries that it
49:15
Speaker 2: historically it's been used to create.
49:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
49:19
Speaker 1: When I think that gets us back to a point
49:21
Speaker 1: we've made in a few different shows. And I don't
49:23
Speaker 1: want to make it seem like, you know, let's all
49:25
Speaker 1: pull back out the WWJD bracelets and you know, just
49:29
Speaker 1: start asking what would Jesus do? But the imitation of
49:32
Speaker 1: Christ involves an awful lot. It's not simple.
49:35
Speaker 3: It can be.
49:36
Speaker 1: We can make it very complex, right, There's a lot
49:39
Speaker 1: that can go into it. And I think this sort
49:42
Speaker 1: of thinking you're give us gone, giving us on virtues
49:45
Speaker 1: ties into this imitation of Christ. It's just it has
49:48
Speaker 1: to be reordered. And so that fundamental order of let's
49:52
Speaker 1: love God with all we are and have not first,
49:56
Speaker 1: I try to avoid that kind of language. I still
49:58
Speaker 1: like the idea of when we're thinking about loving God
50:01
Speaker 1: with all we are and have, it's immersive, right. So
50:06
Speaker 1: I think I've used the scuba diving analogy on the
50:08
Speaker 1: show before, but basically, it's like when you scuba dive,
50:11
Speaker 1: your body has no other choice but to move differently.
50:15
Speaker 1: You don't move the same when you're immersed underwater as
50:18
Speaker 1: you do when you're up on land. And so when
50:20
Speaker 1: we immerse ourselves into the love of God, we have
50:22
Speaker 1: to move differently. We have to see differently, we have
50:24
Speaker 1: to communicate differently. Everything changes for us because we're now
50:27
Speaker 1: immersed within this love for God, and in that immersion,
50:31
Speaker 1: as we reach out and love other people, now that changes.
50:37
Speaker 1: We have to do it differently, right, There's no real
50:40
Speaker 1: other choice. And so this is the sort of sort
50:43
Speaker 1: of immersive, embodied, embedded experience that we're looking for. When
50:48
Speaker 1: we say imitation of Christ, it's not here's the set
50:51
Speaker 1: of rules, this is what Jesus would do. Just follow these,
50:54
Speaker 1: it's not even close to that's your scuba diving. And
51:00
Speaker 1: you now have to tick with your feet and move
51:02
Speaker 1: with the fins. You have to breathe through an apparatus, like,
51:05
Speaker 1: there are a lot of changes now that you have
51:07
Speaker 1: to go through because this is a transformative experience. It's
51:11
Speaker 1: not what you're used to and so you know you're
51:14
Speaker 1: going to feel different pressure under the water than you
51:16
Speaker 1: do up on land. All of that is going to
51:19
Speaker 1: affect how you do things, and that's what we're seeking
51:22
Speaker 1: as we think about loving God first. So I think
51:26
Speaker 1: that the problem I really have when we go into
51:32
Speaker 1: these conversations where we try to tie masculinity in virtue
51:35
Speaker 1: together right as we've seen some of the authors do
51:40
Speaker 1: in varying different ways, or let's say masculinity in the
51:43
Speaker 1: Bible together in various different ways, is that it does
51:49
Speaker 1: feel just like an overlay to me. And so here's
51:53
Speaker 1: what I mean. If we think of masculinity as a
51:58
Speaker 1: bucket term into which we could put a whole bunch
52:02
Speaker 1: of other terms tough, strong, big, bold, courageous, all these
52:10
Speaker 1: different other terms, and we just say, okay, all of
52:13
Speaker 1: it's under masculinity, there's at least two problems that are immediate.
52:18
Speaker 1: Number one is is that the only place those other
52:21
Speaker 1: terms can go. Could I also put those under femininity?
52:25
Speaker 1: If that's one problem. The other problem is, if we're
52:29
Speaker 1: saying tough, why don't we just say tough, Like, why
52:34
Speaker 1: do we need the other Why do we need the
52:36
Speaker 1: umbrella term. If we're saying big, why don't we just
52:40
Speaker 1: say big, Right, Harry, Let's just.
52:43
Speaker 3: Say Harry, Like. Masculine doesn't have to mean anything.
52:49
Speaker 1: And I think that's the other part of the problem
52:52
Speaker 1: is we're using it as this umbrella term with all
52:54
Speaker 1: these ambiguous concepts underneath it, but the word itself doesn't
52:58
Speaker 1: really mean anything nonspecific.
53:02
Speaker 3: Right. Whereas if you know, I were looking at you.
53:05
Speaker 1: And you say, okay, you play basketball, I could say
53:07
Speaker 1: you're athletic. I don't have to say your man masculine,
53:11
Speaker 1: you're athletic. Those two aren't synonyms, right, And so I
53:17
Speaker 1: think there's there's this problem when we use these terms
53:21
Speaker 1: that a lot of times we're tying other things underneath them, right,
53:26
Speaker 1: and and pretending that this word masculine actually means all
53:31
Speaker 1: of these things all at once, and that we can
53:35
Speaker 1: use it as that umbrella term in a way that
53:37
Speaker 1: is faithful to what all these other phrases mean. We
53:42
Speaker 1: encountered this when we talked a little bit about wisdom right,
53:46
Speaker 1: lady wisdom, lady Folly. Well, it's not like I mean,
53:49
Speaker 1: it's a great example because we've just talked this whole
53:51
Speaker 1: episode on virtue. How is it that you can call
53:53
Speaker 1: our lady wisdom. Right, It's got a lot of conceptual
53:59
Speaker 1: over lab virtue and wisdom, but we've got to apply
54:02
Speaker 1: it and proverbs to lady wisdom. You've also got it
54:05
Speaker 1: to apply to lady folly. Well, you can't detach those
54:08
Speaker 1: two and now say, well, but really, vices are really feminine.
54:13
Speaker 1: Folly is definitely feminine, but the virtues are masculine.
54:18
Speaker 3: Just none of it makes any sense.
54:20
Speaker 1: And so I think that at the end of the day,
54:22
Speaker 1: we've got to really shoot for this idea of when
54:25
Speaker 1: we're imitating Christ, we're immersing ourselves within love of God,
54:30
Speaker 1: and we're allowing that love of God to change the
54:32
Speaker 1: way that we orient ourselves in the world, change the
54:35
Speaker 1: way we move in the world, change the way we think,
54:37
Speaker 1: change the way we operate.
54:39
Speaker 3: And as we do that, we'll be much closer to.
54:43
Speaker 1: Living along the grain of virtue than if we decide
54:48
Speaker 1: we want to be masculine. That's sort of my takeaway
54:55
Speaker 1: from this part of the conversation.
54:56
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, and with me, it's to reemphasize, to
55:03
Speaker 2: affirm virtue isn't to affirm every historical or even most
55:07
Speaker 2: historical uses of virtue. It's to affirm to affirm why
55:12
Speaker 2: in the first place the Church saw this category as
55:16
Speaker 2: a meaningful category, not to affirm what the Church did
55:20
Speaker 2: with that, right, yeah, right, So there's a big difference, right,
55:26
Speaker 2: And we can see and I and we didn't even
55:28
Speaker 2: go into all the ways in which the Church saw
55:31
Speaker 2: that category, saw it valuable, and felt the need to
55:36
Speaker 2: modify it from the way that say Aristotle had used it. Right,
55:39
Speaker 2: But there were a number of ways, and these are
55:41
Speaker 2: ways to be commended, right, whether it be the ways
55:43
Speaker 2: in which the capitation Fathers broke that gendered boundary and
55:47
Speaker 2: they're understanding the virtues, or the way that Thomas Aquinas
55:51
Speaker 2: felt the need to rethink what courage really was in
55:56
Speaker 2: light of the Jesus who walked willingly and knowingly to
55:59
Speaker 2: the us, knowing that he would die and that was
56:03
Speaker 2: the way to go, right, That would never have been
56:05
Speaker 2: courage for very solid That would have been foolishness. So the
56:10
Speaker 2: Christian tradition has some wonderful nuggets to on earth, but
56:14
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that we've always done the right things
56:16
Speaker 2: with them. So if we can re attend to the
56:20
Speaker 2: sorts of goods no pun intended, No, maybe pun intended
56:24
Speaker 2: that that virtue is trying to get at and the
56:28
Speaker 2: sort of character creation that it's intending to give us.
56:35
Speaker 2: What that'll hopefully do is that we begin to look
56:37
Speaker 2: at statements like Jesus makes of helping helping the orphan
56:41
Speaker 2: and the widow helping the immigrant as statements that continue
56:46
Speaker 2: to have a lot of major meaning that will put
56:49
Speaker 2: us in different kinds of ways standing against the general
56:53
Speaker 2: cultural tide. Right, Christians often do stand against the cultural tide,
56:58
Speaker 2: but for the wrong reasons, I think, right to uphold,
57:02
Speaker 2: you know, to recapture some sort of perceived classical reality
57:06
Speaker 2: of masculinity, some classical understanding of toughness. But what if
57:12
Speaker 2: we look to the person of Jesus as the one
57:14
Speaker 2: who embodies that character are virtue in a way that
57:17
Speaker 2: redefines perhaps what that toughness is. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree,
57:24
Speaker 2: And that's not gendered, right, right.
57:26
Speaker 3: It's not. It's it just is what it is.
57:28
Speaker 1: It's it's courage, it's fortitude, it's restraint, it's it's all
57:33
Speaker 1: those different things, right, and you can see them all
57:35
Speaker 1: in Jesus, And it's not intended just for men. It's
57:39
Speaker 1: intended for all those who believe in His name, like
57:43
Speaker 1: this is something that all of us are supposed to
57:44
Speaker 1: be conformed into. So well, dude, I'm I'm glad you
57:50
Speaker 1: could bring to bear your multiple decades worth of experience
57:54
Speaker 1: on this topic. So appreciate you walking us through it.
57:58
Speaker 2: It's fun. Yeah, let's do again.
58:00
Speaker 3: We probably will. I think this is a fun topic.
58:02
Speaker 1: We'll dive into it a little deeper, but for right now,
58:05
Speaker 1: we're close in it on an hour. These last couple
58:07
Speaker 1: episodes have been necessarily longer because I think there are
58:11
Speaker 1: just a little bit more complex topics, and so we've
58:14
Speaker 1: gone a little longer. But hopefully everybody enjoyed it, and
58:17
Speaker 1: we'll close up the episode here and we'll catch you
58:19
Speaker 1: next time on Thinking Christian.
58:21
Speaker 3: Take care, everybody.
58:23
Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the
58:24
Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
58:27
Speaker 1: the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
58:30
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58:34
Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.